Harold Pinter acknowledgement speech

[Occhidiangela]

Good post Occhi.

Issues aside it was kind of "bizzaro presentation" to read Eppie's retorts to so much you neither said nor inferred.
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Thanks, but I think another edit would have been appropriate before "post." I pick up the flanged mace too often, and the rapier not often enough. ;)

Occhi

[Thecla]

"There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal"
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Dr. Johnson long ago refuted Bishop Berkeley's idealism by kicking a heavy stone, but speaking as a confirmed `materialist', probably one no different from Pinter, I think you greatly oversimplify our state as conscious creatures in a very large, and rather unfathomable -- human no less than physical -- universe.

The Starry Sky Above Me and the Moral Law Within Me

But, whether or not you agree with this thought, in one respect I think Pinter is absolutely right about the US invasion of Iraq:

an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East

[Guest]

I have no idea if you are an idiot or just being vague.

It appears to me that you think I said "There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal".
Which means you didnt even read Pinters post. I was quoting him.

If my impression is correct the problem is not a vaguarity.

[Occhidiangela]

Thecla, that is indeed the question.

an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East

Is it "control," like the Pax Americana found in Europe post WW II (and an edgy peace at best for a while there) or was it something far different, made in three parts? I see it a bit differently than Mr Pinter, although he is on the right track.

1. An attempt to increase the security of Israel and thus change the roadmap of "Mid East" peace.

2. An attempt to preempt the renewed development (by Saddam) of his various weapons programs after the predicted Republican defeat in the 2004 election, which programs are perceived as a destabalizing force in the middle east. Never mind that such programs keep Iran in check and only threaten Israel, if anyone . . . they are "destabalizing."

3. An attempt to "stabalize" the Middle East by force due to a loss of patience of work via collective security organs and . . . wait for it . . . a distressing lack of state craft.

When you consider that American Security policy for a decade was filled with such idiotic statements as "instability is the new threat to NATO" (General Shalikashvili, NATO commander under Clinton before Clark) and policies in the Balkans that tried to slap a bandaid of "stability" onto that part of the world

Add the importance of oil to the global economy

Add Intafada openly supported by Iraq, and others,

It almost makes sense to try to stabalize the world's most critical oil supply region, or help provide security, and hence stability, to it.

Almost, except for a few small problems

You attract more flies with honey than vinegar

International statecraft takes patience, persistance, and imagination.

The big dog in the Persian Gulf is, and has been for some years, Iran.

At which point it makes no sense.

Occhi

[Guest]

But tell me what did Thecla mean when she addressed me?

Did it appear to you that I interpreted her intent correctly?(I ask you because you appearently read her post.)

I have no issue with the last line of the post that you agreed with.

[Thecla]

But tell me what did Thecla mean when she addressed me?
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Perhaps, despite the indisputable authority of his opinions, it would be better to ask me (he, btw --- blame my androgynous internet persona on the female status of D1 rogues) that question, rather than Occhi.

I meant simply that Pinter's opinion that the line between what's real and unreal is blurry is not necessarily the product of a disordered or drug infested mind.

[Guest]

That doesnt square at all with your original post. Considering your dodge(the post Im replying to) Im now sure that you simply didnt bother reading before your initial response.

But for the record I didnt say Pinter had such a mind. I really know rather little about him beyond what he said in the speach.
But given his lead off comments I would find it rather absurd if any one gave weight to his specific opinions on the basis of any respect they had for him.

[Ashock]

he, btw --- blame my androgynous internet persona on the female status of D1 rogues)
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So you say. I've always had my doubts......



-A

[Thecla]

I interpret `control' as meaning that the Bush administration wanted to establish military bases in the middle-east, as well as a pro-western political ally --- instead of being forced to rely on highly repressive Arab regimes, like Saudi-Arabia, that fomented (and continue to foment) the idealogies leading to 9/11. The administration used 9/11 in a shamelessly dishonest way to sell the invasion of Iraq. It was clear long before the war, not just in hindsight, that they were determined to invade, and that they were fixing the `facts' around this policy.

Why? There are no doubt secondary reasons, such as supporting Israel and opposing Al Qaida, but the main goal of the Iraq invasion was surely to secure US (and other corporate) access to middle-eastern oil.

