Iraq's Silver Lining

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peacemongeriv

Inactive
Thought I'd throw out a proposition. The War in Iraq, which many consider lost, hopeless, or pointless, has a silver lining.

In order that my thought be better understood, and in the hopes that people who would lambast me as a racist may be, if only for a few posts, deterred, I will first expound on a condensed version of my own view of international politics, history, and religion, such that they may better understand the complete and utter absence of race-ism in my thoughts.

I fundamentally see the destiny of mankind as one with the increase of his knowledge. Inextricably bound with the increase of man's knowledge is his technology. I believe though our technology we may, to use the biblical phrases of others, eat from both the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Created that we might cast down our own exile and create a greater Eden and complete our Towers of Babel.

With that in mind, I believe "civilization" is bound up with man's progress. Further, I postulate that civilization has been, most often, the setting free of man from his neighbor, his tribe. It is only when we may disagree that we may find the truth. When we are free from social bonds, free from the guilt and obligation society offers, we may at last strike out on our own, unencumbered.

In Western Culture, the ability to disagree came from a break in Christianity--indeed, I might suggest it can trace one of its beginnings to a man saying "Here I stand, I can do no other", and nailing his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg. It was the split of Christianity into Catholicism & Protestantism and subsequent settling (relative) that began a "watered-down" version of Christianity (or allowed for it as a descendant).

This shattering of the dogma of the Catholic Church opened up the West to produce the greatest concentration of mathematical, chemical, physical, biological, and arguably literary achievements the world has ever known. (Name the top 10 mathematicians, or physicists, to get my point). In other words, Reform Judaism and Protestantism gave man the ability to disagree--to create, and to learn.

There is no analogous branch of Islam. "Moderate" Islam is considered one of the most henious crimes one can commit. Fatwas against men like Salman Rushdie, or Jerry Fallwell, or American in General (al-Qaeda, in the last case) quickly end any conception of the ability to disagree. If the Jyllands-Post controversy was something, that anger turned on an apostate is vastly worse. While both Jewish and Islamic doctrines demand death for apostacy, only one group of countries still practices it, indicative of what I'm talking about.

Due to its lack of any significant reform branch, and the mainstream response to any such branch, I consider Islam an enemy to civilization. With that in mind, I think any damage any Islamic country has done to it is in the best interests of mankind. If we cannot create a branch of moderate Islam, then best that we keep them in the dark ages.

If we do not want a successful group of Islamic countries, among the best ways of accomplishing that is be means of infighting. If we have Muslims killing Muslims and bleeding one another white with us supplying the weapons, everyone wins. They get to fight the lesser jihad (al-jihād al-asghar) against one another & go to their final reward, and we aren't having to fight them. A pareto efficient war.

With this in mind, the Iraq war is a godsend. Shiite fighting Sunni. Saudi Arabia and Egypt siding politically against Hamas and Iran, afraid of a Shiite rising power. Internal fighting in Iraq as a herald for more fighting among & within those countries. Indeed, Muqtada al Sadr expressed his fear over this very "plot"recently.

I'm after the good old days, when one Arab leader fought another fervent group of Persians and decimated both their oil production (which still isn't up to what it was before the Iran-Iraq War) and took the cream of their true believers and shredded them with area effect weapons.

I think the loss of one American life is tragic. But I recognize that if that life, or 5,000 lives, allows a war between Iraq and Iran, then that sacrifice was not made in vain. This, precisely, is the silver lining from the War in Iraq: the exacerbation of the existing rift between Shiites and Sunnis to open fighting, to expand all over the Muslim world.

For those of you that will call me racist, I'm not. I could care less about race. All I care about are a man's thoughts. If they are fundamentally against the economic and scientific progress of man, then his death is something to celebrate. If they are not, his death is tragic.

For those of you that will call me a monster, I am, in your morality. I accept this, but your jejune condemnations are quite welcome, because they'll relieve you of some of your anger, and cost me nothing.

I am interested in constructive criticism. I think the largest avenue for disagreement is arguing negative spillover effects on world politics. Outrage is impotent. Give me your thoughts.
 
Well-written and highly provocative. I wonder what the response will be....

