Pighead Vs Iraq

You Suck! wrote:

Did you sleep through post soviet Afghanistan? And Might i ask if you slept through any lectures you may have received on contemporary middle eastern history?

The rise of wahibism, and its subsequent funding during the soviet/afghan of the conflict is the root of the current conflict and the troubles we as "the west"(:rolleyes: an ambiguous title if ever there was one) now perceive. In any case, Saudi has never been taken to task for its formenting of a violent form of islam that has usurped more moderate forms esp in the central asian republics. And further to that, when these extremists were perceived to be of use, the us and other's in "the west" were glad to bankroll them regardless of future implication, human rights or any of that other fluff "the west" pretends to hold dear. Of course as a historian you no doubt already know this.

In any case Pigheads interpretation holds truer.

No, believe it or not they don't teach you the entire history of human existence. Sounds like someone's taken a OD of revisionism today anyway.

Nice to hear from someone who actually has something intelligent to add to the debate btw, you sound like you must have one of those useless arts degrees aswell?

kowloon wrote:

In the handful of years one spends in an arts course (or most other college courses for that matter) only a percentage of that time is actually spent on any particular subject.
This amounts to a few hours a week until you whittle down your subjects.
Far from an all encompassing knowledge of recorded history methinks.
The true value of the degree is in learning how to approach history, interpretation and analysis of sources etc.

I did already state that.

kowloon wrote:

As for expert knowledge of the crusades, unless your dissertation was on that subject anyone whose hobby is reading up on that period is likely to have a better knowledge of the topic.

I do read a bit about it in my spare time though too tbh. Obviously its a topic in history thats quite relevant nowdays and all. I never claimed expert knowledge by the way.

kowloon wrote:

A lot of academics like to use their letters as a defence against presenting a proper argument.
If you cant hold the debate without resorting to childish "im a proper expert" arguments you probably have no idea what you're on about.
I have no problem with someone presenting their argument without their head stuck firmly up their own @rse.

I never claimed expert knowledge as I said, and I did present a proper argument. the problem is that everyone here had already made up their minds beforehand, noone listens to the opposite view on subjects like this. I'm guilty of it as is everyone else here. I can assure you that I do know what i'm on about, I never intended to ring up any intellectual snobbery, it just gets my back up when everyone and their mother starts chiming in with uninformed garbage talk.

No, believe it or not they don't teach you the entire history of human existence.

As was said if you quote the qualification then your goin to be tested on it.....

Sounds like someone's taken a OD of revisionism today anyway.

Would you care to point out any revisionist statement's I may have made? I made no comment on 9/11, simply pointed out the context within which it occured. Revisionism is to say that something completely different happened. Where have I contradicted the events of 9/11 or the events before hand?

you sound like you must have one of those useless arts degrees aswell?

Useless science degree, but I never brought it up. Nor would I care to start lecturing anyone on quantum physics anytime soon......

kowloon wrote:

Fair enough, ill give you that, but if your argument is correct you should be able to prove it without resorting to my opinion is better than yours.
Give the self proclaimed experts enough rope to hang themselves.

Dr.JDeCourcy anyone?

Like I said I got a little defensive when the thread became more like a personal attack on me. Maybe it wasn't but it began to feel that way.

No, revisionism (revisionist history i'm talking about) is revised history. It doesn't have to be completely different, just a little different to the way it was taught before. Of course if it was completely different then that would also count.

None the less I see nothing revisionist about what I posted, and it is also worth noting that the defination of revisionism is often assosiated with negationism which is the denial of fact. Hell, I didn't know that subtlety until I just wiki'ed it!

In regards to the past influences which are now biting America in the ass, yes we all know that they trained the mujahadeen in Afghanistan, provided Osama with weapons and backed the takeover of Iraq by Saddam, but that was what the situation called for at the time. Noone is able to predict the future and we have to deal with these situations as they arise.

I agree that this was the percieved need at the time considering the cold war, but as to what would eventually happen......thats what the cia, state department, countless analysts and all the other resources of developed countrys are there to foresee.

Leaving afghanistan to the mercy of chaos after all the fluff subsided, and then ignoring and even dealing with the taliban who openly hosted forces hostile to the west could only lead one direction. Not that anyone could foresee 9/11 itself, but that countrys respective self intrests would be negatively affected in the future, not to mention the suffering of the afghani's themselves. Sadly prevention in geopolitics seems only to serve as a justification for war and never a reason for investment in development.

A little known causulty of the whole affair is the loss of influence of sufi islam to wahibism. Sufi being a far more tolerant form, where its influence in central asia meant that islam co-existed more peacefully with other religions then in other parts of the moslim world. I'd reccomend you check out Ahmed Rashid's books "Taliban" and "Jihad", Damn good material for anyone whos intrested in the backround to events in that part of the world.

Put your claws back i I wasn't having a pop at you

Grrrr

Tho I do insist, THIS THREAD NEEDS MORE PIGHEAD!!!

Terry wrote:

Iraq was absolutely no threat to anyone. This was proven as fact by the lack of WMD's that were supposedly there.