As an anti-terrorism policy, the Iraq war made as much sense as using gasoline to put out a barely smoldering fire. (The use of torture is a disasterous policy also.) As a policy to topple an isolated, despotic, and vulnerable regime, and install a pro-western democracy that would host US forces in the heart of the middle-east, it made sense. (At least, from a certain perspective, and if one believes that the use of miitary force is justifiable for such ends.)

Never mind that the head of the Pakistani nuclear program was shopping nuclear technology to all and sundry, or that there is god-knows how much untracked nuclear material missing from the states of the former USSR.

It may be that the Iraquis (at least the Kurds and the Shia -- I would be worried as a Sunni in Iraq right now), not to mention Iran, will be the ultimate benefactors of this misbegotten and costly adventure. The ultimate irony for the hubris of the Bush administration is that, given the unpopularity of the occupying forces, the US may never secure a long-term military presence in Iraq, despite the 14 (?) permanent military bases under construction there.

I don't expect to here very much about the latter bases in the US media coverage of the `withdrawal' that is certainly coming soon.

[Thecla]

That doesnt square at all with your original post. Considering your dodge(the post Im replying to) Im now sure that you simply didnt bother reading before your initial response.

But for the record I didnt say Pinter had such a mind. I really know rather little about him beyond what he said in the speach.
But given his lead off comments I would find it rather absurd if any one gave weight to his specific opinions on the basis of any respect they had for him.
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Ok Ghost, now you are really confusing me. You didn't say Pinter had such a mind, but you quoted the first line of his speech, which I included (in quote marks) in my quote of your post. Perhaps you don't assume that when Pinter says in his Nobel prize winning speech that " 'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false' " and --- I did read the whole speech before posting here, in fact I had read it before --- that "I believe that these assertions still make sense" he doesn't really mean it. But I sort of think he does. And I understood from your post (please correct me if I misunderstood you) that you thought that if this were Pinter's true belief, then he must have burned out half his brain on drugs, and also from your subsequent post that I'm most likely an idiot. Well, on the basis of this response, you may very well have something there.

[Thecla]

So you say. I've always had my doubts......
-A
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Now you mention it, I always have had a thing for big strapping warriors. Kiss, kiss.

[eppie]

I'll ignore the bulk of your post which was pure troll bait...
No.  There was no lie, there was a communication of the worst case scenario.  There was a National Security Assessment with some poor intelligence work supporting the suspicions that Iraq was hiding a WMD program.  That poor intelligence and wrong conclusion was shared by the US, Britain, Isreal, Germany, France, and many others. 

Please Kandrathe, do you believe this yourself. Example; de so-called mobile biologicalwarfare lab-issue. They just lied.
If you would be so kind to read some pre-war posts on the lounge on the subject.
Half of the people then already knew this was the biggest nonsense. And although I don't respect them very much, the people that took the decission and did the intelligence work are not stupid.

Let's paint a different outcome of history for the "What Ifs";  First assume the Iraq war did not happen and consequently sanctions were lifted (or just ignored), and in the closed society of Iraq, Saddam was now free to rebuild his arsenal.  What outcome do you foresee for the Kurds?  How long do you think if would be before there would be another war, this time started by Saddam?  This time, rather than fighting the war on our terms, in Iraq, it would be in defense of Saudi Arabia, or Jordan.  Or perhaps, having survived politically against the West he would have forged a new coalition of at least Yeman, Syria, and covertly possibly others.  Explore the possible outcomes from what you know of Saddam, what good could have come from a scenario leaving Saddam in power with the UN failing to enforce sanctions?

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Please again! This is not reasoning. I know and agree that Saddam was a terrible dictator......so why was that excuse not used to attack Iraq? Why did they have to come with the lies about terrorism, WMDs and sanctions? If Bush just said, "i'm going to kick out all dictators he would have my support...and also that of many others.
We are not discussing the outcome and results of the war, we are talking about lying to the people. If before the war you would believe in what Bush said I would already blink my eyes....if you now say it is just miscommunication......

[eppie]

So yuck it up if you like, and be happy in knowing that Bush will not be President in 2008.  So until then, are you going to join Eppie in his hurling of rotten tomatoes?
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Again a very unfair comment, which I don't think belongs here on the lounge.
Again I would like to highlight the fact that we had discussions about the subject also before the war started. My arguments turned out to be true...I think that gives me the right to be critical now or not?

