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Monday
January 31, 2005

Sicking The Saddamites #1 - To The Iraqis! Long May They Prosper In Liberty! by Robert Winefield

Yesterday's events give me hope that Iraq will one day be as states like Ireland, Germany, Japan and the USA are today. Each of them withstood a great deal of blood-letting on their path to establishing societies (flawed and all though they might be) of and for free men and women. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (15 messages)

Post 0

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 12:36am

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Well said, Robert.

It seems like SOLO has had its own Iraq attack today. :)

As I mentioned in another post this evening, the discovery of such a successful voter turnout was moving, indeed.

Undoubtedly the pundits will argue that this is only a "symbolic" victory, that there is still very far to go.

But they got to this step, and it is a glorious one. The most important, in fact.

It makes me want to dance and sing knowing that Iraqi men and women, in all parts of that country, were able to walk out of a voting booth feeling like the most important person in the world, because they had the opportunity, the right, to say "This, in my name."

Post 1

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 1:09am

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"To the Iraqis! Long may they prosper in Liberty!"

Well said! Thanks Robert.

Post 2

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 2:47am

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You've always been so staunch & decent, Robert�it was a pleasure, but not a surprise, to receive this article from you today, and a total pleasure to post it. You are a Nem Plus!!

Linz

Post 3

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 8:14am

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Jennifer - Yes it was magnificent wasn't it!

I was glued to Fox News for the first two hours of polling. These being the infamous "witching hours" after morning prayers when the suicide bombers are at their worst. It was awful. I was expecting at any moment to hear that one of those murdering pricks had infiltrated a polling place and blown himself to bits.

But in the end I was elated! As was Hiraldo Rivera - Fox News reporter - who was gushing as he stood and described the site from a roof-top in the outer security cordon of a polling place in a small city outside of Baghdad.

Yes they have a long way to go. The constitution they are hoping to draft will make or break them I think.

But then even the US constitution wasn't perfect to start with. The American Forefathers omitted the bit about banning slavery. I've heard estimates that 1 million Americans died in the Civil War that ended slavery. God knows how many have died since 1865 trying to win equality for the black man in this country.

The constitution as drafted didn't even garuantee women the right to vote and own property! I know for a fact that when Kansas was formed that women weren't allowed to vote and own land. Considering how easy it was to become widowed in those days I shudder to think about the consequences of that "little omission"! I seem to remember President Wilson was campaigning for Imperial Germany's right to fair treatment in 1918-19 while denying the same to American women! Contrast this with the number of female Iraqis voting yesterday!

But despite all that the USA hasn't turned out all that bad. That is why I am optimistic about Iraq.

Marcus and Linz. Thank you both for your kind words.

As to my support of the war - you are welcome. I'm not a great fan of war. I've spent too much time reading the history of WWI & II to believe in all the glorified sacrifice bullshit.

But if WWII showed anything it was that when a fight is inevitable, it is better to fight when the opponent is at his weakest. Britain and France waited until the last possible minute in 1939 and it cost them, the Commonwealth and the USA dearly.

Not this time thankfully. Yes even one dead soldier is a heavy price to pay. But one needs only to stand and look at the number of names on the Vietnam memorial or the ocean of white crosses in the Commonwealth cemeteries in and around Flanders or Cassino to see how bad it *could* have been.

Post 4

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 11:29am

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Your title says it all to people of good will. What is sickening to me is that it isn't a universal cry.

Post 5

Monday, January 31, 2005 - 1:44pm

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Robert:

If there is one thing that can top your wonderful article, it is your post #3 above.

And if there is one thing that can best your post # 3 it is the sheer joy I feel tonight in the knowledge that Iraqi's are now freer than they have ever been, and that the deaths of the courageous soldiers who made it happen were not in vain.

My respect for the idea and people of America also feels vindicated. Although Britain and other (notably Anglo-Saxon) countries pitched in, this was THEIR war, and they deserve to be bathed in gratitude.

Thank you.

