2008-02-26
Bat Alert
At long last I finally managed to talk in-depth with a Japanese person, and gain some insight into the world's 2nd-largest economy and it's conspicuous absence from the Iraqi blogs and IRC as if they are too busy growing those small trees in potplants things.
One of my ex-students who I managed to discuss the Iraq war with for an hour, returned to visit Australia and was happy to meet me and discuss politics. She is 20 years old and studying "global citizenship" at Uni, which is presumably a good way to get into a career in pizza delivery.
First the good news - she thinks the Japanese of WWII were crazy. In fact, she even objected when I said that they fought very bravely. (As a precursor to explaining why people were willing to fight bravely for a horrible dictatorship but not freedom).
Secondly, she could clearly see the injustice of Korean and Chinese children being reared from birth to hate Japanese, when the Japanese of today were very different from the past.
Now the bad news. It appears that anti-white racism is rife in Japan. She doesn't appear to have learnt about all the people Australia has helped. What she has been taught is how racist Australia was in 1950 (or something like that) when it didn't allow Asian immigration. I pointed out to her that in 2008, the Japanese didn't allow immigration (to citizenship) at all, and that she should therefore see Japan as the equivalent of Australian in 1950. And that additionally she should be learning that Australia in 2008 is far better than Japan in 2008, as the former is non-racist while the latter is racist. To get out of this predicament she said that the Japanese were conservative and had a phobia about foreigners, rather than calling them racist. I can't remember if she allowed 1950 Australians to do the same. However, despite all this she still decided that Howard tried to put Australia 50 years back, despite the fact that he was in power for 12 years or whatever and she couldn't name any policy she objected to. Basically, she's just repeating a lot of crap from "specialists" on TV.
More on those "specialists". The only thing she knew about Bush was that he was a fundamentalist Christian and that's why he invaded Iraq. The "specialists" had told her that. The American people who supported him were fundamentalists and/or they were impressed by his speeches. I asked her why she wasn't impressed by his speeches, and she hadn't heard any of them. The Japanese TV hadn't bothered translating any of them into Japanese. All they did was produce "specialists" to write off everything he said. I asked her what a fundamentalist Christian actually was, given that the bible doesn't say "go and invade Iraq". She said that Iraq was invaded because fundamentalist Christians thought that non-Christians were inferior.
Not only that, but Americans are racist which is why they have the KKK. I asked her what percentage of Americans she thought were in the KKK. She guessed 20% and when I smiled she dropped it down to 10%. A quick google search shows an estimated 3000, which is 0.0001%. I mentioned that with the Japanese producing all these nasty images of white people, maybe it is the Japanese who have 90% membership of the JJJ.
Also, Japan is controlled by America, despite the fact that all their TV is showing such negative things about America.
I got her to call Waheed in Afghanistan so that she could talk to a real Afghan who had been freed and she thought that was cool.
She's never actually talked to a single American to confirm any of these things at all. That's why I'm putting out a Bat Alert. Batman, could you email me so that I can get her to talk to a pro-war American and find out what motivates at least one American Christian to invade Iraq?
Oh yeah, and she simultaneously doesn't want the Americans to leave Japan unprotected, and tentatively supports pre-emptive war with North Korea, while at the same time wants the Americans to leave because the only thing they ever do is rape Japanese women while the American government protects them citing specious claims such as "insufficient evidence". I asked her how many Japanese women were being raped by American soldiers, e.g. 4 per day or whatever, and finally got "1 per year" out of her. A quick google search to find the rape rate in Japan, and there's about 1500 for 1995 I think it was. So 1 out of 1500 rapes in Japan were by US soldiers, and her media focussed on the white boy. If that isn't racist, what is?
She is shocked at the number of rapes in Japan (despite it being a quarter of the Australian rape rate (my memory of the rape rate here)) and I sent her away to go and research Japanese sites in the Japanese language to find out the numbers of rapes etc etc.
I think I need to organize her, Waheed, Abdul to form some sort of pro-war NGO to liberate North Korea etc. And also to put an end to the horrific anti-American bigotry.
By the way. Wherever did you silly Americans pick up the concept of "right to be an enemy"? While I wouldn't go and kill individuals who hate America, I would at least make sure that the education system is teaching people that hating Americans is bad, and for anti-Americanism to be socially unacceptable.
