An American army colonel of considerable military respect was assigned by congress to prespare a report on the conduct of the Afghanistan war.
His report appeared a few days ago - probably not in many North American news sources. I got mine in the Guardian. (With an e reader. you can get the Guardian for under $20 a month.) The report is blistering.
The generals have been lying from the start. Our reporters have been lying to please the generals. The war has gone badly from the start. The AFghan soldiers and police we are training like the Taliban more than they like us - a lot more. In fact, we are despised by almost the whole population.
We have inflicted massive levels of death by starvation and freezing, as well as more tradional ways. Nobody knows how many tens of thousands of AFghanis have died - or if it's more than tens of thousands. There is not the slightest possibility of winning anything in t his war. Those thousands of lives we have poured into this illegal war were thrown away. The destruction is so severe, there is no way of knowing whether any society is possible after it.
We are invaders. And as brutal as invaders have been.
The US thrown away a trillion or so dollars - most of it on corrupt "allies", corrupt politicans on our side, a corrupt war industry...
Americans will suffer from this for generations. (Well, the poor ones who weren't in on the corruption will suffer.)
The war was a lie from the start. There is no evidence the Taliban had anything to do with 9/11. Despite his appearances, there was no evidence against bin Laden. Why do you think they killed him rather than bringing him back as a trophy?
Why did Canada send young people to kill and be killed? Because the Canadian Council of CEOs wanted to suck up to American corporations and politicians.
Any person of average intelligence should have figured that out early in the game. Alas! People are overfond of using sources rather than using their brains.
Congress buried the report. The Colonel was furious.
Did I mention he is a Christian? A real one? He was also intensely proud of his life of service in the military (three combat tours), and a super patriot for his country. He felt that his faith and his national pride demanded honesty. So he released the report.
Not that long ago, a United Church chaplain said to assembled troops in Afghanistan, "You're doing an important job here. God Bless you."
Who is on the Lord's side?
Who, indeed?
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Comments
Jim Kenney
Posted on: 04/17/2012 00:31
I will try to find a copy of the report before answering your question, though I have a problem with "on the Lord's side". While I am confident about the direction God wants us to take, I am not certain about which actions are the best way there.
InannaWhimsey
Posted on: 04/17/2012 01:30
Who is on the Lord's side?
That's being decided right now. It will involve:
-- the creation of a global ethics ('religion', 'g_d') that each country, to be fully franchised, will have to follow
-- the creation of a way to enforce that global ethics
-- the creation of means and ways to keep those countries who choose not to follow those global ethics somehow 'contained' and seperate from the rest of u
EDIT: and from the Life Can't Get Any More Bizarre Dept...
graeme
Posted on: 04/17/2012 08:28
It should be possible to get the report on Google - with something like
"Afghanistan report Guardian senate (I've forgotten his name but I think Daniel or Davies is in there.
Ii have a full account of it on my blog. Just google Graeme Decarie. on the first page, you'll see several references to The Moncton Times and Transcript - Good and Bad. That's it. It would be the blog for April 14 - or within a day of that.
graeme
Posted on: 04/17/2012 12:38
Bad topic.
If it had been on the question, "Did Mary use toenail polish?" we would have been over a hundred by now.
Beloved
Posted on: 04/17/2012 12:44
Googling Graeme Decarie now to view the report.
One thing for sure - war is hell . . . for those who fight, for those who die, for those who fight and don't die but return home either physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually injuredj.
(Not sure about Mary's toes .)
Beloved
Posted on: 04/17/2012 12:45
Re: can you provide a link to your blog, graeme?
SG
Posted on: 04/17/2012 13:07
Did this in the "you are doing an important job" thread...
God is on the side people say God is on. Saying it does not make it so, God did not really want people boiled in oil, I mean, really....
For God to be God IMO both bodies being put in body bags on opposite sides of some line drawn.... both belong to God....
