2007-01-31
Using Proxies
Here is a good argument against the current strategy, which I would like to answer.
"First, the strategy relies on the Iraqis somehow magically improving their performance in a very short time period. Yet the argument for staying in Iraq is that it is a vital AMERICAN interest. If we are seeking victory in Iraq because it is vital to America then we need a strategy which will win even if our Iraqi allies are inadequate. We did not rely on the Free French to defeat Nazi Germany. We did not rely on the South Koreans to stop North Korea and China during the Korean War. When it mattered to American vital interests we accepted all the help we could get but we made sure we had enough strength to win on our own if need be."
That is basically true. When it comes to a conventional military vs military clash, you do not expect a weak force to take on a strong force by themselves and sit back and watch them lose. You do it yourself. That's exactly why you don't rely on the poor Iraqis to stage an uprising in 1991 and then stand back while they all get slaughtered by helicopters.
However, that is not the situation in Iraq. In Iraq it is the insurgents who are the weak force, and we can stand back and watch the Iraqi government wipe them out. This is exactly the best use of American resources. Don't do work that the locals can do themselves unless there's a very good cost-benefit argument for it. In addition, there is the whole political argument of non-Muslims killing Muslims. As far as possible we want this to be a purely Muslim vs Muslim affair. The US is not (at the moment) trying to force Muslims to do anything or to kill Muslims. It is vital to make sure this is not a Muslim vs infidel war. To achieve that, you hand over all responsibility to the Muslims to do whatever the majority wants, as quickly as possible.
Additionally, a lot of people made the claim prior to the war that you can't just hand freedom to people on a platter, they have to fight for it themselves. The claim is ludicrous, but regardless, at the end of this, the Iraqis will be able to genuinely say that they fought for their freedom themselves. It was in no way handed to them on a platter by the US. The US just took out the major impediment - Saddam's forces, which allowed the Iraqis to essentially rise up in revolution. It was just a more organized revolution, with democratic elections and revolutionaries getting proper military training.
Above all else, we need to prove that in a war of liberation, you don't need sufficient troops to suppress the population, you merely need enough troops to ensure that no-one else can suppress the population. And then let the majority do whatever they want. This strategy has essentially worked. You need to understand that the sectarian violence has NO MILITARY EFFECT. All it does is slightly reduce the population, the same as car crashes. Iraq is not a mess, the military strategy is working out fine. The fact that there are a lot of nutcases who think that random destruction will somehow (somehow! somehow!) enable them to defeat Iraq's democratically-elected government has nothing to do with Bush or the US military. It's just a feature of Iraqi mentality. The Iraqis will need to come to grips with this in their own time. All the US needs to do is ensure that no-one topples the Iraqi government and everything else will sort itself out. They are doing an admirable job of this.
By the way, we DO expect the South Koreans to defend South Korea also. Now that they are actually able to do that, the US has a relatively small number of troops there. The same goes for Iraq. The Iraqi government is able to defeat the insurgents on its own, so we expect them to be the ones to do the fighting, and preserve the US troops for another day. This is the best use of US troops. No-one is asking the Iraqis to take on the Iranians or the Turks in a conventional battle. That is the US's job to protect Iraq from external invasion. It will probably remain so indefinitely so that Iraq doesn't need to waste money on expensive weapons to take on these countries when it can instead bludge off the US like everyone else does.
If you REALLY want to get picky, you should argue that the US should have stopped as soon as the statue fell, hunkered down in well-protected bases, and told the Iraqis that anyone who supported democracy should come to the protected bases, ask for training, which would be given, and then they could be sent out to fight the revolution. This would have limited the US deaths to 100 instead of 3000. Or alternatively you could argue that the old Iraqi army should have been reused so that the US could have been totally out of Iraq within 4 weeks, again with a loss of 100 US troops only. This argument will be fine for Iran and other countries, but for Iraq, it was important to give them the best shot at democracy, which meant being more (but not totally) proactive. The right balance needed to be found between getting the Iraqis to fight for their own freedom, and using US troops to significantly enhance the Iraqi's fighting strength.
"The inherent contradiction in the administration strategy is simple. If Iraq matters as much as the President says it does (and here I agree with the President on the supreme importance of victory) then the United States must not design and rely on a strategy which relies on the Iraqis to win.
On the other hand if the war is so unimportant that the fate of Iraq can be allowed to rest with the efforts of a new, weak, untested and inexperienced government then why are we risking American lives.
Both propositions cannot be true."
Not sure what you mean in the first statement by "rely". Unless my understanding of the military equation is faulty, 300k Iraqi troops with a monopoly on heavy weapons, popular support, and US air cover (at minimum) should be able to defeat 20k insurgents. So yes, it sort of "relies" on the insurgents not having some sort of superpowers that haven't been factored into the equation. But even then, it's still not "rely". There is nothing stopping more US troops from being sent to the theatre if some of those insurgents suddenly gain superpowers. Nothing has been lost. Nothing at all.
As for your second proposition, it's too simplistic. You're saying that Iraq is either important or unimportant, no room for grey. Iraq is important enough that some US troops should be sacrificed to ease the burden on the democratically-elected Iraqi government. It's not so important that hundreds of thousands of US troops should be poured in to set up a clone of America, against the will of the people if necessary. It's not so unimportant that we should insist not a single American soldier should be lost in defence of the democratically-elected Iraqi government. It's a trade-off that needs to be made. Look for cost-justified use of American power. Not just in Iraq, but elsewhere in the world. That's the key - cost-justified.
By the way, with 3000 Americans dying on the roads every MONTH, can you please put 3000 American soldiers dying in FOUR YEARS into perspective and get away from this concept of "not one American soldier should be lost doing xyz"? If American soldiers are so delicate that you can't afford to lose a single one, then you should hire foreign mercenaries that you ARE willing to lose. Or train exiles from the countries that are going to be liberated. I'm not sure that the American soldiers themselves will be too happy about them being treated like brittle pansies, but so long as you treat them as such, it's time to diversify. The British use Gurkhas and the French have a Foreign Legion. One way or the other, you need to have usable troops or you are seriously undermining US national security, by essentially using civilians to shield the military, because you're more concerned about the death of soldiers than civilians.
War isn't meant to be like this, and the US soldiers themselves never asked you to treat their life as sacrosanct in relation to foreigners. I've heard of commanders saying to their troops that the life of an Iraqi civilian is as valuable as one of their own troops. While I wouldn't go that far myself, 3000 US troops lost for the liberation of 27 million foreigners is a bargain in my opinion. Consider it a form of foreign aid. You might want to consider publicly announcing that until further notice all foreign aid is going to be directed into wars of liberation. That is actually what I do with my own personal donations. I'm not actually recommending this though. At this point in world history, it is strategic to keep the other forms of foreign aid going. Yes, it is unfair on the US taxpayer to have to shoulder such a large portion of the burden, but in my opinion you just need to grin and bear it. History will honour your sacrifice, and show the rest of the world up for the lazy immoral slackers that they are. Until then, you just have to be patient. It'll all work out in the end. This is the final straight.
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"First, the strategy relies on the Iraqis somehow magically improving their performance in a very short time period. Yet the argument for staying in Iraq is that it is a vital AMERICAN interest. If we are seeking victory in Iraq because it is vital to America then we need a strategy which will win even if our Iraqi allies are inadequate. We did not rely on the Free French to defeat Nazi Germany. We did not rely on the South Koreans to stop North Korea and China during the Korean War. When it mattered to American vital interests we accepted all the help we could get but we made sure we had enough strength to win on our own if need be."
That is basically true. When it comes to a conventional military vs military clash, you do not expect a weak force to take on a strong force by themselves and sit back and watch them lose. You do it yourself. That's exactly why you don't rely on the poor Iraqis to stage an uprising in 1991 and then stand back while they all get slaughtered by helicopters.
However, that is not the situation in Iraq. In Iraq it is the insurgents who are the weak force, and we can stand back and watch the Iraqi government wipe them out. This is exactly the best use of American resources. Don't do work that the locals can do themselves unless there's a very good cost-benefit argument for it. In addition, there is the whole political argument of non-Muslims killing Muslims. As far as possible we want this to be a purely Muslim vs Muslim affair. The US is not (at the moment) trying to force Muslims to do anything or to kill Muslims. It is vital to make sure this is not a Muslim vs infidel war. To achieve that, you hand over all responsibility to the Muslims to do whatever the majority wants, as quickly as possible.
Additionally, a lot of people made the claim prior to the war that you can't just hand freedom to people on a platter, they have to fight for it themselves. The claim is ludicrous, but regardless, at the end of this, the Iraqis will be able to genuinely say that they fought for their freedom themselves. It was in no way handed to them on a platter by the US. The US just took out the major impediment - Saddam's forces, which allowed the Iraqis to essentially rise up in revolution. It was just a more organized revolution, with democratic elections and revolutionaries getting proper military training.
Above all else, we need to prove that in a war of liberation, you don't need sufficient troops to suppress the population, you merely need enough troops to ensure that no-one else can suppress the population. And then let the majority do whatever they want. This strategy has essentially worked. You need to understand that the sectarian violence has NO MILITARY EFFECT. All it does is slightly reduce the population, the same as car crashes. Iraq is not a mess, the military strategy is working out fine. The fact that there are a lot of nutcases who think that random destruction will somehow (somehow! somehow!) enable them to defeat Iraq's democratically-elected government has nothing to do with Bush or the US military. It's just a feature of Iraqi mentality. The Iraqis will need to come to grips with this in their own time. All the US needs to do is ensure that no-one topples the Iraqi government and everything else will sort itself out. They are doing an admirable job of this.
By the way, we DO expect the South Koreans to defend South Korea also. Now that they are actually able to do that, the US has a relatively small number of troops there. The same goes for Iraq. The Iraqi government is able to defeat the insurgents on its own, so we expect them to be the ones to do the fighting, and preserve the US troops for another day. This is the best use of US troops. No-one is asking the Iraqis to take on the Iranians or the Turks in a conventional battle. That is the US's job to protect Iraq from external invasion. It will probably remain so indefinitely so that Iraq doesn't need to waste money on expensive weapons to take on these countries when it can instead bludge off the US like everyone else does.
If you REALLY want to get picky, you should argue that the US should have stopped as soon as the statue fell, hunkered down in well-protected bases, and told the Iraqis that anyone who supported democracy should come to the protected bases, ask for training, which would be given, and then they could be sent out to fight the revolution. This would have limited the US deaths to 100 instead of 3000. Or alternatively you could argue that the old Iraqi army should have been reused so that the US could have been totally out of Iraq within 4 weeks, again with a loss of 100 US troops only. This argument will be fine for Iran and other countries, but for Iraq, it was important to give them the best shot at democracy, which meant being more (but not totally) proactive. The right balance needed to be found between getting the Iraqis to fight for their own freedom, and using US troops to significantly enhance the Iraqi's fighting strength.
"The inherent contradiction in the administration strategy is simple. If Iraq matters as much as the President says it does (and here I agree with the President on the supreme importance of victory) then the United States must not design and rely on a strategy which relies on the Iraqis to win.
On the other hand if the war is so unimportant that the fate of Iraq can be allowed to rest with the efforts of a new, weak, untested and inexperienced government then why are we risking American lives.
Both propositions cannot be true."
Not sure what you mean in the first statement by "rely". Unless my understanding of the military equation is faulty, 300k Iraqi troops with a monopoly on heavy weapons, popular support, and US air cover (at minimum) should be able to defeat 20k insurgents. So yes, it sort of "relies" on the insurgents not having some sort of superpowers that haven't been factored into the equation. But even then, it's still not "rely". There is nothing stopping more US troops from being sent to the theatre if some of those insurgents suddenly gain superpowers. Nothing has been lost. Nothing at all.
As for your second proposition, it's too simplistic. You're saying that Iraq is either important or unimportant, no room for grey. Iraq is important enough that some US troops should be sacrificed to ease the burden on the democratically-elected Iraqi government. It's not so important that hundreds of thousands of US troops should be poured in to set up a clone of America, against the will of the people if necessary. It's not so unimportant that we should insist not a single American soldier should be lost in defence of the democratically-elected Iraqi government. It's a trade-off that needs to be made. Look for cost-justified use of American power. Not just in Iraq, but elsewhere in the world. That's the key - cost-justified.
By the way, with 3000 Americans dying on the roads every MONTH, can you please put 3000 American soldiers dying in FOUR YEARS into perspective and get away from this concept of "not one American soldier should be lost doing xyz"? If American soldiers are so delicate that you can't afford to lose a single one, then you should hire foreign mercenaries that you ARE willing to lose. Or train exiles from the countries that are going to be liberated. I'm not sure that the American soldiers themselves will be too happy about them being treated like brittle pansies, but so long as you treat them as such, it's time to diversify. The British use Gurkhas and the French have a Foreign Legion. One way or the other, you need to have usable troops or you are seriously undermining US national security, by essentially using civilians to shield the military, because you're more concerned about the death of soldiers than civilians.
War isn't meant to be like this, and the US soldiers themselves never asked you to treat their life as sacrosanct in relation to foreigners. I've heard of commanders saying to their troops that the life of an Iraqi civilian is as valuable as one of their own troops. While I wouldn't go that far myself, 3000 US troops lost for the liberation of 27 million foreigners is a bargain in my opinion. Consider it a form of foreign aid. You might want to consider publicly announcing that until further notice all foreign aid is going to be directed into wars of liberation. That is actually what I do with my own personal donations. I'm not actually recommending this though. At this point in world history, it is strategic to keep the other forms of foreign aid going. Yes, it is unfair on the US taxpayer to have to shoulder such a large portion of the burden, but in my opinion you just need to grin and bear it. History will honour your sacrifice, and show the rest of the world up for the lazy immoral slackers that they are. Until then, you just have to be patient. It'll all work out in the end. This is the final straight.
2007-01-30
Petraeus Lists Mistakes
Ok, someone else has come up with a list of mistakes. Let's go through it.
"The first problem was that the national elections, expected to unify the country behind a legitimate Iraqi government, did the opposite."
The Iraqis have a national unity government. The government doesn't have any laws that discriminate against people based on race or religion. The people who reject this status of equal rights are basically the enemy. The fact that there are enemies is not a policy mistake. What exactly is he suggesting as an alternative? Invade a different country where no-one objects to democracy???
"The elections hardened sectarian positions as Iraqis voted largely based on ethnic and sectarian group identity,"
And how is this a mistake of the US? Did you want the US to force a 2-party non-sectarian government onto Iraq in the first elections? The UK hasn't even done that to Northern Ireland. I agree that the Iraqis shouldn't be voting along sectarian lines. Nor should the people of Northern Ireland. But failing to force this onto the Iraqi people was not a mistake. It was the least worst option. First we should see if the Iraqis naturally split up their political system along economic instead of sectarian lines. They might even make it a law that parties can't be sectarian, similar to what Belgium does. But forcing this down the throat of Iraqis at this point in history is not the right thing to do. At the moment it is best to observe what the Iraqis do of their own free will, so that we can have a good understanding of them.
"The U.S. government underestimated the security challenges in Iraq, particularly after the Feb. 22, 2006, bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara."
The US doesn't have perfect knowledge. You're basically complaining the US doesn't have a crystal ball. The only thing you can do is react to the situation on the ground.
"The United States also overestimated its ability to create new security institutions following the disbandment of the Iraqi security forces,"
This is another case of not having perfect information. Training up Iraqis was breaking new ground. The Army did this to the best of its capability. There was nothing wrong with the policy decision to instruct the Army to train up Iraqis, and there is no sign of the Army being negligent in carrying out that order.
"The U.S. military has been slow to recognize and react to the evolving threat in Iraq"
The US's primary job is to train Iraqis to take care of their own threats. This process has not been interrupted at all.
"What began as an insurgency has morphed into a conflict that includes insurgent attacks, terrorism, sectarian violence, and violent crime,"
This is a feature of Iraqis. Again, would you have preferred that we invaded Switzerland instead? You need to deal with the enemy you have, not the one you would like. There was no policy error nor military negligence here.
"It is now conventional wisdom that de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraq military were mistakes."
The hell they were. The most important thing was to get new institutions that the majority of the Iraqi people could trust. Ones that didn't have a history of oppressing the people. So that the Iraqi people didn't think "this new army is just the old one under a different name", and reject it, and not sign up to it either. A lot of people thought that Arabs weren't ready for democracy. We needed to give it the best possible shot by setting up western-style institutions. Fortunately the Iraqi people accepted their new institutions and democracy was successful. That was the main prize, and it was obtained. 300 political parties started up, instead of 0 or 1.
"De-Baathification was intended to remove former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's henchmen but it went far deeper than that. The major problem was there was no way for Baathists to reconcile with the new regime and therefore no reason to support the new government."
So? They were a minority. The majority were happy. And now the majority are in a position to reinstate the ex-Baathists if they want. It will be their decision, not the US's. As it should be.
"Petraeus held a reconciliation commission at Mosul University. More than 100 university officials and teachers were recommended for reinstatement in their jobs. The names were submitted to the de-Baathification committee in Baghdad, but no action was taken."
There is no way of knowing whether the Iraqi majority would have been upset had they be reinstated. You have nothing to compare to know that this was a mistake. The important thing was to make the majority happy, and to pass off responsibility onto the majority.
"As realization set in among those affected that there was to be no reconciliation, we could feel support for the new Iraq ebbing in Sunni Arab majority areas,"
It's not too late to have reconciliation, and that is now in the hands of the Iraqi majority instead of being imposed by the US. The short term pain is a once-off cost.
"However, it was announced without the simultaneous creation of a stipend and pension program for those in the Iraqi army and without an announcement of how the military would be reconstituted, and how former soldiers could rejoin and reclaim their careers."
So? That made it clear that the new army was different from the old one. And the Iraqi people bought it. That was the prize.
"That undoubtedly created tens of thousands of former soldiers and officers who were angry, feeling disrespected, and worried about how they would feed their families,"
Yes, that's the short term pain that needs to be weighed up against the long term gain of having fresh, respected institutions.
"A stipend was announced five weeks later, but it did not cover senior officers, and by that time there were already protests outside the Green Zone."
Protests are a healthy sign. It also made it clear to the Iraqi people that the new army was not the old army rebadged.
"This action likely fueled, at least in part, the early growth of the insurgency and anti-coalition feeling,"
That is a necessary tradeoff. The old regime was expected to get its nose put out of joint. The goal was a new European-style regime. This goal was more-or-less achieved.
"Petraeus, who headed the first formal effort to create an Iraqi military from June 2004 to September 2005, also criticized the slow pace of that project. "We took to long to develop the concepts and structures needed to build effective Iraqi security forces to assist in providing security to the Iraqi people," he wrote."
Yeah, it would be wonderful if the Army had a magic wand and could do everything in an instant. Are you claiming that someone else's Army would have done a better job? Or are you comparing the US Army to a mythical perfect army? I don't see any sign of wrong policy decisions or negligence.
"The prison abuse at Abu Ghraib and in other "less sensational but still damaging cases" inflamed the insurgency and damaged the credibility of the coalition in Iraq and around the world."
That was not a policy mistake. That was some soldiers disobeying orders. That happens in every army in the world. Whenever that happens, you just charge and jail the offenders. It is irrelevant. It is a part of life. The same thing happens in continental US too.
"There was no adequate plan for post-invasion reconstruction, Petraeus wrote. "We obviously had inadequate plans, concepts, organizations, resources, and policies for the conduct of Phase IV (stability and reconstruction) operations; consequently we were slow to move into Phase IV operations.""
There was a plan. The plan was to react to whatever we found on the ground in Iraq. We had no idea what percentage of Iraqis had been brainwashed by Saddam and were willing to fight to the bitter end. It could have been 95%. Saddam did get 100% of the vote. On the other hand, 95% of the population could have welcomed liberation, and set to work doing the reconstruction themselves. The Iraqi Army could have defected en-masse as soon as it had US air cover, and the Iraqi people could have loved the old army for doing that, and not even have a need to disband the old army. No-one had any idea what was in the minds of the Iraqi people. Only an environment of freedom and a secret ballot would reveal that.
"Petraeus wrote that the command structure in Iraq for the first 15 months was inadequate for the twin jobs of managing counter-insurgency operations and the political and reconstruction work."
