Thursday, May 01, 2008
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Suicide bombers
You don't come here for deep disturbing sociopolitical thought, I know, but I'm trying to work something out in my headbrain and I want to see what it is your headbrain is thinking. Fair enough?
"Stereotype" is not a 4-letter word. Even 'racial stereotypes' aren't always bad. Some advertising agency notices that a product appeals to a certain race and so Schlitz Malt Liquor gets advertised in da hood and Budweiser gets advertised at the Indy 500. Some advertising is designed to appeal to red state retirees and some to blue state urbanites. That's just bidness. Neither good nor bad.
Stereotypes are just superstitions. They can be harmless or offensive. "Walking under a ladder" is just stupid. The more you do that, the more likely you will be injured. If you refuse to walk under a ladder because of an ignorant superstition you are better off than someone that walks under ladders because they abhor superstitions.
So sometimes they are useful. Most of the time they are not useful at all. And some times they can be downright offensive as well as wrong. For instance, I have to dress a certain way because of where I look. Many people look at the way I dress & walk and assume that I am some sort of wealthy, virile sexual dynamo with absurd bedroom skills and the truth is - I only have $6. Don't you see how offensive that is?
Seriously, I do not want to negatively stereotype a people group. It is offensive, usually wrong, and ultimately useless. I don't mind wasting time, but developing stereotypes is a horrible use of time. This terrible war has me thinking about such things though. I don't know how to fight people that will blow themselves up, heedless of collateral damage - sometimes to maximize collateral damage - just because they hate us. The slaughter of good soldiers is a terrible cost of war. The slaughter of innocents is unconscionable.
I don't think we have any business in Iraq or Iran. Bush 41's Gulf war had a clear objective, and when it was met, in spite of criticism, he stopped. Bush 43's Gulf war had/has a much more nebulous goal. Hard to determine when we can leave. Meanwhile depraved, evil al-Qaida deludes its minions and sends them out with bombs strapped to their chests. How do we fight that? I don't think we can or should.
Also, the association of al-Qaida to middle-eastern looking Islamics is hard to ignore. It affects us over here in the United States. Of course it is wrong to assume that a guy who looks Semitic, hates me and wants to blow me up. Of course. But how do I stop thinking that when every single suicide bomber that I've ever seen a picture of is a mid-eastern Islamic?
I know how. Let em win. Just leave their countries. Leave their regions of the world. M|go = Embargo those uncivilized terrorists. Don't do bidness of any kind with ANY country that supports/houses/tolerates suicide bombers or the organizations like al-Qaida that manufacture them. Let them eat and drink their oil and abandon. We will survive without their oil. Life will be different. It will be uncomfortable. But it is better than hate.
Is anybody with me? Am I wrong? If you don't want to answer, I understand. You can anonymously click on this survey:
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Comments (13)
I'm with ya.
The stuff about stereotypes is interesting. Have you read the book "Blink"? I forget the author's name but it's the same guy who wrote The Tipping Point (which I did not read). It's about how we make snap decisions and a big part of it involves stereotyping. He suggests cultivating "helpful" stereotyping skills and working to actively eliminate "hurtful" stereotyping (which is also not useful) from your brain. You should read it. It's a good book and an easy read with lots of amusing anecdotes.
@beli_grrl - I will check that book out. Sounds good.
you might be on to something AU. hate is bad. let's try not to hate.
I hate that response. ^^
1. you'ld be interested to see how much oil we currently get from Iraq (it's not much). the iraqi government has control of it anyway, it's not like we are pumping it out of the back door.
2. i don't like that went to war with iraq either, i think it was a dumb idea. that being said, now that we have toppled saddam we have a clearer objective. we need to leave some sort of stability in our wake. rumsfeld's strategy was a waist of precious time, but our new coarse has made a drastic improvement. i'm all for getting out of there whenever we can, but the government needs to get out responsibly and not leave it like we did in vietnam.
3. there's nothing compassionate about giving up.
How is there a 'drastic' improvement when our death toll is at an all time high? (for ^ )
Great minds think alike AU. Hate only destroys the hater
. Much peace and love to you my brother of a like mind...lol
@rcutsinger - At the time, I believed the so-called 'intelligence' that warned of WMDs. Hussein was a ninnyhammer and liked people thinking Iraq had WMDs. Turns out he didn't. Our choices are that our 'Intelligence' was lies or they are complete total morons (I say that with no disrespect intended to actual morons). I just cannot believe that Iraq's lack of WMDs was a surprise. 'These people' don't miss the fact that I unintentionally claimed my child last year as a dependent and he claimed himself. They sure didn't miss that....but they missed the fact that Iraq wasn't making WMDs???? I refuse to believe 'they' are that stupid. I feel manipulated and toyed with so that I would support a 'war against terrorism' that was really about Bush settling a grudge. Or about oil. Or something else that I am not sophisticated enough to comprehend.