Some people could discuss Mary's toes.... some people would need to say "if you do not believe__ you are lost".... I tend not to want to try to discuss where "I am right and you are wrong" is the overriding premise whether it is about religion, politics, nail polish....
graeme
Posted on: 04/17/2012 17:12
It's a lousy and awkward address. That's why I usually suggest people just google graeme decarie, and look out for The Moncton Times and Transcript - Good and Bad.
themonctongrimes-dripdrain.blogspot.com/
It's just about a local paper here in Moncton. but, for some reason, a third of my audience is in the US and Russia. Of course, that could be just the CIA and whoever is now spying for Russia.
graeme
Saul_now_Paul
Posted on: 04/17/2012 17:22
It's a lousy and awkward address. That's why I usually suggest people just google graeme decarie, and look out for The Moncton Times and Transcript - Good and Bad.
themonctongrimes-dripdrain.blogspot.com/
It's just about a local paper here in Moncton. but, for some reason, a third of my audience is in the US and Russia. Of course, that could be just the CIA and whoever is now spying for Russia.
graeme
No kidding, if I was travelling with you to the US, I would stand nowhere near you at the border going South. I bet they are just waiting to give you a 5 finger prostate exam up to the elbow.
Jim Kenney
Posted on: 04/17/2012 17:28
Here is the article in the New York Times:
In Afghan War, Officer Becomes a Whistle-Blower
By SCOTT SHANE Published: February 5, 2012
WASHINGTON — On his second yearlong deployment to Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis traveled 9,000 miles, patrolled with American troops in eight provinces and returned in October of last year with a fervent conviction that the war was going disastrously and that senior military leaders had not leveled with the American public.
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis last month after sharing his view on the Afghan war with some members of Congress. “You can't spin the fact that more men are getting blown up every year,” he said.
Related
At War Blog: An Officer and a Whistle-Blower (February 5, 2012)
Afghan Suicide Attack Targets Police in Kandahar (February 6, 2012)
U.S. Plans Shift to Elite Units as It Winds Down in Afghanistan (February 5, 2012)
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Colonel Davis on patrol in Khost Province last August.
Since enlisting in the Army in 1985, he said, he had repeatedly seen top commanders falsely dress up a dismal situation. But this time, he would not let it rest. So he consulted with his pastor at McLean Bible Church in Virginia, where he sings in the choir. He watched his favorite movie, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” one more time, drawing inspiration from Jimmy Stewart’s role as the extraordinary ordinary man who takes on a corrupt establishment.
And then, late last month, Colonel Davis, 48, began an unusual one-man campaign of military truth-telling. He wrote two reports, one unclassified and the other classified, summarizing his observations on the candor gap with respect to Afghanistan. He briefed four members of Congress and a dozen staff members, spoke with a reporter for The New York Times, sent his reports to the Defense Department’s inspector general — and only then informed his chain of command that he had done so.
“How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?“ Colonel Davis asks in an article summarizing his views titled “Truth, Lies and Afghanistan: How Military Leaders Have Let Us Down.” It was published online Sunday in The Armed Forces Journal, the nation’s oldest independent periodical on military affairs. “No one expects our leaders to always have a successful plan,” he says in the article. “But we do expect — and the men who do the living, fighting and dying deserve — to have our leaders tell us the truth about what’s going on.”
Colonel Davis says his experience has caused him to doubt reports of progress in the war from numerous military leaders, including David H. Petraeus, who commanded the troops in Afghanistan before becoming the director of the Central Intelligence Agency in June.
Last March, for example, Mr. Petraeus, then an Army general, testified before the Senate that the Taliban’s momentum had been “arrested in much of the country” and that progress was “significant,” though fragile, and “on the right azimuth” to allow Afghan forces to take the lead in combat by the end of 2014.
Colonel Davis fiercely disputes such assertions and says few of the troops believe them. At the same time, he is acutely aware of the chasm in stature that separates him from those he is criticizing, and he has no illusions about the impact his public stance may have on his career.
“I’m going to get nuked,” he said in an interview last month.
But his bosses’ initial response has been restrained. They told him that while they disagreed with him, he would not face “adverse action,” he said.
Col. James E. Hutton, chief of media relations for the Army, declined to comment specifically about Colonel Davis, but he rejected the idea that military leaders had been anything but truthful about Afghanistan.
“We are a values-based organization, and the integrity of what we publish and what we say is something we take very seriously,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Petraeus, Jennifer Youngblood of the C.I.A., said he “has demonstrated that he speaks truth to power in each of his leadership positions over the past several years. His record should stand on its own, as should LTC Davis’ analysis.”
