2007/03/30
"Black Hawk Down" - part II
Enough already
Tendo o Irão sido atacado por Saddam apoiado pelos EUA, estar sob ameaça - proferidas abertamente pelo sistema político americano - constante nos últimos anos sobre a possibilidade de um ataque, e têm a lata de ficarem um pouco aborrecidos por encontrarem tropas no seu território.
Não sabem eles que se tropas iranianas fossem encontradas em espaço americano iria Michael Leeden de imediato propôr a sua libertação imediata?
2007/03/28
The War on Muslims
"I get combative email informing me that Moslems are savage, barbaric, crafty, and patient, biding their time through the centuries to spit in apple pie, put Mom in a seraglio, and sodomize Boy Scouts – that they have spread by the sword, live by the sword, and lust to convert us all to Islam and sell us prayer rugs. The Gates of Vienna, 1453, all that.
Perhaps. There follows a list of Christian countries I can think of that have been conquered by Moslems since the Industrial Revolution:
On the other hand, to the best of my admittedly weak historical understanding, the following Islamic countries have been conquered by Christians: Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Chad, Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Libya, Indonesia, Yemen, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Kyrgyz, Kazakhstan, Somalia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan, to name a few. On various occasions Christians have tried to conquer Afghanistan, but with no better luck than they deserved. " Fred Reed
2007/03/23
América e Europa
Ou seja, o excepcionalismo americano é terem sido os conservadores americanos a tentar "conservar" o carácter libertarian do seu regime (que vamos lembrar, não usa uma única vez a palavra "democracia" nos seus documentos fundadores). Aliás, a extrema-direita americana são aquelas milícias armadas organizadas com uma grande repulsa inata contra o governo federal, os seus impostos e ordens do poder executivo.
Claro que agora, estes já são poucos. A América, com os neo-conservadores, por ironia, ficaram mais Europeus. A direita passou a fazer o que é esperado que a direita europeia faça. A tentação do império, das zonas de influência externas, dos militares estacionados por todo o mundo, e o securitarismo centralizado no big state,
Conservatives Bruce Fein, Bob Barr, David Keene, and Richard Viguerie have started the American Freedom Agenda,
-- End the use of military commissions to prosecute crimes.-- Prohibit the use of secret evidence or evidence obtained by torture.-- Prohibit the detention of American citizens as enemy combatants without proof.-- Restore habeas corpus for alleged alien combatants.-- End National Security Agency warrentless wiretapping.-- Empower Congress to challenge presidential signing statements.-- Bar executive use of the state secret privilege to deny justice.-- Prohibit the President from collaborating with foreign governments to kidnap, detain of torture persons abroad.-- Amend the Espionage Act to permit journalists to report on classified national security matters without threat of persecution.-- Prohibit of the labeling of groups or individuals in the U.S. as global terrorists based on secret evidence.
2007/03/22
Churchill e o Iraque
CHURCHILL'S FINAL FOLLY: OUR IRAQ QUAGMIRE!, (customer review)
"...The Great War. Britain and France took control of those former colonies via the spoils of victory and subsequently carved up that region for their own vested financial interests. And it was Winston Churchill who personally put forward the plans of dividing up those oil-rich lands for Britain's benefit. Churchill was a member of the British Parliament at the conclusion of that war and had been appointed by British Labor Party Prime Minister David Lloyd George to the position of Colonial Secretary, whose job was to restructure the newly inherited region. He forced together the Sunni Muslims Kurds, Sunni Muslim Arabs and Shiite Muslims under a single ruler in that land along the Tigris River to be called Iraq (Al-Jumhurria Al-Iraqia) which meant `the Republic of the River Shore.' His main goal: Establish a series of Arab states that were friendly to Great Britain and at as little cost as possible to the cash poor British Empire that was still suffering the financial effects of the just concluded four year worldwide war. The problem we face as we try to get these same tribes to work together in this democratic form of government they've just approved is that Churchill's guide for dividing up the conquered territories eighty years ago was not based on any ethnic tribal considerations into creating separate sovereign nations who would respect their Muslim neighbors. Instead, he devised a simplistic formula to ensure that the British Petroleum Oil Company made the maximum amount of profits on its wells in those lands with as little problem as possible from the locals and those he chose to become the rulers of those artificially created countries. Author Catherwood's main argument in his thesis is that Churchill made a crucial mistake when forming those three tribes into the nation of Iraq and it appears that we, as the backers of this new constitution are about to repeat, is assume that the people of those tribes believe that nationalism is more important to them than their religious beliefs. A previously disgraced Saudi Arab named Faisel Haishem who had been thrown out of those lands subsequently emigrated north and was personally selected by Churchill to rule the newly created country as a devoted ally to the west. He and his descendents of the self-proclaimed Haishemite Dynasty reigned over Iraq from 1921 to 1958 until they were deposed in a violent military coup with most of the royal family and their supporters being killed. Military dictators ruled the country from then on with an iron fist and that eventually gave us Saddam Hussein who took control in 1979 until his overthrow by the United States led multi-country military invasion in 2003. Could Winton Churchill's forced creation of Iraq back in 1922 eventually cause the downfall of the United States one century later?"
