mmarlo

Those dirty Piresans are taking our jobs and our women. And have you seen our women?!

I'm running out of wind, so let me just quote directly from the article I linked above because I don't really have much to add. I respect your point, and I think it's the standard one, pretty much agreed upon by the left. But I think there were other options on the table, especially since the evidence of Afghanistan's role in the 9/11 attacks was at best a "belief".

From Noam Chomsky, 2005. Simple Truths, Hard Problems: Some thoughts on terror, justice, and self-defence. Philosophy 80: 5-28.

"Let us turn to the war in Afghanistan, considered such a paradigm example of just war that there is scarcely even any discussion about it. The respected moral-political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain summarizes received opinion fairly accurately when she writes approvingly that only absolute pacifists and outright lunatics doubt that this was uncontroversially a just war. Here, once again, factual questions arise. First, recall the war aims: to punish Afghans until the Taliban agree to hand over Osama bin Laden without evidence. Contrary to much subsequent commentary,

overthrowing the Taliban regime was an afterthought, added after several weeks of bombing. Second, there is quite good evidence bearing on the belief that only lunatics or absolute pacifists did not join the chorus of approval. An international Gallup poll after the bombing was announced but before it began found very limited support for it, almost none if civilians were targeted, as they were from the first moment. And even that tepid support was based on the presupposition that the targets were known to have been responsible for the 11 September attacks. They were not. Eight

months later, the head of the FBI testified to the Senate that after the most intensive international intelligence inquiry in history, the most that could be said was that the plot was ‘believed’ to have been hatched in Afghanistan, while the attacks were planned and financed elsewhere. It follows that there was no detectable popular support for the bombing, contrary to confident standard claims, apart from a very few countries; and of course Western elites. Afghan opinion is harder to estimate, but we do know that after several weeks of bombing, leading anti-Taliban figures, including

some of those most respected by the US and President Karzai, were denouncing the bombing, calling for it to end, and charging the US

with bombing just to ‘show off its muscle’ while undermining their efforts to overthrow the Taliban from within."

It's an important issue, and we should try to educate ourselves and understand what's at stake, what scientists are saying, what policy-makers are saying, and what the oil companies are saying (through their "scientists"). But there are a few VJ members who like to post every freaking article that comes up on Google <ahem, Gary>, as though the public policy center sponsored by Exxon is going to give an unbiased analysis on the topic. I understand kindof enjoying playing the roll of the dissident, but I also generally prefer to be on the side of perpetuating the existance of human life. So my own view is that even if some of the claims regarding the extent of global warming are overstated, better safe than sorry. In any case, we don't need 500,000 distinct threads on the topic.

Right, when this is the face of America, she's got to wonder, "What am I going to find when I actually get there?!" Of course, as a US Citizen, I could have simply provided my passport to enter the Embassy to go to the bathroom--it would have been a bit of a wait to actually get there--but when I went to the Embassy back in November I didn't have to tell them at security what I even wanted after I showed them my passport. Then I got to walk around the long line of Kenyans and go directly in to have my items x-rayed.

I really wish I could be there with her to go through this together, but I have to do my work here for now. And then again I get even angrier than she does when I see this kind of behavior.

Great suggestion on taking everything--just in case she actually gets interviewed. I'll remind her of that. Then all she would have to do is provide the medical report next week and she'd be ready to go! I'll keep our fingers crossed for that.

what a great thread..the orginal poster needs to be thanked...brother dean

The war was illegal, but it was considered legitimate.

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200501--.pdf

On 'just war' theory and the doctrine of illegal but legitimate war. More on Afganistan on p. 22 (of the PDF, p. 26 of the article itself).

Since you do not seem to believe in fighting, what do you think would have been an appropriate

response to 9/11? Do nothing?