If the official reaction to Colonel Davis’s campaign has been subdued, it may be partly because he has recruited a few supporters among the war skeptics on Capitol Hill.
“For Colonel Davis to go out on a limb and help us to understand what’s happening on the ground, I have the greatest admiration for him,” said Representative Walter B. Jones, Republican of North Carolina, who has met with Colonel Davis twice and read his reports.
Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, one of four senators who met with Colonel Davis despite what he called “a lot of resistance from the Pentagon,” said the colonel was a valuable witness because his extensive travels and midlevel rank gave him access to a wide range of soldiers.
Moreover, Colonel Davis’s doubts about reports of progress in the war are widely shared, if not usually voiced in public by officers on duty. Just last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said at a hearing that she was “concerned by what appears to be a disparity” between public testimony about progress in Afghanistan and “the bleaker description” in a classified National Intelligence Estimate produced in December, which was described in news reports as “sobering” and “dire.”
Those words would also describe Colonel Davis’s account of what he saw in Afghanistan, the latest assignment in a military career that has included clashes with some commanders, but glowing evaluations from others. (“His maturity, tenacity and judgment can be counted on in even the hardest of situations, and his devotion to mission accomplishment is unmatched by his peers,” says an evaluation from May that concludes that he has “unlimited potential.”)
Colonel Davis, a son of a high school football coach in Dallas and who is known as Danny, served two years as an Army private before returning to Texas Tech and completing the Reserve Officer Training Corps program. He served in Germany and fought in the first Iraq war before joining the Reserve and working civilian jobs, including a year as a member of the Senate staff.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, he returned to active duty, serving a tour in Iraq as well as the two in Afghanistan and spending 15 months working on Future Combat Systems, an ambitious Army program to produce high-tech vehicles linked to drones and sensors. On that program, too, he said, commanders kept promising success despite ample evidence of trouble. The program was shut down in 2009 after an investment of billions of dollars.
In his recent tour in Afghanistan, Colonel Davis represented the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force, created to bypass a cumbersome bureaucracy to make sure the troops quickly get the gear they need.
He spoke with about 250 soldiers, from 19-year-old privates to division commanders, as well as Afghan security officials and civilians, he said. From the Americans, he heard contempt for the perceived cowardice and double-dealing of their Afghan counterparts. From Afghans, he learned of unofficial nonaggression pacts between Afghanistan’s security forces and Taliban fighters.
When he was in rugged Kunar Province, an Afghan police officer visiting his parents was kidnapped by the Taliban and killed. “That was in visual range of an American base,” he said. “Their influence didn’t even reach as far as they could see.”
Some of the soldiers he interviewed were later killed, a fact that shook him and that he mentions in videos he shot in Afghanistan and later posted on YouTube. At home, he pored over the statements of military leaders, including General Petraeus. He found them at odds with what he had seen, with classified intelligence reports and with casualty statistics.
“You can spin all kinds of stuff,” Colonel Davis said. “But you can’t spin the fact that more men are getting blown up every year.”
Colonel Davis can come across as strident, labeling as lies what others might call wishful thinking. Matthew M. Aid, a historian who examines Afghanistan in his new book “Intel Wars,” says that while there is a “yawning gap” between Pentagon statements and intelligence assessments, “it’s oversimplified to say the top brass are out-and-out lying. They are just too close to the subject.”
But Martin L. Cook, who teaches military ethics at the Naval War College, says Colonel Davis has identified a hazard that is intrinsic to military culture, in which a can-do optimism can be at odds with the strictest candor when a mission is failing.
“You’ve trained people to try to be successful even when half their buddies are dead and they’re almost out of ammo,” he said. “It’s very hard for them to say, ‘can’t do.’ ”
Mr. Cook said it was rare for an officer of Colonel Davis’s modest rank to “decide that he knows better” and to go to Congress and the news media.
“It may be an act of moral courage,” he said. “But he’s gone outside channels, and he’s taking his chances on what happens to him.”
InannaWhimsey
Posted on: 04/17/2012 19:27
Seems like countries are still acting like Abraham and sacrificing their children to the Lord (Baal)?
airclean33
Posted on: 04/17/2012 20:04
Hi InannaWhimsey ---You think Abraham sacrificed his chilren to Baal? Where do you find that in the Bible?
graeme
Posted on: 04/17/2012 20:05
Thank you, Jim Kenney. You're a better man than I am on computers.
