![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 12 to 36 of 36. Go back in thread:
Posted by Jay on June 11, 2006, at 10:46:14
In reply to Is anyone suggesting, posted by Bobby on June 11, 2006, at 10:33:13
> we could have sent him to decapitation rehab or that he had some redeeming qualities for the scores of people he killed and those he planned to kill?
>
>Do you know him personally, and can verify all of the details behind who he was, or is it Fox or CNN who gave you all the details? Have you seen the movie 'Wag the Dog'? The American government can pretty much say whatever it pleases. Do you realize killing him was in violation of the Geneva Convention, which the U.S. of A. has signed on the bottom line for?
Just wondering..
Jay
Posted by AuntieMel on June 11, 2006, at 12:08:40
In reply to Is anyone suggesting, posted by Bobby on June 11, 2006, at 10:33:13
Not a bit. I'm only suggesting that there is something wrong with looking so happy about a dead guy.
We set out rat traps and roach motels, but it doesn't mean we need to dance in the streets when we get one.
Posted by Bobby on June 11, 2006, at 12:23:28
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting » Bobby, posted by Jay on June 11, 2006, at 10:46:14
does that mean that you know him personally? I find it hard to believe that the whitehouse forced them to release video tapes of beheadings. I'm not gleeful that he was killed---just really relieved. My guess is that, given the chance, there is a strong possibility that he would be more than happy to kill you and I.
Posted by Bobby on June 11, 2006, at 12:28:21
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting » Bobby, posted by AuntieMel on June 11, 2006, at 12:08:40
Maybe you're on to something but I can't remember anyone getting there head cut off by a roach or a rat. perhaps people are happy because of all the lives that have been saved in the future. I realize that the violence will go on, but we have killed a very big rat.
Posted by Dinah on June 11, 2006, at 15:53:17
In reply to Is anyone suggesting, posted by Bobby on June 11, 2006, at 10:33:13
I think there is a tendency for people to view the spark of life in a human as something sacred or special, even if they aren't religious. Maybe because every baby when it's born has the potential for good things as well as bad, and it's horrific to see someone make choices to use that potential to hurt others, and it's even sad to see them hurt, however outraged we might be. That maybe the outrage doesn't stop that respect for the spark of life, or the sadness of what has happened to that limitless potential.
I'm just guessing.
Also, people may be concerned with Dr. Bob's injunction about making light of death, even the death of someone who has apparently done terrible things.
Posted by Declan on June 11, 2006, at 16:15:54
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting » Jay, posted by Bobby on June 11, 2006, at 12:23:28
He would have cut our throats in a flash....but that's war, collateral damage. Daniel Berg was not right wing or anything.
2 million dead in the Iran/Iraq war. What was that about, apart from revenge, opportunism, and big power politics? Just awful.
Too early in the morning for this, hey?
Declan
Posted by Jost on June 11, 2006, at 16:23:57
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting » Bobby, posted by Dinah on June 11, 2006, at 15:53:17
There's no joy in killing anyone, including Zarqawi. But he was as close as one can get to evil, although he doesn't seem to be alone in that, in the world today. He just seemed for a time to personify and, in that sense, to help us feel we could identify and control it. When we think about what's happening in so many places in the world, it becomes overwhelming.
Sometimes, one person can inspire and organize and personally spread a contagion for such brutality. Whether Zarqawi was such a person, I don't know. Whether, even if he was, the contagion has spread out of control, I also don't know.
The misplaced happiness about his death could have come from the wish that there was an easy answer--that this horrible mess we've created could somehow be turned into a reasonable situation, and come to some good.
There's probably a lot of underground guilt around about what we've done in Iraq. We would feel a whole lot better if we could find someone to blame and then, if they were gone, see it healed.
Jost
Posted by Bobby on June 11, 2006, at 16:26:58
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting » Bobby, posted by Dinah on June 11, 2006, at 15:53:17
You're always a voice of reason Dinah--thanks. I think I'll bow out of this one before it becomes ugly and Dr. Bob steps in. time to make light of something else.
