Did The Chinese Violate Any Treaties?

I recommend this short movie mocking Kim Jong Il and his secret agent
buying Hennessy XO wine from Chinese black market :=)

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...52D9ED01495685

I recommend this short movie mocking Kim Jong Il and his secret agent
buying Hennessy XO wine from Chinese black market :=)

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...52D9ED01495685

I recommend this short movie mocking Kim Jong Il and his secret agent
buying Hennessy XO wine from Chinese black market :=)

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...52D9ED01495685

Rand Simberg wrote:
A "genocidal war"?

They're all Arabs.


Which is rather like saying "they're all Europeans". We're dealing with
three different ethnic groups in modern Iraq, which was a country
artificially assembled by Britain and France in 1920.
Its history is very complex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iraq

Pat

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
Exterminating a minority identified by religious faith is also included
in the U. N. genocide convention. Surely you knew that.

I didn't, but if so, it's just one more example of watering down the
meaning of the word (hint: where does the "gen" part come from?).

Hint: the etymology of a word and its current meaning are not necessarily
at all related. "genocide, n: the deliberate and systematic destruction
of a racial, political, or cultural group" (Webster's New Collegiate, 1975).

no minority is being exterminated in Iraq. Even if all the Sunnis or
Shia there were killed (unlikely), there'd be millions of others
elsewhere.

So because there were Jews elsewhere, the Holocaust doesn't count as
genocide? Such a narrow interpretation denies the word any useful meaning.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:16:41 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Rand Simberg wrote:
A "genocidal war"?

They're all Arabs.


Which is rather like saying "they're all Europeans".

Nope.

wrote:

Those were dangerous games, because the prospect of al-Qaeda getting
its hands on weapons of mass destruction was *absolutely intolerable*.


And he wouldn't be the person to give them to al-Qaeda, as he had a
secular, not Islamic, form of government.
He gave them nukes, and they might well use them on him.

The U.S. must solve the problem of the Iraqi people, and let them live
in peace and safety, because it triggered the problem, even though it
is not truly to blame.

The U.S. is not to blame, George W. Bush and his little pack of neocon
wackos are to blame.
I was against this war from square one, and I'm not going to take one
iota of blame for it, any more than all Russians should take blame for
Stalin's mass murders.
If we had any sense at all, we'd amend the constitution to severely
limit the President's war-making powers.
He wouldn't be able to send one troop anywhere without the 2/3rds
consent of Congress.
If it was a matter of national emergency, they would easily get a 2/3rds
majority; but pea-brained adventures like Iraq would never get that many
votes if the Congress knew that their political futures were on the
line, rather than just giving the President carte blanche to do whatever
he wanted as was done in the case of Iraq.

If it does not, their sufferings will be twisted
by enemies of the U.S. in both the Sunni and Shi'a portions of the
Islamic world to promote hatred of the U.S. and increase terrorism.


Since they apparently intend to have a bloody civil war, just get out of
the way and let them have it; maybe if their leaders are all concerned
that they are going to be killed, they will actually decide that they
can live together somehow.

If multiplying the number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq by three will, as
many military experts such as generals in the U.S. army suggest, only
give the enemy more targets to shoot at, then what to do? The common
sense that suggests that undesired activity in Iraq is the result of
insufficient U.S. manpower to suppress it conclusively is not wrong -
either.

The problem is that the Democrat-controlled Congress will refuse
(although would a Republican-controlled Congress do any different?)
what is really needed. Draft and train Americans so as to send a
contingent into Iraq the size of what was sent out to fight in the
Second World War.


You start a draft when your country is under attack, not when you decide
to invade another country.
We frankly can't afford this war in a monetary sense; our tanks,
Humvees, and helicopters are worn out, our National Guard and Reserve
troops have had their lives torn apart with no good reason, and if the
President tries to start a draft, he's going to impeached inside of 48
hours...and rightfully so.
If he had had one shred of decency, he would have resigned as soon as no
WMDs were found, and then Cheney would have appointed someone respected
of very moderate views as the new VP (I would have said McCain, but he's
lost all contact with reality also, so probably Collin Powell) and
resigned himself... after removing the troops from Iraq.
I really liked the President's interview where he said that America now
had a scapegoat for the war, and he was it.
This says a lot about his world view; he considers himself as the
innocent scapegoat that's being blamed for the war, rather than the
architect of it. Which is probably true, because I seriously doubt he
has much to do with making national policy at all, but just serves as
meat puppet for the power-hungry bunch of crooks and liars that are his
friends and advisers.
I keep meaning to send him a little sign for his desk in the Oval Office
that says: "The Buck Passes Here."

The only good thing that's going to come out of this war is that it's
going to be a lot of years before we do something as stupid as this war
again. LBJ taught that lesson to the Democrats, now another Texan has
taught it to the Republicans.

Pat

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On 20 Jan 2007 13:20:52 -0800, in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:

A "genocidal war"?

They're all Arabs.

Exterminating a minority identified by religious faith is also included
in the U. N. genocide convention. Surely you knew that.

I didn't, but if so, it's just one more example of watering down the
meaning of the word (hint: where does the "gen" part come from?). And
no minority is being exterminated in Iraq. Even if all the Sunnis or
Shia there were killed (unlikely), there'd be millions of others
elsewhere.

And even if all the Jews in Poland were killed there'd be millions
elsewhere.

You really are an idiot and an ass.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:16:41 -0600, in a place far, far away, Pat
Flannery made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:



Rand Simberg wrote:
A "genocidal war"?

They're all Arabs.


Which is rather like saying "they're all Europeans".

Nope.

Wow, you've got me convinced. What a resounding argument.

It's no surprise that fewer and fewer people pay attention to anything you
have to say.

On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 23:38:07 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
Exterminating a minority identified by religious faith is also included
in the U. N. genocide convention. Surely you knew that.

I didn't, but if so, it's just one more example of watering down the
meaning of the word (hint: where does the "gen" part come from?).

Hint: the etymology of a word and its current meaning are not necessarily
at all related. "genocide, n: the deliberate and systematic destruction
of a racial, political, or cultural group" (Webster's New Collegiate, 1975).

no minority is being exterminated in Iraq. Even if all the Sunnis or
Shia there were killed (unlikely), there'd be millions of others
elsewhere.

So because there were Jews elsewhere, the Holocaust doesn't count as
genocide?

No. The intent was to wipe out the Jews. If Hitler had achieved his
ultimate ambition of world domination he would have done so.

(That ignores the fact that Jews aren't a race, of course, but Hitler
believed they were.)

In any event, genocide remains a hyperbolic term for what's going on
in Iraq, as bad as it is.