From: BOSUNWHATCHEER@TEMP.COM   
      
   "Martha Bridegam"  wrote in message   
   news:JHZ7f.4119$D13.2349@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...   
   > selene1022 wrote:   
   > > Only in your twisted little berleleyite mind. I have a number of   
   > > Kurdish friends who are quite pleased. Pity such a lover of liberty and   
   > > Orwell can't celebrate with them.   
   > >   
   > > 63% of the electorate voted   
   > > 79% for the constitution   
   > > 21% against   
   > >   
   > > And you'll NEVER take that away you bitch.   
   > >   
   >   
   > Well now, I have to say "Berleleyite" is a new one. For some reason I   
   > picture a veined agate-like stone suitable for the carving of   
   > miniatures. If it's any comfort I assure you my mind consists entirely   
   > of organic matter, twisted or otherwise.   
   >   
   > Of course I agree it would be lovely to celebrate the achievement of   
   > democracy in Iraq, and I hope you and your many interesting friends and   
   > I will see it happen one day. However, while of course any bit of   
   > democratic choice is incrementally a good thing, a people can't achieve   
   > freedom, nor democracy, nor self-government, simply by participating in   
   > an election. Particularly not an election that offers quite limited   
   > choices and is held under the sponsorship of an occupying power among   
   > voters living equally in fear of the visiting occupiers and of the local   
   > religious fanatics.   
   >   
   > You and I are old enough to remember '89. We watched the Berlin Wall   
   > torn down on live television. That was a liberation. Deep down I think   
   > you are too politically astute to confuse the grand days of '89 with   
   > this limping pretense of a democratic founding in Iraq, conducted as it   
   > is under our own heavy-handed tutelage among a frightened population   
   > under heavy guard. It's just good old Diemocracy all over again and you   
   > know it as well as I do -- especially if your friends are having to live   
   > anything like ordinary kinds of lives amid the results. (Are they?)   
   >   
   > Don't you and your friends think it might be worth deferring the   
   > celebrations until more of the women over there feel safely able to   
   > leave their homes, and perhaps until our own soldiers have stopped   
   > shooting and torturing quite so many innocent people by mistake? And   
   > since you invoke George Orwell of all people, have you forgotten it was   
   > his service as an imperial military policeman that drove him to spend   
   > the rest of his life opposing abuses of power?   
   >   
   > I know, I know, sometimes you're the omelet, sometimes you're the egg,   
   > and where you stand depends on where you sit. But do spare a thought for   
   > the ordinary citizens over there who, whether they happen to be your   
   > friends or not, are trapped between the terrible alternatives of   
   > occupation and theocracy courtesy of the latest in miscarried American   
   > good intentions. Road to Hell and all that, but I'll spare you further   
   > platitudes.   
   >   
   > Warmest regards,   
   >   
   > /Martha Bridegam   
      
   I agree that the real shocker of the invasion was the total fucking   
   disregard for the post-saddam situation. You can only look at Bush and Rummy   
   and think: 'you're a couple of cunts, there's no doubt about it.' Blair too.   
   However the anti-war Left's (which is to say the self-harming left who has   
   the telescope up to the blind eye about everything except gender   
   disparities, solar power and gay rights) smugness even before the invasion   
   (they were in my opinion smug about 9/11) and smugness in marching   
   effectively for Saddam is just too hard to swallow.   
      
   ROBBIE   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)