If you're positing that any destruction of dogma is inherently good because it facilitates acquisition of knowledge...I would say that knowledge is neither good nor bad, thus it's acquisition is neither noble or ignoble.

Therefore the premise is flawed.
 
Interesting.

It's definitely interesting and a completely different line of thought from the usual that is posted both here and elsewhere.
You make some very interesting points. Give me a while to chew them all over and I'll get back to you:)

By the way, weclome.
 
If you're positing that any destruction of dogma is inherently good because it facilitates acquisition of knowledge...I would say that knowledge is neither good nor bad, thus it's acquisition is neither noble or ignoble.
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You are certainly not mistaken when you suggest that I am, in effect, axiomizing the moral nature of the pursuit of knowledge.

Why might I have decided such a hypothesis?

Because I believe in the destiny of mankind to conquer, survive, and thrive. If we look at human history, we see that civilization has been threatened, but naturally expanded to a less vulnerable threat, and then become more vulnerable. Were we a hunter-gatherer tribe, it was simplicity for a mere storm to wipe us out. Were we a village, a single disease, or raid. Were we a city, an epidemic, a complete burning. Were we a city-state, an invasion. Were we a country, nuclear weapons. Mankind's civilization has had its building blocks grow more and more, greater and greater, harder and harder to destroy, even while destructive mechanisms become more efficient. To this end, the next step is not to be dependent on only this planet. A single cataclysmic event can wipe out humanity. After the beginning of our conquest of space, our single sun is our biggest threat. Moving beyond this solar system is the next step. Indeed, we continue this pattern, of being less and less vulnerable. In order to do this, and that we might someday meet our greatest possible threat, entropy, the acquisition of knowledge is humanity's only weapon, and greatest ally. To that end, what allows mankind to thrive & survive is good, if one values the survivial of mankind. That is, if one values mankind & her civilization, one axiomizes knowledge as the good.

Alternatively, we might take a moral view, and ask about individual human. I first say that this is directly in line with Aristotle's eudaimonia. Knowledge qua knowledge is the challenge of one's reasoning faculties. Or, if one does/cannot accept this, then I suggest that the one adage of the greatest untruthfulness, accepted by cowards & liars, is that ignorance is bliss. Ignorance about reality helps no one but those two types of people. For the rest of us, knowledge about how things work, how we work, knowlege about one another, and our origins, and the diseases that attack us, are the inevitable tool to construct our happiness. We cannot continually act with success if we have no knowledge of our means or ends. It is knowledge that allows us to act towards our own happiness.

I would continue, but a word too many defeats its purpose. I recognize your challenge to my nigh-axiomized knowledge-as-good, (viz., that knowledge as good is a direct consequence of humanity as good, and their relationship is akin to the Axiom of Choice & Zorn's Lemma, in that sense). However, I remain uncertain how many could truly reject the moral nature of knowledge without rejecting every one of their desires, everything that makes them a man.

For the moderator's purposes, I posit that this is not off topic, merely because a challenge to a premise is a challenge to the argument. If I were wrong about knowledge, then I was wrong about the silver lining, incontestably a political issue. Defending knowledge, in and of itself not a political point, defended a political point.
 
To that end, what allows mankind to thrive & survive is good, if one values the survivial of mankind. That is, if one values mankind & her civilization, one axiomizes knowledge as the good.
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Only if one conflates "knowledge" with "that which allows mankind to survive and thrive", which you have, as yet, failed to establish.

However, I remain uncertain...
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Join the club ;)
 
Wow, and i almost didn't read this thread because of trivial reasons...
(Your post looks cut & pasted from a different source, low post count, which made me think it was a troll du jour)


I like where you're going. Not so much, what is in my opinion, the cousin of divide and conquer (Divide and don't-attack-us) with regards to iran/iraq, but your optimism. You remind me of why I like science fiction television so much. Its chock full of optimism and hope for the human race as a whole.

Well done, and welcome!

(And just out of curiosity, what do you do? It was mighty well written)
 
so, to summarize:

"Nuke 'em from Paris to Tokyo. Problem solved."

No wait, that's what I said..... ;)


------------------------------------

"all my ammo is plutonium-based ammo"
 
Extremely well-written and thought-provoking. Makes some good points. I would guess that you write professionally.

