Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

I like the phrase "mentally photoshop".

Posted by Karl Hallowell at March 4, 2005 01:06 PM

And they're all blowing it out of their a**es, the same place they pull the "statistics".

Posted by John at March 4, 2005 02:16 PM

What a lot of crap from just another clueless individual in the United States.

For all of you who read Rand's blog: The Sunnies and the Shias have adopted two distinct strategies to get you out of Iraq. The Sunnis, with their access to the Baathist machine and arsenal, embarked on a vicious guerrilla war. Under grand Ayatollah Sistani’s leadership, the Shias, 60 to 70 per cent of the population (no census is available), decided on a tactics of patience. Wait for the elections. And what kind of elections have we had? First, do note that the elections were held in the shadow of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, prisoner abuse in Basra and, apparently in hundreds of unreported instances; instances in which the media has simply not reported, because it could not reach the places where the abuse has taken place; and of course, where it continues to take place.

In the election, voters were apparently asked to approve a list of 275 candidates. The names of the candidates were not given. In other words, the voters simply did not know whom they were voting for.

But people in large numbers did turn out to vote! Yes, they did; or stated in another way: Millions of Shias turned out to vote, millions of Sunnies did not. The dangerous trek to the polling booths was for many Shias their way of demonstrating that they would go to any lengths to ensure that occupation of their country ends. Religious leaders in Najaf had predicted months ago that this is indeed what would happen if elections took place.

If the US read the meaning of the turnout in any other way, you will face Iraq’s 60 per cent population turning upon you the way the 20 per cent has over the last two years. The voter turnout should be seen for what it was; a means to get the US out.

Now, will you really leave Iraq? Nah, of course you won't. The US will not voluntarily leave Iraq, at least not without having secured a substantial military presence for the long term

You did not go into Iraq for "Freedom and Democracy" (currently your favourite explanation), which is truly LAME and just too expensive for the desired outcome, nor the false claims about WMDs (previously your favourite explanation) as we all know. This is truly a war of resources.

It's really time you people get to understand this, because its not the last one, nor has it been the first, but will only escalate from now. This war IS ABOUT OIL. Don't think you would have ever invaded any "............stan" for human rights abuses, torture and killings or "Freedom" (?) like you did Iraq; you never did. Get real!

Finally, it's interesting to note that Rand has not made any comments on the surreal story of how U.S. troops in Iraq almost killed Giuliana Sgrena -- the reporter for the Italian daily Il Manifesto -- moments after her release by the anti-U.S. insurgents who'd kidnapped her. This of course destroys whatever little goodwill dumbya managed to generate in his recent European tour (it wasn't much, contrary to what some of the US media told you), and also says a lot about why the U.S. occupation of Iraq is a continuing disaster (or, as Sgrena's editor put it, how "everything that's happening in Iraq is completely senseless and mad.")

If your trigger-happy boys in uniform are blasting away at nice 57-year-old white ladies freshly escaped from their Islamist jailers, can you imagine what they're indiscriminately doing to the folks with high melanin content who live on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates?

In any case, the ignorant American blunders don't seem to stop. I would guess that it's in part because the fundamental U.S. strategy for beating the Iraq "insurgency" is based on a total misunderstanding of what that the "insurgency" is all about, how it's organized, and what it's composed of.

Posted by Mr C at March 7, 2005 05:06 AM

Thanks for the vivid view into the demented mind of a West-hating leftist, "Mr. (anonymous coward) C."

...it's interesting to note that Rand has not made any comments on the surreal story of how U.S. troops in Iraq almost killed Giuliana Sgrena

Nothing surreal about it. The Italian authorities apparently couldn't be bothered to coordinate with the coalition troops on one of the most dangerous roads in Baghdad. It's pretty stupid to be speeding along that road. Moreover, much of her story doesn't square with the physical evidence.

