h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You know Noam Chomsky is a linguistics expert. What gives him the credentials to spout off about nasty western ways? For general information the situation here in the UK is as follows:

political "correctness": places like the BBC still have a "male" and "female" decal on toilet doors. But only just. Everything else is open house. But the "suits" have changed into black casual smart. They remind me of the former SS.

"You know Noam Chomsky is a linguistics expert. What gives him the credentials to spout off about nasty western ways?"

Gee. I don't know, Loopy. Maybe he pays his BBC license fee.

£27 decimal 2 billion per year from the good people of the UK.
A mandatory tax.
One heck of a gravy train!

I suggest that before anyone tries to argue that the Taliban had any sort of sovereignty in Afghanistan, you look at the history of Afghanistan. What you will discover is that since the British sliced off a part of India at the beginning of the 20th century to provide a buffer against Tsarist forces invading the Jewel, Afghanistan has mostly been a killing ground for the mujahadeen. It's been rare that anyone agrees who's in charge in Afghanistan without a gun pointed at their face.

And as for the US doing something worthwhile. It took them a hell of a lot longer than it should, but the women of Afghanistan can finally return to the lives they are entitled to live. They can chose to wear the burka, or not. They can get an education, be doctors, housewives...it doesn't matter what they do, the fact that they have the freedom to do it is what matters. So if for nothing other than the little girls who get to grow up and be full human beings, I support the invasion of Afghanistan.

Why we're still there, of course is another matter. Of course, we all have to keep in mind that Shrub and his cadre don't bother with history, so they don't know what happened to the Soviets in the 80s when they tried to fight in the Afghan mountains.

Hi anhaga

minor point, but way back, I think you made a good point, in that you said "I don't share your confidence in any particular system being inherently less susceptible than any other, however" - I think this is true too, after thinking about it. It doesn't make sense to claim the US is less susceptible. So I guess I just prefer the american system, w/o justification that it could handle the situation better than another.

I just got back to my computer, so I'll keep reading the report. BTW, how would the world go about changing the rules of security council (ie to eliminate the veto power). Is the UN Charter ammendable? How difficult is it to ammend?

dave

"Article 108

Amendments to the present Charter shall come into force for all Members of the United Nations when they have been adopted by a vote of two thirds of the members of the General Assembly and ratified in accordance with their respective constitutional processes by two thirds of the Members of the United Nations, including all the permanent members of the Security Council."

http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/

Perhaps easier than the Canadian Constitution.


There have been a number of ammendments.

Here's a paragraph from the commission's report on pp 29-30

"4.5 Although the use of coercive measures short of military force is generally preferable to the use of force, these non-military measures can be blunt and often indiscriminate weapons and must be used with extreme care to avoid doing more harm than good – especially to civilian populations. Blanket economic sanctions in particular have been increasingly discredited in recent years as many have noted that the hardships exacted upon the civilian population by such sanctions tend to be greatly disproportionate to the likely impact of the sanctions on the behaviour of the principal players. Such sanctions also tend quickly to develop holes and deteriorate further over time, not least when they are poorly monitored, as has been almost universally the case. Sanctions that target leadership groups
and security organizations responsible for gross human rights violations have emerged as an increasingly important alternative to general sanctions in recent years, and efforts to make such sanctions more effective have drawn increasing attention. A standard exemption for food and medical supplies is now generally recognized by the Security Council and under international law, though the issue of the provision of medical supplies to combatants may sometimes still generate debate."

The commision seems to be saying that blanket sanctions do more harm than good, and then goes on to list how to specifically sanction leaders & their cadres. I think the most important of these is military supplies.

OK, so now for the dangerous part - relating this to Iraq. Saddam after 12 years had plenty of military force to keep his people repressed. Where was he getting the bullets? If the syrian et al. borders were so porous, was it a deliberate action on the part of those countries to break the sanctions, or was it beyond their power? If it was beyond their power, shouldn't they have asked for help?

If the sec council was faced with Syrian et al. non-compliance with the sanctions, shouldn't it have taken action to make sure the sanctions were working?

dave

Loopy

do they get biscuits with their gravy(train)? If so, count me in.

dave

Ok Empty, this is why I don't think you know what you're talking about:

1) You apparantly want the international coalition out of Afghanistan. Afghanistan still has warlords with private armies, and if international troops pulled out then it would probably descend into civil war.

2) You state that there are *no* terrorists in Afghanistan other than Americans. None at all? Well, even if you accept that the Americans in Afghanistan are terrorists, whereas I think most people would agree that they are actually part of a UN sanctioned coalition, the assertion that there are no other terrorists whatsoever is pretty incredible.