I don't want they're stinking oil. If certain of their citizens are filled with such hatred and their government does nothing about it (at best), I don't want to trade with them. Our resources and efforts should be spent on helping people that can't help themselves. Help them by giving them shoes, food, medicine, whatever - but no trade. Certainly no purchase of their oil. Any drop of their oil that makes it's way into my car is support of terrorism. I don't want it. I don't want to trade with people that will blow themselves up to make a point. We don't have any business there. If we were lied to and were fool enough to believe it, we've got worse problems than they do.
I feel betrayed by the warmongers and I want nothing more to do with their stinking war. I want to wash my hands like Pilate. I'm not proud of that but that's how I feel. The best thing I can do at this opoint is speak with my vote.
As much as I hate this war, and I hate the one in Afghanistan as well, I cannot agree that cutting and running at this point will be good in the long run. Islamists will claim a great victory, America will look like the bully that got taken down, and nothing will have been accomplished. All those lives lost for what? We cannot ignore the rise and power of Islamism. Even if you care nothing for those people who have been deeply subjugated and abused by the fundamentalists and tyrants, and care not a whit about introducing the idea of freedom and democracy to an oppressed people, you need to care about what these bastards will do to us if we shrug our shoulders and ignore them.
But I agree with your opinion of cutting trade and assistance and letting them rot in hell, if we do withdraw. Perhaps the only way the peopple we are trying to "liberate" will ever find any freedom, is to suffer enough to rise up and overturn their masters.
It's not about oil. How much of Kuwait's oil did we appropriate when we won the war? Zero. Nada. None. It's about radical terrorism, and no matter how much we'd like it to, it's not going away. Far from it. Leaving Iraq now would signal surrender and defeat, and embolden them. Diplomacy and embargo's will have no effect against people who target innocent children and civilians, who brutally cut of heads and send their women clad with bombs to kill as many as possible. My conviction is that we must draw a line in the sand and stand our ground at this time and place or our children and grandchildren will face the brutal consequences. Now that we've drawn the line, the worst possible action would be to fold.
I can assure you I am no warmonger. I hate war with a passion. Just spanking my kids (which was very rare) was traumatic for me. I've done some reading lately on the civil war. Lincoln once said, "if there's a place worse than hell, I am there." A bolt of pain runs through me each time I hear of another soldier's death. I attended the funeral of a friend's son who died in the war, and believe me, it was deeply painful. I hate it. And I'm ready for this war to end, like everyone is. Even so, we must finish it.
Having said that, you're still my favorite blogger and someone, who even though we haven't met, I consider a friend. I'll not say anymore on this. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
I think for anyone to think that there will ever be "world peace" is only fooling themselves. World peace in our worldly thinking is impossible, the greed and the need for power is to great.
Today people will say "it's all about oil", tomorrow it will be something else.
Keep up the good work AU!
@simoncat1010 - @rcutsinger - thak you both for your thoughtful replies. I'm being all 90's and sharing my feelings not really taking a stand on anything. I appreciate and value your responses (see? I'm still being a sensitive 90's caring guy
).
I am interested in honor. When I read about a soldier, wounded for throwing himself on a grenade...dear LORD...what better and more noble occupation can there be? I am so, so proud of my friends and relatives that have been or are currently fighting over yonder. I do not want any of them to be injured or killed, of course...but...well...that ain't a bad way to go. It is honorable and noble.
I can find no honor in fighting terrorists. I don't want my friend blown up by some deluded teenager and I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to fight it. The Nazis were bad and the Japanese shouldn't have bombed Pearl Harbor but, at least they were noble warriors. Islam and these people foster methods of "warfare" I don't want anything to do with. I don't want my relative having to eye some teenage girl suspicously because she might be wired up with explosives.
That's why I want to cut & run. Let em win. They are willing to debase themselves in ways I'm not willing to respond to.
Also, I still can't shake the feeling that I was deliberately misled by my own government in 2001 and for the election in 2004. And that makes me angry too. If the gubment doesn't miss my mistake in filing my taxes, why can't they find Osama bin Laden? I suspect it is because my government wants to keep fighting for some reason that I can't discern, and they aren't saying.
I'm normally not conspiratorial thinker. But they lied and I think they are still lying.
We're almost at a point where we might not necessarily like the middle east people, but we need them in order to power our country, and they need us in order to get the weapons they need to stay in power.