But I would posit that ANYTHING which spread, enhances, and supports radical religious fundamentalism of ANY type (be it Islam or Christianity) is, and has been historically proven to be, a *bad thing*. Witness current radical Islam, Spanish Inquisition, American witch hunts, etc.

So, the big picture is:

1. Iraq was held under a SECULAR iron-fisted ruler.

2. Iran, though roughly democratic, is a nevertheless, a popularly-elected theocracy, more or less (its leader publicly calls for the destruction of Israel, for example, on purely religious grounds) - and its people 89% Shi'a; most of the rest also Islamic.

3. If upon withdrawal by the US, if Iran wins a (nother) war with or within Iraq, the Shi'a will run roughshod over the Sunnis, and squelch what limited voice they have now, since the Shia dominate in both places. Unless someone else intervenes.

4. You will have spread a theocracy with a high percentage of fundamentalists, which will lead to more bad things.

Silver lining? Maybe, but I don't think so. Now, if the Sunni could PREVAIL or at least foment a larger war between Sunni countrys like Saudi Arabia against Iran, then I agree that this could be a good thing, and your theory could pan out. Dissent and the competition of ideas in the marketplace is good. And true enough, war is sometimes "good" in the sense that it is necessary for the greater good in the long run. Another issue, though, is "Is a Sunni alternative really analygous to Lutheranism/Protestantism?" I'm not so sure. From what little I know, they seem to be just as radical as the Shi'a. So how does that help us, for the Sunni to win, or create a stalemate, in the long run, for peace and putting a few nails in the coffin of radicalism of Islam? Do the Sunnis not also teach that moderate Islamics should die? Sure, the Shi'as and Sunnis differ on some issues (that's why they're fighting now in Iraq), but what about that one very important one?

My essential theory, though it's simplistic and perhaps not politically correct, I think is right (but maybe not): Middle eastern people are by and large, too gullible when it comes to being influenced by religious radicalism - they are essentially hot-headed dipsticks who are more gullible to fundamentalism/radicalism than most peoples (though people in ALL societies are, of course - it's a matter of PROPORTION). BOTH of the major wings of Islam in the region teach radicalism and terrorism, and squelch dissent with violence. Thus, neither is good. What is good is a secular ruler that keeps those hotheads under wraps, to put it in laymen's terms. Which is precisely what we had in Saddam Hussein. Which is one of the reasons why it was incredibly stupid for us to remove him. Look at what we know for sure: Iraq and Saddam had ZERO to do with 9/11/01. Who DID? Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAB, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Not Iraq. Coincidence? No. The secularity of Hussein's dictatorship was the reason. IMO.

Lookit, the installation of a democracy in Iraq would be a very positive thing. *IF* it could work. Time has shown that it cannot work, IMO. Even if it is a democracy, the present Iraqi Constitution has many religious precepts - 180 degrees from the idea of separation of church and state. Not good, IMO. Will be (if anything) worse vis a vis prospects of more terrorists attacks on Americans, at least in the short run. In the long run, who knows - being a democracy, at least it COULD in theory evolve to eliminate the theocratic aspects of its government. The leaders and experts in our government (intelligence/war/historical anylysts) SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that this would not work, at least not within the timelime and limits to which the American political climate could stomach the loss in blood & treasure. They have or had (at least in theory) the information and data necessary to analyze what we all now know - that the Iraqi people, on the whole, are not ready for democracy (though some are). The powers that be there are placing the power of their religious sects (Shi'a vs. Sunni) as more important than the the "greater good" of maintaing the installed democracy.
 
^ that too.
Even if you posit all that you have, the conclusion would be that the Iraq war has been bad for this very reason.
 
(And just out of curiosity, what do you do? It was mighty well written)
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Thank you Vitamin, I'm a continuing scholar, something of a polymath, who has engaged in jobs that required writing as a primary task or output. It is nice to let one's hair down in terms of style, even if it is at-times unusual. Less vocabulary constraints when one isn't writing for a broad audience. (Ex. Writing widely-read newspaper articles traditionally requires the vocabulary/comprehension level of a sixth-grader or so, which has, in recent history, been the average comprehension level of an American).