And thanks, by the way, to the Italian authorities, if they paid millions in ransom for her. I'm sure that money will be put to good use in building more IEDs and car bombs with which to murder more Iraqis.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 7, 2005 06:20 AM

>>Thanks for the vivid view into the demented mind of a
>>West-hating leftist, "Mr. (anonymous coward) C."

Rand, can you point at what EXACTLY is so "demented" ?

As for being a "West-hating-leftist"; do you really believe that America with its ever increasing levels of fundamentalist religious self-righteousness will continue to be considered -- at least when viewed from outside the US -- as part of the enlightened West? You seem to be heading in the wrong direction pal .

According to:
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/evo/blfaq_cre_science.htm

_________________________________________________
Escerpts:

The first important issue that needs to be understood is that there were different ways in which the revolution of the Enlightenment was received in America and Europe. In Europe, it became generally associated with secularism and atheism, thus leading the devoutly religious to reject all that was associated with the Enlightenment, even including science for a while.

In America, however, such a connection was never really made. Although secularists were certainly on the side of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution, so were devout Christians. For this latter group, the Enlightenment was actually part of Christian progress, rather than its antithesis. In part because of this, neither radical political and social revolution nor English skepticism ever took deep root here.

The portion of the Enlightenment that best survived in America was strict empiricism and rationalism, and it remained allied - for many people, at least - with conservative, biblically based Christianity. It should be no wonder, then, that so many creationists and fundamentalists will count people like Francis Bacon among the top scientists of history. Creationists seem to just love empiricism, at least when it suits their purposes.

As a result, what developed in America was a sort of two-tiered view divine revelation. At the top was God, the eternal and omnipotent lawgiver whose desires and plans were revealed in Scripture. At the bottom was nature, following the plans and desires of the lawgiver in lawful ways - so lawful, in fact, that humans could discover the rules by which nature worked. In this way, God's desires and plans were further revealed to those humans who bothered to look.

This view of science was very much in harmony with how science was performed in the earliest stages of modernity. Science was, for the most part, strictly empirical. Observations were made and recorded; from those observations, conclusions were drawn - and those conclusions were limited to the data at hand and did not speculate very far. It was believed that the "scientific method" was all about either conclusively confirming or conclusively refuting a theory, but nothing more. This was empirical science, limited to what could be seen in the laboratory and the field. And for quite a while, it worked just fine.

Conclusion:
When modern science was still young, science and traditional Christianity were still viewed as compatible, and not much happened to rock that particular boat. Thus, fundamentalists think that they are being harmonious with what they think is "real science." Telling them that they are anti-science won't work - they'll just stare at you funny. Explaining to them that they are following an idea of science which passed on a long time ago might also not help, but it has a better chance of resulting in productive dialogue. Perhaps they won't believe you, but others reading or watching the discussion can certainly learn something.
__________________________________________________

The reason for signing as Mr C was that I was blocked by your server from posting my original comments because of "some inappropriate content" (?) -- according to a new program filter? Somehow I wondered if you'd banned me from posting, but I decided to post the comment anyway with a different signature and another e-mail address to see if my comments would pass through the filters (?). You guess what, I was blocked once again. Hmmm, I looked at the contents of my post to see if there were any words perhaps that a filter geared toward a libertarian worldview might block. Looking at the second sentence in my post I figured I could remove the following 3 words:

For all of you "i l l - i n f o r m e d - a m e r i c a n s" who read Rand's blog..........

By golly, it worked, my post was suddenly accepted by your program filters. Since I didn't really believe that this would work, I hadn't bothered changing the signature.

So Rand, I would be curioius to know if those three words -- when put together in the above mentioned order -- are really to offensive to use in a libertarian-oriented vocabulary?

>>>>...it's interesting to note that Rand has not
>>>>made any comments on the surreal story of how
>>>>U.S. troops in Iraq almost killed Giuliana Sgrena

>>Nothing surreal about it. The Italian
>>authorities apparently couldn't be bothered to
>>coordinate with the coalition troops on one of
>>the most dangerous roads in Baghdad. It's
>>pretty stupid to be speeding along that road.
>>Moreover, much of her story doesn't square with
>>the physical evidence.

