To: burt@sequent.com CC: harel@dartvax.dartmouth.edu, uunet@sequent.com In-reply-to: Burton Keeble's message of Sat, 2 Feb 91 00:55:28 -0800 <9102020855.AA01180@sequent.sequent.com> Subject: --text follows this line-- Date: Sat, 2 Feb 91 00:55:28 -0800 From: Burton Keeble Dear Burton, could you please limit your postings to something like: REALLY HOT TOPIC in cdp:mideast.gulf. I don't see any justification to limit the number But I don't want to wade my way through your excessively long (400+ lines) postings. It just makes me hit the 'k' key and then I risk Or size of the postings. This is not, after all, one of those tiny little groups that can get ruined by a lot of volume about one issue or from one source. You do mention some of your political feelings about the matter, tacitly conceding these have at least something to do with your objections; I'll address them briefly below. losing a much shorter posting that I might have found more pertinent to my needs. So go ahead, protest if you must, but I don't want to be in your audience at this time. A reference to your texts will do nicely. Please re-read what you wrote above; don't you agree they give off vibes of censorship and complaining? I'm sorry, there are posts I see all the time which I don't care to read, so I skip them. The notion that I shouldn't post because you "don't want to be [listening]" would be vehemantly attacked as "Marxist (or whatever the convenient label for criticism of Bush's policy is at the time) -Style Censorship! Typical, and reveals the nature of your ideology!" if I said anything of the sort about someone forwarding artilces written by the Heritage Foundation from WarNet. Before we get into further conflict when I comment briefly below on some "political" matters, let me cheer you up and mention that we (ACTIV-L) are planning to introduce (tentatively) misc.peace, as a UseNet parallel to ACTIV-L, at which point there will be far less cross-posting other than periodic advertisements or "really hot topics." This isn't a very free-speech-loving way to get cheered up, but at least I take it we'll have your vote when the matter is put up for discussion. *** *** *** SH can end it; he really did start it. But why argue this point? There are many false statements and assumptions here. First and foremost, Saddad DID start it in Kuwait. Bush started the war against Iraq. It is a double-standard to say that Saddam's resort to force (euphemism for: killing) to settle his dispute with Kuwait is morally unacceptable, but that Bush's resorting to force (euphemism for: mass-murder) to get Saddam out of Kuwait (since we love monarchies so much) is justified. A false assumption is that Saddam can end it. Sure, if he was St. Peter he could "end it" today. Everyone knows he's not. Not only is he not St. Peter, but he is willing to subject scores of people to danger and death to protect his "interests." It is unfortunately impossible for many Americans to undestand how perfectly the previous sentence applies to George Bush as well. (see next paragraph) Another false assumption is that Bush tried to get avoid war. The fact is Saddam, "madman" though he may conveniently be branded as was Kadaffi for domestic propaganda purposes, did not want a war with a superpower. He was not going to get out of Kuwait without "saving face," however; the Palestenian people's oppression (at the hand of the Anti-Israeli assholes who lead my country and who have the nerve to call my support for a just Israel "anti-Israel") would have serves as an "ideological fig leaf" for his withdrawal from Kuwait. Bush's deep desire to help out the Palestinian people is not widely known, for good reason, but this ignores the other considerations not to have an international conference, having nothing to do with the rhetoric about "don't reward aggression" (precisely what Bush has long been doing in client states such as El Salvador) but which have to do with not giving Saddam a way out, thus ensuring the war you want will take place. When you consider the statistics and information available about the vast domestic decay in the United States and Bush's desparation to maintain a military budget which exceeds genuine defensive needs by a six-digit figure, the desire for war not only makes sense but becomes quite obvious. It boggles the mind how the same people (may or may not include you) who argued that one of the reasons "we" must start a war ASAP was the killing and human-rights atrocities committed by Saddam's occupying army; now that Bush's war has murdered *tens of thousands* of Iraqis, far, far more people than bloodthirsty Saddam's wildest dreams (i.e., than the number of Kuwaitees murdered by his army); no to mention Bush's bombing having poisioned (to what extent, it is not yet clear) the Iraqi people's country with the radiation and chemical weapons he find so despicable(*). The pattern of thought sold to us by those contorlling power and policy in this country and the mass media becomes clear: THEIR aggression and violence is a moral outrage; OURS is always justifiable, and for the cause of freedom, democracy, human-rights, etc. Our mass-murder of Panamanians is justified because of the (false, but the is irrelevant) stated Higher Goals; THEIR aggression is only an indication of how dangerous they are, so that they must be erradicated, never mind that this includes the mass-eradication of precisely the class of people -Iraqis living under Saddam, for example- which "we care so much about" in justifying US state violence, so long as whatever US policy those in power deem right at the moment is seen as the right thing to do; once the real objectives have been acheived, Saddam's atrocities can be forgotten again and return to the state of oblivion they were in as he was suppoted by the U.S. power-elites while embarking on other Hight and Nobel causes in pursuit of their foreign policy. [(*)We're not support to think about the fact that as far as chemical weapons, Bush is against a mutual verifiable ban on these with the Soviet Union and European countries. Wants *everyone* to sign before he does, which means, to understate, don't hold your breath. These "totally unacceptable weapons", in NewThink are still to be used for "deterrance"; that's not exactly a policy where there use is unacceptable! Nor is it supposed to occur to the public that as far as nuclear proliferation, Bush and Britain are the only two countries against a Comprehensive Test Ban (CTB) to end the explosion of nuclear bombs underground as well as in the atmosphere.] --- It is easy to fall into the trap of believing that we are critical listeners to what we are fed on TV and the newspapers. If the Administration tells us 7 minus 15 is 8, we can tell ourselves its closer to zero than what we are told, patting ourselves on the back for not falling for the "exaggerations" endulged in by the adnimistration, all the while not realizing the truth may be somewhere else. Thus many American took Reagan/Bush's descriptions of the situations in Nicaragua and El Salvador and the rest of Central America with a grain of salt, patting themselves of the back for this healthy skepticism, all the while not realizing how close to 180 degrees the other direction reality truly is. I mention this example because it is a subject I have a good amount of documented evidence about, which perhaps not surprisingly not everyone is so eager to take a look at.