I'm not a pacifist, and our government has a responsibility to protect its citizens. But what we did was provide support for marginalized group by doing exactly what they wanted us to do, the only thing that gave them a hope for survival. We created a far worse problem for ourselves by attacking single-handedly and without understanding the underlying causes and grievances that triggered the 9/11 attacks. At the time of 9/11, the Arab world virtually all condemned Al Qaeda's actions. Al Qaeda was already extremely marginalized in the Arab world and holed up in caves; they didn't have much support. We should have used the united condemnation of Al Qaeda in the Arab world to extinguish the group, possibly through warfare, but certainly not in the manner we did it--alone and through our own terrorist acts, creating a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan. Instead, we turned virtually the entire arab world against us, creating many more enemies than we previously had. We should have tried to better understand the causes of the 9/11 attacks and address those causes. Instead, the administration whipped up nationalistic fervor and started a religious war. And now we all stand to lose for it.

How did the UK deal with the IRA and their terrorist bombings? First with much violence, and the situation became much worse and persisted for a long time, with large numbers of casualties on both sides. Eventually, they tried to better address the root causes of the violence, understand the grievances of IRA, etc., doing so without much violence. The situation still isn't problem-free, but it's much better today than it was in the 80s. There are some models for the successful fighting of terrorism. We ignored those examples and have continued as the world's leader in state-sponsored terrorism.

Afghanistan was the right move. There wasn't an option, really. We didn't recognize the Taliban, there wasn't a civil option, and the country needed blood.

But Iraq. People act as though Iraq was a good idea that was poorly managed and would have worked perfectly except for a few mistakes.

Point one: if your plan depends on flawless execution for success, it isn't a good plan. Point two: if you thought Iraq would be easy in 2002, you were wrong, and not because of mistakes, because it was a guarantee that deposing Hussein would lead to serious regional instability. Smart people saw that. Smart people argued that. Point three: if you couldn't see that, you shouldn't be in charge of the damn government.

Would that in 2002 we had poured those extra troops in to securing and rebuilding Afghanistan. Four years of stability, a solid base from which to work, finish routing al-Qaeda. Of course, the administration wouldn't have been able to dangle 9/11 in everyone's faces to amp up the warhawks, but then we might have actually had half a shot at *not* being in the middle of a civil war.

Afghanistan isn't as much of a slam dunk as it's been made out to be, tacitly assumed to be the right move even on the left. There was widespread criticism of the bombings in Afghanistan, due to the large number of civilian casualties through carpet bombing and the like. Our bombing basically suspended all food, water, and medical aid going to many groups that needed it, and we triggered a humanitarian disaster. The policy itself is actually very dangerous. The war was illegal, but it was considered legitimate. And possibly worse for the stated goal of reducing terrorism in this conflict and related ones across the border in Pakistan, we have incited huge protests after incidents where we fired a missle into a house and killed maybe one or two suspected terrorists while at the same time wiped out a dozen or more civilians. The response is predictable: large-scale protest, hatred, and resentment of the US. Maybe we killed one or two al qaeda operatives, but we made 100-200k much more likely to support al qaeda in the future.

This thread keeps getting more and more painful.

For me personally I agree with the going to Iraq and Afghan. People have to come back to reality and realize the world is not simply black or white. Reasoning is not an option with so many people..

Unfortunately the war was mismanaged. Iraq has become a guerrilla style of war. Conventional armies cannot win these types of wars using conventional tactics and weapons, no matter how superior or advanced the weapons may be. History has proven this time and time again..

I read an interesting article not to long ago. I think it sums up the strategic failure in recent conflicts, including Iraq..

if you want to catch a mouse, you need a cat. If you hire a lion to do the job because it is bigger and stronger, the very strength and size of the lion can get in the way of getting the job done. "A lion is built for different prey," Lyall said. "A lion is built to take down an antelope, and a cat is designed to take down a mouse. Now [in Iraq] we are a lion trying to take down a mouse.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7030401260.html

Going into Iraq on what grounds?

What is the purpose of international law if one country can flagrantly disregard it?

Also wonder what clinic someone used for the Medical or does Lagos embassy send you a certain(sur general) they want you to go to. I know there's one on VI.........

I don't know precisely about Nigeria, but I do know that there are probably only a very limited number of clinics that the US Embassy will accept. They should have this information. The US Embassy in Kenya has this information on their website. Have you checked the US Embassy in Nigeria's website?