Posted by sdb on June 11, 2006, at 16:56:35
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting, posted by Jost on June 11, 2006, at 16:23:57
Why was Zarqawi such a huge problem for some people especially of some members from a "government" between the indian and antlantic ocean, or was not Saddam Hussein a huge problem before and for who?
Is that not an issue which mainly Iraqi people have to or should have to deal with?
For me not these people hurt me. I can live with or without Zarqawi or Saddam Hussein.sdb
Posted by Dinah on June 11, 2006, at 17:16:38
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting, posted by sdb on June 11, 2006, at 16:56:35
?
Is something only painful if it concerns us directly?
I personally feel impotent and powerless in face of much of what happens in this world. And I suppose I don't let it prostrate me with grief on a day to day basis. But seeing the pain of others and being affected by it is a trait that isn't even limited to humans.
Posted by Declan on June 11, 2006, at 18:07:07
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting » Bobby, posted by Dinah on June 11, 2006, at 15:53:17
Just ignore me. My minds diseased and I know nothing. But Robert fisk has a book out on the middle east that i'd like to read. Can it be called "The Great War for Civilization"? I remember hearing Bin Laden's thing years ago where he finished off by saying something like 'By God we do not need the Holy Land (or whatever he called it) defended by Crusaders and jewish prostitutes', and I thought 'Wow!', do we understand this mindset? And who else shares it or something like it? Who understands this stuff?
Declan
Posted by sdb on June 11, 2006, at 18:15:04
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting » sdb, posted by Dinah on June 11, 2006, at 17:16:38
> ?
>
> Is something only painful if it concerns us directly?
>
> I personally feel impotent and powerless in face of much of what happens in this world. And I suppose I don't let it prostrate me with grief on a day to day basis. But seeing the pain of others and being affected by it is a trait that isn't even limited to humans.answer:
and yes I agree and I can understand your feeling. In our time of television you will see sad pictures daily. In spite of that we are connected through telephone, TV, Internet, Fax and many more the human being has a big memory and this
plays a great role if individuals are connected directly nearby hand by hand. The human being has a big speak area in the brain added to the big memory and geographically there are subpopulations eg. an nation with a symbol (flag). Thus there are single connected subpopulations of some human beings in a huge population. All these subpopulations have all their own history, belief and culture. People of such a subpopulation will not react friendly if somebody who does not belong to their inner circle wants to change something without asking their opinion. Furthermore the human being is the most aggressive mammal. Thus there should be something like a rule not to try changing things of external subpopulations. But if you are concerned and you will ask them that you could offer your help and you feel compassion because of possible pain in a subpopulation (country, flag or whatever) they will accept you warmly. I think that this intention is positive.All these circumstances are observable in an aquarium or bigger in the ocean. It is similar but not equal.
If there is a subpopulation living in a jungle without any contacts to our modern civility (if there is something like that nowadays) my personal opinion
is touching absolutely nothing.sdb
Posted by sdb on June 11, 2006, at 18:47:15
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting » sdb, posted by Dinah on June 11, 2006, at 17:16:38
> ?
>
> Is something only painful if it concerns us directly?
>
> I personally feel impotent and powerless in face of much of what happens in this world. And I suppose I don't let it prostrate me with grief on a day to day basis. But seeing the pain of others and being affected by it is a trait that isn't even limited to humans.Dear Dinah
I dont have a connected TV anymore (I think its better without). I tend to buy or borrowing films about animals, nature scenes, interesting cultures and more and watch it later on the computer. I frequent the news sometimes in the internet where I can selectively choose the sources.
>I personally feel impotent and powerless in face >of much of what happens in this world
I feel the same as you do if I see something near my door or occasionally in the TV (pictures have big impact).