SaulnowPaul - you're almost certainly right. And it goes way back. About ten years ago, I was listed as a terrorist sympathizer on a far right wing web site which specialized in publishing anonymous denunciations of professors. The idea was to put a chill on any criticism of the Iraq war in universities.
What happened was that a professor I knew well, an older man, was denounced as a terrorist sympathizer by this outfit. He was, in fact, a man of moderate and kindly views, an observant Jew, and a zionist. I wrote in to pass on my disgust of them. So they listed me, too.
I thought ever prof in North America should have insisted on bing put on their list. But most academic leaders wouldn't touch.
I might well be a suspicious character to a border guard. I would be ashamed if I weren't.
InannaWhimsey
Posted on: 04/17/2012 20:07
airclean33,
what culture was Abraham a part of? This'll require some deep digging on your part...I'm patient.
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 04/18/2012 08:15
A Brae Ham in di'section is a dark thing in the vale ... no less that the Shadow that knows all.
God don't the emotional sorts hate the all knowing for it reflects on the burning emotions, a peculiar aspect of Plateau's Cave ... a hard spot like earth (mire) passing through open space. Such has to be told in mythical nature for down to earth fallout just can't believe in the beyond as just simply unknown to the darker degrees ...
Then if G~D is Idealism it takes up a lot of forms that the ether real thoughts have to get around ... and thus the term" "outside intellect"! Check on it in Webster ... once you learn enough word in literacy ... thought becomes autonomous with Ka Rae ... the spiritual light in Black & White? The expression of a greater soul ... sole ... integral entity?
The isolated sort just doesn't believe ... as processed in mahaineim by Jaqob ... an old seed of the devil of th'ought that there's nothing to myth ... in verse lies a lot of truth about royal lies ... a reciprocal thing like Ego ... comes back at you in timeless state ... if you read a bit on out-of-body inclusions ... suggesting GEO (ghia) Logical process ...
All phonetics are not as they appear flat-oute! Most is excluded from the index ... the bible as a beginning ... not means to an end ... enough to float some th'oughts that would be ÐeOs in Latin-based Romance linguistics ... that have run their course ... as few know about the variance of chi ... it's different kind of fire ... smooth and dark ... depending on perspective (subjective or objective) ...
Ego-centredis subjective ... afar humour from the Ego that's pure ... a superlative form unseen here? In which case dark would be the same as a clear transparency ... mortals couldn't see either ...
InannaWhimsey
Posted on: 04/18/2012 21:26
Who is on the Lord's side indeed
Witch
Posted on: 04/19/2012 00:51
airclean33,
what culture was Abraham a part of? This'll require some deep digging on your part...I'm patient.
Urrrrrr... I'm not sure
InannaWhimsey
Posted on: 04/19/2012 01:04
airclean33,
what culture was Abraham a part of? This'll require some deep digging on your part...I'm patient.
Urrrrrr... I'm not sure
So which do you prefer of your identities, Witch? Witch, the Knight arrant of WC or airclean33, the eager WC evangelist?
(personally, I like your Long persona the best...)
Witch
Posted on: 04/19/2012 01:06
I'll answer to anything except late fer dinner lol
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 04/19/2012 06:51
Ah, the divine persona ... 2 sides to it ... sort of dedeuced or demon ich?
airclean33
Posted on: 04/19/2012 08:58
airclean33,
what culture was Abraham a part of? This'll require some deep digging on your part...I'm patient.
Kimmio
Posted on: 04/19/2012 09:13
Allah is another name for "God" in another language.
airclean33
Posted on: 04/19/2012 09:20
Hi InannaWhimsey--You may not know but that was Abram. God changed to Abraham, His father was God I believe , because God gave him a new name..An Abraham,had no children till he was ninety nine.Then He became the father of many nations.If you can't find the passages please let me know . I will be glad to help you. Have a good day. airclean33
Kimmio
Posted on: 04/19/2012 09:21
I just want to add that Arab Christians also call God "Allah".
airclean33
Posted on: 04/19/2012 09:29
Allah is another name for "God" in another language.
