2008-08-05
Two Trails to San Paulo
Apologies for the lengthy absence. The reason is similar to another one which I said I would explain later but never did. I'll explain this one later too. Another case of achieving the supposedly technically impossible.
I was reminded today on the train of a cowboy comic I once read. I used to enjoy reading cowboy books. They were very relaxing. They were all 97 pages and the only thing that changed was the name of the horse. Basically the male equivalent of Mills and Boon. Interestingly, I was never interested in war comics. I found them boring and pointless. No idea why the difference, as finding out the new horse's name is clearly pointless too. Although ...
One of the books that I read was titled "Two Trails to San Paulo". A thief snuck up on the hero only to get caught, because he was apparently making "enough noise to wake the dead". After that drama, the hero asked the thief how to get to San Paulo. The thief explained that there were two ways, one which was difficult, so he recommended the other. The hero knew that you should never take the advice of a thief, so went the allegedly difficult route.
A massive adventure ensued, after which he meets the thief again, who says "I told you not to go that way!!!".
There are various paths of logic one can take to arrive at the conclusion that going to war in 2003 was a good idea. Here are some of them:
1. You are a bigot who hates any country that starts with the letter "I" and any chance to bomb such a country, you seize at any opportunity.
2. You want to steal some oil and you hope that as part of liberating Iraq, you can snatch a couple of barrels without the entire world knowing what you just did.
3. You are a bigot who likes killing brown people, doesn't matter if they're good or bad, and you know that war always kills people, so that's great.
4. You are a bigot who likes killing Muslims, doesn't matter if they're god or bad, and you know that war always kills people, so that's great.
5. You know that Saddam doesn't like your country, and you do like your country, and think that the world would be a better place with one less person who doesn't like your country.
6. You think that freedom is precious and that it's worth paying a price for, even including some of your own countrymen.
All different trails to San Paulo. The left-wing assumes that the pro-war are all following 1-4 or similar, despite the fact that they've never met even one single person who laid out that logic and said that that was their trail to San Paulo.
Most (think Rumsfeld) pro-war I have met follow path 5, just a general desire to eliminate threats (hostility of any sort) and Saddam fit that bill. These people unfortunately tend not to act unless there's some "national interest" angle that they can muster up, although they will generally assist path 6 people (think Wolfowitz) in achieving their aims, even if they raise their eyebrows at some of these whacky plans.
However, the Iraqi blogs contained mostly path 6 people. It was wonderful to see people from all over the world come together in support of the free world. Freedom had no barrier. Being an Arab and a Muslim was no barrier. We could be brothers with any race, any religion. We have a desire for freedom in common.
We know the horrible path that the left-wing took that had them arrive at pure hell - where not even institutionalized rape was too much to stomach. It was only brown people being raped. Who the hell cares about that? Not Obama, that's for sure. Brown people are only useful to someone like Obama if they can help him get into office so that he can hurt some whites. The Iraqis have nothing to offer Obama.
Fortunately, despite an adventure (who would have thought that Muslims could be religious bigots too???), we have arrived safely in San Paulo. The Iraqi military is cleaning up like there's no tomorrow. I'm sure glad I'm not the one trying to overthrow a 600,000-strong security force. Soon we will merely watch how San Paulo's GDP per capita in PPP progresses year by year. A similar discussion that I am having with a Taiwanese at the moment who has decided to compare, amongst all people, with Ireland. Another country starting with "I" due to be bombed by people following path 1. If only Obama or McCain would let them!
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I was reminded today on the train of a cowboy comic I once read. I used to enjoy reading cowboy books. They were very relaxing. They were all 97 pages and the only thing that changed was the name of the horse. Basically the male equivalent of Mills and Boon. Interestingly, I was never interested in war comics. I found them boring and pointless. No idea why the difference, as finding out the new horse's name is clearly pointless too. Although ...
One of the books that I read was titled "Two Trails to San Paulo". A thief snuck up on the hero only to get caught, because he was apparently making "enough noise to wake the dead". After that drama, the hero asked the thief how to get to San Paulo. The thief explained that there were two ways, one which was difficult, so he recommended the other. The hero knew that you should never take the advice of a thief, so went the allegedly difficult route.
A massive adventure ensued, after which he meets the thief again, who says "I told you not to go that way!!!".
There are various paths of logic one can take to arrive at the conclusion that going to war in 2003 was a good idea. Here are some of them:
1. You are a bigot who hates any country that starts with the letter "I" and any chance to bomb such a country, you seize at any opportunity.
2. You want to steal some oil and you hope that as part of liberating Iraq, you can snatch a couple of barrels without the entire world knowing what you just did.
3. You are a bigot who likes killing brown people, doesn't matter if they're good or bad, and you know that war always kills people, so that's great.
4. You are a bigot who likes killing Muslims, doesn't matter if they're god or bad, and you know that war always kills people, so that's great.
5. You know that Saddam doesn't like your country, and you do like your country, and think that the world would be a better place with one less person who doesn't like your country.
6. You think that freedom is precious and that it's worth paying a price for, even including some of your own countrymen.
All different trails to San Paulo. The left-wing assumes that the pro-war are all following 1-4 or similar, despite the fact that they've never met even one single person who laid out that logic and said that that was their trail to San Paulo.
Most (think Rumsfeld) pro-war I have met follow path 5, just a general desire to eliminate threats (hostility of any sort) and Saddam fit that bill. These people unfortunately tend not to act unless there's some "national interest" angle that they can muster up, although they will generally assist path 6 people (think Wolfowitz) in achieving their aims, even if they raise their eyebrows at some of these whacky plans.
However, the Iraqi blogs contained mostly path 6 people. It was wonderful to see people from all over the world come together in support of the free world. Freedom had no barrier. Being an Arab and a Muslim was no barrier. We could be brothers with any race, any religion. We have a desire for freedom in common.
We know the horrible path that the left-wing took that had them arrive at pure hell - where not even institutionalized rape was too much to stomach. It was only brown people being raped. Who the hell cares about that? Not Obama, that's for sure. Brown people are only useful to someone like Obama if they can help him get into office so that he can hurt some whites. The Iraqis have nothing to offer Obama.
Fortunately, despite an adventure (who would have thought that Muslims could be religious bigots too???), we have arrived safely in San Paulo. The Iraqi military is cleaning up like there's no tomorrow. I'm sure glad I'm not the one trying to overthrow a 600,000-strong security force. Soon we will merely watch how San Paulo's GDP per capita in PPP progresses year by year. A similar discussion that I am having with a Taiwanese at the moment who has decided to compare, amongst all people, with Ireland. Another country starting with "I" due to be bombed by people following path 1. If only Obama or McCain would let them!
# posted by Paul Edwards @ 23:04 