Ok, that's a minor technical detail for the Army to sort out. They presumably fixed it after 15 months. So? No-one expects the Army or any other institution to get everything right on the first go.
"Petraeus also bravely wanders into politically dicey territory by saying there were simply not enough boots on the ground in several areas of Iraq."
There were enough boots on the ground to ensure that the new Iraqi security forces could be trained and democratic elections could be held. Beyond that, the Iraqi people were left to their own devices. That way we could observe what they actually did with no-one to tell them what to do. It also let them know that the US was not there to conquer them. There weren't enough troops to conquer them.
"Particularly in the late summer of 04, it became increasingly difficult to keep pulling the roots out as fast as the bad guys were putting the roots down,"
Sure. That's just how the fight played out. With more troops, the fight would have been shorter. With less, it takes longer. The result is the same either way. The advantage of doing all this with less troops is that it proves you don't need a lot of troops and thus lowers the barrier to war.
"Repeated operations in Baghdad, in particular, to clear hold and build did not prove durable due to lack of sufficient Iraqi and coalition forces for the hold phase of the operations,"
Sure. This is part of the short-term pain you get when you disband the old security forces and create new ones from scratch. It's a once-off cost.
At the end of the day, none of this matters a damn. History books are going to record that it took 60k troops to liberate Iraq, 160k troops as part of the reconstruction phase which lasted 5 years, and the Arabs got their first European-style democracy, which instead of being an enemy, joined NATO of its own free will. It will be regarded as a watershed in human history. The last ethnic group that didn't have a democratic example. This is what is known in the business as a complete and utter victory. Sure, it would have been nice if it had all been wrapped up in 5 weeks instead of 5 years, but that is due to the complexities of the enemy that we found. Iraqis had a different mentality to the Swiss. That's not actually anyone's fault, it's just a phenomenon.
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"The first problem was that the national elections, expected to unify the country behind a legitimate Iraqi government, did the opposite."
The Iraqis have a national unity government. The government doesn't have any laws that discriminate against people based on race or religion. The people who reject this status of equal rights are basically the enemy. The fact that there are enemies is not a policy mistake. What exactly is he suggesting as an alternative? Invade a different country where no-one objects to democracy???
"The elections hardened sectarian positions as Iraqis voted largely based on ethnic and sectarian group identity,"
And how is this a mistake of the US? Did you want the US to force a 2-party non-sectarian government onto Iraq in the first elections? The UK hasn't even done that to Northern Ireland. I agree that the Iraqis shouldn't be voting along sectarian lines. Nor should the people of Northern Ireland. But failing to force this onto the Iraqi people was not a mistake. It was the least worst option. First we should see if the Iraqis naturally split up their political system along economic instead of sectarian lines. They might even make it a law that parties can't be sectarian, similar to what Belgium does. But forcing this down the throat of Iraqis at this point in history is not the right thing to do. At the moment it is best to observe what the Iraqis do of their own free will, so that we can have a good understanding of them.
"The U.S. government underestimated the security challenges in Iraq, particularly after the Feb. 22, 2006, bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara."
The US doesn't have perfect knowledge. You're basically complaining the US doesn't have a crystal ball. The only thing you can do is react to the situation on the ground.
"The United States also overestimated its ability to create new security institutions following the disbandment of the Iraqi security forces,"
This is another case of not having perfect information. Training up Iraqis was breaking new ground. The Army did this to the best of its capability. There was nothing wrong with the policy decision to instruct the Army to train up Iraqis, and there is no sign of the Army being negligent in carrying out that order.
"The U.S. military has been slow to recognize and react to the evolving threat in Iraq"
The US's primary job is to train Iraqis to take care of their own threats. This process has not been interrupted at all.
"What began as an insurgency has morphed into a conflict that includes insurgent attacks, terrorism, sectarian violence, and violent crime,"
This is a feature of Iraqis. Again, would you have preferred that we invaded Switzerland instead? You need to deal with the enemy you have, not the one you would like. There was no policy error nor military negligence here.
"It is now conventional wisdom that de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraq military were mistakes."
The hell they were. The most important thing was to get new institutions that the majority of the Iraqi people could trust. Ones that didn't have a history of oppressing the people. So that the Iraqi people didn't think "this new army is just the old one under a different name", and reject it, and not sign up to it either. A lot of people thought that Arabs weren't ready for democracy. We needed to give it the best possible shot by setting up western-style institutions. Fortunately the Iraqi people accepted their new institutions and democracy was successful. That was the main prize, and it was obtained. 300 political parties started up, instead of 0 or 1.
"De-Baathification was intended to remove former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's henchmen but it went far deeper than that. The major problem was there was no way for Baathists to reconcile with the new regime and therefore no reason to support the new government."
So? They were a minority. The majority were happy. And now the majority are in a position to reinstate the ex-Baathists if they want. It will be their decision, not the US's. As it should be.
"Petraeus held a reconciliation commission at Mosul University. More than 100 university officials and teachers were recommended for reinstatement in their jobs. The names were submitted to the de-Baathification committee in Baghdad, but no action was taken."
There is no way of knowing whether the Iraqi majority would have been upset had they be reinstated. You have nothing to compare to know that this was a mistake. The important thing was to make the majority happy, and to pass off responsibility onto the majority.
"As realization set in among those affected that there was to be no reconciliation, we could feel support for the new Iraq ebbing in Sunni Arab majority areas,"
It's not too late to have reconciliation, and that is now in the hands of the Iraqi majority instead of being imposed by the US. The short term pain is a once-off cost.
"However, it was announced without the simultaneous creation of a stipend and pension program for those in the Iraqi army and without an announcement of how the military would be reconstituted, and how former soldiers could rejoin and reclaim their careers."
So? That made it clear that the new army was different from the old one. And the Iraqi people bought it. That was the prize.
"That undoubtedly created tens of thousands of former soldiers and officers who were angry, feeling disrespected, and worried about how they would feed their families,"
Yes, that's the short term pain that needs to be weighed up against the long term gain of having fresh, respected institutions.
"A stipend was announced five weeks later, but it did not cover senior officers, and by that time there were already protests outside the Green Zone."
Protests are a healthy sign. It also made it clear to the Iraqi people that the new army was not the old army rebadged.
"This action likely fueled, at least in part, the early growth of the insurgency and anti-coalition feeling,"
That is a necessary tradeoff. The old regime was expected to get its nose put out of joint. The goal was a new European-style regime. This goal was more-or-less achieved.
"Petraeus, who headed the first formal effort to create an Iraqi military from June 2004 to September 2005, also criticized the slow pace of that project. "We took to long to develop the concepts and structures needed to build effective Iraqi security forces to assist in providing security to the Iraqi people," he wrote."
Yeah, it would be wonderful if the Army had a magic wand and could do everything in an instant. Are you claiming that someone else's Army would have done a better job? Or are you comparing the US Army to a mythical perfect army? I don't see any sign of wrong policy decisions or negligence.
"The prison abuse at Abu Ghraib and in other "less sensational but still damaging cases" inflamed the insurgency and damaged the credibility of the coalition in Iraq and around the world."
That was not a policy mistake. That was some soldiers disobeying orders. That happens in every army in the world. Whenever that happens, you just charge and jail the offenders. It is irrelevant. It is a part of life. The same thing happens in continental US too.
"There was no adequate plan for post-invasion reconstruction, Petraeus wrote. "We obviously had inadequate plans, concepts, organizations, resources, and policies for the conduct of Phase IV (stability and reconstruction) operations; consequently we were slow to move into Phase IV operations.""
There was a plan. The plan was to react to whatever we found on the ground in Iraq. We had no idea what percentage of Iraqis had been brainwashed by Saddam and were willing to fight to the bitter end. It could have been 95%. Saddam did get 100% of the vote. On the other hand, 95% of the population could have welcomed liberation, and set to work doing the reconstruction themselves. The Iraqi Army could have defected en-masse as soon as it had US air cover, and the Iraqi people could have loved the old army for doing that, and not even have a need to disband the old army. No-one had any idea what was in the minds of the Iraqi people. Only an environment of freedom and a secret ballot would reveal that.
"Petraeus wrote that the command structure in Iraq for the first 15 months was inadequate for the twin jobs of managing counter-insurgency operations and the political and reconstruction work."
Ok, that's a minor technical detail for the Army to sort out. They presumably fixed it after 15 months. So? No-one expects the Army or any other institution to get everything right on the first go.
"Petraeus also bravely wanders into politically dicey territory by saying there were simply not enough boots on the ground in several areas of Iraq."
There were enough boots on the ground to ensure that the new Iraqi security forces could be trained and democratic elections could be held. Beyond that, the Iraqi people were left to their own devices. That way we could observe what they actually did with no-one to tell them what to do. It also let them know that the US was not there to conquer them. There weren't enough troops to conquer them.
"Particularly in the late summer of 04, it became increasingly difficult to keep pulling the roots out as fast as the bad guys were putting the roots down,"
Sure. That's just how the fight played out. With more troops, the fight would have been shorter. With less, it takes longer. The result is the same either way. The advantage of doing all this with less troops is that it proves you don't need a lot of troops and thus lowers the barrier to war.
"Repeated operations in Baghdad, in particular, to clear hold and build did not prove durable due to lack of sufficient Iraqi and coalition forces for the hold phase of the operations,"
Sure. This is part of the short-term pain you get when you disband the old security forces and create new ones from scratch. It's a once-off cost.
At the end of the day, none of this matters a damn. History books are going to record that it took 60k troops to liberate Iraq, 160k troops as part of the reconstruction phase which lasted 5 years, and the Arabs got their first European-style democracy, which instead of being an enemy, joined NATO of its own free will. It will be regarded as a watershed in human history. The last ethnic group that didn't have a democratic example. This is what is known in the business as a complete and utter victory. Sure, it would have been nice if it had all been wrapped up in 5 weeks instead of 5 years, but that is due to the complexities of the enemy that we found. Iraqis had a different mentality to the Swiss. That's not actually anyone's fault, it's just a phenomenon.
2007-01-26
War Plan
My war plan in 2002 was based on an incorrect assumption that 90% of people living under a dictatorship would be overjoyed at being liberated. I couldn't comprehend how anyone other than the same fringe ratbags we have in Australia (that support communism or anarchy or whatever) would want to live under a sadistic dictatorship rather than be free. Instead, Iraq was split 50/50 between feeling liberated and feeling humiliated. Even the whole "humiliation" thing was an unexpected result. I was looking for a 95/5 split between liberated/preferred being a slave actually. Instead half the country felt humiliated, presumably by the fact that they lost a war. I wouldn't feel humiliated if the Japanese had beaten Australia in WWII. I certainly wouldn't like it, but there's no reason to be humiliated by the scientific fact that stronger powers are technically able to devour weaker powers.
So, rather than quickly move on to Iran as I assumed we would do, we instead needed to figure out what was going wrong in Iraq. To explain what was causing some Iraqis to be allied with us, while others were trying to kill us. We needed an explanation for this vastly different behaviour from people who had essentially identical upbringing. Zeyad from Healing Iraq was the first to provide the feedback, and reported that he supported the war while his uncle living next door opposed it, and they had a bitter falling out over the issue. Anyway, after much diligent research I had an explanation for the seemingly strange behaviour on 2004-09-11.
Unfortunately the antidote that I created to correct the strange behaviour did not work. As far as I can tell, other humans are lacking a fundamental trait to try to get their brain operating as rationally as possible, and also lacking empathy. Fortunately this doesn't apply to our governments. Collectively, western humans have been able to create near-impeccable governments. Especially with regards to their treatment of their citizens. Concern for the human rights of foreigners is dismal. They instead cling to a dogma that "war is bad, peace is paramount". Even after having been given a spanking by Mr Hitler, they still haven't learnt. So anyway, my antidote which was designed to liberate the rest of the world without a fight failed, so we unfortunately need to continue to use military force (it is still the least worst option). Here is what needs to be done.
The Iraqi security forces are expected to have taken over in November 2007. I don't think we should make any moves until that has happened. Unfortunately that means that Australia will be out of the game. Australian elections are due about November 2007 and according to the latest polls, the treacherous Labor Party (left-wing, anti-war) is leading 55% to 45%. So, my dying wish is for the US to continue without its hitherto staunchest ally. It would be strategic for Australia to issue a unilateral declaration of war on Iran before the elections are lost, but it appears that the reputation that Australians have does not match ground reality, and that such a declaration of war would not be appreciated by the public.
What that means is that by the time the Iraqi forces are ready, the US will be alone, and have just 1 year remaining before the treacherous Democrats take control of the US military. Technically, that is all that is required to accomplish the task, so it's not the end of the world. As many countries as possible need to be liberated in that remaining 1 year.
Deciding which countries to liberate and in which order and by what method is not a straightforward calculation. Multiple things need to be taken into consideration. Scary weapons like Pakistan's nukes are a high priority. But even higher priority is enemy governments. We aren't quite sure what damage enemy governments can inflict on the free world, but it's better to have it out with them now, before they acquire any more capability. Damage limitation so to speak. We could have done this decades ago if we didn't have to deal with the Soviet Union, but we need to deal with the world as we find it, not what we would wish it to be. We also need to take into account what price we need to pay to liberate a country. We need to take into account whether democracy is likely to replace a friendly or neutral government with an enemy. We also need to take into account the reactions of other countries - we really want to liberate people in such a manner that a hostile coalition is not formed against America, e.g. the US getting kicked out of NATO. The goal is to create a world full of rational, humanist, non-subjugating government, and rational, humanist, non-subjugating individuals. If this can be achieved via democracy, that is ideal as it is self-managing. Otherwise we need to keep an eye on the dictator.
Bearing all this in mind, and looking at all the countries in the world today, Iran stands out as the most sensible target to choose next. There are multiple reasons for this.
1. We get to preempt them developing nukes.
2. We get to take out a country with an official slogan of "Death to USA" and that has openly threatened to wipe Israel, another member of the free world, off the map.
3. Indications are that the regime is deeply unpopular. That is why the dictator doesn't dare allow free and fair elections and freedom of speech.
4. They are sponsoring terrorism (Hizbullah).
5. They have access to oil revenue which gives them revenue to fund anti-free-world activity.
6. The regime is abusing human rights, including such things as cutting out people's eyes and raping girls so that they don't go to heaven when executed.
7. Putting Iran's oil revenue into the hands of the Iranian people means that we can improve the lives of the Iranian people in an instant.
8. The Iranians will spread the word that Islamic dictatorship is not all it's cracked up to be. In fact, there may be a general collapse of Islam in Iran, perhaps a defection to Zoastrianism.
9. It is geostrategic - we may get a launch pad into Pakistan.
10. If we're lucky, the Iranian people will be as enthusiastic about their freedom as the Baltics are, and take over leadership of the free world, or at least join in on future liberations.
11. Indications are that the Iranians are sensible people who don't live in the Arab Parallel Universe (partly because they're Persian, not Arab!).
12. We don't need to install a dictatorship there, whatever they come up with via democracy will be fine. This means that no troops are required to stay in Iran.
13. The Iranian military is conscript so reflects the population at large. It doesn't have a history of carrying out atrocities against the Iranian people. Therefore it can be reused. Thus there is no security vacuum and the transfer of power should be clean.
14. In a showdown on the Taiwan Strait, Iran may be willing to halt oil shipments to China, collapsing their economy.
15. The forces needed to do the job are already in the area (Iraq).
16. It is easy to liberate Iran. It will be a turkey-shoot and they have no way of responding.
So here is what America needs to do. To avoid spooking all the other dictators that need to be liberated, make sure that the reasons you give for liberating Iran are restricted to just Iran. That means concentrate on the nukes and the sponsoring of terrorism. Only mention human rights abuses in passing, even though spreading human rights is a long-standing US goal and is going to be the most beautiful aspect of the liberation, something which everyone on the planet should be supporting. Next, assemble a coalition. Working with a coalition is great, as it shows that multiple countries have independently come to the conclusion that toppling Iran's dictatorship is something good for the world. It is a real stretch to imagine that every member of the coalition is there because of a super-secret agreement to steal oil or enrich Halliburton (although that doesn't stop the moonbats from trying that argument anyway).
Now this war is also an opportunity to refine military doctrine. Specifically, there is a huge difference between a war of conquest and a war of liberation. We found in Afghanistan that something like 85% of the people were on our side. In Iraq, the figure was hazier. Although 50% felt liberated, the remainder (who felt humiliated) do not appear to have actually fought, and also turned out to vote in large numbers (70%). I'm expecting the Iranians to be smarter than both the Afghans and the Iraqis, so something like 90% support for liberation. The Iranian army is conscript, so should reflect the general population, which means 90% of the soldiers want to be liberated too. We have experience in Iraq of Iraqi generals turning over their bases during the war. As soon as they knew they had US firepower to protect them, they defected. The same should happen in Iran, although the only way to find out is to try it.
There are 4 ways we know of to get a government to change:
1. revolution.
2. military coup.
3. external invasion.
4. leadership has a change of heart.
Number 4 has been worked on for decades without success. Number 1 was tried in 1999 and the revolutionaries were slaughtered by automatic weapons. But when we're ready to liberate Iran, we should try to jump-start numbers 1 and 2 at the same time as doing (or preparing to do) number 3. The Iranian people may well rise up if they know they don't have to face government forces with automatic weapons, because they are protected by US air power. They also need a rallying point. The US can provide this by dropping a couple of noise bombs on Tehran at lunchtime on a work day, while simultaneously broadcasting to the Iranian people to rise up and take their freedom.
At the same time, the US can drop leaflets on Iranian bases, asking everyone to initiate a coup, and that they will be protected by US air power. It is not really possible to plan much further ahead than this, because we need the feedback from this action. The plan should be to REACT to whatever we find there! However, let's say we have trouble getting Iranian bases to defect. We should try assaulting one Iranian base at a time with special forces, to see what percentage of the soldiers want to fight us, what percentage want to go home, and what percentage want to join us. Hopefully give them a chance to fight for their own freedom instead of just having it handed to them on a platter.
We may find that people aren't willing to defect unless they see ground forces moving in with tanks. If this is the case, then a proper invasion needs to be mounted. But try doing it with a small number of forces, such as 30k. Iraq was liberated with 60k troops I think (since the 4th ID had been refused entry via Turkey). The Iraq liberation was a cakewalk with 60k troops, so let's see if 30k is also a cakewalk. Getting it down to 30k gets us into the realm of an international force doing future liberations, with the US only needing to provide 10% of the troops instead of 90%. International troops have managed to muster that sort of number in Afghanistan.
If 30k troops turns out to not be enough, then the number of troops in Iraq should be reduced to 20k, and the forces freed up can join the battle in Iran. It could be argued that even if 30k troops take Iran, it doesn't prove anything, because the Iranians always knew we had 100k troops waiting in reserve in Iraq, and even more troops waiting in reserve in the US. But alas, there is not much we can do about that. Let's start by proving how many troops we actually need in theatre to win a war.
If the US needs to fight its way in, as it did in Iraq, then we are probably looking at a 4-week battle. At the end of that battle, we should reuse the old army instead of disbanding it. We should put Iranian reformers (the same guys that held a sit-in at parliament, plus dissidents from jail)in power, with a directive to hold free and fair elections. We should also ask the nuclear scientists where the nuclear program is and dismantle it. In the case of a future Iranian coup, we don't want the nukes to fall into the wrong hands. After that there is no need to hang around. The Iranians can fend for themselves. So Iran will be wrapped up in just a few weeks.
It would be ideal if a non-US, non-UK country stepped up to the plate to lead this endeavour. I have already asked Australia to unilaterally declare war on Iran. Via IRC I have also asked people in other countries to petition their governments to do the same. I didn't get very far. I did get a few people to say that they would send letters, mostly other Australians. If we could get someone like the Philippines to lead this charge, that would be great. If I were an Iranian soldier I would trust the intentions of the Philippines more than that of the US. The Philippines has no baggage at all. Australia has the disadvantages that we are predominantly white (and there's a lot of anti-white racists out there), and we are sort of associated with the UK. We do have the advantage that we're actually competent, while the Philippines has enough trouble just taking care of its own territory. Other non-white candidates (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan) all have either baggage or difficulties at home.