Only if one conflates "knowledge" with "that which allows mankind to survive and thrive", which you have, as yet, failed to establish.
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Indeed, quite correct. Meaning no offense, I left it where I left it because I thought the rest to be trivialities. I shall endeavor to expand on my proposed connection between knowledge and the ability of man to conquer, thrive, and survive.

The universe is not a place that is easily adaptable to human wants and needs. It is a place of scarcity of usable resources, and of competition to the death for those resources. Nature and other species are unforgiving in this battle for survival. As humans, all we have is our brains. Our brains are meaningless unless they acquire knowledge to be creatively used to give us an advantage. In other words, we are tool-makers, and our tools will not come about without advances in knowledge.

Take nearly any invention of man. We would not have advanced from hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists if we did not acquire the knowledge of tilling, farm management, watering, irrigation, etc. We would not have advanced from small towns without building and knowledge of structural integrity. Nor would we have advanced to cities without viable sewer systems. Today, the astonishing knowledge of viruses and bacteria allow us to better survive and thrive. The subject of these very boards is yet another example of a tool used to ease survival. Abstract knowledge is never abstract knowledge. One might have posited Quantum Mechanics to be useless knowledge, but your very computer's semiconductors are using the basic building block of QM, quantized energy. Greater knowledge of our universe will be imperative to everything we do to expand beyond this planet.

Advances in knowledge are required for every advance of man to a new stage of civilization.

Is a Sunni alternative really analygous to Lutheranism/Protestantism?
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As I'll go into, I think both are evil, from the point of view of civilization's allies. But killing one another is not.

BOTH of the major wings of Islam in the region teach radicalism and terrorism, and squelch dissent with violence.
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I concur. I do not believe that either Shia Islam nor Sunni Islam is a friend of civilization. Indeed, I am not original in declaring them both to be enemies of civilization. This, precisely, is why I see a silver lining in their renewed violent conflict. I posit that Sunni fighting Shiite is akin to Islam battling the Communism, or Hitler battling Stalin. Giving approximated numbers 175 million people in the Soviet Union when Hitler attacked, 10 million died, 13% of the population. I believe what happened under Communism was barbaric, inhuman, and cruel. However, I believe civilization is in some sense fortunate that such massive damage was done to the Soviet Union during WWII, militarily, demographically, and economically. While they made much of this up through Tehran Conference conquests, had they both these conquests and a population that was 15% larger than what it was, I believe their post-wartime picture would have been rosier, and concordantly put the West in a more unfortunate position.

So too, for example, with the Sunni-Shia warfare in the Iran-Iraq War, for example. Were the Sunni Saddam (I admit a general secularity about him, and I'm not pushing him as a religious figure, a revisionism you see often) to not have invaded Iran, they would be vastly more wealthy than they are today. Here is an interesting link concerning what I'm talking about. Fairly interesting graph. (Recall the Iran-Iraq War, if memory fails, was 1980-1988).

Shia & Sunni Islam are two malformed enemies of civilization. When they fight one another, they send their most fanatical and brave out to die, to compete in a marketplace of death. It is not which one wins that is the concern at the moment, only that our two enemies, far from living in peace as they did under Saddam, begin to bleed one another white. Further, whether or not we'd be better off with Saddam is not my point—this wouldn't be a silver lining if Iraq was unequivocally better off. I posit this as an unexpected benefit to a war that is not going optimally.


Your challenges are good, as with Slash's and Firstfreedom's, they force me to further flesh out my position, much of which I state implicitly, and I thank you for them.
 
On a completely unrelated note...


I just wanted to say that your post is even more fun when i reread it, imagining that its being read to me by some guy with an english accent, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.

(Yeah, I have ADD pretty bad)
 
A certain senator named Harry Truman took the same stand when Germany invaded Russia, going so far as to encourage support for the losing side so that the bloodshed could go on longer, further weakening our enemies.

As tempting as that thought is, it's the people caught in the middle who suffer the most. Most of these people are just farmers, shopkeepers, and other people who would just like to live their lives.

By encouraging this, the level of hatred, bitterness, and radicalism increases, and the number of those radicalized grows out of what would be the moderate middle.

Unless the Islamic factions get completely genocidal, you end up with a tough, highly radical enemy with all of the weakness winnowed out.
 
peacemongeriv...