Kimmio
Posted on: 04/19/2012 10:01
Christianity borrows pagan symbolism and imagery too...like the fish, it was used as a pagan symbol before it was used as a Christian symbol...and many ancients before they were Christian, were pagans, so it makes some sense that they would borrow some of the imagery in their descriptions of things. Early Islamic culture did not use the crescent moon and/ or star symbol, that came about later...and I would guess it was a symbol used to distinguish themselves from other religions...at any rate, it's not about Muslims worshipping a pagan moon god anymore than the fish is about Christians worshipping Greek pagan gods. Speaking of symbols, the cross, as I understand, came into use as a Christian symbol in about the second century...so people adopt symbols to identify themselves as part of a particular group. It happens today, outside of religion, all the time. Just look at marketing brands.
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 04/19/2012 10:05
Is muonism a belief about reflection or thought ... or perhaps being mooned in which you never see it until going away from you?
That's what happens to some peoples when they leave here ... flashback theory!
It could change when I step across that line. I did? I didn't know I had overstepped limits ... an immortal mistake!
It'll probably stick ...
airclean33
Posted on: 04/19/2012 10:16
Hi Kimmio--I did not post this , To mean it agaist Muslim , What they use is up to them and what they believe. I posted to Inanna. When we were talking of Abraham an where he came from. As far as I know about the Fish being used by Christians, it was to show you were a fisher, of mankind. If you were found to be a Christian at this time , you would be killed. Are fish was laying down. The pagan fish was standing up , an from what I could read, ment something all together Diff . If you wish to know look it up. God Bless --airclean33
Kimmio
Posted on: 04/19/2012 11:02
Hi Kimmio--I did not post this , To mean it agaist Muslim , What they use is up to them and what they believe. I posted to Inanna. When we were talking of Abraham an where he came from. As far as I know about the Fish being used by Christians, it was to show you were a fisher, of mankind. If you were found to be a Christian at this time , you would be killed. Are fish was laying down. The pagan fish was standing up , an from what I could read, ment something all together Diff . If you wish to know look it up. God Bless --airclean33
I did look it up. Thanks ,airclean. I saw the Phoenician fish symbol, standing up. I realize they can mean different things...so I guess my point was that the crescent moon and star can also mean different things. We attach the meanings to the symbols. I was referring to your comment about Abraham's father worshipping his moon God "Allah", as you said, and making reference to the Islamic crescent moon and star symbol. I didn't think that was a fair assessment. Abaham's earthly father may have been pagan, but it doesn't mean that Muslims are anymore pagan than Christians are. Does that make sense?
airclean33
Posted on: 04/19/2012 13:26
Hi Kimmio -You wrote--- Abaham's earthly father may have been pagan, but it doesn't mean that Muslims are anymore pagan than Christians are. Does that make sense?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------First Kimmio I don't think you ment to call Christians pagan. I'v read enough of your posts to think you don't mean this. What a Muslim believes or not is up to them. I am not a Muslim so as to understand all they believe. I have knowen the symbol they use is a half moon with a star.What it means to them I am not sure. They call there God Allah . It is the name of a pagon God of old , befor Abram.They Islam uses the same symbol as was used then,why they do I don't know.I believe as a Christian , all that don't believe Jesus The Christ and follow Him . Have a problem.The fact you did not seem to understand , this would seem the church, an those that are there to help you . Have not done there jobs. A Woman or Man called into GODS Ministering should teach these things to the church.Not to teach christians how to HATE but HOW to LOVE. I don't hate anybody, I can think of. Well those in Ottawa come close.But other than them I don't believe I do.To try and understand some one , or what they believe , can help me, show Love and not hate.-God Bless--airclean33..
RitaTG
Posted on: 04/19/2012 14:12
In response to the initial gist of this thread.....
Right from the start I was never in favour of either the Afghanistan war or the Iraq war.
I have a nephew that served in Afghanistan so I have carefully considered my opinion.
I do agree there has to be something done about terrorism and that physical responses are unfortunately needed at times. Please consider that in sort of the context as to why we have armed police. They are the ones to carry guns and use them properly and only when needed so that I don't have to. Its why when and how we respond physically that is of great concern. How do we do that right ... I have no idea......