If someone else does step up to the plate, they should say that they are doing it for human rights, no other reason. Let America be the one to say "we're only joining this coalition because of security concerns, all you human rights abusers needn't be afraid". For me personally, security of the free world (including Israel) is paramount, and when evaluating threats I take a cold, hard, dispassionate, rational view. However, once a decision has been made to liberate someone, I switch to the entirely humanist aspect of seeing liberated people with their happy faces. I'm so much looking forward to reading the blogs of FREE Iranians.
Then we should move on to Syria. Don't bother trying the same thing that was tried with Iran. In Syria we are definitely dealing with nutcases. They need to be conquered, not liberated. So use 100k troops. Tell the Allawies that they will be left in charge of the military so they don't need to fear revenge from the majority non-Allawies. The Syrian people need to continue to be oppressed. These are dangerous creatures, enemies of the free world. Stick in some reformers and give them a directive to set about de-Nazifying the country. This guy can probably do the job. Leave 10k US troops in Syria to ensure the Syrian military doesn't overthrow the reformers. Force Syria to sign a peace treaty with Israel, and allow Israel to keep any territory it feels it needs for its security. All this can be done in a few weeks. Next stop Lebanon.
In Lebanon, the Syrian-installed President needs to be deposed, and Hizbullah needs to be defeated. Then force Lebanon to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The population also needs to be de-Nazified, so force the Lebanese government to change its education system. The politicians who are already in power should be able to do this. Shoot any of them who disagree. Leave 10k troops there. All this can be done in a few weeks too. And use 100k troops to do the job.
Next move on to Sudan. Another case of conquest rather than liberation. So once again use 100k troops. Install reformers, including people from Darfur. Put Darfurian soldiers in charge of the military and heavy equipment. Don't bother hanging around. Once again, wrap it up in a few weeks.
Then move on to Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe needs to be liberated, not conquered. The opposition already exists in the form of the MDC. We need to empower them. This should be done with special forces dropped in to MDC-dominant areas of the capital and asking the people to rise up and seize police stations. See what eventuates from that, and react. If it doesn't work out, start sending in ground forces. With a bit of luck, everything should be over in 24 hours.
Then there are 3 important places left. Gaza, which needs to be turned into an independent country (it sort of is already), but needs to be de-Nazified. Amost the entire population is voting for terrorist organizations. There is Pakistan, which needs to be dismantled - the tribal areas (which have never been conquered) going to Afghanistan, and the remainder going to India. And North Korea which needs to be reunited with the South. I do not know which order these should be done in. I would probably say North Korea, then Pakistan, then Gaza. North Korea actually has an enemy government, unlike Pakistan.
To take North Korea, withdraw all of the US soldiers from the kill zone. Then bomb their oil pipeline from China and see what happens. It is really difficult to see how the North Koreans can solve that problem. But let's say they manage to stay in power somehow and we need to use military force. See if we can bribe Russia to let us enter North Korea from its territory. Failing that, concentrate all firepower on some north-eastern port in North Korea and then land 100k troops. After Pyongyang is captured, the South Korean army can take over, and all US troops can immediately depart. This will probably take 2-3 months to accomplish, although obviously we're hoping for a collapse in a couple of days.
Next move on to Pakistan. With a bit of luck, Iran will let us use their territory. If not, enter via a southern Pakistani port. Land 100k troops to conquer the Pakistani forces. Find and remove the nukes. Split Pakistan as I previously mentioned. Don't mention in advance that you intend to split Pakistan. In actual fact, ensure that it is not mentioned in government offices to ensure there is plausible deniability. Have that discussion after winning the military battle. With Indian troops taking over Pakistan there is no need to keep US troops there. However, the tribal territories, now in the hands of Afghanistan, and harbouring Osama Bin Laden, do need to be conquered so that Afghan law can be enforced. There is not much choice but to use US troops to do this. Use the 100k troops that were used to defeat the Pakistani military. With a bit of luck, Afghan troops can also be used. Either way, leave Afghan troops in charge of their own territory after the territory has been conquered, so that the US troops can withdraw.
Next move to Gaza. Leave 50k troops there. You need to protect the minority who support a civil society and are willing to sign up to the new security forces. The bulk of the population has been totally brainwashed, even more so than the German Nazis. A massive ideological change is required. Children need to be educated along European lines instead of being filled with hatred. There's probably going to be a lot of resistance to this, so prepare for a bloody battle. Zones need to be set up. There should be zones where the people are sending their kids to European-style schools and zones where the people are insisting on being able to commit child abuse. Choke off oil supplies to the latter zones. It's far more leniency than was shown to the people of Dresden. When they've had enough, they are welcome to crawl out, without weapons, into the European-style zone. This operation will likely take decades to complete, although hopefully the number of US troops can be reduced.
If all this can be accomplished before the traitors take over the Whitehouse in 2009, then that is great. But the job is far from complete. You still have a Nazified population in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. You still have dictatorships in Burma, Vietnam and elsewhere. It tears my heart out that Burma could be liberated in under a week, but the treacherous Democrats wouldn't authorize it, and there's simply not enough time to do it under Bush's watch. Perhaps at this point the US should split in two itself, between red states and blue states, and the red states should take the military with them, and continue the wars against the remaining tinpot dictators. Stopping at China.
China should not be taken on militarily. It is not cost-justified. However, Taiwan must be protected. So long as it doesn't declare independence. If Taiwan declares independence, then throw them to the dogs. They deserve what they get by trying to drag us into an unnecessary war. China is changing from within and the policies of the government are not actually that bad. It's not far removed from a benign dictatorship, or Iraq under Paul Bremer. It would quite possibly have worse policies as a democracy, as the rural population is not as educated as the urban folk and could well plunge China back to both communism and overpopulation. But being a dictatorship, it's policies could change in a moment, and suddenly be aggressive. We need to guard against this and make sure Taiwan remains free. If we can liberate the rest of the world first, we can basically make it the whole world against China. If China tries anything, we can cut its oil supplies. Even if we can't do that, China's economy is now dependent on trade with the West. Economic sanctions will ensure that China pays a very heavy price for aggression against Taiwan or any of our other allies. Until then, just wait for China to transform its economy and educate its people. When they're up to scratch, hopefully the Chinese dictators will allow democracy, and hopefully Taiwan will accept being part of China, which will hopefully be renamed back to Republic of China.
This war plan is obviously subject to change, depending on the feedback we get as each country is toppled. I doubt that the US has actually thought this far in advance and has such a grand plan. It is more likely that the US simply reacts to the most obvious threat at the time. But citizens of the free world should all be formulating a long-term strategy such as this one, and lobbying for the next step of that plan to be carried out. Don't wait for someone else to do it - do it yourself!
UPDATE: There's a discussion on invading Iran here.
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So, rather than quickly move on to Iran as I assumed we would do, we instead needed to figure out what was going wrong in Iraq. To explain what was causing some Iraqis to be allied with us, while others were trying to kill us. We needed an explanation for this vastly different behaviour from people who had essentially identical upbringing. Zeyad from Healing Iraq was the first to provide the feedback, and reported that he supported the war while his uncle living next door opposed it, and they had a bitter falling out over the issue. Anyway, after much diligent research I had an explanation for the seemingly strange behaviour on 2004-09-11.
Unfortunately the antidote that I created to correct the strange behaviour did not work. As far as I can tell, other humans are lacking a fundamental trait to try to get their brain operating as rationally as possible, and also lacking empathy. Fortunately this doesn't apply to our governments. Collectively, western humans have been able to create near-impeccable governments. Especially with regards to their treatment of their citizens. Concern for the human rights of foreigners is dismal. They instead cling to a dogma that "war is bad, peace is paramount". Even after having been given a spanking by Mr Hitler, they still haven't learnt. So anyway, my antidote which was designed to liberate the rest of the world without a fight failed, so we unfortunately need to continue to use military force (it is still the least worst option). Here is what needs to be done.
The Iraqi security forces are expected to have taken over in November 2007. I don't think we should make any moves until that has happened. Unfortunately that means that Australia will be out of the game. Australian elections are due about November 2007 and according to the latest polls, the treacherous Labor Party (left-wing, anti-war) is leading 55% to 45%. So, my dying wish is for the US to continue without its hitherto staunchest ally. It would be strategic for Australia to issue a unilateral declaration of war on Iran before the elections are lost, but it appears that the reputation that Australians have does not match ground reality, and that such a declaration of war would not be appreciated by the public.
What that means is that by the time the Iraqi forces are ready, the US will be alone, and have just 1 year remaining before the treacherous Democrats take control of the US military. Technically, that is all that is required to accomplish the task, so it's not the end of the world. As many countries as possible need to be liberated in that remaining 1 year.
Deciding which countries to liberate and in which order and by what method is not a straightforward calculation. Multiple things need to be taken into consideration. Scary weapons like Pakistan's nukes are a high priority. But even higher priority is enemy governments. We aren't quite sure what damage enemy governments can inflict on the free world, but it's better to have it out with them now, before they acquire any more capability. Damage limitation so to speak. We could have done this decades ago if we didn't have to deal with the Soviet Union, but we need to deal with the world as we find it, not what we would wish it to be. We also need to take into account what price we need to pay to liberate a country. We need to take into account whether democracy is likely to replace a friendly or neutral government with an enemy. We also need to take into account the reactions of other countries - we really want to liberate people in such a manner that a hostile coalition is not formed against America, e.g. the US getting kicked out of NATO. The goal is to create a world full of rational, humanist, non-subjugating government, and rational, humanist, non-subjugating individuals. If this can be achieved via democracy, that is ideal as it is self-managing. Otherwise we need to keep an eye on the dictator.
Bearing all this in mind, and looking at all the countries in the world today, Iran stands out as the most sensible target to choose next. There are multiple reasons for this.
1. We get to preempt them developing nukes.
2. We get to take out a country with an official slogan of "Death to USA" and that has openly threatened to wipe Israel, another member of the free world, off the map.
3. Indications are that the regime is deeply unpopular. That is why the dictator doesn't dare allow free and fair elections and freedom of speech.
4. They are sponsoring terrorism (Hizbullah).
5. They have access to oil revenue which gives them revenue to fund anti-free-world activity.
6. The regime is abusing human rights, including such things as cutting out people's eyes and raping girls so that they don't go to heaven when executed.
7. Putting Iran's oil revenue into the hands of the Iranian people means that we can improve the lives of the Iranian people in an instant.
8. The Iranians will spread the word that Islamic dictatorship is not all it's cracked up to be. In fact, there may be a general collapse of Islam in Iran, perhaps a defection to Zoastrianism.
9. It is geostrategic - we may get a launch pad into Pakistan.
10. If we're lucky, the Iranian people will be as enthusiastic about their freedom as the Baltics are, and take over leadership of the free world, or at least join in on future liberations.
11. Indications are that the Iranians are sensible people who don't live in the Arab Parallel Universe (partly because they're Persian, not Arab!).
12. We don't need to install a dictatorship there, whatever they come up with via democracy will be fine. This means that no troops are required to stay in Iran.
13. The Iranian military is conscript so reflects the population at large. It doesn't have a history of carrying out atrocities against the Iranian people. Therefore it can be reused. Thus there is no security vacuum and the transfer of power should be clean.
14. In a showdown on the Taiwan Strait, Iran may be willing to halt oil shipments to China, collapsing their economy.
15. The forces needed to do the job are already in the area (Iraq).
16. It is easy to liberate Iran. It will be a turkey-shoot and they have no way of responding.
So here is what America needs to do. To avoid spooking all the other dictators that need to be liberated, make sure that the reasons you give for liberating Iran are restricted to just Iran. That means concentrate on the nukes and the sponsoring of terrorism. Only mention human rights abuses in passing, even though spreading human rights is a long-standing US goal and is going to be the most beautiful aspect of the liberation, something which everyone on the planet should be supporting. Next, assemble a coalition. Working with a coalition is great, as it shows that multiple countries have independently come to the conclusion that toppling Iran's dictatorship is something good for the world. It is a real stretch to imagine that every member of the coalition is there because of a super-secret agreement to steal oil or enrich Halliburton (although that doesn't stop the moonbats from trying that argument anyway).
Now this war is also an opportunity to refine military doctrine. Specifically, there is a huge difference between a war of conquest and a war of liberation. We found in Afghanistan that something like 85% of the people were on our side. In Iraq, the figure was hazier. Although 50% felt liberated, the remainder (who felt humiliated) do not appear to have actually fought, and also turned out to vote in large numbers (70%). I'm expecting the Iranians to be smarter than both the Afghans and the Iraqis, so something like 90% support for liberation. The Iranian army is conscript, so should reflect the general population, which means 90% of the soldiers want to be liberated too. We have experience in Iraq of Iraqi generals turning over their bases during the war. As soon as they knew they had US firepower to protect them, they defected. The same should happen in Iran, although the only way to find out is to try it.
There are 4 ways we know of to get a government to change:
1. revolution.
2. military coup.
3. external invasion.
4. leadership has a change of heart.
Number 4 has been worked on for decades without success. Number 1 was tried in 1999 and the revolutionaries were slaughtered by automatic weapons. But when we're ready to liberate Iran, we should try to jump-start numbers 1 and 2 at the same time as doing (or preparing to do) number 3. The Iranian people may well rise up if they know they don't have to face government forces with automatic weapons, because they are protected by US air power. They also need a rallying point. The US can provide this by dropping a couple of noise bombs on Tehran at lunchtime on a work day, while simultaneously broadcasting to the Iranian people to rise up and take their freedom.
At the same time, the US can drop leaflets on Iranian bases, asking everyone to initiate a coup, and that they will be protected by US air power. It is not really possible to plan much further ahead than this, because we need the feedback from this action. The plan should be to REACT to whatever we find there! However, let's say we have trouble getting Iranian bases to defect. We should try assaulting one Iranian base at a time with special forces, to see what percentage of the soldiers want to fight us, what percentage want to go home, and what percentage want to join us. Hopefully give them a chance to fight for their own freedom instead of just having it handed to them on a platter.
We may find that people aren't willing to defect unless they see ground forces moving in with tanks. If this is the case, then a proper invasion needs to be mounted. But try doing it with a small number of forces, such as 30k. Iraq was liberated with 60k troops I think (since the 4th ID had been refused entry via Turkey). The Iraq liberation was a cakewalk with 60k troops, so let's see if 30k is also a cakewalk. Getting it down to 30k gets us into the realm of an international force doing future liberations, with the US only needing to provide 10% of the troops instead of 90%. International troops have managed to muster that sort of number in Afghanistan.
If 30k troops turns out to not be enough, then the number of troops in Iraq should be reduced to 20k, and the forces freed up can join the battle in Iran. It could be argued that even if 30k troops take Iran, it doesn't prove anything, because the Iranians always knew we had 100k troops waiting in reserve in Iraq, and even more troops waiting in reserve in the US. But alas, there is not much we can do about that. Let's start by proving how many troops we actually need in theatre to win a war.
If the US needs to fight its way in, as it did in Iraq, then we are probably looking at a 4-week battle. At the end of that battle, we should reuse the old army instead of disbanding it. We should put Iranian reformers (the same guys that held a sit-in at parliament, plus dissidents from jail)in power, with a directive to hold free and fair elections. We should also ask the nuclear scientists where the nuclear program is and dismantle it. In the case of a future Iranian coup, we don't want the nukes to fall into the wrong hands. After that there is no need to hang around. The Iranians can fend for themselves. So Iran will be wrapped up in just a few weeks.
It would be ideal if a non-US, non-UK country stepped up to the plate to lead this endeavour. I have already asked Australia to unilaterally declare war on Iran. Via IRC I have also asked people in other countries to petition their governments to do the same. I didn't get very far. I did get a few people to say that they would send letters, mostly other Australians. If we could get someone like the Philippines to lead this charge, that would be great. If I were an Iranian soldier I would trust the intentions of the Philippines more than that of the US. The Philippines has no baggage at all. Australia has the disadvantages that we are predominantly white (and there's a lot of anti-white racists out there), and we are sort of associated with the UK. We do have the advantage that we're actually competent, while the Philippines has enough trouble just taking care of its own territory. Other non-white candidates (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan) all have either baggage or difficulties at home.
If someone else does step up to the plate, they should say that they are doing it for human rights, no other reason. Let America be the one to say "we're only joining this coalition because of security concerns, all you human rights abusers needn't be afraid". For me personally, security of the free world (including Israel) is paramount, and when evaluating threats I take a cold, hard, dispassionate, rational view. However, once a decision has been made to liberate someone, I switch to the entirely humanist aspect of seeing liberated people with their happy faces. I'm so much looking forward to reading the blogs of FREE Iranians.
Then we should move on to Syria. Don't bother trying the same thing that was tried with Iran. In Syria we are definitely dealing with nutcases. They need to be conquered, not liberated. So use 100k troops. Tell the Allawies that they will be left in charge of the military so they don't need to fear revenge from the majority non-Allawies. The Syrian people need to continue to be oppressed. These are dangerous creatures, enemies of the free world. Stick in some reformers and give them a directive to set about de-Nazifying the country. This guy can probably do the job. Leave 10k US troops in Syria to ensure the Syrian military doesn't overthrow the reformers. Force Syria to sign a peace treaty with Israel, and allow Israel to keep any territory it feels it needs for its security. All this can be done in a few weeks. Next stop Lebanon.
In Lebanon, the Syrian-installed President needs to be deposed, and Hizbullah needs to be defeated. Then force Lebanon to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The population also needs to be de-Nazified, so force the Lebanese government to change its education system. The politicians who are already in power should be able to do this. Shoot any of them who disagree. Leave 10k troops there. All this can be done in a few weeks too. And use 100k troops to do the job.
Next move on to Sudan. Another case of conquest rather than liberation. So once again use 100k troops. Install reformers, including people from Darfur. Put Darfurian soldiers in charge of the military and heavy equipment. Don't bother hanging around. Once again, wrap it up in a few weeks.
Then move on to Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe needs to be liberated, not conquered. The opposition already exists in the form of the MDC. We need to empower them. This should be done with special forces dropped in to MDC-dominant areas of the capital and asking the people to rise up and seize police stations. See what eventuates from that, and react. If it doesn't work out, start sending in ground forces. With a bit of luck, everything should be over in 24 hours.
Then there are 3 important places left. Gaza, which needs to be turned into an independent country (it sort of is already), but needs to be de-Nazified. Amost the entire population is voting for terrorist organizations. There is Pakistan, which needs to be dismantled - the tribal areas (which have never been conquered) going to Afghanistan, and the remainder going to India. And North Korea which needs to be reunited with the South. I do not know which order these should be done in. I would probably say North Korea, then Pakistan, then Gaza. North Korea actually has an enemy government, unlike Pakistan.
To take North Korea, withdraw all of the US soldiers from the kill zone. Then bomb their oil pipeline from China and see what happens. It is really difficult to see how the North Koreans can solve that problem. But let's say they manage to stay in power somehow and we need to use military force. See if we can bribe Russia to let us enter North Korea from its territory. Failing that, concentrate all firepower on some north-eastern port in North Korea and then land 100k troops. After Pyongyang is captured, the South Korean army can take over, and all US troops can immediately depart. This will probably take 2-3 months to accomplish, although obviously we're hoping for a collapse in a couple of days.
Next move on to Pakistan. With a bit of luck, Iran will let us use their territory. If not, enter via a southern Pakistani port. Land 100k troops to conquer the Pakistani forces. Find and remove the nukes. Split Pakistan as I previously mentioned. Don't mention in advance that you intend to split Pakistan. In actual fact, ensure that it is not mentioned in government offices to ensure there is plausible deniability. Have that discussion after winning the military battle. With Indian troops taking over Pakistan there is no need to keep US troops there. However, the tribal territories, now in the hands of Afghanistan, and harbouring Osama Bin Laden, do need to be conquered so that Afghan law can be enforced. There is not much choice but to use US troops to do this. Use the 100k troops that were used to defeat the Pakistani military. With a bit of luck, Afghan troops can also be used. Either way, leave Afghan troops in charge of their own territory after the territory has been conquered, so that the US troops can withdraw.