Got this from a State Department website:

BIRTH AND DEATH CERTIFICATES

Generally available, particularly for events occurring after 1970. Registration of births and deaths is compulsory in Lagos. The National Population Commission issues birth certificates for births after 1992.

For Lagos records, certified copies of records for dates ending with 1979 can be obtained at the Lagos State Ministry of Health, Old Secretariat, Ikeja, Lagos. For records after 1979, contact the local government that issued the original certificate directly. Most births and deaths outside of Lagos are also registered at the time of the event. Applicants can obtain certified true copies of certificates directly from the local government. Alternatively, acceptable identity/parentage documents are infant baptismal certificates and hospital or maternity clinic records of birth. Home births are rare in Nigeria and medical records are available in most cases. Affidavits may be acceptable as substitutes for documents for those born outside Lagos prior to 1960 or born in the eastern part of Nigeria in the 1960’s at the time of the Biafran War, when presented in combination with convincing secondary evidence of relationship.

My fiancee, Jacinta, picked up the Packet 3/4 forms from the US Embassy a couple weeks ago. She got all the paperwork filled out, collected all the documents, got her passport photos, and paid her application fee. She went to the Embassy yesterday to return all the paperwork, set up her interview, and get the letter she needs from the Embassy to get her medical exam--the only requirement besides the interview she has left to complete. However, she was turned away by security for not having an appointment. #######: an appointment to hand over all the forms she filled out?! It would have been considerate if they had told her that when she picked up the forms in the first place. In any case, they condescended to give her an appointment this coming Monday at 8am, so my hope is that she'll at least be able to schedule the interview then and we'll get a better sense of the timeline. The medical exam shouldn't be a problem, but she can't even schedule it without the letter that she's supposed to get from the Embassy.

It's such a hassle for her to get to the Embassy in their 8-10am morning window, the only time they will serve immigrant visa applicants--though it's not as bad as the 20-hour bus ride I read about earlier in the MENA forum. She lives in the same city as the Embassy but has to walk about a mile from her apartment along a muddy path to pick up an overcrowded matatu (14-passenger public service van) to take her to the city center in the morning. From there she has to walk another half-mile or so to pick up another matatu toward the Embassy, which is thankfully only another five to ten minutes by foot from the main road where the matatu stops. It's easily a two-hour trip door-to-door, and then she gets to deal with security at the Embassy, where then she can demean herself further by begging to be allowed in, into the Embassy and into the US, by the racist and tribalist workers at the Embassy, who appear to think they're better than those they're serving. It's really a thankless and inhumane process.

In an age of "progress", we need to be breaking down these power inequalities and deconstructing the harmful and dangerous notion of the nation-state, with its artificial borders. No person is illegal.

It's just the same old thing here....

Bush will be, as his certain Republican successor, be fighting the war of our generation.

The democrats have become the party of appeasement. Cowards, and traitors.

Too bad.

The democrats are just as willing to fight illegal and immoral wars, or at least violate international laws by bombing the hell out of civilians. JFK started the Vietnam war, Clinton has the Sudan, Kosovo, and East Timor on his dirty record (though in the latter two cases they were played up as "humanitarian" interventions). Hillary has already come out to say that she won't take any option off the table for dealing with Iran. If somehow she gets elected, I'm sure one of the first things she'll do is bomb some country that can't fight back to show off how big her cajones are, like her husband did soon after taking office.

Like his predecessors, Bush is fighting a war for strategic control and has quite obvious disregard for such niceties as democracy, freedom, or defense from terrorism. Even if you buy into the notion that he has noble intentions, all of his actions speak to the contrary.

Wow, I'm so sorry. This must be very difficult, and your fiance is so dedicated, it must hurt to see him go through so much. I got angry at the US Embassy in Kenya today because after a 90 minute trip for my fiancee, she got turned away for not having an appointment--an appointment to return her completed packet 3 materials!

Unfortunately, I can't offer any advice, but I'm wondering what exactly they told your fiance. It may be that he is now under administrative review. It happens quite frequently to Moroccan beneficiaries and could be another hardship that you have to overcome. Good luck.