We have seen in both Iraq and Afghanistan that we cannot give (force) our version of freedom and democracy upon others. It would seem the lesson here is that is something that a people have to work out for themselves regardless of how distasteful we may find their practices.
Now ... is God on our side or is God on the other side.... It would seem rather obvious that God is not on either side in the way we would like.
There is nothing noble about war. There is nothing holy about war.
Regards
Rita
seeler
Posted on: 04/19/2012 14:32
airclean - I recently read all of the book of Genesis with the story of Abraham. And I just checked back. I cannot find anywhere that it says that Terah (Abram's father) worshipped Allah. In fact I cannot find the name Allah in my translation of Genesis. Nor can I find it in the concordance of my King James version. But I am not a great scholar like you are.
Please tell me where to find it. Chapter and verse please.
Kimmio
Posted on: 04/19/2012 14:37
Hi Kimmio -You wrote--- Abaham's earthly father may have been pagan, but it doesn't mean that Muslims are anymore pagan than Christians are. Does that make sense?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------First Kimmio I don't think you ment to call Christians pagan. I'v read enough of your posts to think you don't mean this. What a Muslim believes or not is up to them. I am not a Muslim so as to understand all they believe. I have knowen the symbol they use is a half moon with a star.What it means to them I am not sure. They call there God Allah . It is the name of a pagon God of old , befor Abram.They Islam uses the same symbol as was used then,why they do I don't know.I believe as a Christian , all that don't believe Jesus The Christ and follow Him . Have a problem.The fact you did not seem to understand , this would seem the church, an those that are there to help you . Have not done there jobs. A Woman or Man called into GODS Ministering should teach these things to the church.Not to teach christians how to HATE but HOW to LOVE. I don't hate anybody, I can think of. Well those in Ottawa come close.But other than them I don't believe I do.To try and understand some one , or what they believe , can help me, show Love and not hate.-God Bless--airclean33..
Hi airclean. I didn't mean to call Chrisians pagan, you're right. I think it was just a misundersanding. I meant that neither Christianity nor Islam are considered pagan religions.
I don't hate anyone either. I hear you on Ottawa...actually, I don't hate them even, just some of their policies.
RAN
Posted on: 04/19/2012 15:11
In response to the initial gist of this thread.....
Now ... is God on our side or is God on the other side.... It would seem rather obvious that God is not on either side in the way we would like.
... Rita
I'd agree with that Rita. To say God is with us or God is with them seems to suggest we can talk God into joining our side.
Are we with God? (And if not, why not?) That seems to better reflect our situation in relation to God.
The OP seems to suggest that the US officer asked himself such questions and didn't like his own answers. So he is trying to bring himself more into line with what "God's side" ought to be doing, but putting himself somewhat at odds with what the US military is doing. Not an easy situation he has has chosen to put himself into, whether or not we agree with what he has done. Is that always the situation when we try to put "God's side" first?
airclean33
Posted on: 04/19/2012 15:18
airclean - I recently read all of the book of Genesis with the story of Abraham. And I just checked back. I cannot find anywhere that it says that Terah (Abram's father) worshipped Allah. In fact I cannot find the name Allah in my translation of Genesis. Nor can I find it in the concordance of my King James version. But I am not a great scholar like you are.
Please tell me where to find it. Chapter and verse please.
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 04/19/2012 15:35
Pagan Christian ...
If Christ is Light and pagan is common folk ... does the common vision mean alot to those excluded from common ... the high folk that shun the common light?
With that in mind what does it mena when Christ asked about people that could see and hear ...?
Belive none of what you read and only half of what you see in experience ... test all thigs for much is devious ... the meaning is subliminal ...
Alas some still go by the book like a bad cop ... out to get yah! Thus the expression on brae'n drain ... they'll tap your thoughts and call you a sap as they present those ideas as their own ...
Ever experience that?
Kimmio
Posted on: 04/19/2012 18:20
Pagan Christian ...
If Christ is Light and pagan is common folk ... does the common vision mean alot to those excluded from common ... the high folk that shun the common light?
With that in mind what does it mena when Christ asked about people that could see and hear ...?
Belive none of what you read and only half of what you see in experience ... test all thigs for much is devious ... the meaning is subliminal ...