Next move to Gaza. Leave 50k troops there. You need to protect the minority who support a civil society and are willing to sign up to the new security forces. The bulk of the population has been totally brainwashed, even more so than the German Nazis. A massive ideological change is required. Children need to be educated along European lines instead of being filled with hatred. There's probably going to be a lot of resistance to this, so prepare for a bloody battle. Zones need to be set up. There should be zones where the people are sending their kids to European-style schools and zones where the people are insisting on being able to commit child abuse. Choke off oil supplies to the latter zones. It's far more leniency than was shown to the people of Dresden. When they've had enough, they are welcome to crawl out, without weapons, into the European-style zone. This operation will likely take decades to complete, although hopefully the number of US troops can be reduced.
If all this can be accomplished before the traitors take over the Whitehouse in 2009, then that is great. But the job is far from complete. You still have a Nazified population in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. You still have dictatorships in Burma, Vietnam and elsewhere. It tears my heart out that Burma could be liberated in under a week, but the treacherous Democrats wouldn't authorize it, and there's simply not enough time to do it under Bush's watch. Perhaps at this point the US should split in two itself, between red states and blue states, and the red states should take the military with them, and continue the wars against the remaining tinpot dictators. Stopping at China.
China should not be taken on militarily. It is not cost-justified. However, Taiwan must be protected. So long as it doesn't declare independence. If Taiwan declares independence, then throw them to the dogs. They deserve what they get by trying to drag us into an unnecessary war. China is changing from within and the policies of the government are not actually that bad. It's not far removed from a benign dictatorship, or Iraq under Paul Bremer. It would quite possibly have worse policies as a democracy, as the rural population is not as educated as the urban folk and could well plunge China back to both communism and overpopulation. But being a dictatorship, it's policies could change in a moment, and suddenly be aggressive. We need to guard against this and make sure Taiwan remains free. If we can liberate the rest of the world first, we can basically make it the whole world against China. If China tries anything, we can cut its oil supplies. Even if we can't do that, China's economy is now dependent on trade with the West. Economic sanctions will ensure that China pays a very heavy price for aggression against Taiwan or any of our other allies. Until then, just wait for China to transform its economy and educate its people. When they're up to scratch, hopefully the Chinese dictators will allow democracy, and hopefully Taiwan will accept being part of China, which will hopefully be renamed back to Republic of China.
This war plan is obviously subject to change, depending on the feedback we get as each country is toppled. I doubt that the US has actually thought this far in advance and has such a grand plan. It is more likely that the US simply reacts to the most obvious threat at the time. But citizens of the free world should all be formulating a long-term strategy such as this one, and lobbying for the next step of that plan to be carried out. Don't wait for someone else to do it - do it yourself!
UPDATE: There's a discussion on invading Iran here.
2007-01-25
Common Cause
I first published this list around Sept 2004. This was after I had an understanding of what happens when two tribes meet. This was hitherto an alien concept to me, because I had assumed that all humans treated all other humans as equals deserving human rights, as I did (projection). But it's more complicated than that. That's not how we are designed. We are designed to make a determination as to whether the other tribe is friend/foe/neutral. And that is based on what we have in common. E.g. if both tribes are Arabs that might be enough to cause an alliance (a racist alliance). Here is what I came up with for the American tribe to present to Iraqi tribal leaders. I'm not claiming it is perfect, but I think it is a good start to begin negotiations. As far as I am aware, nothing like this is being presented at all. The Iraqis thus have no understanding of the motives of Americans, other than the lies that various people have told them. I see no evidence of the Americans attempting to correct these lies. America is doing good work in Iraq and hoping that the Iraqis will see the good work and form the appropriate conclusions themselves. That's an indirect and inefficient way of doing it.
I respect those who fight subjugation for unselfish reasons. Do you?
I pledge allegiance to use my brain to ensure survival of my species. Do you?
I pledge allegiance to use my brain to end subjugation of my species. Do you?
I respect those who fight dogma. Do you?
I respect those who are unselfish. Do you?
I respect those who judge people based on current behaviour, not past behaviour. Do you?
I judge people based on their individual actions, not actions of their tribe. Do you?
I believe people can use power for unselfish reasons, do you?
I believe people in power can be unselfish, do you?
I believe people should pledge allegiance to their brain above all else, do you?
I believe all people should be forgiven for their sins if they show remorse, do you?
I believe all people go to heaven, do you?
I believe all people are created equal and should have equal rights, do you?
I believe all people can do both good and bad, and that no-one is perfect. Do you?
I believe that no one man should rule the world, do you?
I believe that no-one should have to live in fear, do you?
I believe that no-one should be a slave, do you?
I believe we should not hate our enemies, do you?
I believe if you can't say something nice you should not say anything at all, do you?
I believe we should teach our children to love all people and hate no-one, do you?
I believe we should consider other people's feelings, do you?
I believe we should not be jealous of those more powerful than ourselves but instead should learn from them, do you?
I believe we should take the least worst option when making decisions instead of complaining that things are not perfect, do you?
I believe that we should make constructive suggestions rather than complain, do you?
I believe our society should provide a good example in public for our children to learn from, do you?
I believe our society should take care of those who can't take care of themselves, do you?
I believe that we should not judge people who behave differently from us, so long as they don't subjugate others, do you?
I believe we should be willing to compromise, do you?
I believe we should ask people why they are sad, do you?
I believe we should try to make people happy, do you?
I believe we should ask people if they are happy, do you?
I believe we should be tolerant of people who do not understand what they are doing, do you?
I believe we should compete for charity and kindness and individual excellence, not power, do you?
I believe we should not deceive others unless it is to prevent hurting their feelings, do you?
I believe we should appreciate what we have instead of complaining about what we don't have, do you?
I believe we should show appreciation when others give us something, do you?
I believe we should spend more time judging our own behaviour and less time judging other people's behaviour, do you?
I believe we should learn from our mistakes, apologize and move on with life, do you?
I believe we should try to change ourselves rather than try to change others, do you?
I pledge allegiance to use my brain to end subjugation of my species. Do you?
I believe that all humans are created equal and every human should have their point of view respected and that there should be checks and balances in place such that the little people's voice is also heard, not just the powerful. We should be vigilant in making sure that the government looks after the needs of the little people and that is why there needs to be NGOs to constrain the abuse of power.
I believe that God forgives us of our sins so long as the sin was not done for selfish reasons without serious consideration of the impact on other people.
I believe that people should not be taken advantage of, and that people should not be tricked into making a decision which they will later regret in life. However, one's personal moral code should not be inflicted on others, including children. They must be allowed to choose their own destiny and their own moral code, and this should be respected, so that they can blossom into whatever it is they wish to be. Every attempt should be made to give a balanced view of every issue so that the child keeps an open mind about everything. An active attempt must be made to ensure that the child does not get stuck on a particular dogma. Indoctrination must be avoided at all costs.
I believe that God guides our path through life and helps us make the right choices if we listen to him and accept his love.
I believe that it is natural to be lazy and selfish and that we should make allowances for people's failings instead of judging them by our own exacting standards.
I believe that if we make a promise we should not make it without the expectation that we fully intend to keep it from the bottom of our heart, but if we break it we should be forgiven by ourselves, others and God, we should not be made to feel guilty about it for the rest of our lives, as sometimes there are extremely difficult choices to be made in life and there is no easy way to choose between the two paths in life. That is what God wants us to do and he has a higher purpose and we should trust in him.
I believe that a commitment to marriage should be made with the expectation that it should be eternal, although if circumstances change divorce is acceptable and the parties should not be made to feel guilty.
No matter how sure we are that one party is lying while another party can be trusted, we should always have an element of self-doubt and use rigorous science to make decisions.
I believe that God loves us and we should accept his love.
I believe that not everyone wants to have children, but some people very badly do want to have children in order to be able to experience the joys of raising a child and having someone to love and who loves them in return. Only people who genuinely want children should become parents, there should be no societal expectation for people to have children as it leads to children growing up without love and if a couple are unable to have a child they have the right to get a child by other means.
I believe we are all God's children and he gets as much pleasure watching us explore an infinite universe as we get watching fish in a fishtank, and that we can indeed talk to God and listen to him if our heart is open to him.
I believe that it is our brain that is what our soul is, and that this can be implemented via electronics as a solution to our energy crisis such that we will be able to zap around the universe just like in Star Trek one day and that the purpose of life is to gain knowledge while still enjoying life and that we will be able to live forever some day.
I believe that it is possible to feel God's love in our brain and that it makes us happy. There is such a thing as love of God and we should feel secure that whenever we need it he will be there to guide us through the difficult choices in life and will answer our prayers and that he will try his best to give us whatever we want just like we like to spoil our children and give our fish lots of food.
I believe that God wants us to be humble and loving to each other, as this is what gives him pleasure in watching. But he wants us to never really be sure whether things are happening by coincidence or by his hand, as that would spoil his fun (just like goldfish never get bored of swimming around the same tank all the time, he never gets bored of watching what whacky ideas people come up with when left to their own free will and we never get tired of comedies).
I believe that we should ask for forgiveness from God for our sins and that he will forgive them.
I believe that people are inherently lazy but that there are sufficient resources in the world that people can trade in their vote for a stipend so that they are free to pursue their dreams.
I believe that we should not be expected to like someone else regardless of who they are and that there is no obligation to do so. That is part of God's fun, watching who we team up with and who we choose to avoid just like lemmings.
I believe that there are sufficient resources that one day there will be no need to do anything because robots will do all the work.
I believe that we should accept people as they are instead of trying to change them.
I believe we should forgive those who trespass against us.
I believe that charity begins at home.
I believe that we should not take the weight of the world on our shoulders.
I believe that we should seek salvation in God's love.
I believe that no matter how authoritive a man claims to be, we should never take his word over God's. It is OK to seek spiritual guidance but you must always make your own judgement using your own brain, although you should seriously consider listening to the opinions of educated people, especially if they are represented by institutions based on rigorous science.
I believe we should teach our children to love not hate.
I believe that children should be taught to respect their elders, but that they have their rights as well, and someone should be looking out for the rights of the child to make sure that there is no possibilty that child abuse is occurring, given that it is a genetic instinct to do unusual sex acts.
I believe that children should be raised in an environment where it looks like everyone is normal, but if they are different, ie have unusual (but natural) sex desires, they can learn about it in a book such that they can go and form clubs freely to do such things, but in public everyone should look normal and set a good example to their children.
I believe that we can talk to God and that God is listening to us and can help us when we need help.
I believe that God loves his children unconditionally.
I think it is courageous to fight subjugators, do you?
I think it is good to show unselfish kindness to strangers, do you?
I believe that unselfish people should be worshipped as if Gods, do you?
I believe we should not be numb to the suffering of strangers, do you?
I believe that we should care about the Iraqi people as if they were Australians, do you?
I believe that the American government cares about the Iraqi people, do you?
|
I respect those who fight subjugation for unselfish reasons. Do you?
I pledge allegiance to use my brain to ensure survival of my species. Do you?
I pledge allegiance to use my brain to end subjugation of my species. Do you?
I respect those who fight dogma. Do you?
I respect those who are unselfish. Do you?
I respect those who judge people based on current behaviour, not past behaviour. Do you?
I judge people based on their individual actions, not actions of their tribe. Do you?
I believe people can use power for unselfish reasons, do you?
I believe people in power can be unselfish, do you?
I believe people should pledge allegiance to their brain above all else, do you?
I believe all people should be forgiven for their sins if they show remorse, do you?
I believe all people go to heaven, do you?
I believe all people are created equal and should have equal rights, do you?
I believe all people can do both good and bad, and that no-one is perfect. Do you?
I believe that no one man should rule the world, do you?
I believe that no-one should have to live in fear, do you?
I believe that no-one should be a slave, do you?
I believe we should not hate our enemies, do you?
I believe if you can't say something nice you should not say anything at all, do you?
I believe we should teach our children to love all people and hate no-one, do you?
I believe we should consider other people's feelings, do you?
I believe we should not be jealous of those more powerful than ourselves but instead should learn from them, do you?
I believe we should take the least worst option when making decisions instead of complaining that things are not perfect, do you?
I believe that we should make constructive suggestions rather than complain, do you?
I believe our society should provide a good example in public for our children to learn from, do you?
I believe our society should take care of those who can't take care of themselves, do you?
I believe that we should not judge people who behave differently from us, so long as they don't subjugate others, do you?
I believe we should be willing to compromise, do you?
I believe we should ask people why they are sad, do you?
I believe we should try to make people happy, do you?
I believe we should ask people if they are happy, do you?
I believe we should be tolerant of people who do not understand what they are doing, do you?
I believe we should compete for charity and kindness and individual excellence, not power, do you?
I believe we should not deceive others unless it is to prevent hurting their feelings, do you?
I believe we should appreciate what we have instead of complaining about what we don't have, do you?
I believe we should show appreciation when others give us something, do you?
I believe we should spend more time judging our own behaviour and less time judging other people's behaviour, do you?
I believe we should learn from our mistakes, apologize and move on with life, do you?
I believe we should try to change ourselves rather than try to change others, do you?
I pledge allegiance to use my brain to end subjugation of my species. Do you?
I believe that all humans are created equal and every human should have their point of view respected and that there should be checks and balances in place such that the little people's voice is also heard, not just the powerful. We should be vigilant in making sure that the government looks after the needs of the little people and that is why there needs to be NGOs to constrain the abuse of power.
I believe that God forgives us of our sins so long as the sin was not done for selfish reasons without serious consideration of the impact on other people.
I believe that people should not be taken advantage of, and that people should not be tricked into making a decision which they will later regret in life. However, one's personal moral code should not be inflicted on others, including children. They must be allowed to choose their own destiny and their own moral code, and this should be respected, so that they can blossom into whatever it is they wish to be. Every attempt should be made to give a balanced view of every issue so that the child keeps an open mind about everything. An active attempt must be made to ensure that the child does not get stuck on a particular dogma. Indoctrination must be avoided at all costs.
I believe that God guides our path through life and helps us make the right choices if we listen to him and accept his love.
I believe that it is natural to be lazy and selfish and that we should make allowances for people's failings instead of judging them by our own exacting standards.
I believe that if we make a promise we should not make it without the expectation that we fully intend to keep it from the bottom of our heart, but if we break it we should be forgiven by ourselves, others and God, we should not be made to feel guilty about it for the rest of our lives, as sometimes there are extremely difficult choices to be made in life and there is no easy way to choose between the two paths in life. That is what God wants us to do and he has a higher purpose and we should trust in him.
I believe that a commitment to marriage should be made with the expectation that it should be eternal, although if circumstances change divorce is acceptable and the parties should not be made to feel guilty.
No matter how sure we are that one party is lying while another party can be trusted, we should always have an element of self-doubt and use rigorous science to make decisions.
I believe that God loves us and we should accept his love.
I believe that not everyone wants to have children, but some people very badly do want to have children in order to be able to experience the joys of raising a child and having someone to love and who loves them in return. Only people who genuinely want children should become parents, there should be no societal expectation for people to have children as it leads to children growing up without love and if a couple are unable to have a child they have the right to get a child by other means.
I believe we are all God's children and he gets as much pleasure watching us explore an infinite universe as we get watching fish in a fishtank, and that we can indeed talk to God and listen to him if our heart is open to him.
I believe that it is our brain that is what our soul is, and that this can be implemented via electronics as a solution to our energy crisis such that we will be able to zap around the universe just like in Star Trek one day and that the purpose of life is to gain knowledge while still enjoying life and that we will be able to live forever some day.
I believe that it is possible to feel God's love in our brain and that it makes us happy. There is such a thing as love of God and we should feel secure that whenever we need it he will be there to guide us through the difficult choices in life and will answer our prayers and that he will try his best to give us whatever we want just like we like to spoil our children and give our fish lots of food.
I believe that God wants us to be humble and loving to each other, as this is what gives him pleasure in watching. But he wants us to never really be sure whether things are happening by coincidence or by his hand, as that would spoil his fun (just like goldfish never get bored of swimming around the same tank all the time, he never gets bored of watching what whacky ideas people come up with when left to their own free will and we never get tired of comedies).
I believe that we should ask for forgiveness from God for our sins and that he will forgive them.
I believe that people are inherently lazy but that there are sufficient resources in the world that people can trade in their vote for a stipend so that they are free to pursue their dreams.
I believe that we should not be expected to like someone else regardless of who they are and that there is no obligation to do so. That is part of God's fun, watching who we team up with and who we choose to avoid just like lemmings.
I believe that there are sufficient resources that one day there will be no need to do anything because robots will do all the work.
I believe that we should accept people as they are instead of trying to change them.
I believe we should forgive those who trespass against us.
I believe that charity begins at home.
I believe that we should not take the weight of the world on our shoulders.
I believe that we should seek salvation in God's love.
I believe that no matter how authoritive a man claims to be, we should never take his word over God's. It is OK to seek spiritual guidance but you must always make your own judgement using your own brain, although you should seriously consider listening to the opinions of educated people, especially if they are represented by institutions based on rigorous science.
I believe we should teach our children to love not hate.
I believe that children should be taught to respect their elders, but that they have their rights as well, and someone should be looking out for the rights of the child to make sure that there is no possibilty that child abuse is occurring, given that it is a genetic instinct to do unusual sex acts.
I believe that children should be raised in an environment where it looks like everyone is normal, but if they are different, ie have unusual (but natural) sex desires, they can learn about it in a book such that they can go and form clubs freely to do such things, but in public everyone should look normal and set a good example to their children.
I believe that we can talk to God and that God is listening to us and can help us when we need help.
I believe that God loves his children unconditionally.
I think it is courageous to fight subjugators, do you?
I think it is good to show unselfish kindness to strangers, do you?
I believe that unselfish people should be worshipped as if Gods, do you?
I believe we should not be numb to the suffering of strangers, do you?
I believe that we should care about the Iraqi people as if they were Australians, do you?
I believe that the American government cares about the Iraqi people, do you?
2007-01-24
Winning Ideology
This document was first published here in August 2004, and updated numerous times, through September 2004, through my transition from atheist to Mu'tazilah, and represented my final understanding of the forces at work in the world.
Humans, having evolved without an instruction manual, had to learn everything by ourselves. This eventually led to the scientific process, specifically science, evidence and logic, in order to determine course of action. This is as opposed to dogma, ie just any old rubbish that someone indoctrinated children with, and when enough people had been indoctrinated, it became beyond question.
Our democracies are strong mainly as a result of the use of science. It was simple science that showed that capitalism was superior to communism. Their dogma destroyed their own economies. They should have tested communism on a hippy colony before spreading it across a whole country. Just in case!
Using science, we can go back and examine other things we have been indoctrinated with. Note that anything written here is opinion only, not sacrosanct. Everything needs to be rederived from first principles independently, or ditched, whatever. This is DEFINITELY not a dogma.
It would appear that it is a genetic tendency, especially in males, to want to control other people, and also to take whatever you want (e.g. food from other people). Those who were inhibited from doing this would have died out. To avoid dying out, one would have had to been loyal to the leader. So for protection, you need to join a tribe. As a straight business deal, loyalty to the tribe gives you protection from other tribes. There is no compassion for other humans, or even members of the same tribe.
So the natural tendency is for everyone to find a tribe that they can belong to, in order to gain protection. Children would naturally be indoctrinated to see themselves as part of that tribe.
However, the natural tendency to gain wealth from others, causes tribes to clash with each other naturally. If you can be plundered, you will be plundered. Only strength can hold someone back. That is the bottom line - strength.
In order for a tribe to be able to defend off a stronger tribe, it is necessary to form an alliance. But these alliances are still based on antagonism towards others. With indoctrination, people can insist that the alliance should be based on skin colour or somesuch, in an attempt to win loyalty. Until there is only one tribe in the world, or tribes have no reason to want to clash with each other, there will be war.
In modern warfare (science), it is the militaries of nation states that are currently the strongest tribes. The Arab-majority nations successfully allied based on various attempts at both race and dogma (Islam) in an attempt to defeat Israel. While unsuccessful, it did at least provide a rallying point, which remains today. Note that this race-based tribality leads to internal strife, e.g. Kurds in Iraq, which ultimately weakens the country.
The communists also had a rallying point, the commonality of their dogma (communism).
And then there is the greatest alliance of all, NATO. Or more specifically, the free world (liberal democracies). The rallying point is that everyone should band together to protect the right to not be subjugated by any other party. But the members all stay together due to mutual trust. No-one in Europe seriously believes that the US is about to invade them. It is this trust that is causing the alliance to get stronger all the time.