David

Post 6

Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - 7:57pm

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An outstanding, heartfelt message, Robert. Thank you so much. I can only echo your eloquent statement of praise of the courage of ordinary Iraqis in standing up for self-determination against the bloodlusting thugs who would enslave them. Witnessing such defiant bravery and self-assertion was a tonic for my own spirit--and an affirmation of the truth that the spirit of Man cannot and will not be destroyed.

For a wonderful moment, we were all Iraqis--and they were all Americans.

Post 7

Friday, February 4, 2005 - 12:42am

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Hey Mr. Bidonotto, I hear there is an opening for a new Bush neocon shill. Pays well too. Kindly send in your application. Easy too. Just parrot whatever Rice says about Iraq and don't bother thinking.

Post 8

Friday, February 4, 2005 - 1:01am

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Are you not gone yet, Fulwiler, or do you get a kick out of heckling intelligent, honest minds with your prattle?

You've now said goodbye twice. I'm hoping one of these times you'll actually mean it.

Post 9

Friday, February 4, 2005 - 6:45am

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Jennifer, the jerk can't spell, either.

Hey Mark -- it's B-I-D-I-N-O-T-T-O.

A medical request: If you ever manage to dig up a single intelligible argument from those online trash heaps where you "market anarchists" spin your interminable masturbatory fantasies about Private Protection Agencies, please DON'T post it here. The sheer unexpected shock of it might stop our hearts.

Post 10

Friday, February 4, 2005 - 7:43am

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Mr. Bidnotta, Bibota, Bibbotta, Nottibibo,

You said to Mark: A medical request: If you ever manage to dig up a single intelligible argument from those online trash heaps where you "market anarchists" spin your interminable masturbatory fantasies about Private Protection Agencies, please DON'T post it here. The sheer unexpected shock of it might stop our hearts.

Don't be so hard on the guys masturbatory tendencies, it's he only way he can have sex with someone that's willing.

George

Post 11

Friday, February 4, 2005 - 7:59am

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George, are you suggesting that "anarcho-capitalism" is the intellectual equivalent of premature ejaculation?

Post 12

Friday, February 4, 2005 - 8:11am

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yes

Post 13

Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 5:59pm

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Its easy to gang up on critics like Fulwiler. But he does have a strong point. Many of the above posts prove that Fox news propoganda is being swallowed without thought.

The fact is that the results of the election confirm that it was above all a Shiite event. The joy the world witnessed at the polling places was mostly Shiite joy. What the election was not was a decision by "the Iraqi people." It was a fraud. This is an election that U.S. policymakers were forced to accept and now hope can entrench their power, not displace it. They seek not an election that will lead to a U.S. withdrawal, but one that will bolster their ability to make a case for staying indefinitely. A real election cannot go on under foreign occupation in which the electoral process is managed by the occupiers who have clear preferences in the outcome. The casting of ballots will not create a legitimate Iraqi government. Such a government is possible only when Iraqis have real control over their own future. And that will come only when the United States is gone.

Fulwiler should not go just because he makes US state worshipers uncomfortable!

Post 14

Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 10:32pm

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Interesting, No6, that you should prattle on so...do you read what you're writing?

First of all, none of us are U.S. state worshippers, witness the very positive appeal of my anti-inauguration article. Furthermore, it's interesting that you state that Iraqis will only control their own destinies when the United States leaves...so, did they have their destinies in their hands prior to the fall of Saddam? Should we thank or curse the United States for that? Blank out.

If anything, the United States has an honest interest in a pluralistic government, because a Shi'ite rule would be the rise of the Ayatollahs and a proto-Iranian state. So why your strange contention that a Shi'ite election is what the United States wanted?

I think what bothers me most is that you assume that merely because there are foreigners running the show at the moment means that every Iraqi will bend over and play Paris Hilton. But the insurgency and the Shi'ite Clerics put paid to that in a hurry.

Fulwiler doesn't make me uncomfortable, despite Peikoff's admonition to "stick to a position", I am still debating with myself over the idea of invading and reforming non-threatening (or minorly threatening) nations. Fulwiler makes me angry because he launches ad hominems instead of real debate, but since you do the same thing, birds of a feather...