French Fries vs Freedom Fries

Romair #23 you write ``so that the people can think about overthrowing Saddam and not about where to get their next meal. ``
Alas, one can think about a lot of things. One can think about overthrowing Saddam. One can think about being on an island where one is the only male among a long lost tribe of film actresses and exotic belly dancers. One can think about finding a wormhole in the space-time continuum and emerging in a mirror universe. One can think of many things. I am sure Iraqis thought a lot about life without Saddam the past couple of decades (particularly if they had the misfortune of being interviewed by one of Saddam`s torture-specialist-bast!rds).
Am I making my point clear???

Attention Sajni (if still lurking around): On March 9 I said the war would probably start around March 20.
http://63.194.130.82/cgi-bin/show_article.cgi?aid=00001924&channel=gulberg&start=0&end=9&page=1&chapter=1#interact
It is now March 20 and war is starting on the predicted date (no applause for my accurate prediction please, thank you), the deadline for Saddam to scoot out of Iraq having passed 30 minutes ago.
I had said we shall talk again on April 10 by which time the war would be over. I fear I was being too conservative, and suspect the war will be over in 2 weeks from now.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

The two key points of this debate are as follows, in my opinion:

1) Do the people of Iraq actually want the USA to attack them?
2) Will the situation in Iraq be better after the USA attacks than it was before?

If the answer to 1) is, ``Yes,`` then the debate is over, and the USA should attack Iraq, regardless of what any non-Iraqi says. the US will be on a humanitarian mission.

If the answer to 1) is, ``No,`` then the USA is committing state terrorism of the highest order. And George Bush is a bigger terrorist than OBL, since he will have displaced and killed a lot more people - and that too in broad daylight, right in front of everyone, with solid proof - than OBL ever could.

The people who are supporting this war need to give solid evidence that the answer to 1) is, ``Yes.`` So far, I have seen nothing in this regard. Certain interactors keep pointing out that this attack is for the Iraqis` benefit, yet they do not have statistics, Iraqi opinion polls etc. to back their claims (or maybe I have missed them, when they presented them).

If their is no solid proof of a, ``Yes`` answer, then I am afraid anyone supporting this attack is no different than those who support OBL`s attacks, i.e. individuals whose belief in a person, leader, ideology, concept, a country etc. is so solid that they are willing to support the most violent actions of such a country/leader etc., without asking for any solid proof. This is why both Bush and OBL have a solid group of supporters who never question their intentions.

In my opinion, Iraqi people are caught between two hellfires. They were already suffering due to what Saddam was doing. Since 1991, they have been additionally suffering due to USA sanctions. And now they will be bombed to death by the USA. Both Saddam and the USA have their own personal interests and not the interests of Iraq in mind.

Due to this, in my opinion, Iraq will be much worse off, once the USA is done bombing it.

Rebuilding a country is no joke. It requires a lot of staying power and motivation, over decades. Something only the citizens of that country possess. Even if we assume the USA is well-intentioned, how long will the it be motivated enough to solve Iraq`s problems? Will it be willing to dump in $20 billion a year into Iraq for twenty years, while its own voters demand health reform for Americans? Will it be willing to fight anti-American Iraqis in streetfights for ten years in Iraq? What if some Iraqi blows up a US building in Iraq killing 200+ Americans, like what happened in Beirut? What motivation do the American taxpayers and Congressmen have in rebuilding a country none of them have even visited?

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, it stated that it was doing it for the good of the Afghans (much like the USA is stating about Iraq). When the USA took on the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the USA stated that it was doing it for the benefit of the Afghans also. Both countries were actually fighting their superpower politics in a third country. When the USA recruited the Mujahideen (the parents of the Taliban), it stated (literally: read Brezensky`s interview) they would not be harmful in the long run. And when the USA bombed Afghanistan and removed the Taliban recently, it stated it was helping the Afghans also.