Alas some still go by the book like a bad cop ... out to get yah! Thus the expression on brae'n drain ... they'll tap your thoughts and call you a sap as they present those ideas as their own ...
Ever experience that?
Yes. I have.
To explain the explanation of my explanation. Maybe I should have said, Christianity is no more or less pagan than Islam. I was meaning it in the sense of monotheism. The abrahimic religions wouldn't be considered pagan like, say, worship of the Greek gods. Even though some of the style of story telling and symbolism was carried over. I don't consider pagan to be a bad word, but it bothers me when it appears to be used like it's one in an attempt to claim a what sounded like a superior position, and without mentioning the fact that ancients too were once polytheists before they were Christians....Christianity also being one of the Abrahimic religions. I guess that's what I was trying to get across.
Btw, was reading and learning more about the stor(ies) of Isaac and Ismael, and about Jacob and Esau. Pretty interesting.
Saul_now_Paul
Posted on: 04/19/2012 18:15
Hope you have good speakers!
graeme
Posted on: 04/19/2012 19:07
It might be that the answer to terrorism is not to create them in the first place. The American, British and French governments, largely at the behest of oil companies and other commercial interests was terrorizing Moslems for many decades BEFORE 9/11.
People, including Moslems, do something for a reason.
The most rigid and barbaric government now in the middle east is Saudi Arabia, a kingdom created by the western powers under a royal family created by the western powers. The democracy that Iran did find on its own and without help from us, was overthrown by the US, Britain and France in the early 1950s. It was the west than then appointed a brutal dictator.
When the Iranians kicked him out, it was the west, led by the US, supplied, equipped and encouraged a bloody invasion of Iraq by - guess who - Saddam Hussein,
Funny they never put Saddam on trial for war crimes in that one.
We always have a choice about picking up arms. For most of the last fifty years, our choices have been, to say the least, questionable. Countries which did not invade or threaten to invade the US in t hat period - Vietnam, Guatemala, Haiti, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, now Syria and Iran (again).
The US has only once in its history been attacked - by Japan in 1941. Of all countries in the world, it is the one most protected by geography, wealth, and mjilitary power. Despite all that, it has attacked other countries more often than any other country in the last 200 years.
As for democracy no country, including the US, has any great record for extending democracy to others.
Nor can I imagine many countries which would want a democracy as debased and corrupt as American democracy has become. Scarcely a shred of the rights of the constitution is left.
Pilgrims Progress
Posted on: 04/20/2012 02:19
I agree with much of what you say, Graeme.
Nations like Canada and Australia go along with the USA for their own reasons, - that equally have nothing to do with bringing democracy to the Middle East.
Thus, IMO, "we" are equally culpable............
But, on a more optimistic note, there are many in both the USA and other countries that don't support their governments views on either democracy or going to war.
airclean33
Posted on: 04/20/2012 09:30
Hi Graeme-- Here you go again . Man if you hate the U. S.A. and I think Canada so much . Why live here?-------------You wrote----------------------------------------------------------
As for democracy no country, including the US, has any great record for extending democracy to others.
Nor can I imagine many countries which would want a democracy as debased and corrupt as American democracy has become. Scarcely a shred of the rights of the constitution is left.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Airclean---wrote----And yet Japan was rebuilt , and to is a democracy, and very well to do country. Germany today is a democracy, an rebuilt, an one of the strongest countryes in Europe. South Korea is doing well. That the U.S. A or Canada is perfect , I think not That there is another country in the world, that is . Again I think not . But after seeing most of the world , I find no place ,I would rather live. Many people come to north america every day. So I gusse they vote with there feet, to come an live in the best part of the world .Even with us not being right, all the time .Here's another thing I like about CANADA , we may not always be right. But we are, Always there. May your day go well --airclean33
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 04/20/2012 10:27
Is there any country where limited freedoms are available to speak your piece/peace ... move about, etc within limits? Osh-ite did you see that alloy to the unconscious? But then the absolutely sure says the unconscious side does not exist ... therefore what would I draw from (as druID) in this holy state of anarchy? Then there is this metaphorical state of mysticism about the imagination that powered ... some powerful plastic brae-ins that could conform to a hard seat? Think Einstein on the nature of upstanding light on the situation being pounded into the point we call earth, or mire'th (metaphorically a dirty word) as happy pagans are not allowed in an authoritative realm). Such is the wrath of small Titans ... being kicked around by a much larger soul that few believe in light of their emotional state ...