The reason for the trust, is that the member countries GENUINELY don't wish to exploit each other. Although this is a natural tendency, this tendency has been tempered by indoctrination.
In actual fact, NATO members DO exploit each other. They just don't use military force to do so. Europe has had a freed ride, defense wise for the last few decades. Where would the European welfare state be now if the Europeans had been footing the bill for their defense? And that's before we even get to Ireland and Sweden who didn't even raise their hand to join up with the free world. We all know where so-called neutrality got the Dutch in WWII.
Regardless, the indoctrination (from parents, school and optionally church) causing self-restraint is as follows:
1. Humanism - do unto others as you would have others do unto you. This is the ideology that also makes our societies pleasant to live in, and allows freedom. This in turn feeds on itself and develops science at a phenomenal pace. Protect and help rather than exploit others. And create win/win situations so that people don't get scared they will end up being the losers (which is why the poor hang on to a despot like Chavez in Venezuela).
2. Humans are born equal and without sin. Therefore, people should be judged by their current behaviour rather than digging up sins of history.
It is better to give than to receive.
Forgive and forget.
Turn the other cheek.
love thy enemy (to avoid holding grudges)
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
Everyone is born equal and without sin, regardless of race, religion or sex.
Respect other people's opinions and be tolerant.
Everybody is different, respect diversity.
Fix yourself before you complain about others (ie self-criticism is extremely important, especially learning about all the sins that were done by YOUR OWN race/religion/culture/sex/country in the past).
If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
We should always try to help others less fortunate than ourselves.
How does the other person feel?
Ask people if they need help.
Never take the last biscuit from the plate.
Don't be selfish.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Don't judge others lest you be judged.
When helping people it should be "no strings attached", ie you should not expect anything in return, it is not a business deal.
Look at things from the other person's point of view (ie put yourself in their boots - imagine how you would feel).
It doesn't matter if someone is rich or poor, everyone is equal.
People should be judged on their current behaviour (ie what they DO), not who they ARE.
People should be judged as individuals, not as a member of a special interest group.
If you do the above things (ie be a humanist) you will go to Heaven. If you don't, you will go to Hell.
Doing all the above (ie obeying the law of any modern-day liberal democracy) makes you a humanist, and you get protection from all humanists in the world, simply by obeying the law and being a nice person (or a "good host" as the Arab tradition is).
It is this lack of racism or sectarianism, and instead adopting humanism, that has allowed the US to be allied with Germans and Japanese. And even countries that aren't allies, are normally neutral. So long as no attempt is made to exploit others, the others find no reason to form a hostile alliance.
This is how to make true friendship - get all chidren indoctrinated with a desire to help others. But at the same time, it should be dogma-free and control-free. So you don't "help" people by ramming communism down their throat. And rather than wasting resources controlling people, you can simply let them free. They come back (ie join NATO) of their own volition. If Austria were to invade Switzerland and subjugate them for a while, then leave, I think they would very quickly be queing up to join NATO, because they know that NATO offers no-strings-attached protection and they would have a "never again" attitude to neutrality. Incidentally, Hitler was born in Austria.
This is the winning ideology - the one that takes no resources to maintain because no control is required to keep people in line. But the independent countries must not pose a danger either. To do that requires the people themselves to be humanist, and to express their humanist nature via democracy, so that the government reflects that humanity.
This is the problem in Egypt. The people there have been indoctrinated to be Arab racists. They can't shake this off because no-one wants to be odd man out (natural social practice for defence). They are held in place by a relatively moderate government. Since they can't express their indoctrination and elect their own Hitler, they are frustrated and a subset of those frustrated people resort to asymetrical warfare (terrorism).
Whether via asymetrical warfare, or via nuclear warfare by a ideological enemy (e.g. Iran), the problem is that there is an ideological opposition to liberal democracy. Some of these opposing tribes are hostile, some aren't. ie some thugs have no interest in threatening anyone else, e.g. Burma.
Forgetting nation states, for one human to be not afraid of another human, requires that the other human have been indoctrinated to be humanist, thus overriding their genetic tendency (males) to be exploitative.
Not everyone has been indoctrinated in this manner. In western societies, those that haven't been indoctrinated can still be dissuaded by threat of being caught breaking the law and going to jail. For security reasons, we should worry about humans who have not been indoctrinated, and aren't scared of being caught. These people are unrestrained. And they could have been indoctrinated with a dangerous ideology instead, and wish to nuke infidels for example.
Let us now see how dangerous an individual can be. Let us assume that you can buy a nuke from a corrupt Russian if you have enough money. Who has that money?
1. Bill Gates.
2. President of IBM.
3. President of Syria.
4. Prime Minister of Australia.
Let's further analyze...
1. There is no constraints on an individual, other than the hope that he isn't organized enough to know where to buy nukes from. Or that he has been raised as a humanist. Maybe that's fine for Bill Gates, but in the case of Osama Bin Laden, a danger was created.
2. Large corporations do not generally have one man able to use large amounts of money for "personal use". But a potential danger.
3. This is a big problem. Dictators are unrestrained, unaccountable and well organized. Most agree Hitler should have been preempted. The President of Syria could unleash the equivalent of Hitler's firestorm in 1 day if he can buy the weapon. He could become an Islamic Fundamentalist tomorrow, and no-one would know that he is about to do a suicide nuking. There is no response to this even, except by killing a whole lot of Syrians who had nothing to do with the decision to launch anyway. He should be preempted. We need open governments that reflect the humanist values of the underlying society so that there can be some confidence in the leader. Just being democratic isn't good enough either. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela may have an idea to do a "last blow for communism", so that other communists (like Castro) can survive. Demagogues who even shoot their own democratic protestors should not be allowed to exist.
4. This government is open and non-demagogic and reflects the underlying humanist values of its people, so like all other liberal democracies, does not need to be preempted. Nonetheless, everyone has a right to not have to live in fear. As such, the Australian government has an obligation to open itself up to inspection by anyone who would like to see what controls exist for financial spending, to make sure that no black market nukes are being bought.
The other obvious thing to do is try to eliminate or secure the nukes, to prevent people buying them in the first place.
Secular capitalist liberal democracy has proven to be the winning ideology. It reflects the underlying societal indoctrination. And it is constant war to free the world, that is the ultimate guarantor of peace. The concept "freedom = good" must be given higher priority than "war = bad" in children's indoctrination, and policy. It is this concept that is causes the US/Europe rift on the decision on when to go to war. The Europeans think that non-free countries should be legally treated the same as free countries. War is not won via naive assumptions. It is necessary to fight war on the same terms as the enemy. One day your stick may be smaller than his stick. And then you will be destroyed. It is necessary to ensure that in every country in the world, there is a humanist government reflecting the humanist values of its people, and indoctrinating children to do that. As well as teaching science instead of dogma. So freedom (ie end of state-slavery) must be actively spread via war, after a cost/benefit analysis. The communists said that freedom was everyone getting the same wage. Saddam told the Iraqis that freedom was being independent from Britain. But neither of these is right. Freedom is the ability to change/influence the rules, and to be able to freely obtain information and discuss with others what those rules would best be.
An additional problem in Iraq is that people are unaware that they can now have tribal protection by flocking to Iraqi Law. The IP/ING/MNF will protect anyone who obeys the law, and punish anyone who doesn't. The concept of protection via the law is not properly understood, as far as I can tell. Also, they may not be aware that as free people, they are part of our tribe, from our point of view, so are under our protection. In addition, the critical thinking skills are too immature, as there has not been the interaction with the outside required to remedy them. So what you have now is the equivalent of armed kindergarten children doing what looks weird from a western perspective (ie suiciding by attacking western troops of their own volition for no tangible gain). Another part of that is that some people complain that the perfect option (no mistakes) was not chosen, not realising that only the least worst option is available.
There are probably something like 95% humanist Arabs in Iraq, and 5% nutcases. The 5% nutcases are the sort of people who rush onto the street with an AK47 and will threaten shopkeepers or anyone else and attempt to seize control of the country. So, under normal circumstances, in any country, the "leader" will always be a nutcase. But actually he's just a criminal. This is natural.
The 95% are quiet people who just want to run their shop or go to their normal job etc. These people never pick up an AK47 and seize control of the state. It is actually unnatural to have democracy. In democracy, about 1% of the 95% are used in order to keep the 5% under control, via better organization, better weapons and jails.
In addition, the Kurds want justice from the other tribe (Arabs) not realising that the tribe is not to blame collectively for what one man did. My recommendations for justice are:
1. Saddam put on trial.
2. An Iraq that is a liberal democracy so that human rights will be respected from now on.
3. UN rules changed to make dictatorship illegal and holocausts illegal, so that this doesn't happen again anywhere ever, under the ridiculous excuse "that was right to self-determination". An apology from the UN for being so stupid not to realise that living under a dictatorship means that the people have no right to self-determination at all! This phrase should be changed to "right to self-determination via a representative government (not necessarily via democracy, that can be up to the UNSC to decide)".
Also, note that people who vote before having been educated in modern economic theory, are susceptible to making nihilistic decisions, like voting for communism or an Islamic State. There is probably a need to ensure minimal education requirements, or some time for education, or a limited number of non-racially based parties to vote for. I would recommend that the first election starts off with a 2-party system as per the first world, who will naturally compete with each other and end up naturally gravitating towards the centre.
Also, it is identifying as a human, rather than an American etc, that is important. In actual fact our liberal democracies have evolved to being virtually identical, and it is not particularly useful to use nationalistic identification. Ideology transcends all borders. We inherited nation-states, but after finally victory, NATO will probably render the whole concept fairly absurd, and the world will look more like the EU, except more capitalist, with more emphasis on self-funded retirement and without income redistribution between geographical regions.
Everyone in the world, needs to be asking everyone else in the world the single question "are you happy?". That is what creates the unbreakable alliance. Also note that humanism (ie the golden rule - do unto others as you would have others do unto you), is not specific to any religion, it is actually part of philosophy, and was independently invented by Aristotle and Confucious, amongst others.
And if we go back to when we used to be apes, the genetic instinct that allows us to know what is right and wrong is if the other person smiles. And the way to find out how to make someone smile is to ask them what they would like, what would make them happy.
Our tribe is humanists. It is necessary for humanists to subjugate/arrest/kill/cold-war/convert any non-humanists in the world, before any of them get the opportunity to do the reverse to us. This should be done on a scientific cost/benefit/risk analysis, and if it costs 100,000 humanist troops to free the rest of the world, so be it. Our ancestors paid a far higher price than this in WWI & WWII. This is about 3 years worth of US road toll. Freedom is worth much more than private car travel. The population can be restored to normal levels after victory simply by banning cars for 3 years. Arab supremacists and Muslim supremacists are the two largest ideological opponents to humanists currently.
In addition, any religion that considers humanists, including atheist secular humanists, as part of an out-group (thus inferior) should be banned or reformed. Otherwise atheists and heathens end up getting burnt at the stake. Basically even atheists should be allowed into Heaven if there is a benevolent God. Vengeful Gods should not be allowed. They are harmful to society.
All governments need to be humanist and science-based. In the west, that is "accidentally" achieved by democracy amongst adults.
Another thing that must be taught is that people are born without sin and should be judged therefore on current behaviour, not past behaviour. Blacks in America looking down on whites is a lose/lose situation that sees them wind up in jail. It would be better if they discussed how many whites died killing other whites in an attempt to set them free. Arabs can probably find something nice to say about British colonial rule too. Like all the science and technology that came from the industrial revolution, perhaps? When will we see a black Muslim American writing a letter to a white atheist Australian soldier saying "thanks for your service"?
Some other genetic traits are respect for power, including the awe of someone able to construct a pyramid. Anyone who can do that, can probably provide protection. And anyone who can construct the entire universe is definitely all-powerful, and we should do whatever they want (and various people have said that God wants various different things). Fear of punishment in the afterlife may be a western genetic trait that was created by culling unbelievers. The Chinese atheists may have escaped this fear.
A woman is after a strong male for protection. Both physical strength and financial power are attractions. It is natural to be jealous of competition (splitting resources). A man needs to allay these fears. Empathy for unrelated strangers for no personal benefit is a precursor for love. The next level of love is when this is applied to an individual. The level above that is providing a guarantee that the protection will be provided for eternity, EVEN IF the woman is incapacitated or otherwise unable to provide further benefit to the man. And another level is a guarantee that the resources to be provided will not be split to be given to another woman. As well as protection, normal empathy for the woman's feelings must be provided. Yep, those longwinded stories about some aunt who did something-or-other need to continue to be endured. The woman is after someone to listen to it to relieve her frustrations, not necessarily because she wants a problem to be solved. However, men with good ideas who can solve problems are a definite boon. There is no attempt to control a harem of men from the woman's side, since women are only after protection, not subjugation. They can only have one baby at a time after all. However, if the male does not provide enough things that she is looking for, she would naturally seek protection elsewhere.
The man is looking to wield power. Power will determine how many children he gets. Power comes by attracting a herd of followers. And a large herd attracts yet more followers who respect the wielded power. So for a man to be successful, he must be satisfied that he is powerful, because everyone says so. The job of the wife then is to just make him think that he's the bees knees. And the job of society is to placate the man to think that too. The winning combination has been to make men think that the sign of success is to be powerful by studying hard, working hard, and then giving all your money to charity because you're a humanist. This also has the effect of placating lower-income earners, because even if they were rich, they would be "required" to give all their money away to charity anyway, so technically they would be in the same position. Simply by not donating to charity, they can have what they want. The important thing is to instill a requirement to give to strangers rather than to take. It is when you TAKE that wars start. So long as you have an inherent desire to give $1 per year to charity to make it look like you're a nice guy as per societal requirements, you can satisfy your natural selfishness and your power requirements at the same time, and you won't become a thief.
Forcing people to give to charity via communism etc interferes with the natural markets. This is against science. Any social experiments should be done in a controlled manner, not writ large on a country via a dogmatic belief that it "should work". People need to satisfy their own selfish drive for power via economic conquest before they succumb to societal standards for giving money to charity. This is what makes Bill Gates give up some of his vast wealth. He knows that if he doesn't voluntarily donate money to worthy causes, the rest of society will look down on him as a selfish arsehole. At the end of the day, he has a genetic desire to be seen to be great and moral. We don't judge China by how many medals it wins at the Olympic games but by how much aid it selflessly gave to the Iraq reconstruction effort. Not much respect. But the Chinese don't know why we don't respect them. They're pointing to their medals yet still being shunned by the world community. In fact, the more they point to their Olympic medals with pride about how powerful they are, the more worried we get, and end up replying with "yeah, ok, how many more reasons are you going to give me to nuke you off the planet you hostile arseholes?". They need to understand what we're looking for. They don't understand that we're naturally reacting out of fear of their UNRESTRAINED INTENT. They see that we have power so there is no reason for us to be scared. But the open intent is very unusual to us and we assume it is a "cultural difference", but can't put our finger on it, when we think of culture as Chinese takeaway, and religion as benevolent! They want us to respect them as a member of a tribe that can wield great power. Not realising that our tribe is humanists, and they're the enemy, and if they continue the arrogance, we'll assemble a coalition against them. Power used for selfless charitable purposes is the name of the game.
On the assumption that people have a right to not live in fear, the required path to success is as follows:
The government will defend your human rights from the age of 1. Prior to that age, mercy killing will be allowed to help ensure the right to a dignified life. Unwanted crack babies screaming in pain to grow up on drugs and end up as prostitutes is not something I would even allow for my dog. Not that there is anything wrong with prostitutions, it is a noble job that helps many frustrated males. And of course crack baby prostitutes have fear of death when the grow up, so won't allow you to kill them then - by then they have fear and can understand what you are proposing to do. You will be educated to a certain level. Then you can enter into the economy and make as much money as you want. Society encourages you to help those less fortunate than yourself. If you fail to find a job, you will temporarily lose the right to vote, and instead be transferred to the government's "make work" program, where you write public domain code designed to break the back of Bill Gates's software monopoly. If you fail to even do this, or are unable to work, you will be given basic guarantees of food, shelter and emergency treatment. If you refuse to work, you will be treated as having a mental condition and housed in a minimum security mental hospital, where you can recuperate.
This takes fear out of society, without disrupting the markets. Government must be science and humanist based, which rules out Chavez's experiment on both counts. It also rules out tariff protection so that people can keep unsustainable jobs.
In the absence of fear, husbands will find they need to satisfy their wives via normal empathy requirements. She can leave at any time. The wife in turn praises her husband for providing both for her requirements, and for his benevolence to strangers. If a child is born, both parents are morally obliged to take action to ensure that the child is raised with two parents. It doesn't matter if the parents fall out, they should stay together, in separate beds, and can have discreet sexual liasons outside.
Sex from a woman's point of view is both the physical feeling, the acknowledgement that the protection still remains because the woman is still proving attractive or useful. But remember, the protection should remain even if these things cease, so the empathy must show through. From a male point of view, it is an acknowledgement that the woman thinks he is so protective and so benevolent that she thinks he is god personified, and is willing to do anything he wants at his command. But of course, the empathy means that he doesn't do anything that she doesn't want him to do. The dual empathy is what makes it more than just the physical side.
No fear or force is applied by the government in any of this. It is total freedom. Those who are in "refuse to work" rehabilitation do not get the right to have or raise children. A more stable environment for the child will be found, and women will be put on birth control.
Homosexuals can have unions, since that is their personal freedom, but cannot raise children in such an environment, at least not with such deliberate intention. Empathy for the child's rights have precedence.
So society judges people and countries based on voluntary benevolence to strangers (not race-based or country-based) in a natural environment (ie capitalist), not jury-rigged.
Oh yeah, and Christians sinning knowing that they can get away with anything because Jesus died for their sins, is harmful for society. Muslims have the same problem. Humanists go to heaven, non-humanists go to jail or Hell, depending on whether it is the law that is judging or God.
And good news is that all this stuff can be blamed on America! Because America is isolationist, it didn't care about the human rights of people in other countries. Iraqi women getting raped didn't matter a damn, while American dogs and American cells (unborn babies) were given extreme protection, in fact the Catholics even stopped contraception. Crack babies growing up to become prostitutes and living in dustbins on the other hand were rationalized away. This gross hypocrisy led to foreign holocausts being dismissed as unimportant. Within those holocausts, what happened is that Wahhabis took advantage of two genetic traits of men - power lust and selfishness. Power lust should not be confused with competition. To experience power lust, clear your head of empathy, then imagine that you are in Egypt, and there is suddenly chaos (no tribal structure), and everyone is looking around for who is the strongest, so that they can be protected. And you've got a pyramid and no-one else has. And people are impressed by your pyramid. So they're coming to you. Well, that is one option available to you. The other option you have is that you can seek protection from someone else, and pledge allegiance to them. You now need to make an animal choice - to be a slave or master? Now all the slaves look up to the authority of the master (Mullah) as being God's representative (everyone else says so, so protection is gained by being agreeable). The master then indoctrinated children, telling them that their tribe is Islam, and to hate people not in your tribe. They were then sent out on a destroy mission to protect their tribe. Whenever in a position of power, such as with the Russian children, the lack of empathy causes the power lust to make their selfishness take over and the rape starts. It is perfectly natural. This gross child abuse by Wahhabis, not teaching empathy for strangers, is something that should have been ended by America, if they hadn't been isolationist and got their anti-imperialist, anti-Britain rhetoric going that made spreading human rights over the globe seem bad. Basically only Americans matter a damn. Of course the Treaty of Westphalia had something to do with that too.
Someone needs to urgently tell all the Arabs that our tribe is human. Not Christian. Not American. Not white. If the Arabs are humans, then we will accept them as equals and protect them. Are Arabs human? Do they want our protection? LOOK AT OUR POWER. This is why they are fighting. They do not understand that we are protecting them via the rule of law. They are not second class citizens. They are equals. WE ARE PROUD TO BE HUMANS!!!
Australians are members of the tribe of humans. We are not white people, we are humans.
Arabs are members of the tribe of humans.
Arabs are our brothers.
All Australians accept Arabs as equals. We are not racist. The people who said that Australians are racist white people LIED to you.
Australia is in Iraq protecting Arab human rights. We are not trying to steal oil etc etc etc.
Join us. We are proud to be humans. LOOK AT OUR POWER!!!
