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

This just came to me, it must have come to some of you as well, but here it is.

With reference specifically to Iraq, the accusation has often been levelled at me "By not supporting the war, you're supporting Saddam!". Now Saddam is a nasty bloke. How can one favour Iraq not being ruled by Saddam, and yet not favour war? Well let's think about this. What is the end in this situation? To remove Saddam from power and to create democracy in Iraq. Whether or not you agree with it, that is the end. What is the means? War. Now, some might say that the only way to remove Saddam from power is war. In which case "War" is now added to your end. The end is now "Forcefully remove Saddam from power and create regime change in Iraq".

And there it is. War (the means) with the end of war. War for the sake of war. And that is very Orwellian indeed.

"War is Peace"

But when your enemies hate freedom, isn't it double plus good to bomb some love into them?

JTG

Explosively so.

Inasmuch as the West manufactured Saddam, and plenty of others just like him, it gives new meaning to the phrase,

'With friends like that, who needs enemies?'

We make or own, to use when we need them.

JTG

"bomb some love into them" reminds me of what Noam Chomsky kept joking about shortly after they announced Operation "Enduring Freedom." He explained that the name of the operation is sort of a pun, because it could mean freedom that endures, or it could mean something like suffering the experience of being freed. As in, we pressed a red-hot iron against the cow's hide and it was *enduring* the pain. We love the cow and don't want to run away, so we have to brand it, so it has to endure our love.

It's like our leaders have this cock-eyed idea of what "freedom" means, handing power over to a few selected warlords while we massacre wedding parties and leave unexploded ordinance for children to play with. Our "freedom" is something that they have to endure.

Hi John,

Add Saddam to the list of manufactured enemies: the Taliban (back when they were Mujaheddin), Bin Laden (back when he was Mujaheddin), Noriega, and my favorite forgotten example -- Ho Chi Minh was given weapons and/or support to fight off the Japanese Occupation of Vietnam.

It just goes to show that anyone who thinks their nation is on good terms with the US govt at the moment ought to look at history again and reconsider whether that will stop us from taking their country when the mood strikes us.

Freedom from Saddam was merely the pre-text for war.
There is never only one reason for anything expecaily Operation Iraqi
Liberation (O.I.L)

I wonder how Pinochet felt as he watched Saddam having his tonsils checked on TV.

Stop by and have a look at h2g2 Friends of Tibet (A2170982) if you have moment. Tibet is the flip-side of the war-on-demand record.

Cheers,

JTG

Too true.

I'll give it a look.

Congrats on getting Friends of Tibet on the front page! I'll definitely check out those History of Tibet pages.

Don't stop there. There's quite a bit of stuff already and more on the way. The Tibet News section offers a subscription bulletin: Just subscribe to the thread for free delivery.

Any suggestions as to how to improve things will be gratefully received.

JTG

What about a print outable post card and some more linkage? I think we need to dumb down and stylise the issues, a kind of mass propaganda from the bottom up.

http://www.fivesevenyc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/jenstuff/WhitePoppies.htm



"If theres something inside that you wanna say,
say it out loud and you'll be okay."



"And it's hard to say
Just how some things never change
And it's hard to find
Any strength to draw the line
I'm just burning doin' the neutron dance"

(I have been awake too long and the random Mp3s are confusing me.)

Sounds cool to me. Though I wouldn't use the phrase "dumbing- down". More like... simplificiation. And with little links, so if you're fed up with this simple stuff you can click on something that says "Find Out More" that'll go to the next level of complexity.

I don't like 'dumbing-down' either. I much prefer

'disenconfusioningificationalizing'

But seriosly, folks...

Thanks, purplejenny. That's really a great idea. Anything that improves the odds that visitors will choose to act is good stuff. I'll add that right away.

JTG

Could also be known as "Cutting the cr@p". And then at the bottom of the page, two links. One link for more complex ("More Cr@p") and one for less complex ("Cut the Cr@p").

Not like we're talking cr@p or anything, but it'd be a gimmick. Catchy, like.

Just good marketing

You might like to float the idea to a few others first.

It could be construed as a dyslexic invitation to a fish supper.

"Carp? What carp? I don't see any carp. I certainly don't smell any. So where's this carp then, eh? Come on, I want my carp!"

That reminds me of a certain parrot, wot's known to crave chicken.

I tried out a couple of print-outable things. Perhaps I'm going about it the wrong way. Until I come up with something better, I've added a link to the Students for a Free Tibet instant email thingy, which sends off a prewritten letter. Unfortunately, I haven't found anything about the EU Special Rep yet. I'll keep looking and, hopefully, eventually make the thing more streamlined and effective.

JTG