Not only that but both Rice and Powell issued statements in the summer of 2001 that characterised the government of Iraq as not constituting any significant threat. The President, his adminstration, and the intelligence services deliberately lied. They assumed the war would go smoother and regardless of whether any weapons were found the American people would forget about it once the country was stabilised.

It was all a product of the Neo-Con think-tank disaster called the "Project for a New American Century" which wormed it's way into the administration through Cheney. 9/11 gave them the political climate they could exploit for their agenda. Even before the Afghanistan campaign was underway they we're already anxious to fix their cross hairs on Iraq (verified by reliable insiders ... most notably Richard Clarke). It was going to be part of a campaign to bring democracy to the Middle East. The idea was to project American power into the region as an agent of "democratisation." They believed that once Iraq came through the others would fall into step like dominoes. It's been a key geo strategic region throughout history (the Oil and it's obviously the crossroads of three continents): The Crimean War, The Suez Crisis, etc.

It's all completely delusional. Though Bush's incompetence is legendary and well documented his Neo-Con advisors obviously did not read up on events in World History re: bringing "western values/democracy/religion" to the "backward" peoples of the world. Sound familiar? Reading their dogma and waxing lyrical like Rudyard Kipling makes me want to vomit.

Slutmonkey57b wrote:

And no doubt you're a spectacular lover with a huge dick too.

This is the internet, so I shall use two simple nerd quotes to retort:

"Pics or it didn't happen"

and

"Tits or GTFO"



"Pics" because you can claim anything on the net without any facts to back it up.

and

"Tits" because Rule #1 is "everyone on the internet is a fat, smelly, hairy male nerd living with his parents unless proved otherwise." Show us your man-tits, dude.

Yeah I just made that up all at once, silly me I should've known you'd have picked me up on it. In case your too lazy to read the thread, the guy was belittling an arts degree which I only mentioned because the integrity of my knowledge in the subject was called into question. Is that such a crime?

Wouldn't you get a bit defensive if someone was trying to say that something you'd studied for 3 years of your life wasn't worth a ****? I suspect you would but you'll probably say otherwise.

I still think it's a little naive to blame islamic terrorism solely on occupation though. Of course it's one of the reasons i'm not denying that.

Check out this for instance:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1197900.stm

There are many attacks on buddhist sites performed by islamic terrorists, solely because it doesn't fit in with their ideology. You can just google it if you don't believe me. The fact that they would attack such a benevolent religion with no provocation pretty much lays the whole 'they hate us because of what we've done to them' argument to waste IMO, maybe not totally, but it goes some way.

Remember also that in Afghanistan it is a crime to convert from Islam.

Terry wrote:

Who is this "We" you refer to?

Oh I was actually editing that as you must've been reading it, sorry

Zebra3 wrote:

Only one person in this thread showing themselves up.

Yeah, the guy trying to act like a moral authority on war and at the same time enquiring about getting a tattoo of an AK47. Or maybe the guy who lists Valhalla as his location and then attempts to do the same. Or do you not know what Valhalla is?

Read the link I posted on this page. You are defending the wrong people and selectively quoting history. What about when armies of muslims, or saracens as they were then called, invaded Europe? The religion is based on war more than not nowdays as it has been perverted by constant changes to the Holy Qur'ran throughout history.

http://atheism.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=atheism&cdn=religion&tm=25&f=00&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//answering-islam.org/BehindVeil/btv12.html

Of course if you really want to find out about the effect of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, then you might ask some of the women from those places who now are free to walk the streets without fear of being publicly stoned to death. After all, they make up about half of the demographic there.

Noone is saying that either side of this conflict are angels, but when you're made to choose between the lesser of two evils I know which side i'd pick.

Some food for thought:

“When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly” (Koran 47:4)

“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Koran 9:29).

indough wrote:

Yeah, the guy trying to act like a moral authority on war and at the same time enquiring about getting a tattoo of an AK47. Or maybe the guy who lists Valhalla as his location and then attempts to do the same. Or do you not know what Valhalla is?

Read the link I posted on this page. You are defending the wrong people and selectively quoting history. What about when armies of muslims, or saracens as they were then called, invaded Europe? The religion is based on war more than not nowdays as it has been perverted by constant changes to the Holy Qur'ran throughout history.

http://atheism.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=atheism&cdn=religion&tm=25&f=00&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//answering-islam.org/BehindVeil/btv12.html

Of course if you really want to find out about the effect of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, then you might ask some of the women from those places who now are free to walk the streets without fear of being publicly stoned to death. After all, they make up about half of the demographic there.

Noone is saying that either side of this conflict are angels, but when you're made to choose between the lesser of two evils I know which side i'd pick.

Some food for thought:

“When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly” (Koran 47:4)

“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Koran 9:29).

You seem to have a problem with Muslims(I noticed you swapped Muslims for Iraqi militia in a previous post). You'll find paragraphs just like that and worse in the bible. I'm an atheist and as such I usually see religion and it's interpretation as little more than an expression of the particular people's feelings(hates, fears, hopes, prejudices) and so I think it's misguided to blame the actions of the Muslims in the middle east on the religion.