We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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An era of horror and death in Iraq The current war in Iraq is the long death rattle of a savage era that started in 1968 with the start of Saddam Hussain’s rise to power and begun in earnest in 1979 with his assumption the presidency of Iraq. To outsiders, what happened in Iraq then and more recently is somewhat abstract unless you are a member of the US or UK military or family member of such, but to a great many Iraqis it was all too real and all too personal.
And you did not have top be a political opponent to experience the true evil of the Man from Tikrit. Over on Camera Anguish, Julian Taylor reports on an attempt by expatriate Iraqis to use the death of the tyrant to close the book on Saddam Hussain’s era of very personal horror for them.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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This sounds like the nice word closure, or the end of an era. But “future history” may see it as just the lead-in to a new era of violent madness and mayhem in the Middle East.
Today’s purposeful leak of Israeli plans to take out key Iranian nuclear development sites by deployment of a low-yield nuclear weapon would bring to an abrupt end the game of chicken currently being played by Iran. If this were to happen, escalation by Iranian (Sunburn) missile attacks against tankers and US Navy ships in the Persian Gulf, and serious US retalliation, would likely lead to a Middle East in turmoil and further terrorist acts against Western nations.
It’s an extremely unpleasant scenario, but not so uncertain that one can afford to ignore at least some modest personal provision.
Indeed, and there is a possibility that the ‘next phase’ (whatever that is) may well be as unedifying as what came before. Or it may not be. But it is worth while reminding those who seem to think things were “not that bad” under Saddam “before we messed things up” that they were in fact a damnable nightmare.
I hardly ever do this, but please read the story of Jimmy, whom I met in (of all places) Zurich a couple of years ago.
I have no idea what happened to him…
And his story will explain why I hauled off in Comments on the next post down.
Freeman — in fact, the report of the Israeli strike preparations is nothing new:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2007/01/its-crock.html
This being said, the actual fact is that an airstrike against Iran’s nuclear program is our only chance to prevent a massive catastrophe in the Middle East.
If Iran does develop nuclear weapons, then given the irrational and apocalyptic obsessions of its regime, there is a considerable likelihood that these weapons would be used to destroy Israel. Thus another six million Jews would be slaughtered, partly through Western inaction, rendering the pledge “never again” the sickest bad joke in history.
But it wouldn’t stop there. Israel has a nuclear arsenal too, and if its cities and people were wiped out by an Iranian attack, an all-out counterstrike would be inevitable. At a minimum, Israel’s retaliation would lay Iran utterly in ruins. Almost certainly, every other high-value Muslim target within range (Cairo, Damascus, Riyadh, Mecca, and others) would be destroyed as well.
And has it occurred to you that such a Samson-pulling-down-the-temple counterstrike might not even be limited to the MIddle East? Muslims are not the only great persecutors in Jewish history. At the very least, I certainly would not want to be anywhere in Germany or near the Vatican when something like this happened.
That is what is potentially waiting for us if the Iranian nuclear program is not stopped — and I mean stopped, as opposed to useless fiddle-faddle with sanctions and UN resolutions.
Yes, a strike against the Iranian program (especially if it failed to also destroy the mullahs’ regime) would likely lead to all sorts of upheavals, and gasoline here in the US going to $15 per gallon. I submit that these considerations are trivial compared to the possible consequences of inaction.
Manual trackback(Link). (Sorry, I don’t do regular trackbacks, because of evil spammers.)
Perry, Dick Cheney beat you to the whole “Last throes” thing over a year ago.
Today, it’s ALL about how “THE SURGE” is gonna fix things up all jim dandy.
Get with the program, or you’ll NEVER get your GOP Team Leader totebag.
Mary Ayn Rand – You do realize that “Ayn” rhymes with “mine” and not “fan” don’t you? I’m guessing you didn’t and thought it’d be clever to combine “Ayn Rand” and “Mary Ann” (presumably from Gilligan’s Island) in some sort of sophomoric attempt at mockery of a mind that clearly exceeds yours by orders of magnitude.
Turns out, mockery works much better if you’re literate. Dumbass.
Idiot. Did you follow the fucking link? Read what is written not what you want to be written. I’d say that family are sure to see the death of the monster as the end of an era. But I guess you think all the conflicts of us slightly brown people can just be rolled into one mess “over there”.
Yes, I know it’s pronounced a la ‘mine’. And yes, I AM mocking Any Rand and ALL her little Randroids, whose slavish devotion to a genuine whackjob rivals that of the Red Guard and Mao.
Ayat, yes, it is the end of an Era. An era that saw Saddam as Saint Ronnie’s Best Friend Forever… as long as he was killing Iranians. And as long as he was killing Iranians, he could murder as many Kurds as he desired, along with as many Iraqis as he desired.
“Last Throes” is no longer an operative statement. It’s THE SURGE, baby! It’s all about THE SURGE.
Escalate that war, baby. We ALL know how well THAT worked in Viet-Nam.
Ayat, you and all the rest of all those damnfool brown people over there should heed the words of Chimpy:
“Knock all that shit off!”
And you’ll all get ponies!