The fighting in the Middle East stems from the fact that their culture as a region focuses on revenge and keeping down human rights. Don't forget that their governments also push for keeping the people down. As for creating in-fighting that is just a plot device for a conqueror to use in order to keep unification from happening. An example of this is what the British did by partioning India in 1947 into East and West Pakistan before being forced to leave by Ghandi's protests. Also the west has nothing without other civilizations around the world contributing to art, science, and spirtuality to humanity as a whole. China and India are two of the oldest running civilzations in the world, and as a matter of fact even the Middle East at some point was a place for math to evolve, (ie: Trigonometry and geometry may have started in Babylon.) The concept of zero was created by the Mayans and Indians around the same time. However obviously times change, and what is civilization exactly? Who defines what it is? Is it whoever has the biggest fist, or the most amount of money?


Epyon


P.S: You seem like an intellect, check out the book Lost Discoveries by Dick Teresi.
 
The only problem with your post is that it ignores the history of Islam. The religion is one of hate toward anyone and anything that is not Islam. In the history of Islam we see that they overran the western world all the way to Europe before they were set back by internal dissension. Power struggles occupied them for centuries until modern times. Now we, (the western powers) are helping them unite against a common enemy.(us) They are divided by the same type of things that have divided Christianity i.e. denominational differences and the eternal power struggle.

Iraq has a silver lining in that it has concentrated our enemies in one region. It has no other redeeming feature. When our inept political leaders finally end this war, then the Iraqis will fight their civil war and the winner will then make accomodation with the other Islamic powers and they will all turn their enmity to us.

What we should do is withdraw and strengthen our forces and our anti-terrorist agencies in order to finally defeat Islam. We can then destroy this infestation on our planet. I realize that this kind of statement is not a liberal one, but it is pragmatic. Anything else will only serve the fanatic hordes of Islam.:)
 
I just wanted to say that your post is even more fun when i reread it, imagining that its being read to me by some guy with an english accent, wearing a Guy Fawkes mask.
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I'll attempt to allow for additional alliteration as it appears to alleviate apathy and if awash in alacrity allows accelerated acceptance in an atmosphere of anonymity.
 
This shattering of the dogma of the Catholic Church opened up the West to produce the greatest concentration of mathematical, chemical, physical, biological, and arguably literary achievements the world has ever known. (Name the top 10 mathematicians, or physicists, to get my point). In other words, Reform Judaism and Protestantism gave man the ability to disagree--to create, and to learn
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Prior to the the development of Protestantism, Islamic civilization was the most advanced in terms of religious tolerance, mathematical techniques, and science. The classics of western thought written by the Greeks were preserved by the Muslims as well. The ignorant Christians, OTOH, were busy taking scrolls of parchment and turning them into palincests. That is how the dicovery of integral calculus by Archimedes was lost for thousands of years.
And it was Arabs who came up with algebra (Al Khwarizmi), trigonometry, and cryptography. Without trig and algebra our world would be very different. THe Arabs also discovered distillation and without that we wouldn't have hard liquor, petroleum products, etc.
Also, prior to the Renaissance, and even the Reformation, the use of Arabic numerals (which make mathematical calculation much easier) was considered witchcraft by ignorant Christians.
Newton said "If I have seen so far it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants" and in the case of Western civilization, we are standing on the shoulders of an Islamic giant.

Now, most likely the Sunnis and the Shias will have to undergo the equivalent of a 30 Years War before they realize how stupid and utterly destructive their dogmas can be. THe West is slowing this process down because we want them to stay relatively stable and sell petroleum.
 
Civilizations rise and fall with alarming if predictable frequency.
If they can come out of this dark period it will have to be through their own efforts. Any actions on our part will be seen as unwarranted intrusion and rightly so.

This should not be construed to mean that they should be allowed to attack us with impunity.

Jefferson
 
I postulate the future of Islam and however it affects our country is bound to education. Or lack thereof. In areas of this country where the standard of living is good and people are more educated, they have assimilated well. In countries like Saudia Arabia where a small percentage are wealthy and educated, it oozes bad things. In countries like Iran where more people are educated, the mullahs are having a tough go of it. So war may not be the final answer after all.
 
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