So you are not alone Dinah I feel with you together.sdb
Posted by Dinah on June 11, 2006, at 22:29:01
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting }} Dinah, posted by sdb on June 11, 2006, at 18:47:15
Yeah. Feeling powerless and impotent isn't really in my best interests.
I tend to find the written word even more evocative than pictures though. Even history depresses me no end, if you get past dates and names. When I think of the lot of the average serf in the Middle Ages...
Well, it's all too depressing to contemplate.
Posted by Sobriquet Style on June 12, 2006, at 5:42:09
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting }} Dinah » sdb, posted by Dinah on June 11, 2006, at 22:29:01
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said to have beheaded Nicholas Berg, although from what I know it isn't a 100% proven fact. That said, he is supposed to be responsible for thousands of civilian deaths.
Bush and Blair, said to be responsible for 42,747 cilvilian deaths at present by military intervention - and the civilian deaths are still rising year by year.
This may sound strange, but of the 42,747, is it possible that any of them were beheaded when a bomb fell on them. Just a thought.
Its hard what to know is going on and what will happen with Zarqawi's death. For instance, retaliation? Conflicting reports that an eye witness saw US troops were beating up Zarqawi after he was wounded, to reports that say US troops were trying to get him medical help..
The media and propaganda aside, the civilian deaths are still rising even though Zarqawi is not here anymore. So will the future bring less deaths from the war from now on? Will it not make any significance. Or will more deaths arise from this?
Bush's idea of peace in that part of the world, I believe will not happen in the time scale he thinks, if it does happen, but will take at least a generation, and possibly more time until Iraq will become a popular tourist destination and people from around the globe choose to migrate there for a better a life and job oppurtunites.
Until that happens, I wonder how many more deaths will occur from both sides, either civilian, terrorist, troop or pending politicians eg Sadam. The most being civilians.
~
Posted by 10derHeart on June 12, 2006, at 15:41:50
In reply to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Bush, Blair and Death, posted by Sobriquet Style on June 12, 2006, at 5:42:09
>>Conflicting reports that an eye witness saw US troops were beating up Zarqawi after he was wounded, to reports that say US troops were trying to get him medical help..<<
I just wanted to say thank you for writing this part of your post in this way. For mentioning *both* sides of a potentially explosive portion of a still-developing news story. That doesn't always happen here....the stating of both sets of possible facts in a controversy, and I think it's so important and helpful that you did.
I pray we find out the beating did not happen. My gut tells me it didn't....but that's certainly not worth much outside my own head and heart, and certainly not infallible either.
BTW, by saying that, I don't mean to have missed the bigger point of your entire post. I didn't miss it. Very thought-provoking. I like your style here...a place where posts are not so very easy to compose, at least not for me.....
Posted by zeugma on June 17, 2006, at 17:28:11
In reply to Re: Is anyone suggesting » AuntieMel, posted by Bobby on June 11, 2006, at 12:28:21
perhaps people are happy because of all the lives that have been saved in the future. I realize that the violence will go on, but we have killed a very big rat. >>
The violence in all likelihood will get worse.
The problems I have with characterizing anyone, even an enemy, as a "rat" are on many levels, perhaps interrelated.
First, it dehumanizes the enemy, which purportedly is what the enemy has done to us.
Second, it is a grave strategic error... to characterize Zarqawi as a "rat" is to engage in the same kind of propaganda (of course, you weren't propagandizing- but were you to have been doing so, say on al Jazeera, it would have constituted the same type of error) that the U.S. psy-ops crew did in describing Zarqawi as "fumbling with an AK-47" as they did both on release of some of his tapes earlier, and in describing footage recovered after his death. Characterizing an enemy as inept is just bad tactics given the string of attacks Zarqawi pulled off, deft hand with an AK-47 or no. The U.S. release of that footage while Zarqawi was still alive struck me with dismay, much as General Michael Hayden (successor to the eminent Porter Goss as head of the CIA) struck me with dismay when he characterized his typical opposite number in a major terrorist syndicate as "some idiot in a cave in Waziristan."