Well, it seems that, hour buy hour, Washington's version given by the your state department immediately after the incident has begun to unravel. The theory that an absence of coordination in Baghdad between the two allied commands and excessive secrecy by the Italians about their (rescue) mission led to the shooting near the airport, seems to have faded

According to Italy's La Stampa newspaper: "The Italian government has said it had informed the United States about the very delicate operation which was about to begin". "And the presence of an American colonel at Baghdad airport along with the Italian officers who were waiting for Sgrena and her liberators, demonstrates that the operation was being conducted in harmony." Furthermore, La Stampa said that a ranson was "almost certainly" paid to the kidnappers, even though any payment was "very probably" opposed by the US.

So Rand, the official US line -- that you of course accept without any reservation whatsoever -- says that Sgrena's car ran a checkpoint at high speed. The US military said their forces had given ample warning to the driver of Sgrena's car, which they said was approaching at speed when they opened fire, but that has been flatly contradicted by Sgrena. Futhermore, acoording to La Stampa: "Sgrena said it wasn't a checkpoint, and they weren't shot at by sentries." It was "a patrol that started shooting after pointing some lights in our direction...we didn't understand where the shots came from." The car was only 700 metres from the airport, "which means that they had passed all checkpoints, added Pier Scolari, Sgrena's partner".

Hmm, 700 meters from the airport. Somehow you don't seem to have your facts in order Rand.

Posted by Canute at March 7, 2005 08:36 AM

If you'd looked carefully at the error message, you'd have seen that ill- informed Americans contains the fragment [- info], which is unfortunately a common URL component for a lot of comment spammers. The notion that I'm deliberately preventing the phrase you attempted to write is kind of, well, stupid.

I will reserve judgement as to what happened to the Italian journalist until the investigation is complete, but her and her companions' story comes across as quite fishy to me, and as I said, inconsistent with the apparent reality (three to four hundred bullets? And tank fire? Really? And there was anything left of the car and its inhabitants? And we all know that communist journalists are always trustworthy, and would never lie in pursuit of a higher goal, right?).

And the notion that she was deliberately targeted is ludicrous, since a) the US would have nothing to gain from such an action and much to lose (as we've seen already from all the negative and flawed coverage) and b) if they had been deliberately targeting her, she'd be dead. I think a more likely scenario (though probably still unlikely) was that her former captors tipped off the forces anonymously and told them that the car had a bomb, in order to achieve exactly what happened. The most likely scenario is just a screw up, which happens in war.

Finally, this is my blog. I write about whatever interests me, and that I have time for. I have no obligation to you whatsoever to write about things that you demand I write about, even when you hijack my comments section in an unrelated post for it.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 7, 2005 08:58 AM

"This is truly a war of resources."

I'm interested to know why any reasonable State would go to war over resources that, by and large, the people who are squatting on them are more than happy to sell to the West.

Which is to say it's far easier to buy the stuff that they want to sell, than send in Marines to confiscate it. Yes, I know, it is far more nuanced than that but still.

The Iraqis/Arabs will sell the stuff. We'll buy it at fair value. Introducing a horde of soldiers can only drive up the price, and reduce the value. I know it's popular in some circles to assume that Bush is evil/insane but please, the rest of us live in the real world.

Maybe it's really about bringing an unstable basket-case of a region into the 21st century.

Posted by Brian Dunbar at March 7, 2005 01:05 PM

"If your trigger-happy boys in uniform are blasting away at nice 57-year-old white ladies freshly escaped from their Islamist jailers, can you imagine what they're indiscriminately doing to the folks with high melanin content who live on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates?"

Nice way to say that the Troops are racist. Doesn't square with statistics (racial minorities are over represented in the US Armed services per capita) or my own experience (enlisted Marine for eight years) but you will believe what you want to, nu?

"In any case, the ignorant American blunders don't seem to stop."