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One of my ex-students who I managed to discuss the Iraq war with for an hour, returned to visit Australia and was happy to meet me and discuss politics. She is 20 years old and studying "global citizenship" at Uni, which is presumably a good way to get into a career in pizza delivery.
First the good news - she thinks the Japanese of WWII were crazy. In fact, she even objected when I said that they fought very bravely. (As a precursor to explaining why people were willing to fight bravely for a horrible dictatorship but not freedom).
Secondly, she could clearly see the injustice of Korean and Chinese children being reared from birth to hate Japanese, when the Japanese of today were very different from the past.
Now the bad news. It appears that anti-white racism is rife in Japan. She doesn't appear to have learnt about all the people Australia has helped. What she has been taught is how racist Australia was in 1950 (or something like that) when it didn't allow Asian immigration. I pointed out to her that in 2008, the Japanese didn't allow immigration (to citizenship) at all, and that she should therefore see Japan as the equivalent of Australian in 1950. And that additionally she should be learning that Australia in 2008 is far better than Japan in 2008, as the former is non-racist while the latter is racist. To get out of this predicament she said that the Japanese were conservative and had a phobia about foreigners, rather than calling them racist. I can't remember if she allowed 1950 Australians to do the same. However, despite all this she still decided that Howard tried to put Australia 50 years back, despite the fact that he was in power for 12 years or whatever and she couldn't name any policy she objected to. Basically, she's just repeating a lot of crap from "specialists" on TV.
More on those "specialists". The only thing she knew about Bush was that he was a fundamentalist Christian and that's why he invaded Iraq. The "specialists" had told her that. The American people who supported him were fundamentalists and/or they were impressed by his speeches. I asked her why she wasn't impressed by his speeches, and she hadn't heard any of them. The Japanese TV hadn't bothered translating any of them into Japanese. All they did was produce "specialists" to write off everything he said. I asked her what a fundamentalist Christian actually was, given that the bible doesn't say "go and invade Iraq". She said that Iraq was invaded because fundamentalist Christians thought that non-Christians were inferior.
Not only that, but Americans are racist which is why they have the KKK. I asked her what percentage of Americans she thought were in the KKK. She guessed 20% and when I smiled she dropped it down to 10%. A quick google search shows an estimated 3000, which is 0.0001%. I mentioned that with the Japanese producing all these nasty images of white people, maybe it is the Japanese who have 90% membership of the JJJ.
Also, Japan is controlled by America, despite the fact that all their TV is showing such negative things about America.
I got her to call Waheed in Afghanistan so that she could talk to a real Afghan who had been freed and she thought that was cool.
She's never actually talked to a single American to confirm any of these things at all. That's why I'm putting out a Bat Alert. Batman, could you email me so that I can get her to talk to a pro-war American and find out what motivates at least one American Christian to invade Iraq?
Oh yeah, and she simultaneously doesn't want the Americans to leave Japan unprotected, and tentatively supports pre-emptive war with North Korea, while at the same time wants the Americans to leave because the only thing they ever do is rape Japanese women while the American government protects them citing specious claims such as "insufficient evidence". I asked her how many Japanese women were being raped by American soldiers, e.g. 4 per day or whatever, and finally got "1 per year" out of her. A quick google search to find the rape rate in Japan, and there's about 1500 for 1995 I think it was. So 1 out of 1500 rapes in Japan were by US soldiers, and her media focussed on the white boy. If that isn't racist, what is?
She is shocked at the number of rapes in Japan (despite it being a quarter of the Australian rape rate (my memory of the rape rate here)) and I sent her away to go and research Japanese sites in the Japanese language to find out the numbers of rapes etc etc.
I think I need to organize her, Waheed, Abdul to form some sort of pro-war NGO to liberate North Korea etc. And also to put an end to the horrific anti-American bigotry.
By the way. Wherever did you silly Americans pick up the concept of "right to be an enemy"? While I wouldn't go and kill individuals who hate America, I would at least make sure that the education system is teaching people that hating Americans is bad, and for anti-Americanism to be socially unacceptable.