MAR, what makes you so funny is that you do not understand that Rand’s followers and people who use Popperian methods (the graphic top of this blog is a dead give away) to see the world are quite different. In fact none of our writers are actually self-described Objectivists.
Also, Ayat Habi obviously read the article rather than just reacted to a trigger phrase. Your solution to unwisely giving political support to Saddam for years? Leave him in power. No wonder you are regarded by so many here as disingenuous and/or a crypto-fascist wackjob.
To summaraise your position, it appears to be:
“Saddam was killing Iranians and Kurds for a couple decades and we supported him (by giving him Russian Migs, French Mirages and Chinese artillery, presumably). So rather than ejecting him from power, we should have left him in power because now people are dying whereas before, he was killing Iranians and Kurds!”
My guess is you prefer Ba’aths to showers, Mary.
Mary, perhaps you’re up for a wee challenge? Since you clearly don’t think much of Rand or her followers you must have done some deep thinking about her philosophy and its flaws. A person as knowledgeable as you should have a profound grasp of her obvious missteps, one should think.
Now, on to the bet. I’ll bet you cannot provide one, single *original* criticism of Rand’s writings. Not one. Be warned, if you try to pass of your some else’s work as your own, I’ll know and you’ll only get burned (yet again) by me on this thread.
C’mon deep thinker, let’s see what you’ve got!
Saddam was indeed a socialist all his adult life (although not a Marxist) and got the vast majority of his militiary stuff from the socialist world (plus a bit from the French). Although it should be noted that the governments before the Baathists came to power (in 1968) were also sadistic scum. One has to go back to before the revolution of 1958 (which was nothing to do with Saddam and co) to find governments in Iraq that (whilst being Arab nationalist and dedicated to the extermination of Israel and so on) could at least pass for civilized human beings.
The information he got from the Americans during the Iraq – Iran war was due to American fear of Iranian victory (not love of Saddam). The American view of the Iraq – Iran war was basically “it is a pity they can not both lose”.
Now almost everybody is against the war in Iraq I have started to get feel less depressed by it (natural perversity possibly).
I was expecting a much bigger enemy offensive after the Democrats won in November (that should have have given the enemy a vast boost in morale).
However, the Sunni Arab terrorists seem to be getting their arses kicked at the moment.
Of course the Shia Arab terrorists are getting stronger (and some of them are in the government) especially with the arms from Iran and the training from the Shia Hez in the Lebanon.
The Kurdish area does not seem particularly Hell like so I suppose the basic factor deciding whether their is victory or defeat will be the following.
Do most Shia (and I mean most armed and violent Shia – non violent people are of no account politically) feel ARAB in a big way?
If they do they will not want to be under the thumb of Iran (“the Persians” as Saddam was careful to call them) – so they will take Iranian weapons (and so on) but still insist that Iraq remain an independent country.
If they do not feel Arab in a big way (i.e. if the Irainian pan Shiaism works) then Western defeat is going to happen.
Of course the Iranian regime also wants a Shia – Sunni alliance against the West (not just against the United States as some people seem to think) which it is why it is reaching out and providing money and weapons to Sunni groups (even ones that kill Shia).
Such an alliance would be unfortunate, but many centuries of hatred may yet prevent it.
The inablity of Al Sado’s men (or however he spells his name) to control their sadism even during the brief period of Saddam’s execution (although they did control their sadism to some extent – a bit of shouting is nothing to what they would normally do a captured enemy) is, perhaps, a hopeful sign. It would be very difficult for Sunni tribes related to Saddam’s to make common cause with the Shia against the West after such a public insult.
But still (to repeat) the real question is which way the larger Shia parties (S.C.R.I. and Dawa – or however it is spelt) jump. Do they put Iraq under Iran or do they wish to maintain independence?
An independent Iraq has to be a least vaguely pro Western – as no one else can support them against Iran?
Saudia Arabia (for all its disgusting activities financing the worst forms of Islam round the world), would not last a week against Iran.
O.B.L. sometimes claimed that he would not have ordered 9/11 if the Americans had not been in Saudia Arabia. I do not believe him (I think he did what he did because he could – people of his type do not need any real excuse to kill large numbers of people of a different religion and to try and inflict major economic damage, they just enjoy doing stuff like this), but had the American forces not been in Arabia the whole area would have fallen to “the Persians” by now.
In short the most holy places in the Islamic world would have been under the Shia, something for the strong Sunni’s of O.B.L.’s movement to think about?
I doubt they could be reached by any rational argument.
An interesting and cogent analisys.
Save for the end when the kneejerk “Osama is a madman who hates us for our freedoms!” GOP talking point slipped in.
The US pulled all it’s forces out of Saudi.
Hey, it worked! And nothing has happened in the US that could be laid at the doorstep (cavestep?) of Osama and A.Q.
Pity the order came down from on high to let Osama get away.
Surely it couldn’t have been to have a boogieman out there in the dark, hating us for our freedoms?
Could it?
Ah… the conspiracy theory! No doubt they were forced to let OBL escape because of orders from the Bilderbergers, who of course were fearful that if he was captured and interogated, the Illuminati might be angered and…
aaarrrrgggg….
Deleted, off-topic. Post things like this in an article about Iraq circa 2007, not an article about how a family faired under Saddam Hussain