You introduce hundreds of thousands of armed men and women in a place, and a lot of shit happens.

Some bad, yes people die and it's a crying shame. Most good, which might be startling to those who are used to seeing the US Army as Nazis reincarnate. I've seen a ton of 'good news' tales from Iraq to balance the inevitable 'oh crap' moments.

Shooting at the Italian Communist reporter was one of those 'oh shit' moments. Life in the Army isn't a movie. Not everyone gets the word and bad things happen. This is life.

Posted by Brian Dunbar at March 7, 2005 01:17 PM

>>Finally, this is my blog. I write about whatever
>>interests me, and that I have time for. I have no
>>obligation to you whatsoever to write about things
>>that you demand I write about

It truly is an enigma how you manage to twist my words; "it's interesting to note that Rand has not made any comments......" into me supposedly demanding things for you to write about. Rand, aren't you just a little bit paranoid?

>>I'm interested to know why any reasonable State
>>would go to war over resources that, by and
>>large, the people who are squatting on them are
>>more than happy to sell to the West

The era of cheap, abundant oil, which has supported world economic growth for more than three quarters of a century, is most probably at or past its absolute peak, according to leading independent oil geologists. If this analysis is accurate, the economic and social consequences will be staggering. This reality is being hidden from general discussion by the oil multinationals and major government agencies, above all by the United States government. Oil companies have a vested interest in hiding the truth in order to keep the price of getting new oil as low as possible. The US government has a strategic interest in keeping the rest of the world from realising how critical the problem has become.

According to the best estimates of a number of respected international geologists, including the French Petroleum Institute, Colorado School of Mines, Uppsala University and Petroconsultants in Geneva, the world will likely feel the impact of the peaking of most of the present large oil fields and the dramatic fall in supply by the end of this decade, 2010, or possibly even several years sooner. At that point, the world economy will face shocks which will make the oil price rises of the 1970’s pale by contrast.

If the peak oil analysis is accurate, it suggests why the US may be willing to risk so much to control Iraq and through its bases there, the five oil-rich countries. It suggests that your government is acting from a fundamental strategic weakness, not from absolute strength as is often thought.

Posted by Canute at March 7, 2005 02:18 PM

OK, for "demand" substitute "express 'interest' in the fact that I haven't covered his own pet topic."

As though there really was something interesting, or relevant about that, particularly to this post (which as I note has drifted far off topic).

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 7, 2005 02:30 PM

Oh, and "Rand, aren't you just a little bit paranoid?"

Why, no. No, I'm not. Why would you ask such a nutty question?

Talk about twisting words...

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 7, 2005 02:32 PM

>>As though there really was something interesting,
>>or relevant about that, particularly to this
>>post (which as I note has drifted far off topic).

Iowahawk seems to be sharing a common interest with you; and that is writing supposedly "satirical" stories on alternative history. What you both don't seem to comprehend, however, is that you're actually exposing your inadequate knowledge of history and knowledge of the world at large.

A substantial number of Americans seem to be oblivious to the fact that their news may not include all of the facts of any event. To get a different perspective on what's recently transpired in Lebanon, you could start by reading: "Making Iraq out of Lebanon", by B Raman.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GC08Ak04.html

__________________________________________________

Excerpts

To quote from a dispatch of Kim Ghattas of the British Broadcasting Corp: "Some people here are jokingly calling the phenomenon 'the Gucci revolution' - not because they are dismissive of the demonstrations, but because so many of those waving the Lebanese flag on the street are really very unlikely protesters. There are girls in tight skirts and high heels, carrying expensive leather bags, as well as men in business suits or trendy tennis shoes. And in one unforgettable scene an elderly lady, her hair all done up, was demonstrating alongside her Sri Lankan domestic helper, telling her to wave the flag and teaching her the Arabic words of the slogans."