2008-02-21
Malfeasance
I bet you think from the topic that this is going to be about Bush throwing away many decades of the US building trust with the world by not throwing its weight around and not being dishonest when it signed up to UNSC 1244, right? Wrong. As tragic as that may be, and a reminder that we must work towards a world where the NATO forces sans America are stronger than America alone, that is not what this post is about.
I was chatting to someone about the fact that we can win a war in Iraq, by any reasonable military measure you care to use, but because the left-wing media refuses to admit it, individuals don't dare go against what their TV set says. We were talking about a fellow Australian in fact. And while ever 51% of Australians are like this person, we are basically stuck. Rolling out Iraqi and Afghan bloggers doesn't have the effect we need. We need the left-wing media to put out a different message. And that is when I remembered this article.
It explains an important part of the puzzle. How the left-wing media came into being on the back of the Vietnam War. How they managed to turn Vietnam into their Orwellian worldview and don't dare question the possibility that they were wrong all along and that they need to face up to the horror of what they did. Or to use the author's own words - "More simply put, by electing John Kerry it allows a generation to escape its malfeasance in the defense of liberty."
One thing I love about the Anglophones is that we actually have people THINKING. Trying to explain these various phenomenom as a step towards finding an antidote. All we need now is a Manhattan Project II to tie it all in together.
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I was chatting to someone about the fact that we can win a war in Iraq, by any reasonable military measure you care to use, but because the left-wing media refuses to admit it, individuals don't dare go against what their TV set says. We were talking about a fellow Australian in fact. And while ever 51% of Australians are like this person, we are basically stuck. Rolling out Iraqi and Afghan bloggers doesn't have the effect we need. We need the left-wing media to put out a different message. And that is when I remembered this article.
It explains an important part of the puzzle. How the left-wing media came into being on the back of the Vietnam War. How they managed to turn Vietnam into their Orwellian worldview and don't dare question the possibility that they were wrong all along and that they need to face up to the horror of what they did. Or to use the author's own words - "More simply put, by electing John Kerry it allows a generation to escape its malfeasance in the defense of liberty."
One thing I love about the Anglophones is that we actually have people THINKING. Trying to explain these various phenomenom as a step towards finding an antidote. All we need now is a Manhattan Project II to tie it all in together.
2008-02-15
Kosovo
Looks like Kosovo is on the verge of declaring independence. The report claims that the US is likely to recognize it. If it does, then the US is verging from my worldview, and is in fact, being treacherous.
While I supported the bombing of Serbia so that we could get in and make sure the Kosovars were not having their human rights abused, the fact is, Milosevic did the right thing and let our forces in without having to slug it out in a ground war. We need to reward such behaviour. Similar to Gaddafi throwing in the towel in fact. If these people give us what we really want, which is human rights and security (not oil), then we should not push them any further. Similar to Russia allowing Eastern Europe into NATO in fact. These people did the right thing, belatedly, which means we didn't have to waste resources fighting them. And when these people give us what we're basically after, we should shut up (our politicians should shut up, anyway) and only ever say nice things about them.
At the moment the Serbs are a liberal democracy, according to Freedom House (which I don't always agree with, but nevermind), while the Kosovars aren't. I agree with that assessment. The Kosovars are not respecting the human rights of the ethnic Serbs. They do not deserve a state. There's no reason for them to require a state. Their human rights are not being abused. They should instead be getting their own house in order, and they can start by copying the Serbs.
Quite apart from the moral implications, there's the fact that one of the reasons the Serbs withdrew without a fight was because they had been told that the UN Security Council would decide on any change to Kosovo's status. As we all knew at the time, that meant that there would be no change, because Russia would veto any change. That's fine. We weren't after a change in status. We were after human rights.
If America now goes back on its guarantees and ignores the UN Security Council, it will be a dishonest and treacherous actor. I can't think of any other time that the US has broken its word like that. You'd probably have to go back to the Indian treaties to find something along those lines (but I'm not familiar with such ancient history so may be wrong).