PS Is your fiance a Tuareg?

Swahili is not idiomatic. Should be: nakupenda.

And "I want to [do what's in the picture above] to you" is: Ninataka kukuchorea saba (if you're the woman) and Ninataka unichoree saba (if you're the man). Translated literally: "I want to draw you a seven" and "I want you to draw me a seven".

mmarlo,

You say the things that you say because you don't know the Lord or His Word. .Jesus died to pay for all of your sins and He wants for you to know Him and have eternal life. Until you accept His offer of salvation through His Cross, you will not be able to understand spiritual things. I would love to introduce you to Him, interested?

Rob

You're wrong. I grew up in the church, and my sisters are both missionaries. I have read the Word. I accepted, and then I subsequently rejected, after I got enough education and other experiences to realize that it was at best misleading. I was able to escape the mind control. My sisters weren't. Their desire for our country is a fascist theocracy. They prey on the poor and the needy because they are the most vulnerable and the most desparate and therefore the most willing to submit to the control. My goal is to help the poor and the needy to create a more equitable world. I'm the one working for good. They say they're working for God, but it seems like they'd prefer to control how other people think and act.

Be sure that the Lord is involved in every Micro second of every human beings life that has ever been born on this planet. To not be means that He really is not God. For nothing in the universe is out of His total control and sovereignty.

Rob

Let me, for the sake of argument, grant your assumption that He exists. If literally everything is under His control, then He is the most unfair Creator that any mythmaker could devise. What loving God would allow the inequality and suffering to persist over millenia like He has? No thanks. I want nothing to do with a God that has control over everything yet allows the misery on this Earth to continue without intervention. Instead, He brings false hope and unfulfilled promises and worse, as so many atrocities are committed in His name.

All our TV's are widescreen and most all of our 500 movies are widescreen.

Rob

Good to see this post meets your "importance" criterion. Sweet.

So we're obligated to lie to our kids? Good idea. I think they get enough of that in school, on tv, and from the administration. Maybe we should innundate them with less truth-by-assertion guidance, and teach them to think critically for themselves and make their own choices.

The Bible is so full of genocide, mixed messages, and discrimination, I want my children to have none of it. They can get the Golden Rule, and love thy neighbor, but beyond that, it's incoherent and dangerous.

Here's my elephants:

Here are some Edo resources:

http://www.isp.msu.edu/afrlang/search.php?...ype=All%20Types

Not sure how useful they'll be, but it's a start!

In my case, I thought if I was going to fall in love with a Kenyan woman, it would have been one from the ethnic group I was studying and have been spending most of my days thinking about for five years. But love doesn't work that way, and I found someone whose language I knew nothing about. But I'm always up for a new challenge.

And the budget is mind-boggling. I find it hard to believe we need to spend more beating a bunch of Arab insurgents than we needed during the most expensive year of the nukular buildup during the cold war. Something isn't right with this picture.

Well, at least we're renovating our entire nuclear arsenal and militarizing space, instead of respecting the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which requires us to make a 'good faith' effort to reduce the nuclear arsenal. You never know when you might need to nuke the desert! Then again, we have to beat our chest loudly to show China who's boss, while just asking for them to develop their arsenals further, and inciting non-nuclear countries to try to develop nuclear weapons. Isn't it ironic that of the three countries of the "Axis of Evil", we invaded the one that was least likely to have WMD (in the name of WMD), while virtually assuring that the other two countries would develop WMD, which apparently they have done?!

It's hard to call that kind of spending "defense", when it's more than the military expenditures of every other country in the world combined.

It has always been so for quite some time.

We've been #1 no doubt for a very long time, but I think it's only been within the last couple years that we've passed the combined totals of all the other countries.

But the logic of so much of the fighting is mind-boggling. We have increased the threat of terrorism against the US so much since 9/11 that it's digusting to hear the rhetoric about fighting them over there so we can be safe at home, while at the same time proclaiming that we're liberators and patting ourselves on the back for our noble intentions. OK, gotta go work out and blow off the steam that's building up.