Is Afghanistan a better place now then it was had the Soviets and Americans not started, ``helping`` it twenty five years ago? It is infact a much worse place for its citizens now.

The Americans will win the war in Iraq in a few days. They will get rid of Saddam, and thus achieve their objective. With mission accomplished, votes gained in the next Presidential election, they will slowly lose interest in the Iraqis, and will be worried only about the oil.

In the process, they will kill a lot of people, and hundreds of thousands will be turned into refugees. According to the BBC, in Iraq, ``Pregnant women have been crowding surgeries demanding caesarean operations so they can give birth before any bombing or invasion begins.`` (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2865785.stm) (Do tahmad and stuka approve of this?)

After that, they will administrate Iraq for a year or so. Conditions will probably start improving in Iraq (Tommy Franks will probably be better than Saddam, since it is hard to be worse). Then they will realize that it is impossible for one country to re-build another, since it takes decades. They will also realize that a democratic Iraq will result in an extremely anti-USA and anti-Israel elected govt. And they will realize the fact that a democratic Iraq, with a Shia majority, will want to link itself with USA`s arch enemy, i.e. Iran. So they will then move onto their next conquest (maybe Iran).

They will leave behind a power vaccuum in Iraq, while supporting any pro-US Iraqi leader (who will always be non-democratic thug). This will lead to all kinds of wierd problems in Iraq, which will eventually result in the emergence of some sort of Iraqi Taliban. The US will then attack Iraq again to remove this new, ``anti-US`` force in Iraq. And the cycle will continue (remember the US did support this same Sadddam at one point. Rumsfeld shook hands with him when he called on him).

Reminds of another similar country, i.e. Afghanistan. The only difference being that the stakes in Iraq will be a lot higher.

The only way for a country to reform is through internal turbulence (much like what is happening in Iran and Pakistan). The US, if it is sincere, should support anti-Saddam forces in Iraq from a distance. And it should lift the sanctions, so that the people can think about overthrowing Saddam and not about where to get their next meal.

our people for obvious reasons are prone to this. what is their excuse? and as the coverage of this on mass media shows, these people unlike us are not afraid to air their dirty laundry. and as someone wrote in the nytimes, how many of these people will be dropping bombs in iraq?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/16/national/16CADE.html

Women Recount Cadet Life: Forced Sex and Fear
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY with DIANA JEAN SCHEMO


TUCSON, March 14 — Like other women accepted into the United States Air Force Academy, Sharon Fullilove was a star of her high school graduating class. Her academy application in 1999 included letters of commendation from President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

But in November 1999, six months after entering the academy, she quit — devastated, she says, from being raped by a fellow cadet and convinced that she would find no help in the academy`s male-dominated culture.

The daughter of an Air Force colonel, Ms. Fullilove said she believed that a majority of women in the academy are raped or molested, and that most choose not to report it because they fear an official investigation would expose them to shame, ridicule and retribution, if not dismissal. About 18 percent of the 4,200-member cadet corps are women.

``During the school year, you talk to people it has happened to, even upperclassmen, and they all say the same thing,`` Ms. Fullilove, 23, said in an interview here, where she is attending the University of Arizona. ``They tell you to expect getting raped, and if it doesn`t happen to you, you`re one of the rare ones. They say if you want a chance to stay here, if you want to graduate, you don`t tell. You just deal with it.``

Ms. Fullilove`s views are shared by dozens of other women who have left the academy before graduating, saying they were victims of rape and other sexual attacks. Many have come forward in recent months, recounting their ordeals and expressing their outrage, as Ms. Fullilove did, about an environment that they say favors men and protects them against complaints of sexual assault. She said that long after her rape, she learned that her assailant worked at the time as a counselor who answered the academy`s hot line for women who want to report a rape or other sexual attacks.