The correct response to any declaration of independence by Kosovo is for the NATO forces to fulfill their commitments to allow the Serbs to patrol the borders of their nation, which includes Kosovo, and to go a step beyond that and allow them to jointly patrol with NATO within Kosovo, and then for NATO to take a back seat and allow the Serbs to patrol their own territory as they wish. So long as we are made aware of movements of tanks etc, that should be fine. We can work with these people, who just reelected a liberal democrat - a liberal democrat who ruled out military action. The fact that this wonderful guy did such a thing is exactly why we should be giving him permission to use military force, in his own democratic country. If the Serbs betray our trust, we can always send them packing out of Kosovo. But so long as they are cooperative, we should be falling over ourselves to treat them as equals, and not break away part of their territory to create a racist, religious-bigotted state.
If you want to break territory away, break Sudan up. The blacks there have a right to not live under a racist government.
America. Do not be treacherous for the first time in living memory. Failing to protect the free world in 1939 was immoral, but not actually treacherous. Don't do it. Fulfill your commitments to allow the Serbian military to protect their borders, as was agreed. Then go above and beyond what was agreed. As you always have in the past. Because you are truly wonderful people. Well, most of the time, anyway. And more than anyone else in the world, that's for sure. No-one's perfect. But being imperfect doesn't give a green light for being treacherous.
I've previously outlined other steps to placate Russia. Russia has already done the right thing by even allowing the Baltics into NATO. Time to go out of your way to take care of Russia's legitimate security concerns.
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While I supported the bombing of Serbia so that we could get in and make sure the Kosovars were not having their human rights abused, the fact is, Milosevic did the right thing and let our forces in without having to slug it out in a ground war. We need to reward such behaviour. Similar to Gaddafi throwing in the towel in fact. If these people give us what we really want, which is human rights and security (not oil), then we should not push them any further. Similar to Russia allowing Eastern Europe into NATO in fact. These people did the right thing, belatedly, which means we didn't have to waste resources fighting them. And when these people give us what we're basically after, we should shut up (our politicians should shut up, anyway) and only ever say nice things about them.
At the moment the Serbs are a liberal democracy, according to Freedom House (which I don't always agree with, but nevermind), while the Kosovars aren't. I agree with that assessment. The Kosovars are not respecting the human rights of the ethnic Serbs. They do not deserve a state. There's no reason for them to require a state. Their human rights are not being abused. They should instead be getting their own house in order, and they can start by copying the Serbs.
Quite apart from the moral implications, there's the fact that one of the reasons the Serbs withdrew without a fight was because they had been told that the UN Security Council would decide on any change to Kosovo's status. As we all knew at the time, that meant that there would be no change, because Russia would veto any change. That's fine. We weren't after a change in status. We were after human rights.
If America now goes back on its guarantees and ignores the UN Security Council, it will be a dishonest and treacherous actor. I can't think of any other time that the US has broken its word like that. You'd probably have to go back to the Indian treaties to find something along those lines (but I'm not familiar with such ancient history so may be wrong).
The correct response to any declaration of independence by Kosovo is for the NATO forces to fulfill their commitments to allow the Serbs to patrol the borders of their nation, which includes Kosovo, and to go a step beyond that and allow them to jointly patrol with NATO within Kosovo, and then for NATO to take a back seat and allow the Serbs to patrol their own territory as they wish. So long as we are made aware of movements of tanks etc, that should be fine. We can work with these people, who just reelected a liberal democrat - a liberal democrat who ruled out military action. The fact that this wonderful guy did such a thing is exactly why we should be giving him permission to use military force, in his own democratic country. If the Serbs betray our trust, we can always send them packing out of Kosovo. But so long as they are cooperative, we should be falling over ourselves to treat them as equals, and not break away part of their territory to create a racist, religious-bigotted state.
If you want to break territory away, break Sudan up. The blacks there have a right to not live under a racist government.
America. Do not be treacherous for the first time in living memory. Failing to protect the free world in 1939 was immoral, but not actually treacherous. Don't do it. Fulfill your commitments to allow the Serbian military to protect their borders, as was agreed. Then go above and beyond what was agreed. As you always have in the past. Because you are truly wonderful people. Well, most of the time, anyway. And more than anyone else in the world, that's for sure. No-one's perfect. But being imperfect doesn't give a green light for being treacherous.
I've previously outlined other steps to placate Russia. Russia has already done the right thing by even allowing the Baltics into NATO. Time to go out of your way to take care of Russia's legitimate security concerns.