The anti-Syrian protest in Beirut has been only partly spontaneous. Any trained intelligence analyst could see it is partly orchestrated. Whether one likes it or not, there is considerable sympathy for Syria and Iran in the Muslim community of Lebanon. The way the US and other Western countries are trying to exploit the assassination of Hariri is likely to drive once again a wedge between the Islamist and the pro-Western elements, leading to a recrudescence of the suicide-terrorism and car-bomb culture of which Lebanese society has been ridding itself in recent years.
__________________________________________________

In fact, my comments were higly relevant. The clueless Iowahawk believes that America by its sheer presence in Iraq, is somehow sowing the seeds for dramatic changes in the region. The "Proof" of these "changes" were first seen with the "elections" in Iraq and later with the (Gucci) "revolution" in Lebanon. By mocking MoveOn.org in "Blowing The Winds of Freedom", Iowahawk could at the same time both ridicule your local "peacenicks" and more subduedly; praising the wisdom of your "great" leader, GWB.

I did not hijack this thread, but entered it to point out to you, that the vast majority of the punditry in the United States have consistently been misreading the meaning of the turnout of the Iraqi elections; and later, not surprisingly, on what actually transpired in Lebanon.

Posted by Canute at March 8, 2005 05:08 AM

I don't write alternate history, Canute. I write alternate interpretations (extremely flawed ones--the same way modern events are reported today) of history.

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 8, 2005 05:24 AM

>>the same way modern events are reported today

Ahh, you're talking about the epic struggle of right-wing bloggers v.s. the MSM in the US. But what about MSMs outside the US? Are you qualified to judge whether modern events are reported in "the same way" by news media outside the US?

Posted by Canute at March 8, 2005 08:10 AM

What "qualifies" one to judge, other than reading them? By that qualification, I judge them ever worse, for the most part (at least the English versions).

Posted by Rand Simberg at March 8, 2005 08:17 AM

"The era of cheap, abundant oil, which has supported world economic growth for more than three quarters of a century, is most probably at or past its absolute peak, according to leading independent oil geologists."

Oh, yes that. Not saying you're wrong, nor that you're right. I will note that I've been hearing that oh, pretty much my entire life. At some point, yes it will be true, but perhaps in the same sense that a stopped clock will display the correct time twice a day.

"If the peak oil analysis is accurate, it suggests why the US may be willing to risk so much to control Iraq and through its bases there, the five oil-rich countries"

I note the qualifier. It surely doesn't explain why the petrol companies aren't slugging massive R+D at alternate energy sources; how do you explain this glaring lack of fiduciary responsiblity that in 2011 will come back and bite them in the ass?

Posted by Brian Dunbar at March 8, 2005 09:44 AM

>>how do you explain this glaring lack of fiduciary
>>responsiblity that in 2011 will come back and bite them in the ass?

On the contrary, the petrol companies will profit handily if the prise for one barrel of oil, let's say, would reache US$100.

What you may not seem to comprehend, is the fact that the economy of the United States is exceptionally vulnerable to a much higher oil prise. I'm already paying $1.5 a liter ($5.9 a US-gallon) at the gas station. 76% of that amount are taxes. Should the crude oil prise rise to $100 a barrel, the prise we pay at the pump should not exceed $2 a liter by very much. You see, we're used to this level. People might get angry, but they'll get used to it. The question is of course, how would you cope with oil at $100 a barrel. Well, I guess that you're likely to see many aspects of your economy would be in the process of extreme break down, double-digit interest rates, hyper-inflation, wholesale collapse of the US property market, a high rate of business failure, high unemployment, economic, political and social instability — a forthcoming recession that will be tough for you to escape.

True, the rest of the world's economy will be trown into a recession by a collapse of the US economy. However, countries that are already used to much higher prises of petrol, should weather the recession much better than the US.

Posted by Canute at March 10, 2005 04:45 AM

Yes. these 'commentaries' bite all right.

And this is the last one I read and waste my time on.

Rant on, great wanker, Rand on (or off).

Posted by at March 14, 2005 08:49 PM

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