The Air Force acknowledges that at least 56 cases of rape or other sexual assaults at the academy have been investigated in the last 10 years, though only one male cadet has faced a court-martial as a result of any accusation, in 1995. He was acquitted. Eight other male cadets have been expelled in sexual attacks since 1996. The academy concedes that it has no records of sexual assaults in the first 20 years of women`s admission, starting in 1976.

Stuka #12

It is called `being loyal than the king`. Perhaps in a mad rush to register yourself as the loyal subject your mind has taken leave of good senses.

Please go through your post # 12 again. If you only replace Bal Thackeray`s name with that of Modi, Advani, and Bajpayee, your post actually describes the current state of affairs in India. If your memory serves you, you might remember that India has just gone through a genocide of minority where 2000 Muslims were murered in cold blood a few months ago. Isn`t it just like Saddam who killed his Shiite population sometimes ago?. And just like Saddam, who killed his own people, the rebellious Kurds, your leaders are also killing their own people, the rebellious Kashmiris. I dont see a difference there. The only difference I see is that if Saddam has killed half a million, you have killed 80,000, but you are getting there. And just as Saddam invaded his neighbors, India has invaded its neighbors too, not once or twice but 4 times. It has dismembered the neighboring country, and because of full participation of Indian agents and plaincloth army personnel another genocide occured in 1971. Just like Iraq. India has committed another act of aggression and occupied the terrory (Siachin) of neighboring country. Just like Iraq did to Kuwait. India is in material breach of several UN resolutions on Kashmir since 1947. Just like Iraq. India has violated every international pact that it made with its neighbors. Tashkant Pact was broken by agression in 1971; Simla Agreement was broken in 1984 when agression on Siachin took place. Just like Iraq when it did acts of aggression against Iran breaking long standing pacts. And just like Iraq, India has weapons of mass destruction, and unlike Iraq it not only declares them openly but also threatens its neighbors with them and in order to make its threats credible amasses one million strong army at its neighbors borders.

Now please tell me how is India different from Iraq if we judge by your standards? And you have balls to write that you are not a hypocrite? So here I give you a chance to prove what you claim about what you are. Write an appeal to Bush also pleading him to attack India after Iraq because India is also guilty of every charge that Iraq is charged with today. I will join my voice with yours and I will beg Bush too, to help liberate the oppressed people in India and save its neighbors from its tyranny and agression. But something tells me that you wont and you cant because calling others hypocrites is much easier. Isn`t it?

On the eve of yet another oily war , I am writing these lines right from the heart of Kuwait city , the so called `` Burj Al Tahreer `` or the `` Liberation tower`` a kuwaiti monument of their `` Freedom `` from Iraq.
The war times have already started here with the proviniong of Gas masks and drills to go to sheltors for us who are on duties. Already most of the forigner colleages and many Kuwaitis have left the country, fear speaks out.

Saddam is a dictator but waht about other Arab monachies? Why Americans are not intereseted to change the regime in these countries only because of their vested interests. In kuwait , for instance there are many many people called Bedouins ( The aborignals ) who are denied citizenship by the government. There is hardly any democracy. But who cares as long as u are looting petro dollars!!!

I won`t blame US for this tyranny in Middle East or anywhere in the world coz they have the system and power to exhibit it. To blame are the people themselves , sleepy people, especially those living in Arab world.

Hai jurm-sagheefi ki saza marg i mufajjat

( Punishment of weakness is simply the death of interests )

Are they Arabs or Iraqis ( Kuwaitis, Shaamis , Egyptians etc ) or Muslims??? A huge identity crises!!!

I don`t understand why every third world loser, every fit-for-nothing, can`t-do-anything-better national has this incredible urge to judge Americans as fools. It is a wonder how every jealous Frenchie and third worlder thinks about the most successful country in the human history as the nation of fools.

TAhmed: Exactly.

gullu gullu: You write ``nations exercising their will without infringing on rights of others`
I think you mean ``dictators exercising their will``. If you really knew what you were writing about, you would not equate the Iraqi nation with the dictator Saddam Hussein.