[eppie]

Dear eppie

You are wrong again.  I am not defending George Bush in my post.  You are reading something into the post that is not there.  My aim was to apply some critical analysis to Mr Pinter's speach, to jab at his residence in English "has been" land and false Utopia, and to offer some reality based comments on the utopian standard he chooses to apply to US policy for 60 years. 

Okay, point taken, sorry that I misunderstood you. But, don't you think mister Pinter is aware of the things you wrote in your post?. And more general, it is a simple fact that the most powerful party, draws the most criticism, and as a matter of fact most of that criticism is legit. And I know a lot of other countries also conduct some very dubious behaviour, but I'm the first to help you in criticizing them as well. Because, as I said many times, I don't blame a whole people for the actions of few.

I will ask you to not see everything I write as anti-European, since it isn't and I'm not.  You forget that I lived 9 years of my life in Europe, and like it very much, even though some of the political posturing strikes me as self destructive, false and counterintuitive.  Quite a bit of American politics strikes me the same way.  :o 

Yes I know, but..south of Italy or not? Now I can see why you are so euro negative :D .

This is not Occhi versus Europe, and indeed, I am not anti Europe, I am anti-Eurotrash, a very small but loud sub set of Europe who whine to the world's ending about the evil empire that is America.  When you place yourself in that camp, perhaps unintentionally, during forum conversations by the positions you take, you mistakenly deduce that I must be anti-Europe.  I am anti-wanker.  :o

In understand Occhi, but don't you ever wonder why "anti-americanism" has become much more widspread during the last few years? I think many europeans are not so anti-american as you might think.

I see, eppie, only America does not play by "the rules."  Right.  What other bridge are you going to try to sell me?  Any "True Scotsmen" around?  :P  When you spew the slanted saliva that Pinter does in some of his points, you echo his unspoken assertion that "everyone else" plays by the rules, or "a perfect nation does so" which is nonsense.  Cheating is rampant, else the Sanctions would have worked and there would be no war . . . I think.  Maybe Wolfowitz and FEith and Cheney and a host of others, Bernard Lewis comes to mind, could have come up with another excuse if the Sanctions had worked and been ended under the conditions set by the Security Council.  (ya know, the 90 day time limit in 1991?)   

As I said before, if you are top-dog you can expect criticism. And if you, as a country, go to was and e.g. don't recognise the international war tribunal in the Hague, you can for sure expect some. Again, I understand the US' way of thinking but I can't agree on that. On a further note, this kind of behaviour does not make one popular, and I think europe and the US can use eachother as allies.

Or did you read my entire post?  Could it be you assume that "Occhi is posting, he must be slamming Europe."  Not well played, eppie.  :(

Yes that is what I thought...I'm sorry.

EDIT:  How did you interpret this passage of mine?  Curious.

In the process of cleaning up Europe's centuries of garbage, and in trying to play at the game as the rules keep changing, America has gotten its hands filthy. America has been heavy handed in Latin and South America since T Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson opened the policy door to embryonic imperial ambitions. He and I would agree on that were we to share a pint.  I wonder if the Chinese will get as dirty, in 50 or 100 years, cleaning up our geopolitical garbage.  Since they don't waste as much energy in hand wringing, maybe they'll just clean off their hands and get on with it, and hence do it more cost effectively. 
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I don't really get it?. Before I ask if you consider the US' actions in southern america a kind of european garbage cleaning, maybe I should just ask you to explain it again.

[Fragbait]

We can rehash this again if you like, but I doubt you will convince me that Bush or Blair are thugs on the order of Saddam, or that they "do not play by the rules" on the order that Saddam did not in defying UNSCOM, or the UN. 

So yuck it up if you like, and be happy in knowing that Bush will not be President in 2008.  So until then, are you going to join Eppie in his hurling of rotten tomatoes?
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Hi,

A major fraction of the European population, including me, thinks that G.W. Bush is a thug. The general motivations for that are (not exhaustive):

[rehashing]

a] the false forwarded justification for the invasion in Iraq
b] the overriding of the United Nations in the same case
c] the indifferent and dangerous generalisation of certain states to 'the axis of evil'
d] the inhuman treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay
e] the undercover transportation of CIA prisoners over foreign airspace
f] the election defraud that lead to his first presidency in the first place

Other reasons why I think that he is a thug include his dubious affairs with some companies (oil or not) of his fathers friends, during which he earned money and power, and of course that he works with other thugs as well - Dick Cheney springs to mind (I think his ensnarement in illegal commissioning to his allies is unquestionable). Also the different measurement that is applied to terrorists that help the governments secret ambitions and to terrorists that are contra America is palpable. These reasons are not that wide spread than the ones above, though.