Americans accept Australians and Arabs as equals too. We are all part of the same tribe. We will protect you. We accept you. All the free world accepts Arabs as equals.
If you don't believe me, ask some Americans. Ask them if they accept you as an equal. I know that they accept you as an equal, for the same reason that they accept Australians as equal!
And we don't care what religion you are either. I am an atheist. In Australia, atheists, Hindus and Muslims (both Sunni and Shiite) are accepted as equals.
Australians and Arabs were allies in World War I and we will never forget the brotherhood forged in blood!!! Thankyou Arabs! We needed your help and you gave it to us!!! The hopeless Pommy bastards (British) couldn't defeat the Turks without us for sure!!! The Anglophones are proud to return the help you. We will replace all your terrible leaders with good leaders - leaders that respect your human rights - leaders who are "good hosts" and who will ASK YOU what YOU want (via democracy). We owe you that much for all the help you gave us. We're sorry it took so long for us to return the favour. The reason for the delay is because we needed to defeat Nazism and Communism before we could help free the Arabs.
I've figured it out even better - we are allied amongst those who don't subjugate others. That is our tribe. The non-subjugators. If you are a non-subjugator, you will be respected as an equal. That's all we want.
And social standing is a competition about who is the most generous to complete strangers.
I donated US$200 to this party, although it looks like some US conservatives have donated more than me. How much did you donate?
http://english.iraqdemparty.org/
Or if you want to help smash Bill Gates's monopoly, why don't you donate genuine public domain code (NOT Gnu Virus Licence) to here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdos/
Males are natural subjugators. Slavery is natural. It's either subjugate or be subjugated, the moment chaos exists. He who owns a pyramid gets to be master. And child predation is also men naturally wanting to experience as many different sexual things as possible, out of curiosity for how many different places they can stick their penis. It is only empathy or fear of being caught that prevent these things from happening. The attraction towards lesbian pornography is the same thing, being able to control people such that they will do whatever you want, including unnatural acts. Holy cow people, take the least worst option when deciding what to do about this.
The terrorists are behaving naturally. An authority figure indoctrinated them with hatred, and fear of God. And America is to blame, for ignoring indoctrination of children because of its isolationist tendencies (ie American nationalism). Human rights abuses don't matter so long as they happen to foreigners. Australians are the best damn country in the world.
And the whole world is to blame for being anti-American bigots, suggesting American hegemony, which contributed to keeping America disengaged. And the revolutionary socialists were responsible for the left-wing media which heaped blame on the powerful, even when the powerful wasn't actually doing anything wrong, and in fact the powerful WASPs were the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.
We are tribal amongst non-subjugationists, humanists, humans, rationalists (science, evidence and logic), liberal democracies. Social standing is based on how much you contribute to spread these values to others, both inside your country and outside, and how much you conform to these values yourself (ie not being a hypocrite). That is why Australia is the greatest nation on earth. No other reason. Power is feared, not respected. Humility is respected. That is why America is respected by free countries, feared by non-free countries. Individuals should always be treated as individuals, not as members of some special interest group (e.g. Canadians, whites etc). And they should be judged on behaviour. Current behaviour, not past behaviour. Adopting these values makes Utopia on earth. You don't need to wait for death. The Anglophones have been doing these things for a long time, but never knew how to categorize it in non-racist terms. E.g. "white man's burden" and "Christian values". This causes enormous friction with other groups, but we've never known what makes people "nice". We think it is normal to be nice. It shouldn't need to be illegal to make people use self-restraint, they should be doing it "naturally". But naturally we are enslavers and selfish. It is empathy that overrides nature. On the other hand, we know what correct moral behaviour is - it is whatever makes another person smile (subject to not regretting it later in life due to not understanding the social implications of the action). The world that I want to live in has a smile on every face. Unnatural things like homosexuality should not be done where a child can see it. Children should be raised in a natural environment.
Australia is often accused of being racist. I ask you how many white Australians you know who are non-humanist, ie wouldn't accept an Aborigine or an Asian as a friend, because of their race? Same deal for America. Who is the greatest nation?
And thankyou anti-power bigots for making WASPs so tolerant that "we" could start thinking in terms of protecting the entire world rather than just our country. You will be forgiven. Society is more productive if you have a smile on your face and are making amends for past mistakes by proving how tolerant you are to those in power and how much you respect their contribution to society.
The Arabs understand the concept of power, and understand the concept of anti-power. The Marxists confused this with anti-subjugation. All will be forgiven. Everyone was just obeying their genes and using faulty logic. The west didn't help with their idea that people aren't born "evil", which they confused with natural subjugate-or-be-subjugated. And the Europeans are non-subjugationists, not anti-subjugationists. When two tribes clash, the leader needs to make the subjugate-or-be-subjugated decision.
Also, when donating money, put it into institutions for humanist rationalist non-subjugationists, such as the IPDP, rather than temporary improvement of standard of living. All non-subjugators have a moral responsibility (if they are humanists) to seek an end to subjugation, dogma and inhumane behaviour, anywhere in the world, in a strategic manner, choosing the least-worst option in any scenario, using our finite resources, while still paying attention to our sub-tribe (family, nation etc) needs. Social standing is based on voluntary donation across all categories. All the money for yourself or your immediate family is not good. But nor is giving all your money to strangers at the expense of your immediate family, in an attempt to get recognition. Money should be given from the heart, not because the social recognition is required.
I'm an anti-dogma, anti-non-humanist and anti-subjugator (in that order) who wants to see a smile on every face in the world and who believes we should help those less fortunate than ourselves (regardless of race/religion/sex/age/nationality) and that everyone has the right to a dignified life free of fear (death penalty OK if it has a deterrent effect) and that we should take the least worst option when making decisions and that the Pope shouldn't have said that the Iraqi Holocaust was fine by him since it was only non-Catholics dying by the bucketload, being raped and being tortured and besides which, that means more Catholics in the world relative to other religions, so he has more power and control over people, much like the sexually-frustrated (from listening to endless sex stories from people looking to confess their sins to wash them away while not actually being able to have sex himself) Catholic priests have over Catholic boys. Are you?
We are the greatest species because we both respected artificial things and asked "How did that guy make that, so I can have power too?".
There is a difference between anti-power and anti-subjugation. The Arabs do not understand this. Please let them know. We are anti-subjugation. We are not anti-power. We fear subjugation but we do not fear power. I respect the use of power to end subjugation, without hesitation, even when there is no benefit to myself. I don't care if I have to kill 90% of the enemy tribe, in order to ensure that institutions are set up such that the leader of that tribe will respect the human rights of everyone in that tribe forever. I don't like living in a world where subjugation exists for selfish purposes and especially where violations of the Geneva Convention, like rape, are allowed by the leader. Both because I feel sorry for the people in that tribe who don't want to be subjugated, and also because if someone can subjugate someone else, they can subjugate me too if they ever become stronger than me (no matter how small that chance may be, I don't want to take that risk, I'm sick of living in fear and I'm sick of people ignoring human rights abuses of foreigners as if they don't matter). I am willing to have casualties in my tribe, so long as most tribe members survive and the ideology of my tribe remains secure. I am willing to use whatever force is required to win, but I want to use the minimum force required to create the institutional change. It is OK to lie (actually only exaggerate) in order to gain allies and keep neutrals from forming a hostile coalition. Do you agree with me?
Arabs think in terms of loyalty to a tribe, so here's the first time I thought of mine:
My loyalty is as follows:
Paul Edwards's brain (ie science)
Non-subjugating humanists
Subjugating humanists for unselfish reasons
Non-subjugating non-humanist allies
Subjugating non-humanist allies
Australian soldiers
Allied soldiers
Enemy civilians (beneficiaries)
Enemy conscript soldiers (unwilling fighters)
Enemy soldiers (willing fighters) who surrender (forgive and forget)
Enemy soldiers who resist (minimum force using brain to judge cost/benefit)
In the pro-liberation WASP culture, in order to shake free of "tribal thinking", we think of ourselves as humans, not members of a special interest group. Then we use science to regenerate alliances rather than being racist. But minorities are more fearful and look to the colour of their skin with fear that they ever become a minority.
You are a human. You have human rights. Your rights are protected by the rule of law in any liberal democracy in the world. You are free to travel as a human within any of these countries without fear. You only need to fear when you travel to a non-free country, ie one where the rule of law is not respected. Non-racist, non-religious-bigotry, non-subjugating countries are safe for you to travel.
Let's put it in animal terms:
I am AGAINST racism.
I am AGAINST sexism.
I am AGAINST religious discrimination.
I am AGAINST dogma.
I am AGAINST subjugation.
I am AGAINST fear
I RESPECT INDIVIDUALS who VOLUNTARILY donate to COMPLETE STRANGERS (ie different race, different sex, different religion) using their OWN HARD-EARNED MONEY or TIME or COMPASSION
I will FIGHT using my BRAIN subjugation of ANY HUMAN while RESPECTING the sanctity of life and using the MINIMUM FORCE REQUIRED to complete the technical task WITHOUT FORGETTING that NO HUMAN IS EVIL we are all simply OBEYING OUR GENES like lions and tigers. This includes the so-called terrorists, who were indoctrinated to give their lives to spread Islam. They have succeeded in doing so.
The reason the terrorism occurred is due to both Muslims and Christians considering their own religion to be superior. This meant that both of them put the other in an out-group and thus didn't have any empathy for the civilians in the other group. They should have instead assumed that there were humanists in the other group too and that they deserved human rights which were being denied. Even something as obvious as state-rape. No matter how naughty someone is, they shouldn't be raped!!! There was something seriously going wrong when people had no empathy for victims of a holocaust.
The Muslims need to be told that there is a brotherhood amongst all humans and thus they have human rights, including the right to not be subjugated. The Christians need to give assurances that they will defend the human rights of Muslims.
Mohammed showed that no matter how good a man is, even if he echos the teachings of Jesus, he should never be given power, because even the greatest man in the world will fall prey to his animal instincts. We should not swear allegiance to any man, no matter who he is or what he says. That is the lesson Islam gave the world. It is complete, the religions are compatible. We are all Muslims.
Can some American ask the US President to say he is a Muslim URGENTLY? This is the quickest way for the war to end. The US President should say that he is a Muslim so that the Muslims have a sense of security so that they can stop fighting, and understand that we accept them fully as our own. They already have a strong concept of being a Muslim. This is the most humanist action the US President could take at this point in time. And it will give the Muslims all over the world a sense of pride and an understanding that they are forgiven and that the final victory was theirs after all. And hopefully Arabs and Muslims everywhere can find it in their hearts to forgive Christians for putting them in an "out group" despite all the time they spent in church.
I have decided to become a Muslim, and I will follow Mu'tazilah and Sufism. This is the world that I want to live in:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6305020108.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
I hope people can forgive me for any offence I may have caused during my quest to learn the truth. I realize now that I fought against dogma as in a war, and that is why I never had empathy for the people I argued with, I only had empathy for institutions. Because I only treated people as ideas, not as human beings. I am sorry. That is why I never managed to convince anyone of anything.
And that is what makes me proud to be Australian. Australia has traditionally been a force that fights subjugation and fights dogma, anywhere in the world. People really are equal here. The people who tell Aborigine jokes are reacting to the fact that they see Aborigines behaving in a racist manner. I myself voted for Pauline Hanson because I could see the problem was not coming from those in power (white people) who treated Aborigines as equals, but from the Aborigines complaining about actions that were exaggerated or never happened. We should understand that we are all equal and are simply obeying our genes. The correct thing to do was to ask WHY. All those people in jail are there because they are like lions and tigers, obeying their genes.
Our tribal loyalty should be:
BRAIN
HOMO SAPIENS
This has the effect of immediately collapsing any thought of anyone being special due to race, religion or sex. After that, the brain should be used to REGENERATE the alliances based on IDEOLOGY not some racial/sexual/spiritual characteristic. All humans, being animals, will go to heaven. That is certain. It is up to us if we choose as a society to "domesticate" them, in a win/win situation, the same as we treat dogs. Humans are genetically trained to show pleasure with a smile. Dogs are genetically trained to show pleasure by wagging their tail. All animals will go to heaven. No-one is actually doing anything wrong. We are all doing what society encouraged us to do.
People obey authority figures, looking for respect, social standing. This is why no-one is evil and everyone should be forgiven. We should make sure we respect the right things, not the wrong things. This is the spiritual meaning that was missing. And the way to change people is to concentrate on the leader of the pack and he should always lead by example. And we can try to encourage the leader to behave properly by realising that he/she is an animal and should thus be pliable to normal thought processes.
All religions had a sense of mysticism. From Caroline:
Have read the above posts regarding religion with interest. Two words everyone should be familiar with - "Perennial Philosophy" - do an internet search on the topic. There are fundamental spiritual truths that are commonly shared among all the great religious traditions. These truths find their clearest expression in the MYSTICAL tradition of each religion - that means Sufi Islam, Zen Buddhism, Esoteric Christianity (see Christian mysticism), Taoism, Judaism (Kabbalah). Some of its proponents stand outside any traditional religion - my favorite is Jiddu Krishnamurti. Why is it important to familiarize ourselves with the Perennial Philosophy? Because one of the root causes of the rise of islamic fundamentalism (Osama bin Laden) is that Muslims fear being overtaken by "modernism" and particularly by the spiritual vacuity that has pervaded the west. Many westerners themselves feel this same spiritual vacuum - in fact I would venture to guess that this sense underlies much of the political lefts apparent scorn for their own western tradition. Put simply they are seeking meaning, and not finding any spiritual meaning in capitalism, they have become nihilistic. Others - like osama bin Laden and extreme fundamentalist right wing Christians are attempting to deal with the spitual vacuum associated with modernity by reverting to strict fundamentalism. Both extremes are unnecessary and are fueling the "clash of civilizations". Anyone interested in resolving this mess needs to find common ground. It is found in the Perennial Philosophy and in the mystical tradition of each religion. I urge Christians to familiarize themselves with Christian mysticism (esoteric chirstianity) and I urge Muslims to familiarize themselves with Sufism and I encourage western secularists and atheists to familiarize themselves with Perennial philosophy (try Krishnamurti for starters). Then I think we'll see that as human beings we're all speaking the same language.
Ecumenism describes bringing religions together. And perennial philosophy ropes in atheists:
http://www2.austincc.edu/adechene/pphil.pdf
The way to prove tolerance and acceptance of Muslims as equals is by the people in power taking the initiative via the institutions. Here is where I will be petitioning the Australian Government to join:
http://www.oic-oci.org/
I ask for all other countries in the world to take a similar initiative immediately. This is the way to show humility and forgiveness.
I respect Prophet Mohammed and those who fight in his name, do you?
I believe Islam is a religion of peace, do you?
I follow Moatazila. He said we should pledge loyalty to our brain first. Basically if you see something as obviously wrong such as the UN authorizing genocide in Darfur, you need to use your brain instead of blindly following the rules. None of us are evil. Not even Saddam. Let us now all try to help others using our brains first.
E.g. there are people dying in Iraq right now, for no reason. We know that we're not trying to subjugate people. But they don't, they just see themselves as the "out group". We need to forgive and forget, just as we would a lion or tiger. Amnesty for anyone who is genuinely contrite about what sins they committed in the past.
Allawi is the one who can make this judgement call. Forgiveness for anyone genuinely contrite and apologizes to their victims. The behaviour we are looking for is to FIGHT subjugation of humans upon other humans. Subjugation to God is the only thing acceptable. And the best evidence we have for God is that we exist. This massive universe is unlikely to have been created as some sort of practical joke gone awry.
And the left wing has understood the concept of the powerful subjugating the weaker. This is actually genetic, they can feel it. However, they have a dogma that the powerful are doing it because they are evil, when in fact the powerful are rarely any such thing. Competitive for sure. As we should be. There is nothing wrong with that. But we should be competing for the right reasons, not the wrong ones. Competing not to subjugate but to put as big a smile on everyone's face as possible. And that includes the competition winners, whether it be in sport or charity or economic growth or intellectual achievement.
No-one is to blame for following our genes. Our behaviour is predictable. If we aren't behaving the way you want us to behave, then suggest an alternative, using your brain. If you don't blame a lion for eating a human, don't blame a human for subjugating another human. And so I think it is about time I finally forgave my parents, after several years of refusing to speak to them for crimes against humanity committed while I was a child.
That is what I have been competing for. I spent my whole life looking forward to the day when I turned 18 years old and would get human rights. I was watching my watch and when the time ticked over, I was suddenly so happy that I was no longer subjugated. I always wondered why no-one cared about human rights for children. When I watched "AI: Artificial Intelligence" I actually cried because I had empathy for a machine. I was wondering why no-one afforded me the same compassion in my life of being bullied and living in fear. From science, I now know why I intimidated people intellectually (because they were in my out-group intellectually) and why they would never drop their various dogmas.
But the genetic desire to control things without fear is tempered by empathy if taught by religion. That is why religion was created, because people were shocked by what others would do to each other. But it was treated dogmatically such that no-one bothered to question whether we were maybe born evil after all. It's not evil, it's the same as every other animal. If it's me or you, it's you. But the winning ideology is to fight subjugation, which is what has emerged from our liberal democracies by evolution. But I wanted to know why some people developed liberal democracies while others didn't. Having spent my whole life looking for an answer to this question, I can see that the Arabs are not different from us "culturally" and can't be the same as us and want to live in holocausts. In actual fact if I hadn't spent my life searching for an answer to this question, Wolfowitz would have just continued his task, introduced rule of law, and then the Iraqis would eventually pledge allegiance to the rule of law. And we would have written the Arabs off as "Saddam is evil". But I know that there are many people who showed me no empathy at all until after I had defeated them in battle. I wanted to know what the reason was that while they pledged allegiance to Christianity, they actually didn't follow it, while I as an atheist followed it. Some people have been taught sufficient lessons like "be nice to people" that they don't subjugate others (but don't help those who are subjugated). Some people have no morals because they think God will wash away their sins so they subjugate the weak, like I appeared to be to them (unwilling to fight back even though I was bigger than them). And others have been taught to fight subjugation. That is what Australia did on a world scale, and I was hoping that that would explain individual behaviour.
So we have three different categories of people:
1. Those who subjugate
2. Those who neither subjugate nor help those that are being subjugated.
3. Those who fight subjugation.
In India, if someone is robbed, everyone rushes to help, because they have been taught to fight subjugation of other Indians.
In America, America has only been taught to respond to subjugation of others if they are first attacked or there is some selfish reason. This was the wrong lesson from Vietnam.
In Australia, we have been conditioned to respond to an attack on an ally. We have also been taught that you shouldn't fight war for selfish reasons. But some people saw America as being selfish in Iraq because they could clearly see the DECEPTION. But the neocons were not racist and were looking at an opportunity to secure human rights. The left-wing had a dogma that the powerful subjugate for selfish reasons only. They couldn't shake it off. That's why they hate "rich cunts".
I wanted to know why people hated others, or acted in such a manner. It is not hate, it is genetic desire to subjugate. Women have this genetic desire too, but are unlikely to have the power rush that comes with trying to seize control for personal honour!
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Humans, having evolved without an instruction manual, had to learn everything by ourselves. This eventually led to the scientific process, specifically science, evidence and logic, in order to determine course of action. This is as opposed to dogma, ie just any old rubbish that someone indoctrinated children with, and when enough people had been indoctrinated, it became beyond question.
Our democracies are strong mainly as a result of the use of science. It was simple science that showed that capitalism was superior to communism. Their dogma destroyed their own economies. They should have tested communism on a hippy colony before spreading it across a whole country. Just in case!
Using science, we can go back and examine other things we have been indoctrinated with. Note that anything written here is opinion only, not sacrosanct. Everything needs to be rederived from first principles independently, or ditched, whatever. This is DEFINITELY not a dogma.
It would appear that it is a genetic tendency, especially in males, to want to control other people, and also to take whatever you want (e.g. food from other people). Those who were inhibited from doing this would have died out. To avoid dying out, one would have had to been loyal to the leader. So for protection, you need to join a tribe. As a straight business deal, loyalty to the tribe gives you protection from other tribes. There is no compassion for other humans, or even members of the same tribe.
So the natural tendency is for everyone to find a tribe that they can belong to, in order to gain protection. Children would naturally be indoctrinated to see themselves as part of that tribe.