Presumably, the 'idiot' could have rightly replied that Gen. Hayden was lacking in foresight himself, because he was (prior to Mr. Bush's elevation of Gen. Hayden to the highest post in our intelligence organization) most widely known as the man who intercepted a phone call from a known al Qaeda operative in the U.S. (who was soon to engage in simultaneous suicide and mass homicide) stating "tomorrow is zero hour."
Unfortunately, the call was conducted in Arabic, and back then the NSA's zeal for wiretapping significantly outran its 'humintel' capacities (ie, Gen. Hayden's huge expenditures on snooping equipment meant that translators could not be afforded). As a matter of fact I had heard that one reason Gen. Hayden was better suited as head of the CIA, rather than of the NSA, was that the CIA's traditional focus on 'humintel' meant that he could not run up the budget so much on wiretapping devices and other gadgetry known only to a select few outside of AT&T operating rooms. Which is an odd commendation, but likely salved the conscience of a fiscal conservative or two. (There is erroneous thinking here too, but I won't go into it.)
Perhaps Gen. Hayden, on 9/10/01 and prior, thought English was the lingua franca of terrorists, even those whose birthplaces were Saudi Arabia and other points east.
I do not say this to criticize Gen. Hayden, who brings to the CIA a wealth of experience in wiretapping skills. I merely say that I do not overestimate those who underestimate their enemies.
-z
Posted by Declan on June 17, 2006, at 18:18:08
In reply to the rat wiretap trap, posted by zeugma on June 17, 2006, at 17:28:11
I don't know the difference betwen Zarqawi and Zawahari. It isn't difficult though for me to see this conflict from their point of view, or at least the little I know of their point of view. The role of the media should be to educate people, to enrich rather than impoverish their minds. Rupert Murdoch has a lot to answer for.
Declan
Posted by zeugma on June 17, 2006, at 18:34:43
In reply to Re: the rat wiretap trap, posted by Declan on June 17, 2006, at 18:18:08
>
The role of the media should be to educate people, to enrich rather than impoverish their minds.>President Bush said he wanted to bomb al Jazeera at one point.
An Indonesian leader said the Bush administration needed to work on the "hearts and mind" part of the "Global War on Terror" (I use the language the House of Representatives has adopted to characterize the subheading Iraq falls under) rather than just the "search and destroy" aspect.
One does not win hearts and minds by acts of Congress; perhaps by supporting Somali warlords? I doubt it.
i buy two newspapers daily, the NY Times and the Washington Post. As it happens, President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales are trying to shut both down due to leaks.
Did you say the media's job was to educate?
-z
Posted by zeugma on June 17, 2006, at 19:32:27
In reply to Re: the rat wiretap trap » Declan, posted by zeugma on June 17, 2006, at 18:34:43
this word rings a bell.
-z
Posted by Declan on June 17, 2006, at 20:43:36
In reply to Re: the rat wiretap trap » Declan, posted by zeugma on June 17, 2006, at 18:34:43
This hearts and minds business is familiar from (was it?) the late 60's.
A good way to have done the hearts and minds thing might have been to make a success of Afghanistan. Australia in particular could have seen its interests served by a stable law based society there. Not to speak of some recompense to those people unfortunate enough to have proxy wars fought on their soil.
Declan
Posted by zeugma on June 17, 2006, at 22:33:54
In reply to Re: the rat wiretap trap, posted by Declan on June 17, 2006, at 20:43:36
'hearts and minds' sounds very 60's, but this whole Iraq conflict is time out of joint.
The rhetoric here is constantly, 'we've got to finish what we started, get a viable Iraqi government going.' That sounds fine, until you consider Iraq itself, a relic of the Ottoman empire just as Yugoslavia was a fragment of the Austro-Hungarian empire- unnatural geopolitical entities (their parent empires too, but I doubt the U.S. House of Representatives has time for history lessons). So GWB keeps saying, "We'll stand down when the Iraqis stand up." As if Iraq were a more meaningful entity than the land of the Southern Slavs. He gave a fine speech this week on how oil revenues will pull the country together. Iraq is not Texas on the Euphrates.