[/rehashing]


Now, I didn't put Bush and Saddam on the same level, you did (sort of).
Saddam is a war criminal, commanding the death of hundreds (if not thousands). Removing him from power is an utterly different subject of discussion.
What struck me somewhat funny was that your phrasing of the sentence rather made me think of George W. Bush than of Saddam Hussein, because of the kind of weak term. Which is obviously not quite what you wanted. ;)

One more thing: I don't throw rotten tomatoes. I don't throw anything - gee, I'm no 68er :w00t: .

Well - eggs perhaps.
Foul eggs. :whistling:

Greetings, Fragbait

[Drasca]

G.W. Bush is a thug.[right][snapback]97030[/snapback][/right]

I can only think of one answer to that: America likes bullies, they get star status for taking action. Acting out is valued more than restraint. People with power will usually grasp whatever they can with it. Rules--they only matter when there's power and action that enforces it.

I'm just glad America's rules dictate no single president can fubar everything up for too long. If we dont' like it, there's a chance to change. Will the next guy do better? Time will tell, but I hope this nation never loses the backbone to enforce the change. If not, and there's another Caesar-for-life... I'm revolting.

[Occhidiangela]

I interpret `control' as meaning that the Bush administration

Stop right there. That has been American Security policy since 1991, note the bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Gulf, that have been built since the end of the '91 Gulf War, most of it constructed under the Clinton Administration. The Saudi bases closing was a set back to the over all policy, but it made sense given that the Saudi's were never our friends: we were mutually useful to one another, and in some respects remain in that relationship.

For that matter, American Security Policy since 1974, to include Carter's stand up of the Rapid Reaction Force in 1979 that eventually grew to become Central Command, has had as a consistent 30 year focus a policy protecting or influence the world's major oil producing region due to 1) oil's criticality to the global economy 2) which includes America's oil addiction. I'll leave 30 years of piss poor energy policy for another thread. (More nukes, less kooks, thanks.)

wanted to establish military bases in the middle-east, as well as a pro-western political ally --- instead of being forced to rely on highly repressive Arab regimes, like Saudi-Arabia, that fomented (and continue to foment) the idealogies leading to 9/11. The administration used 9/11 in a shamelessly dishonest way to sell the invasion of Iraq. It was clear long before the war, not just in hindsight, that they were determined to invade, and that they were fixing the `facts' around this policy.

I understand the PNAC is your point of departure here? <_< Use of the 9-11 emotional leverage needs no further comment.

Why? There are no doubt secondary reasons, such as supporting Israel and opposing Al Qaida, but the main goal of the Iraq invasion was surely to secure US (and other corporate) access to middle-eastern oil.

I refer you to 30 years of American security policy. I will argue that the Israeli security is far more important than is generally achkowledged, since it is the biggest bone of contention between US, and Arab and Muslim governments, and has been since 1948. The decision to undertake the war was, and is still, incredibly risky. The ripple effects have immense potential to backfire in terms of how they benefit Iran in the long term, and the risk the Iraq is more unstable, not less, when the dust settles -- which it hasn't yet. The current problems are still chump change, IMO, compared to the long term pitfalls.

As an anti-terrorism policy, the Iraq war made as much sense as using gasoline to put out a barely smoldering fire. (The use of torture is a disasterous policy also.)

Nice troll in parentheses. I suggest you take great care in defining that term. That said, the political risk taken on the Gitmo "isolation ward" has become an immense failure in the war of perception, which the Bush Administration has been losing since March of 2003: Shock and Awe and the missed "decapitation strike."

As a policy to topple an isolated, despotic, and vulnerable regime, and install a pro-western democracy that would host US forces in the heart of the middle-east, it made sense. (At least, from a certain perspective, and if one believes that the use of miitary force is justifiable for such ends.)

Made sense only if one believed one could install democracy at the point of a bayonet. <_<

Never mind that the head of the Pakistani nuclear program was shopping nuclear technology to all and sundry, or that there is god-knows how much untracked nuclear material missing from the states of the former USSR.

Separate but no less thorny problems, as is North Korea.