However, the natural tendency to gain wealth from others, causes tribes to clash with each other naturally. If you can be plundered, you will be plundered. Only strength can hold someone back. That is the bottom line - strength.
In order for a tribe to be able to defend off a stronger tribe, it is necessary to form an alliance. But these alliances are still based on antagonism towards others. With indoctrination, people can insist that the alliance should be based on skin colour or somesuch, in an attempt to win loyalty. Until there is only one tribe in the world, or tribes have no reason to want to clash with each other, there will be war.
In modern warfare (science), it is the militaries of nation states that are currently the strongest tribes. The Arab-majority nations successfully allied based on various attempts at both race and dogma (Islam) in an attempt to defeat Israel. While unsuccessful, it did at least provide a rallying point, which remains today. Note that this race-based tribality leads to internal strife, e.g. Kurds in Iraq, which ultimately weakens the country.
The communists also had a rallying point, the commonality of their dogma (communism).
And then there is the greatest alliance of all, NATO. Or more specifically, the free world (liberal democracies). The rallying point is that everyone should band together to protect the right to not be subjugated by any other party. But the members all stay together due to mutual trust. No-one in Europe seriously believes that the US is about to invade them. It is this trust that is causing the alliance to get stronger all the time.
The reason for the trust, is that the member countries GENUINELY don't wish to exploit each other. Although this is a natural tendency, this tendency has been tempered by indoctrination.
In actual fact, NATO members DO exploit each other. They just don't use military force to do so. Europe has had a freed ride, defense wise for the last few decades. Where would the European welfare state be now if the Europeans had been footing the bill for their defense? And that's before we even get to Ireland and Sweden who didn't even raise their hand to join up with the free world. We all know where so-called neutrality got the Dutch in WWII.
Regardless, the indoctrination (from parents, school and optionally church) causing self-restraint is as follows:
1. Humanism - do unto others as you would have others do unto you. This is the ideology that also makes our societies pleasant to live in, and allows freedom. This in turn feeds on itself and develops science at a phenomenal pace. Protect and help rather than exploit others. And create win/win situations so that people don't get scared they will end up being the losers (which is why the poor hang on to a despot like Chavez in Venezuela).
2. Humans are born equal and without sin. Therefore, people should be judged by their current behaviour rather than digging up sins of history.
It is better to give than to receive.
Forgive and forget.
Turn the other cheek.
love thy enemy (to avoid holding grudges)
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
Everyone is born equal and without sin, regardless of race, religion or sex.
Respect other people's opinions and be tolerant.
Everybody is different, respect diversity.
Fix yourself before you complain about others (ie self-criticism is extremely important, especially learning about all the sins that were done by YOUR OWN race/religion/culture/sex/country in the past).
If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
We should always try to help others less fortunate than ourselves.
How does the other person feel?
Ask people if they need help.
Never take the last biscuit from the plate.
Don't be selfish.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Don't judge others lest you be judged.
When helping people it should be "no strings attached", ie you should not expect anything in return, it is not a business deal.
Look at things from the other person's point of view (ie put yourself in their boots - imagine how you would feel).
It doesn't matter if someone is rich or poor, everyone is equal.
People should be judged on their current behaviour (ie what they DO), not who they ARE.
People should be judged as individuals, not as a member of a special interest group.
If you do the above things (ie be a humanist) you will go to Heaven. If you don't, you will go to Hell.
Doing all the above (ie obeying the law of any modern-day liberal democracy) makes you a humanist, and you get protection from all humanists in the world, simply by obeying the law and being a nice person (or a "good host" as the Arab tradition is).
It is this lack of racism or sectarianism, and instead adopting humanism, that has allowed the US to be allied with Germans and Japanese. And even countries that aren't allies, are normally neutral. So long as no attempt is made to exploit others, the others find no reason to form a hostile alliance.
This is how to make true friendship - get all chidren indoctrinated with a desire to help others. But at the same time, it should be dogma-free and control-free. So you don't "help" people by ramming communism down their throat. And rather than wasting resources controlling people, you can simply let them free. They come back (ie join NATO) of their own volition. If Austria were to invade Switzerland and subjugate them for a while, then leave, I think they would very quickly be queing up to join NATO, because they know that NATO offers no-strings-attached protection and they would have a "never again" attitude to neutrality. Incidentally, Hitler was born in Austria.
This is the winning ideology - the one that takes no resources to maintain because no control is required to keep people in line. But the independent countries must not pose a danger either. To do that requires the people themselves to be humanist, and to express their humanist nature via democracy, so that the government reflects that humanity.
This is the problem in Egypt. The people there have been indoctrinated to be Arab racists. They can't shake this off because no-one wants to be odd man out (natural social practice for defence). They are held in place by a relatively moderate government. Since they can't express their indoctrination and elect their own Hitler, they are frustrated and a subset of those frustrated people resort to asymetrical warfare (terrorism).
Whether via asymetrical warfare, or via nuclear warfare by a ideological enemy (e.g. Iran), the problem is that there is an ideological opposition to liberal democracy. Some of these opposing tribes are hostile, some aren't. ie some thugs have no interest in threatening anyone else, e.g. Burma.
Forgetting nation states, for one human to be not afraid of another human, requires that the other human have been indoctrinated to be humanist, thus overriding their genetic tendency (males) to be exploitative.
Not everyone has been indoctrinated in this manner. In western societies, those that haven't been indoctrinated can still be dissuaded by threat of being caught breaking the law and going to jail. For security reasons, we should worry about humans who have not been indoctrinated, and aren't scared of being caught. These people are unrestrained. And they could have been indoctrinated with a dangerous ideology instead, and wish to nuke infidels for example.
Let us now see how dangerous an individual can be. Let us assume that you can buy a nuke from a corrupt Russian if you have enough money. Who has that money?
1. Bill Gates.
2. President of IBM.
3. President of Syria.
4. Prime Minister of Australia.
Let's further analyze...
1. There is no constraints on an individual, other than the hope that he isn't organized enough to know where to buy nukes from. Or that he has been raised as a humanist. Maybe that's fine for Bill Gates, but in the case of Osama Bin Laden, a danger was created.
2. Large corporations do not generally have one man able to use large amounts of money for "personal use". But a potential danger.
3. This is a big problem. Dictators are unrestrained, unaccountable and well organized. Most agree Hitler should have been preempted. The President of Syria could unleash the equivalent of Hitler's firestorm in 1 day if he can buy the weapon. He could become an Islamic Fundamentalist tomorrow, and no-one would know that he is about to do a suicide nuking. There is no response to this even, except by killing a whole lot of Syrians who had nothing to do with the decision to launch anyway. He should be preempted. We need open governments that reflect the humanist values of the underlying society so that there can be some confidence in the leader. Just being democratic isn't good enough either. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela may have an idea to do a "last blow for communism", so that other communists (like Castro) can survive. Demagogues who even shoot their own democratic protestors should not be allowed to exist.
4. This government is open and non-demagogic and reflects the underlying humanist values of its people, so like all other liberal democracies, does not need to be preempted. Nonetheless, everyone has a right to not have to live in fear. As such, the Australian government has an obligation to open itself up to inspection by anyone who would like to see what controls exist for financial spending, to make sure that no black market nukes are being bought.
The other obvious thing to do is try to eliminate or secure the nukes, to prevent people buying them in the first place.
Secular capitalist liberal democracy has proven to be the winning ideology. It reflects the underlying societal indoctrination. And it is constant war to free the world, that is the ultimate guarantor of peace. The concept "freedom = good" must be given higher priority than "war = bad" in children's indoctrination, and policy. It is this concept that is causes the US/Europe rift on the decision on when to go to war. The Europeans think that non-free countries should be legally treated the same as free countries. War is not won via naive assumptions. It is necessary to fight war on the same terms as the enemy. One day your stick may be smaller than his stick. And then you will be destroyed. It is necessary to ensure that in every country in the world, there is a humanist government reflecting the humanist values of its people, and indoctrinating children to do that. As well as teaching science instead of dogma. So freedom (ie end of state-slavery) must be actively spread via war, after a cost/benefit analysis. The communists said that freedom was everyone getting the same wage. Saddam told the Iraqis that freedom was being independent from Britain. But neither of these is right. Freedom is the ability to change/influence the rules, and to be able to freely obtain information and discuss with others what those rules would best be.
An additional problem in Iraq is that people are unaware that they can now have tribal protection by flocking to Iraqi Law. The IP/ING/MNF will protect anyone who obeys the law, and punish anyone who doesn't. The concept of protection via the law is not properly understood, as far as I can tell. Also, they may not be aware that as free people, they are part of our tribe, from our point of view, so are under our protection. In addition, the critical thinking skills are too immature, as there has not been the interaction with the outside required to remedy them. So what you have now is the equivalent of armed kindergarten children doing what looks weird from a western perspective (ie suiciding by attacking western troops of their own volition for no tangible gain). Another part of that is that some people complain that the perfect option (no mistakes) was not chosen, not realising that only the least worst option is available.
There are probably something like 95% humanist Arabs in Iraq, and 5% nutcases. The 5% nutcases are the sort of people who rush onto the street with an AK47 and will threaten shopkeepers or anyone else and attempt to seize control of the country. So, under normal circumstances, in any country, the "leader" will always be a nutcase. But actually he's just a criminal. This is natural.
The 95% are quiet people who just want to run their shop or go to their normal job etc. These people never pick up an AK47 and seize control of the state. It is actually unnatural to have democracy. In democracy, about 1% of the 95% are used in order to keep the 5% under control, via better organization, better weapons and jails.
In addition, the Kurds want justice from the other tribe (Arabs) not realising that the tribe is not to blame collectively for what one man did. My recommendations for justice are:
1. Saddam put on trial.
2. An Iraq that is a liberal democracy so that human rights will be respected from now on.
3. UN rules changed to make dictatorship illegal and holocausts illegal, so that this doesn't happen again anywhere ever, under the ridiculous excuse "that was right to self-determination". An apology from the UN for being so stupid not to realise that living under a dictatorship means that the people have no right to self-determination at all! This phrase should be changed to "right to self-determination via a representative government (not necessarily via democracy, that can be up to the UNSC to decide)".
Also, note that people who vote before having been educated in modern economic theory, are susceptible to making nihilistic decisions, like voting for communism or an Islamic State. There is probably a need to ensure minimal education requirements, or some time for education, or a limited number of non-racially based parties to vote for. I would recommend that the first election starts off with a 2-party system as per the first world, who will naturally compete with each other and end up naturally gravitating towards the centre.
Also, it is identifying as a human, rather than an American etc, that is important. In actual fact our liberal democracies have evolved to being virtually identical, and it is not particularly useful to use nationalistic identification. Ideology transcends all borders. We inherited nation-states, but after finally victory, NATO will probably render the whole concept fairly absurd, and the world will look more like the EU, except more capitalist, with more emphasis on self-funded retirement and without income redistribution between geographical regions.
Everyone in the world, needs to be asking everyone else in the world the single question "are you happy?". That is what creates the unbreakable alliance. Also note that humanism (ie the golden rule - do unto others as you would have others do unto you), is not specific to any religion, it is actually part of philosophy, and was independently invented by Aristotle and Confucious, amongst others.
And if we go back to when we used to be apes, the genetic instinct that allows us to know what is right and wrong is if the other person smiles. And the way to find out how to make someone smile is to ask them what they would like, what would make them happy.
Our tribe is humanists. It is necessary for humanists to subjugate/arrest/kill/cold-war/convert any non-humanists in the world, before any of them get the opportunity to do the reverse to us. This should be done on a scientific cost/benefit/risk analysis, and if it costs 100,000 humanist troops to free the rest of the world, so be it. Our ancestors paid a far higher price than this in WWI & WWII. This is about 3 years worth of US road toll. Freedom is worth much more than private car travel. The population can be restored to normal levels after victory simply by banning cars for 3 years. Arab supremacists and Muslim supremacists are the two largest ideological opponents to humanists currently.
In addition, any religion that considers humanists, including atheist secular humanists, as part of an out-group (thus inferior) should be banned or reformed. Otherwise atheists and heathens end up getting burnt at the stake. Basically even atheists should be allowed into Heaven if there is a benevolent God. Vengeful Gods should not be allowed. They are harmful to society.
All governments need to be humanist and science-based. In the west, that is "accidentally" achieved by democracy amongst adults.
Another thing that must be taught is that people are born without sin and should be judged therefore on current behaviour, not past behaviour. Blacks in America looking down on whites is a lose/lose situation that sees them wind up in jail. It would be better if they discussed how many whites died killing other whites in an attempt to set them free. Arabs can probably find something nice to say about British colonial rule too. Like all the science and technology that came from the industrial revolution, perhaps? When will we see a black Muslim American writing a letter to a white atheist Australian soldier saying "thanks for your service"?
Some other genetic traits are respect for power, including the awe of someone able to construct a pyramid. Anyone who can do that, can probably provide protection. And anyone who can construct the entire universe is definitely all-powerful, and we should do whatever they want (and various people have said that God wants various different things). Fear of punishment in the afterlife may be a western genetic trait that was created by culling unbelievers. The Chinese atheists may have escaped this fear.
A woman is after a strong male for protection. Both physical strength and financial power are attractions. It is natural to be jealous of competition (splitting resources). A man needs to allay these fears. Empathy for unrelated strangers for no personal benefit is a precursor for love. The next level of love is when this is applied to an individual. The level above that is providing a guarantee that the protection will be provided for eternity, EVEN IF the woman is incapacitated or otherwise unable to provide further benefit to the man. And another level is a guarantee that the resources to be provided will not be split to be given to another woman. As well as protection, normal empathy for the woman's feelings must be provided. Yep, those longwinded stories about some aunt who did something-or-other need to continue to be endured. The woman is after someone to listen to it to relieve her frustrations, not necessarily because she wants a problem to be solved. However, men with good ideas who can solve problems are a definite boon. There is no attempt to control a harem of men from the woman's side, since women are only after protection, not subjugation. They can only have one baby at a time after all. However, if the male does not provide enough things that she is looking for, she would naturally seek protection elsewhere.
The man is looking to wield power. Power will determine how many children he gets. Power comes by attracting a herd of followers. And a large herd attracts yet more followers who respect the wielded power. So for a man to be successful, he must be satisfied that he is powerful, because everyone says so. The job of the wife then is to just make him think that he's the bees knees. And the job of society is to placate the man to think that too. The winning combination has been to make men think that the sign of success is to be powerful by studying hard, working hard, and then giving all your money to charity because you're a humanist. This also has the effect of placating lower-income earners, because even if they were rich, they would be "required" to give all their money away to charity anyway, so technically they would be in the same position. Simply by not donating to charity, they can have what they want. The important thing is to instill a requirement to give to strangers rather than to take. It is when you TAKE that wars start. So long as you have an inherent desire to give $1 per year to charity to make it look like you're a nice guy as per societal requirements, you can satisfy your natural selfishness and your power requirements at the same time, and you won't become a thief.
Forcing people to give to charity via communism etc interferes with the natural markets. This is against science. Any social experiments should be done in a controlled manner, not writ large on a country via a dogmatic belief that it "should work". People need to satisfy their own selfish drive for power via economic conquest before they succumb to societal standards for giving money to charity. This is what makes Bill Gates give up some of his vast wealth. He knows that if he doesn't voluntarily donate money to worthy causes, the rest of society will look down on him as a selfish arsehole. At the end of the day, he has a genetic desire to be seen to be great and moral. We don't judge China by how many medals it wins at the Olympic games but by how much aid it selflessly gave to the Iraq reconstruction effort. Not much respect. But the Chinese don't know why we don't respect them. They're pointing to their medals yet still being shunned by the world community. In fact, the more they point to their Olympic medals with pride about how powerful they are, the more worried we get, and end up replying with "yeah, ok, how many more reasons are you going to give me to nuke you off the planet you hostile arseholes?". They need to understand what we're looking for. They don't understand that we're naturally reacting out of fear of their UNRESTRAINED INTENT. They see that we have power so there is no reason for us to be scared. But the open intent is very unusual to us and we assume it is a "cultural difference", but can't put our finger on it, when we think of culture as Chinese takeaway, and religion as benevolent! They want us to respect them as a member of a tribe that can wield great power. Not realising that our tribe is humanists, and they're the enemy, and if they continue the arrogance, we'll assemble a coalition against them. Power used for selfless charitable purposes is the name of the game.
On the assumption that people have a right to not live in fear, the required path to success is as follows:
The government will defend your human rights from the age of 1. Prior to that age, mercy killing will be allowed to help ensure the right to a dignified life. Unwanted crack babies screaming in pain to grow up on drugs and end up as prostitutes is not something I would even allow for my dog. Not that there is anything wrong with prostitutions, it is a noble job that helps many frustrated males. And of course crack baby prostitutes have fear of death when the grow up, so won't allow you to kill them then - by then they have fear and can understand what you are proposing to do. You will be educated to a certain level. Then you can enter into the economy and make as much money as you want. Society encourages you to help those less fortunate than yourself. If you fail to find a job, you will temporarily lose the right to vote, and instead be transferred to the government's "make work" program, where you write public domain code designed to break the back of Bill Gates's software monopoly. If you fail to even do this, or are unable to work, you will be given basic guarantees of food, shelter and emergency treatment. If you refuse to work, you will be treated as having a mental condition and housed in a minimum security mental hospital, where you can recuperate.
This takes fear out of society, without disrupting the markets. Government must be science and humanist based, which rules out Chavez's experiment on both counts. It also rules out tariff protection so that people can keep unsustainable jobs.
In the absence of fear, husbands will find they need to satisfy their wives via normal empathy requirements. She can leave at any time. The wife in turn praises her husband for providing both for her requirements, and for his benevolence to strangers. If a child is born, both parents are morally obliged to take action to ensure that the child is raised with two parents. It doesn't matter if the parents fall out, they should stay together, in separate beds, and can have discreet sexual liasons outside.
Sex from a woman's point of view is both the physical feeling, the acknowledgement that the protection still remains because the woman is still proving attractive or useful. But remember, the protection should remain even if these things cease, so the empathy must show through. From a male point of view, it is an acknowledgement that the woman thinks he is so protective and so benevolent that she thinks he is god personified, and is willing to do anything he wants at his command. But of course, the empathy means that he doesn't do anything that she doesn't want him to do. The dual empathy is what makes it more than just the physical side.
No fear or force is applied by the government in any of this. It is total freedom. Those who are in "refuse to work" rehabilitation do not get the right to have or raise children. A more stable environment for the child will be found, and women will be put on birth control.
Homosexuals can have unions, since that is their personal freedom, but cannot raise children in such an environment, at least not with such deliberate intention. Empathy for the child's rights have precedence.
So society judges people and countries based on voluntary benevolence to strangers (not race-based or country-based) in a natural environment (ie capitalist), not jury-rigged.
Oh yeah, and Christians sinning knowing that they can get away with anything because Jesus died for their sins, is harmful for society. Muslims have the same problem. Humanists go to heaven, non-humanists go to jail or Hell, depending on whether it is the law that is judging or God.
And good news is that all this stuff can be blamed on America! Because America is isolationist, it didn't care about the human rights of people in other countries. Iraqi women getting raped didn't matter a damn, while American dogs and American cells (unborn babies) were given extreme protection, in fact the Catholics even stopped contraception. Crack babies growing up to become prostitutes and living in dustbins on the other hand were rationalized away. This gross hypocrisy led to foreign holocausts being dismissed as unimportant. Within those holocausts, what happened is that Wahhabis took advantage of two genetic traits of men - power lust and selfishness. Power lust should not be confused with competition. To experience power lust, clear your head of empathy, then imagine that you are in Egypt, and there is suddenly chaos (no tribal structure), and everyone is looking around for who is the strongest, so that they can be protected. And you've got a pyramid and no-one else has. And people are impressed by your pyramid. So they're coming to you. Well, that is one option available to you. The other option you have is that you can seek protection from someone else, and pledge allegiance to them. You now need to make an animal choice - to be a slave or master? Now all the slaves look up to the authority of the master (Mullah) as being God's representative (everyone else says so, so protection is gained by being agreeable). The master then indoctrinated children, telling them that their tribe is Islam, and to hate people not in your tribe. They were then sent out on a destroy mission to protect their tribe. Whenever in a position of power, such as with the Russian children, the lack of empathy causes the power lust to make their selfishness take over and the rape starts. It is perfectly natural. This gross child abuse by Wahhabis, not teaching empathy for strangers, is something that should have been ended by America, if they hadn't been isolationist and got their anti-imperialist, anti-Britain rhetoric going that made spreading human rights over the globe seem bad. Basically only Americans matter a damn. Of course the Treaty of Westphalia had something to do with that too.