2007/03/15
300
PS: Mudando de assunto ou talvez não, é bom que se teha presente que a Polónia invadida por Hitler (15 dias depois por Estaline, que diga-se já agora, para recuperar território ucrâniano perdido nos anos 20) no célebre e mítico Munique (onde toda a história neo-con parece começar), também foi um dos que reivindicou território à Checo-eslováquia, assim, não foi só Hitler que forçou que a parte habitada por alemães fosse entregue à Alemanha por um país desenhado em Versailles, foi também a Polónia a conseguir territórios (pequeno mas simbólico, não?) em Munique (e a Hungria também!). Foi a mesma Polónia que depois se recusou a negociar a questão dos territórios habitados por alemães (origem na antiga Prússia de Leste, etc). E foi pela Polónia que a França e Inglaterra declararam guerra, ficando provado que não foi o ultimatum de apoio à Polónia que demoveu Hitler. Se o ultimatum não tivesse sido feito, talvez Hitler tivesse apenas continuado para Leste em direcção a Estaline e tudo tivesse acabado com ambos os regimes mutuamente destruidos ou um deles fortemente debilitado (Hitler que não tinha feito a mesma purga de Estaline do seu exército - fazendo desaparecer uma classe militar com ligações ainda familiares e ainda que distantes na memória ao antigo regime - enfrentava ainda a presença da velha ordem, a prova é que quem tentou o assassinato a Hitler foi a antiga aristocracia prussiana, que o fez sem o apoio deliberado dos aliados - mais um erro - acabado todos mortos juntamente com as famílias).
Pulp Fictional History: "I don't know at what point I stopped seeing it as comic book fluff, like how the Spartans have the most conveniently placed bottomless pit ever (classic comic book gold), but I'm sure it was probably after the first time Leonidas (King of Sparta) bloviated about "logic" and "reason." While the graphics never went downhill, the script proceeded to practically nosedive into a redux of Bush's "freedom and liberty" Inauguration speech whenever Leonidas opened his mouth. Before the major battle even begins one is besieged by inconsistencies and blatant parallels. "Reluctant to battle" Sparta is forced into a war with Persia in order to "defend logic and reason" from the "tyranny and slavery of Asia" and are being hampered at home only by the Spartan council politicians who are being paid off by the enemy to not fund the Spartan army; it was like National Review commissioned its own version of reality."(...) Ultimately the smarter Arcadians realize this battle is lost and go back to their jobs in the free market, the Spartans fight until they all die, and I get to groan/roll my eyes at the end when the lone survivor (sent back before final assault to tell story) talks of how Sparta stood as the "lone light of reason & logic in the world and preserved liberty for later humankind to keep because"...wait for it... "freedom isn't free!" I leave the theater exhausted and hopeful that Americans have become so sheepled at this point that they don't even recognize the underlying message (or want one) and that they just came to watch moving pictures that also happened to have blood and female nudity in them. The next morning online I find my optimism bubble popped by the blood-thirsty artists at Cox and Forkum, the always "imaginative" Victor Davis Hanson, and reports that people are going to see 300 to "inform themselves on history." Like someone wanting to "eat healthy" by ordering a salad, and then having it only be full of iceberg lettuce and 5 lbs. of ranch dressing, Messrs. Miller and Snyder have made history appetizing to the American booboisee the only way they know how, by drenching it in misinformation and the myth of the "glorious war." To have such a movie be the Pied Piper to millions of Americans that the only way to fight a tyrannical superpower is to become ... a tyrannical superpower makes me question if William F. Buckley hasn't found a second calling in directing."
"EUA dizem que Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessou autoria do 11 de Setembro "
Falta saber o que é que os "Talibans" presos em Guatanamo tinham que ver com os 15 Sauditas e o seu chefe paquistanês.
2007/03/08
Ainda histórias do Vietname