Do minds attempt to steer the emotions? Have you observed what I've said? Did it fail as a primal power once explicit as the Wizard of ID ... an odd way to redact truth for the emotional bunch that thinks none should be Gae except them selves. Now King J'aimes liked ignorance, bummed about with wee boys and hated ancient tongues ... do you get my drift? The who'd a known such stuff ... if old knowledge is oppressed right into the future dimension (imagination)? There has to be moor tuit than that ...
None like those few countries mentioned as long as you are not cynical (double negative) about the faults and riffs! It leads to a creation of getting around the need for powerful people to control lies ... and so the satyr was born a devilish thing that the illiterate have difficulty with ... without a large accumulation of unknown things ... they just can't imagine improvements to the present ... thus the "one day at a time" mode that allows us to deny our offspring a future ... and the bible states that thus a man must die to see it going by ... an immortal flashback? One would need a bit of abstract imagination about the men-in-black ... what the Sufi called the wee characters on the parchment ... that's the construct of a word from which a soul is cultured ... but not if the primal powers don't wish ... rapture would occur like an ore gas Mick incident with a mole, or meus as often mispelled in homogenius state ... well stirred into the internal intellect that is limited (mortal?).
Could such silence speak to you of gods and idealism?
This leads to the construct of the imagination ... where an absolute authority wouldn't go for they believe they know IT all ... IT being an infinite expanse in the peace of Pi ... simply beyond a mortal mood ... Grimm Tale to grasp the least of ID as a point ...
Did you ever get that feeling that somebody is in a state of mirth in the backgroud and you don't like it? Thats the devil out there having an alien sensation about looking inwards and observing a very peculair point in the entire Cos Mos that is as yet immeasurable ... for light varies across it in the theory and antithesis of the red and blue shifts ... you can't see the other side in the present directive ... we'll just tag it autonomous, anonymous, or some other alchemii as aL metaphor ...
Das auto, and the car will carry as axiom of old Erse that called it chariot of the gods as us ... mediums even if we don't Gnoe-IT ... Germanly speaking is that one, a singularity Arm?
IT see nuff to float a soul ... Lev-ite alone as alloyed to the other side and the lesser of 2 weevils ... one of eM thinks the other is just a bug in the sweet bred we call brae-in ... a notch in time? Einstein called earth a dimple of gravid nature ... Osh-ite ...
Its enough to make an old man giggle about the walk about down under ... a subtle in version to say little about that population down under that sets butterflies loose when I spy certain oppressed characters ... slaves, or mortal reverence for both sides of the al-ge-bra-ich equation once known as empiric ... search for balance ... impossible without married de deuce in' ... gamma ... the abstract mystery ... indicative of the wall in Plato's cavein to his monster ... the hard space to learning?
Mendalla
Posted on: 04/20/2012 11:30
Nor can I imagine many countries which would want a democracy as debased and corrupt as American democracy has become. Scarcely a shred of the rights of the constitution is left.
This is so true. The Chinese middle class, with which I have close ties as regulars here know, aren't all that enthusiastic about democracy and are certainly determined that when China becomes democratic (note: not "if"), it won't be on a Western model but something home-grown. And the US electoral nonsense, esp. the 2000 debacle, didn't help. The Americans don't seem to realize that one of the ways to sell democracy abroad is to be a model of how a democracy can operate fairly and efficiently. Which their present system most certainly is not. My son is fast becoming an expert on their system (he's a Ron Paul libertarian) and boy did he get hot under the collar when he watched that documentary (forget the title) on the failings of voting machines.
Mendalla
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 04/20/2012 11:44
Voting machines?
Would that be the unknowing peoples ?
John Wilson
Posted on: 04/20/2012 19:39
It'll probably stick ...
I certainly, sincerely hope so. You are appreciated by many,who hang on you your every phoneme!
Don't let this old, impatient one get you down.....
WaterBuoy
Posted on: 04/21/2012 09:19
Gotcha HG in my every explicit thought ... mis Pellen words?