It may be that the Iraquis (at least the Kurds and the Shia -- I would be worried as a Sunni in Iraq right now), not to mention Iran, will be the ultimate benefactors of this misbegotten and costly adventure.&nbsp; The ultimate irony for the hubris of the Bush administration is that, given the unpopularity of the occupying forces, the US may never secure a long-term military presence in Iraq, despite the 14 (?) permanent military bases under construction there.

Yes, I think you are right there.

I don't expect to here very much about the latter bases in the US media coverage of the `withdrawal' that is certainly coming soon.

It doesn't take much searching to find out where they are, open source, if one is interested in such things. A bitter irony is that the BRAC is closing bases in the US while bases are being built in Iraq. Who is saving a buck? No one in Washington at this time, that is for sure. :angry:

Occhi

[Occhidiangela]

I don't really get it?.  Before I ask if you consider the US' actions in southern america a kind of european   garbage cleaning, maybe I should just ask you to explain it again.
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I'll try to be concise. America took on the mantle of Empire, in some quarters reluctantly, after the Empires of Europe self destructed in two massive Imperial Wars. In the process America tried to clean up some of the mess while undertaking another Imperial face off with Imperial Russia/USSR: mixing the two turned into a very dirty business, similar to the Great Game and the Race for Africa undertaken by various European Imperial powers in the 19th century.

The "get hands dirty in South America," the Banana Wars before FDR's Good Neighbor policy, had as a root cause the problems of the Monroe Doctrine, trying to keep European Expansion out of South America in the 1800's, and small nations continually on the brink of default to European Banks, and later American Banks, from the mid 1800s to early 1900's. Defaults risked European intervention, oftern referred to as gunboat dimplmacy, so American gunboat diplomacy was often used to re-establish credit, or effect a temporary seizure of the customs houses to get payments back on schedule and prevent a government going into default. Customs houses were one of the frew sources of hard currnency in a lot of Latin American countries. The "reschedule of payments" would preclude an Imperial intervention from Europe, or so some will argue.

The problem of corruption in most Banana Republic guaranteed a continual cycle of default, debt, and intervention. Considering the French supported Hapsburg intervention in Mexico in 1861 (Maxamillian and Loius Napoleon) American mistrust of Imperial Europe was well grounded.

A good, short, book on the topic: The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934 : United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934 by Lester D. Langley

For an insider's view, albeit biased due to his bitterness at being not selected as Commandant of the Marine Corps: War Is a Racket Smedley D. Butler Major General Butler, USMC, spent much of his career undertaking various Banana Wars.

The WW II follow on anti-Communist struggle in Central and South America was both a subset of the Neo Imperial face off with Russia/USSR, and a follow on to a very old cycle of corruption and intervention. The economic ties go back to the early 19th century and the Independence movements vis a vis Spain and Portugal. It all fell under the Monroe Doctrine, an explicit attempt to marginalize or minimze European Imperial influence in the Western Hemisphere.

A decent ref for post FDR action is: The Banana Wars: A History of United States Military Intervention in Latin America from the Spanish-American War to the Invasion of Panama by Ivan Musicant (also a former Marine) I haven't read this one, I read the others, but have been advised by other history buffs to put it on my "must read" list.

The entire policy and process has been fraught with "dirty deeds, (done dirt cheap?)" at regular intervals.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

Before the war, there was alot of suspicion, some heresay evidence, and no presentation of a smoking gun. Before the war, I was pretty convinced by the evidence that Saddam might be working on illegal weapons programs, however I did not see him as any immediate threat.

I agree with you that the reasons presented were weak, and since they had no hard secret evidence up their sleeves, they should not have built the case for war on WMD, or links to terrorists. The world of intelligence (CIA) is hardly black and white, and truths exist only in shades of grey. What we knew was well detailed in the National Security Assessment, which clearly laid out what we knew and did not know and the doubt. If all the members of congress had read that report and understood it, the rush to war would have been delayed. Whenever you are talking about intelligence, you have to qualify it with a % chance or reliability.

The rush to war at that time had more to do with the seasons, since they wanted to avoid the heat iirc. To delay the attack further would push off the possibility of the war for six months, perhaps allowing Saddam to prepare himself for the war better and resulting in many more casualties.

[Jester]

When the bullet hits the bone, and the flesh is shredded, the bleeding is real.&nbsp; It is not illusion.
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Hey, isn't that what Harold Pinter said in that article that this thread is supposed to be about?

-Jester