-z
Posted by Declan on June 18, 2006, at 3:04:28
In reply to Yugoslavia » Declan, posted by zeugma on June 17, 2006, at 22:33:54
Was it Hungary,Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states they had in mind? Certainly not Yugoslavia...which was at least partly Ottoman once.
Where have I heard 'Texas on the Euphrates' before?
Declan
Posted by zeugma on June 18, 2006, at 15:10:42
In reply to Re: Yugoslavia, posted by Declan on June 18, 2006, at 3:04:28
> Was it Hungary,Czechoslovakia, the Baltic states they had in mind? >>
The neoconservative program takes these states as models of formerly dysfunctional and evil, but now beautifully democratic, states. I think the Baltic states in particular were seen by neoconservatives as examples of how democracy could be exported to the Middle east. Plausibilty is defied here, in my opinion, but I am not a member of PNAC or other neoconservative think-tank. They will see it very differently.
Certainly not Yugoslavia...which was at least partly Ottoman once.>>Yes, I am careless. But Yugoslavia is much like Iraq IMO, although I am not equating Tito with Hussein on a moral level. Consider the countries where the U.S. has tried to intervene without success (Lebanon- a couple of hundred Marines blown up in Beirut), (Somalia- ignominious withdrawal afer U.S. soldiers get dragged through the street like Hector on the plains of Troy). We are trying still to intervene in Somalia on a more covert level, but the CIA has admitted it "doesn't have a plan" for doing so, just ad hoc interventions that are bound to worsen matters. The U.N. has a strong interest in lessing the chaos there (which is a convenient way for terrorists to acquire valuable combat experience- chaos I mean) but the diplomat Bush has appointed to be Ambassador to the U.N., said in a well-publicized comment that the U.N. building could stand to lose its top ten stories. Someone (not a member of PNAC or other neoconservative organization) might take that as provocative of terrorism, itself (and in my hometown).
Strange irony of history- neocons thought Clinton was out of his mind to intervene in a former Yugoslav state. When it's 'nation-building,'even if one of the aims is stopping genocide, it's mocked. But if it's a subheading of the "Global War of Terror," then it's worth open-ended commitment, and anyone who questions its relation to the 'global war' is characterized very uncivilly, in my opinion. my own mind reels.> Where have I heard 'Texas on the Euphrates' before?>>
I must have heard it somewhere.
-z
>
Posted by zeugma on June 22, 2006, at 19:41:12
In reply to the rat wiretap trap, posted by zeugma on June 17, 2006, at 17:28:11
are not in doubt (although his knowledge of the Fourth Amendment, which protects us from search and seizure "without probable cause," needs some brushing up on- "reasonable" is not a synonym for "probable." But no one pays attention to the spectral workings of the Senate Judiciary Committee, from which this misunderstanding of the Fourth Amendment was elicited, and by reason of which the apparitional Sen. Specter- where is he when we need him?- was the only Republican to vote against his conformation as CIA director. I spend too much time thinking about ghosts-)
but Gen. Hayden's agency still has a language problem, and the most intrusive wiretap is useless if the language can't be deciphered- this would seem an obvious point- however this is America, nothing can be taken for granted anymore:
-------------------------------
Smart, Skilled, Shut Out
Intel agencies are desperate for Arabic speakers. So why do they reject some of the best and brightest?
