2009-05-02
Pommy Kudos
Well, the British managed to outlast the treacherous cowardly Australians who pulled out of Iraq because they couldn't stand nasty words from the left-wing, instead of having the guts to just raise a middle finger at them.
It's difficult to say whether the British themselves are leaving prematurely. It is important to not stay any longer in Iraq than necessary, to avoid accidentally triggering off a war with the populace. On the other hand, the fact that they are being replaced by Americans suggests there is still a need for assistance, and no country should be abandoning its allies while ever the ally wishes assistance. At least make a token effort. The gutless Aussies left Iraq not because they were no longer required, but out of principle. That's a very big difference. America had specifically requested Australia's assistance, and we even turned them down. A disgraceful period in Australia's history, and I look forward to the next Liberal government apologizing to both America and Iraq, on behalf of the Labor party, for this treachery.
Anyway, one thing that doesn't get much play is the fact that while the British may have done selfish conquering in the past (much like Mohammed in fact), it is now a liberator. Talabani said "In the past the British forces came to occupy against the will of the Iraqi people. This time they came here to liberate Iraqi people from the worst kind of dictatorship.". Well done Talabani! It's good to see decent people out there who can recognize the difference between modern Britain and Britain of the past. Now if only the Americans could do the same! Although note that I would dispute some of those sentiments. While I agree that the British occupied Iraq, against the will of the Iraqi people, to stop them allying with Hitler, I don't actually think that is a bad thing (I support the mass slaughter of the guilty people who supported Hitler's mass slaughter of innocent people). I don't think the British control of India or Hong Kong was either. I'd stack that up against the tragic tale of India post-Britain and mainland China vs HK. Selling opium to the Chinese was bad though. But Chinese being taught these bad things today instead of all the good things Britain does (like liberate Iraq) is what is truly bad, and says more about the Chinese dictatorship than it does about modern Britain.
Now over to a Strategypage article:
"But getting a real democracy going turns out to be more difficult than believed just two decades ago. Turns out that you need more fundamental changes, like widespread education and economic freedom, to make democracy work. While it's relatively easy to implement mass education (except in some Islamic countries where the education of women is not popular, at least among the men). But economic freedom, which requires a reliable judicial system, has to overcome centuries of privilege and corrupt methods that the rich use to cripple completion and maintain the wealth of a relatively few families. In the West, the economic freedom and rule of law is called "civil society." Turns out that, on examining the historical record, one realizes how long it takes for the old customs to be transformed. Speeding this up is difficult, although Iraq has become a laboratory for discovering ways to make this happen. No one yet knows how this will all end."
Like Hallelujah man! This is what I've been saying all along, and the pea-brains can just never understand. In order to protect the free world (and to eliminate the need for our expensive militaries), we need to defeat our enemies first. And to do that, we need to culturally change them to be the same as us (liberators rather than subjugators). And we didn't actually know why they were different in the first place. And the only way to find that out (theoretically it was derivable from first principles, but no-one had the skills to do that - or if they did, the media didn't give them any air-time) was to go there and kick the lid off the pot. This was done, and the explanation was derived after great effort - all summarized in message 666. It's still above everyone's heads, but maybe after a few centuries the penny will drop. In the meantime I spend my time doing logical things (and provably so, because the computer understands, no matter how much various humanoids wail) rather than fruitlessly try to make my way past wall-to-wall human dogma. Computers are really great like that.
The best evidence that this is the way to culturally change people comes from Saddam himself. Why did Saddam suppress freedom of speech and restrict access to the internet and satellite TV? He knew those things were dangerous for his tyranny. We've just opened up access to those things, and Iraq's oil is now going to the people so that they can buy those things. Checkmate Saddam. Truth and freedom wins. Just like a self-reproducing C compiler that IEBCOMPR returns "0" against.
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It's difficult to say whether the British themselves are leaving prematurely. It is important to not stay any longer in Iraq than necessary, to avoid accidentally triggering off a war with the populace. On the other hand, the fact that they are being replaced by Americans suggests there is still a need for assistance, and no country should be abandoning its allies while ever the ally wishes assistance. At least make a token effort. The gutless Aussies left Iraq not because they were no longer required, but out of principle. That's a very big difference. America had specifically requested Australia's assistance, and we even turned them down. A disgraceful period in Australia's history, and I look forward to the next Liberal government apologizing to both America and Iraq, on behalf of the Labor party, for this treachery.
Anyway, one thing that doesn't get much play is the fact that while the British may have done selfish conquering in the past (much like Mohammed in fact), it is now a liberator. Talabani said "In the past the British forces came to occupy against the will of the Iraqi people. This time they came here to liberate Iraqi people from the worst kind of dictatorship.". Well done Talabani! It's good to see decent people out there who can recognize the difference between modern Britain and Britain of the past. Now if only the Americans could do the same! Although note that I would dispute some of those sentiments. While I agree that the British occupied Iraq, against the will of the Iraqi people, to stop them allying with Hitler, I don't actually think that is a bad thing (I support the mass slaughter of the guilty people who supported Hitler's mass slaughter of innocent people). I don't think the British control of India or Hong Kong was either. I'd stack that up against the tragic tale of India post-Britain and mainland China vs HK. Selling opium to the Chinese was bad though. But Chinese being taught these bad things today instead of all the good things Britain does (like liberate Iraq) is what is truly bad, and says more about the Chinese dictatorship than it does about modern Britain.
Now over to a Strategypage article:
"But getting a real democracy going turns out to be more difficult than believed just two decades ago. Turns out that you need more fundamental changes, like widespread education and economic freedom, to make democracy work. While it's relatively easy to implement mass education (except in some Islamic countries where the education of women is not popular, at least among the men). But economic freedom, which requires a reliable judicial system, has to overcome centuries of privilege and corrupt methods that the rich use to cripple completion and maintain the wealth of a relatively few families. In the West, the economic freedom and rule of law is called "civil society." Turns out that, on examining the historical record, one realizes how long it takes for the old customs to be transformed. Speeding this up is difficult, although Iraq has become a laboratory for discovering ways to make this happen. No one yet knows how this will all end."
Like Hallelujah man! This is what I've been saying all along, and the pea-brains can just never understand. In order to protect the free world (and to eliminate the need for our expensive militaries), we need to defeat our enemies first. And to do that, we need to culturally change them to be the same as us (liberators rather than subjugators). And we didn't actually know why they were different in the first place. And the only way to find that out (theoretically it was derivable from first principles, but no-one had the skills to do that - or if they did, the media didn't give them any air-time) was to go there and kick the lid off the pot. This was done, and the explanation was derived after great effort - all summarized in message 666. It's still above everyone's heads, but maybe after a few centuries the penny will drop. In the meantime I spend my time doing logical things (and provably so, because the computer understands, no matter how much various humanoids wail) rather than fruitlessly try to make my way past wall-to-wall human dogma. Computers are really great like that.
The best evidence that this is the way to culturally change people comes from Saddam himself. Why did Saddam suppress freedom of speech and restrict access to the internet and satellite TV? He knew those things were dangerous for his tyranny. We've just opened up access to those things, and Iraq's oil is now going to the people so that they can buy those things. Checkmate Saddam. Truth and freedom wins. Just like a self-reproducing C compiler that IEBCOMPR returns "0" against.
# posted by Paul Edwards @ 11:19 