And finally, the dreaded ``Hamburger`` too might find itself transformed

into a ``Texas Patriot Patty``.


Ras

Ansari #11 At our office cafeteria, I had for many years seen French Toast labelled as Texas Toast and assumed that this was simply one of those little switches one sees when crossing the atlantic, with the first floor sinking to become the ground floor, and the electricity changing from a tooth-shattering 220 to a mere hair-raising 110, and so forth.

correction to my post below... of course the first floor does not sink to the ground floor in the US, it in facts sits where it is supposed to sit, on the first floor.
But dont mind me: When I am not paying attention, I also drive on the right hand side in Pakistan. And on the left hand side in the US. And I turn the car vipers on when I mean to turn on the lights in both countries, since car vipers are where gears should be in right hand cars that they drive in left hand countries. And just when you get used to cars in Pakistan, you come back to the US and and they switch vipers again. Thankfully I dropped the damned silent ``u`` that the brits stick into every other word and which someone in the US wisely took out. However, I wish the same wise bloke (or guy, the US equivalent) had taken the damned unsilent ``c`` out of the language altogether (``c`` is either posing as an ``s`` or a ``k`` anyway, and so kan safely be taken out.)
And then we come to ``potatoes`` and ``potaaaatoes``. I think I need not go on any further and get back to do some honest work.

Urstruly:

What if? What if the Iraqi army does not put up a fight? What if the Republican Guard surrenders?

What if the citizens of Basra celebrate the liberation of their city by Americans?

Will you then apologize to the Iraqi people for defending a monster?

BTW, in this specific post I am not defending the administration.

My personal opinion is that if I was a citizen of India, living in an India ruled by a Bal Thackeray, an individual who had gassed minorites such as Muslims, an individual whose sons ran rampant and thought that the country was their Baap kee Jagir, then Urstruly, I would have begged with God for an American invasion. That is why I am not a hypocrite.

In the same situation however, if Bal Thackeray was the dictator of India, and he ruled India with an iron fist as Saddam does Iraq, and he had used poison gas to put down troublesome minorities such as Muslims just as Sddam did with the Kurds, then you would have begged the Americans to attack India. Innocent Indians dying in such an attack would not have bothered you one bit and you would have used moral arguments to convince others of the justness of the American cause.

That is why you are a hypocrite and your attempt at righteousness is like the flickering tongue of a serpent.

Afrasiyab sahab,

``French toast was invented by an American named John French.``

LOL. French toast invent kaise hota hai? :o)

Respectfully,

Aamir

As a proud American I am deeply offended by the language used against my President and my country in this article. If you hate my country so much then why don’t you go back where you came from? Do you honestly believe that tomorrow will be a day any different from any other day in America? I don’t think so. Tomorrow when fire and brimstone will shower upon the Iraqi people, we will be on our commute to our place of work and to our schools just like any other day. Tomorrow when thermobaric bombs will suffocate the oxygen from the Iraqi bomb shelters and babies will die suckling their mother’s teats your children here will go to kindergartens just like any other day. Wouldn’t they? Tomorrow when those mothers will be gasping for air, wishing that they die but their children live, wouldn’t your women be busy figuring out lasagna or meatballs for the day. Wouldn’t they? And tomorrow when Iraqi’s will be skewered alive onto the uranium depleted missiles coming from heavens and earth and left and right and above and below, wouldn’t your V8s be purring on the turnpikes and parkways just like any other day. Wouldn’t they? And as the eyes in the skies will blink and guide the hell-fires and help them cruise to find those Iraqis who will run but are told that they had death wish therefore, they must die, wouldn’t at that time bulls will be stampeding through the wall street just like any other day. Wouldn’t they?

For us nothing will change. It will be just another day. And Isn’t that what our President promised us; that he would protect us Americans. Didn’t he? Tomorrow when America will go to war, not a single bullet will be fired on American soil and not a single American will die. Give the man credit, you ungrateful immigrants from third world.