Someone needs to urgently tell all the Arabs that our tribe is human. Not Christian. Not American. Not white. If the Arabs are humans, then we will accept them as equals and protect them. Are Arabs human? Do they want our protection? LOOK AT OUR POWER. This is why they are fighting. They do not understand that we are protecting them via the rule of law. They are not second class citizens. They are equals. WE ARE PROUD TO BE HUMANS!!!
Australians are members of the tribe of humans. We are not white people, we are humans.
Arabs are members of the tribe of humans.
Arabs are our brothers.
All Australians accept Arabs as equals. We are not racist. The people who said that Australians are racist white people LIED to you.
Australia is in Iraq protecting Arab human rights. We are not trying to steal oil etc etc etc.
Join us. We are proud to be humans. LOOK AT OUR POWER!!!
Americans accept Australians and Arabs as equals too. We are all part of the same tribe. We will protect you. We accept you. All the free world accepts Arabs as equals.
If you don't believe me, ask some Americans. Ask them if they accept you as an equal. I know that they accept you as an equal, for the same reason that they accept Australians as equal!
And we don't care what religion you are either. I am an atheist. In Australia, atheists, Hindus and Muslims (both Sunni and Shiite) are accepted as equals.
Australians and Arabs were allies in World War I and we will never forget the brotherhood forged in blood!!! Thankyou Arabs! We needed your help and you gave it to us!!! The hopeless Pommy bastards (British) couldn't defeat the Turks without us for sure!!! The Anglophones are proud to return the help you. We will replace all your terrible leaders with good leaders - leaders that respect your human rights - leaders who are "good hosts" and who will ASK YOU what YOU want (via democracy). We owe you that much for all the help you gave us. We're sorry it took so long for us to return the favour. The reason for the delay is because we needed to defeat Nazism and Communism before we could help free the Arabs.
I've figured it out even better - we are allied amongst those who don't subjugate others. That is our tribe. The non-subjugators. If you are a non-subjugator, you will be respected as an equal. That's all we want.
And social standing is a competition about who is the most generous to complete strangers.
I donated US$200 to this party, although it looks like some US conservatives have donated more than me. How much did you donate?
http://english.iraqdemparty.org/
Or if you want to help smash Bill Gates's monopoly, why don't you donate genuine public domain code (NOT Gnu Virus Licence) to here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdos/
Males are natural subjugators. Slavery is natural. It's either subjugate or be subjugated, the moment chaos exists. He who owns a pyramid gets to be master. And child predation is also men naturally wanting to experience as many different sexual things as possible, out of curiosity for how many different places they can stick their penis. It is only empathy or fear of being caught that prevent these things from happening. The attraction towards lesbian pornography is the same thing, being able to control people such that they will do whatever you want, including unnatural acts. Holy cow people, take the least worst option when deciding what to do about this.
The terrorists are behaving naturally. An authority figure indoctrinated them with hatred, and fear of God. And America is to blame, for ignoring indoctrination of children because of its isolationist tendencies (ie American nationalism). Human rights abuses don't matter so long as they happen to foreigners. Australians are the best damn country in the world.
And the whole world is to blame for being anti-American bigots, suggesting American hegemony, which contributed to keeping America disengaged. And the revolutionary socialists were responsible for the left-wing media which heaped blame on the powerful, even when the powerful wasn't actually doing anything wrong, and in fact the powerful WASPs were the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.
We are tribal amongst non-subjugationists, humanists, humans, rationalists (science, evidence and logic), liberal democracies. Social standing is based on how much you contribute to spread these values to others, both inside your country and outside, and how much you conform to these values yourself (ie not being a hypocrite). That is why Australia is the greatest nation on earth. No other reason. Power is feared, not respected. Humility is respected. That is why America is respected by free countries, feared by non-free countries. Individuals should always be treated as individuals, not as members of some special interest group (e.g. Canadians, whites etc). And they should be judged on behaviour. Current behaviour, not past behaviour. Adopting these values makes Utopia on earth. You don't need to wait for death. The Anglophones have been doing these things for a long time, but never knew how to categorize it in non-racist terms. E.g. "white man's burden" and "Christian values". This causes enormous friction with other groups, but we've never known what makes people "nice". We think it is normal to be nice. It shouldn't need to be illegal to make people use self-restraint, they should be doing it "naturally". But naturally we are enslavers and selfish. It is empathy that overrides nature. On the other hand, we know what correct moral behaviour is - it is whatever makes another person smile (subject to not regretting it later in life due to not understanding the social implications of the action). The world that I want to live in has a smile on every face. Unnatural things like homosexuality should not be done where a child can see it. Children should be raised in a natural environment.
Australia is often accused of being racist. I ask you how many white Australians you know who are non-humanist, ie wouldn't accept an Aborigine or an Asian as a friend, because of their race? Same deal for America. Who is the greatest nation?
And thankyou anti-power bigots for making WASPs so tolerant that "we" could start thinking in terms of protecting the entire world rather than just our country. You will be forgiven. Society is more productive if you have a smile on your face and are making amends for past mistakes by proving how tolerant you are to those in power and how much you respect their contribution to society.
The Arabs understand the concept of power, and understand the concept of anti-power. The Marxists confused this with anti-subjugation. All will be forgiven. Everyone was just obeying their genes and using faulty logic. The west didn't help with their idea that people aren't born "evil", which they confused with natural subjugate-or-be-subjugated. And the Europeans are non-subjugationists, not anti-subjugationists. When two tribes clash, the leader needs to make the subjugate-or-be-subjugated decision.
Also, when donating money, put it into institutions for humanist rationalist non-subjugationists, such as the IPDP, rather than temporary improvement of standard of living. All non-subjugators have a moral responsibility (if they are humanists) to seek an end to subjugation, dogma and inhumane behaviour, anywhere in the world, in a strategic manner, choosing the least-worst option in any scenario, using our finite resources, while still paying attention to our sub-tribe (family, nation etc) needs. Social standing is based on voluntary donation across all categories. All the money for yourself or your immediate family is not good. But nor is giving all your money to strangers at the expense of your immediate family, in an attempt to get recognition. Money should be given from the heart, not because the social recognition is required.
I'm an anti-dogma, anti-non-humanist and anti-subjugator (in that order) who wants to see a smile on every face in the world and who believes we should help those less fortunate than ourselves (regardless of race/religion/sex/age/nationality) and that everyone has the right to a dignified life free of fear (death penalty OK if it has a deterrent effect) and that we should take the least worst option when making decisions and that the Pope shouldn't have said that the Iraqi Holocaust was fine by him since it was only non-Catholics dying by the bucketload, being raped and being tortured and besides which, that means more Catholics in the world relative to other religions, so he has more power and control over people, much like the sexually-frustrated (from listening to endless sex stories from people looking to confess their sins to wash them away while not actually being able to have sex himself) Catholic priests have over Catholic boys. Are you?
We are the greatest species because we both respected artificial things and asked "How did that guy make that, so I can have power too?".
There is a difference between anti-power and anti-subjugation. The Arabs do not understand this. Please let them know. We are anti-subjugation. We are not anti-power. We fear subjugation but we do not fear power. I respect the use of power to end subjugation, without hesitation, even when there is no benefit to myself. I don't care if I have to kill 90% of the enemy tribe, in order to ensure that institutions are set up such that the leader of that tribe will respect the human rights of everyone in that tribe forever. I don't like living in a world where subjugation exists for selfish purposes and especially where violations of the Geneva Convention, like rape, are allowed by the leader. Both because I feel sorry for the people in that tribe who don't want to be subjugated, and also because if someone can subjugate someone else, they can subjugate me too if they ever become stronger than me (no matter how small that chance may be, I don't want to take that risk, I'm sick of living in fear and I'm sick of people ignoring human rights abuses of foreigners as if they don't matter). I am willing to have casualties in my tribe, so long as most tribe members survive and the ideology of my tribe remains secure. I am willing to use whatever force is required to win, but I want to use the minimum force required to create the institutional change. It is OK to lie (actually only exaggerate) in order to gain allies and keep neutrals from forming a hostile coalition. Do you agree with me?
Arabs think in terms of loyalty to a tribe, so here's the first time I thought of mine:
My loyalty is as follows:
Paul Edwards's brain (ie science)
Non-subjugating humanists
Subjugating humanists for unselfish reasons
Non-subjugating non-humanist allies
Subjugating non-humanist allies
Australian soldiers
Allied soldiers
Enemy civilians (beneficiaries)
Enemy conscript soldiers (unwilling fighters)
Enemy soldiers (willing fighters) who surrender (forgive and forget)
Enemy soldiers who resist (minimum force using brain to judge cost/benefit)
In the pro-liberation WASP culture, in order to shake free of "tribal thinking", we think of ourselves as humans, not members of a special interest group. Then we use science to regenerate alliances rather than being racist. But minorities are more fearful and look to the colour of their skin with fear that they ever become a minority.
You are a human. You have human rights. Your rights are protected by the rule of law in any liberal democracy in the world. You are free to travel as a human within any of these countries without fear. You only need to fear when you travel to a non-free country, ie one where the rule of law is not respected. Non-racist, non-religious-bigotry, non-subjugating countries are safe for you to travel.
Let's put it in animal terms:
I am AGAINST racism.
I am AGAINST sexism.
I am AGAINST religious discrimination.
I am AGAINST dogma.
I am AGAINST subjugation.
I am AGAINST fear
I RESPECT INDIVIDUALS who VOLUNTARILY donate to COMPLETE STRANGERS (ie different race, different sex, different religion) using their OWN HARD-EARNED MONEY or TIME or COMPASSION
I will FIGHT using my BRAIN subjugation of ANY HUMAN while RESPECTING the sanctity of life and using the MINIMUM FORCE REQUIRED to complete the technical task WITHOUT FORGETTING that NO HUMAN IS EVIL we are all simply OBEYING OUR GENES like lions and tigers. This includes the so-called terrorists, who were indoctrinated to give their lives to spread Islam. They have succeeded in doing so.
The reason the terrorism occurred is due to both Muslims and Christians considering their own religion to be superior. This meant that both of them put the other in an out-group and thus didn't have any empathy for the civilians in the other group. They should have instead assumed that there were humanists in the other group too and that they deserved human rights which were being denied. Even something as obvious as state-rape. No matter how naughty someone is, they shouldn't be raped!!! There was something seriously going wrong when people had no empathy for victims of a holocaust.
The Muslims need to be told that there is a brotherhood amongst all humans and thus they have human rights, including the right to not be subjugated. The Christians need to give assurances that they will defend the human rights of Muslims.
Mohammed showed that no matter how good a man is, even if he echos the teachings of Jesus, he should never be given power, because even the greatest man in the world will fall prey to his animal instincts. We should not swear allegiance to any man, no matter who he is or what he says. That is the lesson Islam gave the world. It is complete, the religions are compatible. We are all Muslims.
Can some American ask the US President to say he is a Muslim URGENTLY? This is the quickest way for the war to end. The US President should say that he is a Muslim so that the Muslims have a sense of security so that they can stop fighting, and understand that we accept them fully as our own. They already have a strong concept of being a Muslim. This is the most humanist action the US President could take at this point in time. And it will give the Muslims all over the world a sense of pride and an understanding that they are forgiven and that the final victory was theirs after all. And hopefully Arabs and Muslims everywhere can find it in their hearts to forgive Christians for putting them in an "out group" despite all the time they spent in church.
I have decided to become a Muslim, and I will follow Mu'tazilah and Sufism. This is the world that I want to live in:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/6305020108.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
I hope people can forgive me for any offence I may have caused during my quest to learn the truth. I realize now that I fought against dogma as in a war, and that is why I never had empathy for the people I argued with, I only had empathy for institutions. Because I only treated people as ideas, not as human beings. I am sorry. That is why I never managed to convince anyone of anything.
And that is what makes me proud to be Australian. Australia has traditionally been a force that fights subjugation and fights dogma, anywhere in the world. People really are equal here. The people who tell Aborigine jokes are reacting to the fact that they see Aborigines behaving in a racist manner. I myself voted for Pauline Hanson because I could see the problem was not coming from those in power (white people) who treated Aborigines as equals, but from the Aborigines complaining about actions that were exaggerated or never happened. We should understand that we are all equal and are simply obeying our genes. The correct thing to do was to ask WHY. All those people in jail are there because they are like lions and tigers, obeying their genes.
Our tribal loyalty should be:
BRAIN
HOMO SAPIENS
This has the effect of immediately collapsing any thought of anyone being special due to race, religion or sex. After that, the brain should be used to REGENERATE the alliances based on IDEOLOGY not some racial/sexual/spiritual characteristic. All humans, being animals, will go to heaven. That is certain. It is up to us if we choose as a society to "domesticate" them, in a win/win situation, the same as we treat dogs. Humans are genetically trained to show pleasure with a smile. Dogs are genetically trained to show pleasure by wagging their tail. All animals will go to heaven. No-one is actually doing anything wrong. We are all doing what society encouraged us to do.
People obey authority figures, looking for respect, social standing. This is why no-one is evil and everyone should be forgiven. We should make sure we respect the right things, not the wrong things. This is the spiritual meaning that was missing. And the way to change people is to concentrate on the leader of the pack and he should always lead by example. And we can try to encourage the leader to behave properly by realising that he/she is an animal and should thus be pliable to normal thought processes.
All religions had a sense of mysticism. From Caroline:
Have read the above posts regarding religion with interest. Two words everyone should be familiar with - "Perennial Philosophy" - do an internet search on the topic. There are fundamental spiritual truths that are commonly shared among all the great religious traditions. These truths find their clearest expression in the MYSTICAL tradition of each religion - that means Sufi Islam, Zen Buddhism, Esoteric Christianity (see Christian mysticism), Taoism, Judaism (Kabbalah). Some of its proponents stand outside any traditional religion - my favorite is Jiddu Krishnamurti. Why is it important to familiarize ourselves with the Perennial Philosophy? Because one of the root causes of the rise of islamic fundamentalism (Osama bin Laden) is that Muslims fear being overtaken by "modernism" and particularly by the spiritual vacuity that has pervaded the west. Many westerners themselves feel this same spiritual vacuum - in fact I would venture to guess that this sense underlies much of the political lefts apparent scorn for their own western tradition. Put simply they are seeking meaning, and not finding any spiritual meaning in capitalism, they have become nihilistic. Others - like osama bin Laden and extreme fundamentalist right wing Christians are attempting to deal with the spitual vacuum associated with modernity by reverting to strict fundamentalism. Both extremes are unnecessary and are fueling the "clash of civilizations". Anyone interested in resolving this mess needs to find common ground. It is found in the Perennial Philosophy and in the mystical tradition of each religion. I urge Christians to familiarize themselves with Christian mysticism (esoteric chirstianity) and I urge Muslims to familiarize themselves with Sufism and I encourage western secularists and atheists to familiarize themselves with Perennial philosophy (try Krishnamurti for starters). Then I think we'll see that as human beings we're all speaking the same language.
Ecumenism describes bringing religions together. And perennial philosophy ropes in atheists:
http://www2.austincc.edu/adechene/pphil.pdf
The way to prove tolerance and acceptance of Muslims as equals is by the people in power taking the initiative via the institutions. Here is where I will be petitioning the Australian Government to join:
http://www.oic-oci.org/
I ask for all other countries in the world to take a similar initiative immediately. This is the way to show humility and forgiveness.
I respect Prophet Mohammed and those who fight in his name, do you?
I believe Islam is a religion of peace, do you?
I follow Moatazila. He said we should pledge loyalty to our brain first. Basically if you see something as obviously wrong such as the UN authorizing genocide in Darfur, you need to use your brain instead of blindly following the rules. None of us are evil. Not even Saddam. Let us now all try to help others using our brains first.
E.g. there are people dying in Iraq right now, for no reason. We know that we're not trying to subjugate people. But they don't, they just see themselves as the "out group". We need to forgive and forget, just as we would a lion or tiger. Amnesty for anyone who is genuinely contrite about what sins they committed in the past.
Allawi is the one who can make this judgement call. Forgiveness for anyone genuinely contrite and apologizes to their victims. The behaviour we are looking for is to FIGHT subjugation of humans upon other humans. Subjugation to God is the only thing acceptable. And the best evidence we have for God is that we exist. This massive universe is unlikely to have been created as some sort of practical joke gone awry.
And the left wing has understood the concept of the powerful subjugating the weaker. This is actually genetic, they can feel it. However, they have a dogma that the powerful are doing it because they are evil, when in fact the powerful are rarely any such thing. Competitive for sure. As we should be. There is nothing wrong with that. But we should be competing for the right reasons, not the wrong ones. Competing not to subjugate but to put as big a smile on everyone's face as possible. And that includes the competition winners, whether it be in sport or charity or economic growth or intellectual achievement.
No-one is to blame for following our genes. Our behaviour is predictable. If we aren't behaving the way you want us to behave, then suggest an alternative, using your brain. If you don't blame a lion for eating a human, don't blame a human for subjugating another human. And so I think it is about time I finally forgave my parents, after several years of refusing to speak to them for crimes against humanity committed while I was a child.
That is what I have been competing for. I spent my whole life looking forward to the day when I turned 18 years old and would get human rights. I was watching my watch and when the time ticked over, I was suddenly so happy that I was no longer subjugated. I always wondered why no-one cared about human rights for children. When I watched "AI: Artificial Intelligence" I actually cried because I had empathy for a machine. I was wondering why no-one afforded me the same compassion in my life of being bullied and living in fear. From science, I now know why I intimidated people intellectually (because they were in my out-group intellectually) and why they would never drop their various dogmas.
But the genetic desire to control things without fear is tempered by empathy if taught by religion. That is why religion was created, because people were shocked by what others would do to each other. But it was treated dogmatically such that no-one bothered to question whether we were maybe born evil after all. It's not evil, it's the same as every other animal. If it's me or you, it's you. But the winning ideology is to fight subjugation, which is what has emerged from our liberal democracies by evolution. But I wanted to know why some people developed liberal democracies while others didn't. Having spent my whole life looking for an answer to this question, I can see that the Arabs are not different from us "culturally" and can't be the same as us and want to live in holocausts. In actual fact if I hadn't spent my life searching for an answer to this question, Wolfowitz would have just continued his task, introduced rule of law, and then the Iraqis would eventually pledge allegiance to the rule of law. And we would have written the Arabs off as "Saddam is evil". But I know that there are many people who showed me no empathy at all until after I had defeated them in battle. I wanted to know what the reason was that while they pledged allegiance to Christianity, they actually didn't follow it, while I as an atheist followed it. Some people have been taught sufficient lessons like "be nice to people" that they don't subjugate others (but don't help those who are subjugated). Some people have no morals because they think God will wash away their sins so they subjugate the weak, like I appeared to be to them (unwilling to fight back even though I was bigger than them). And others have been taught to fight subjugation. That is what Australia did on a world scale, and I was hoping that that would explain individual behaviour.
So we have three different categories of people:
1. Those who subjugate
2. Those who neither subjugate nor help those that are being subjugated.
3. Those who fight subjugation.
In India, if someone is robbed, everyone rushes to help, because they have been taught to fight subjugation of other Indians.
In America, America has only been taught to respond to subjugation of others if they are first attacked or there is some selfish reason. This was the wrong lesson from Vietnam.
In Australia, we have been conditioned to respond to an attack on an ally. We have also been taught that you shouldn't fight war for selfish reasons. But some people saw America as being selfish in Iraq because they could clearly see the DECEPTION. But the neocons were not racist and were looking at an opportunity to secure human rights. The left-wing had a dogma that the powerful subjugate for selfish reasons only. They couldn't shake it off. That's why they hate "rich cunts".
I wanted to know why people hated others, or acted in such a manner. It is not hate, it is genetic desire to subjugate. Women have this genetic desire too, but are unlikely to have the power rush that comes with trying to seize control for personal honour!