Alone in a crowd: Kopp, an American fluent in Arabic, can't get work
By Dan Ephron
Newsweek
June 26, 2006 issue - The job search was going better than he'd expected. Daniel Kopp, a fluent Arabic speaker who had moved to Washington, D.C. in hopes of working for one of the government's security services, had already passed the first interview at the Department of Homeland Security. The son of American Christian missionaries, Kopp grew up in Jerusalem, went to high school with Palestinians and mastered the kind of nuanced, throaty Arabic that most graduates of language institutes back home could only envy. Now Kopp was sitting across the table from Wayne Parent, director of current operations at DHS, who seemed to recognize the worth of this fellow American with an insider's understanding of Arab society. "We very much need people like you," Kopp quotes Parent as saying at the interview. The operations chief told Kopp that in a meeting he'd just had with the Department's batch of 84 new recruits, he had asked how many Arabic speakers were in the room. Not one hand had gone up.
Kopp, who is 28 and has a degree in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, left expecting a quick job offer. When a month passed, he phoned Parent and heard a different refrain: problems with the security-clearance system prevented Kopp from being hired. (Parent did not respond to an interview request.)So began an exasperating odyssey for Kopp, one that highlights a flaw in the way linguists are recruited by agencies that lead the war on terror. Over the next 14 months, he was courted by government bureaus desperate for his skills—including the CIA, NSA and State Department—only to be turned down over what clearance investigators apparently deemed a security red flag: the fact that he spent long years overseas and has family abroad (Kopp's parents still live in Jerusalem, as do his in-laws). Kopp's plight is not unique. Lawyers and lawmakers who deal in the matter say that long after 9/11, the security-clearance system is still stacked against some of the best linguists—those who learn their language natively. "The system inhibits individuals who, on their own initiative, traveled to the region, learned the language and want to contribute to the U.S. security effort," says Rebecca Givner-Forbes, an analyst at the Terrorism Research Center, a for-profit, nonpartisan think tank in Arlington, Va.
Some extra caution is understandable. Agencies that trade in America's most guarded secrets worry that applicants who have lived overseas might have come under the sway of foreign groups. Relatives abroad, the fear is, could become targets of blackmail schemes by hostile countries trying to squeeze information from Americans. "We want to make sure we're bringing in people with the right skills while also managing the risk," said a CIA official, who could not be named discussing recruitment policy.
The problem might just be in the way the guidelines are applied. "Much of the time, it seems completely arbitrary," says Sheldon Cohen, a Virginia lawyer who petitions against clearance-board decisions. Sometimes foreign ties spawn legitimate probing, he says. Other times, it leads to automatic disqualification. One of Cohen's clients is an Iraqi Christian who fled Saddam Hussein's regime 25 years ago and became a U.S. citizen. In 2003, he took a private contracting job as an interpreter in Iraq and later Guantánamo, getting a clearance to view secret documents and participate in classified interrogations. But his clearance wasn't renewed last year. The reason: he has a sister and a sister-in-law in Iraq—information investigators had known before.
Government officials involved in vetting applicants wouldn't comment on specific cases but said all the security agencies had made headway in enlisting Arabic speakers since September 11, and in recruiting Arab-Americans. Only the State Department provided hard numbers. Its spokeswoman said the full-time Arabic-speaking staff had grown since 2001 from 198 to 231. Officials from both Homeland Security and the CIA said their agencies have new recruiting programs that target university language students.
But Arabic linguists say that's where the recruiters fall down. While most U.S. universities teach modern standard Arabic, the colloquial Arabic actually spoken across the Middle East is a different vernacular—and it varies from country to country. The result: schoolbook linguists are ushered in while the really proficient speakers are kept out.
Kopp's experience underscores the point. He was eventually offered a State Department job, investigated for more than a year, then told "foreign influence" thwarted his clearance. While he waited, Kopp corresponded with a few top security officials he'd met at public conferences. One was William Nolte, who worked on shaping the CIA's foreign-language policies after 9/11. In an e-mail exchange last year, Nolte (who did not respond to NEWSWEEK queries) said he was discouraged that Kopp was still jobless. "I'm retiring in August," Nolte wrote. "I can be more effective arguing for reform from the outside." That was last August. Reform, it seems, still needs to be translated into reality.
---------------------------------------------
-z
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Politics | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.