I mean its pretty hard to fake all those pictures, and unless you believe in some sort of worldwide conspiracy to control what we watch then there's no reason for them to be faked either. Journalists are all after the big stories, and there are plenty of places in the world they can get them without needing to make them up. There must be terrorist training camps somewhere, if they were somewhere other than Afghanistan then so would the journalists have been.

3) You appear to be claiming that the Taliban were an innocent party.

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I am not ES, Montana, but I am not going to give you that one!
OBL may have been *in* Afghanistan, but he didn't run the place (and the fact that he has yet to be found, shows that he might not *be* in Afghanistan at all, and might never have even been there in 2001!)
Also, there is no proof that he *did* perpetrate the 911 outrage. David Icke (who granted is not the most rational of people, though this point that he made is a good one) David Icke said that previously, OBL and Al Quaeda had *always* "claimed responsibilty" for *every* action they committed. But not 911. His silence over that was deafening.
Don't give that videotape as evidence - it was grainy, edited and with a loud American voice of an 'interpreter' telling us what OBL and his henchmen were saying. (For all any of us know, he could have been discussing the archery matches they'd attended, archery being a popular sport there...)
We'd have to speak Arabic and have a clean copy without the American voiceover to have a 's chance in Hell of knowing what it was really about! Confession, my foot. Even Alan Kalter conceded that all OBL said was - "I didn't know it would that big of an axplosion" - a defence attorney might point out that that argues not complicity, but foreknowledge, which are not *necessarily* the same thing!

Concerning Afghanistan:

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/040130/w013038.html

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/30/kabulpatrol040130

and (in contrast)

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/040131/w013104.html

There's a whole lot of different sh*& going down in Afghanistan than just American terrorists. And there are a whole lot of people trying to do simple policing and peacekeeping in Afghanistan. And there are a whole lot of parts of the country that pretty rarely see Americans.

And just to help straighten things out a bit:

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/sc7248.doc.htm

<<1)You apparantly want the international coalition out of Afghanistan. Afghanistan still has warlords with private armies, and if international troops pulled out then it would probably descend into civil war.
From what I understand, Bouncy, it *is* civil war already.
2)There must be terrorist training camps somewhere, if they were somewhere other than Afghanistan then so would the journalists have been.
No one said there weren't terrorist traing camps - just that the connection between them and 911 was pretty tenuous, and I think, unproven.

3) You appear to be claiming that the Taliban were an innocent party.
Where do you get the idea he was claiming that? Of course he wasn't - but the situation now the Taliban have been overthrown, is *no* better! There is just a different bunch in power now, opium is being grown again (to the delight of the CIA, who make a bundle from it) and women are back in head-to-toe black. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss - except that the new boss (Hamid Karzai) is American backed!

Actually, Della, Karzai is UN backed. Don't get me wrong, I pretty much agree with your assessment of the level of improvement in Afghanistan. However, the military action in Afghanistan has been conducted by the book of international law. Every "coalition" soldier in the country is there with the backing of the UN.

BTW can we stop using the word "terrorist" on both sides? Truly, it is a meaningless and unhelpful term.

Actually, Della, a professor of mine watched the unedited version of the tape. He's from Iran originally, so his Farsi is pretty good, and bin Laden *did* take responsibility for the 9/11 attack.

And on a fairly picky note, Afghan women's burkas tend to be a rather nice shade of blue. Not that that makes it any better, mind you, but the black burkas tend to be worn by women in the hotter desert areas.

Montana, just to be picky - does OBL speak Farsi? Why would he do that, as he's from Saudi Arabia?

Farsi is the spoken language of most of the Middle Eastern world. Persian/Arabic/Farsi are all used fairly interchangably. There are regional dialects, which are rather like accents, but otherwise, bin Laden speaks the same language they speak in Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, etc.

aha! I was sure there'd be a link....

http://www.farsinet.com/farsi/

Saudi Arabia was once part of the Persian Empire (back when it was just the Persians and the Ottomans, who speak Turkic)

Thanks Montana. I knew Farsi was spoken in Iran (I went out with an Iranian for a while, but the only words I know in Farsi are quasi-rude.) So, OBL spoke Farsi cos he was talking to Afghanis in Afghanistan. I see ...
Thanks for the info.

Oh, and BTW - how did you Professor get hold of a clean copy of the OBL 'confession' tape? All we saw in NZ, was the aforementioned edited copy with the American interpreter's voice, telling us what OBL and his henchmen were saying...

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Montana, the link you gave does not bear that out...