The Mark of Zarqawi
Two things I’m glad about in IRock.
1.) The new PM seems to have a name, a personality and at least talks the talks – gets his name in the news and acts like a leader.
2.) I am glad they got Zarqawi
BUTTTTTT – who was Zarqawi before the war? Sometimes we raise up an ally and he becomes an enemy (I hope this doesn’t apply to #1 above…but it certainly applied to the previous #1 Man in IRock. The great joke about Sadman and his weapons of ass destruction: How do we know SadMan has WMD? We have the receipts.)
Zarq was a pain in the ass to Jordan before the war. I think he had a disparate group of Jordanian exiles operating out of Germany or someone in Europe. The leaders of Jordan knew him – but I’ll bet a hundred dollars none of us knew who he was before Operation Infinite Chaos.
I hope this will lead those in the insurgency to think their efforts are futile. I hope this will lead to less bombing of Irackeee police stations, civilians and of course our own people on the ground there (civilian and military). Even though this war seems to be a mistake in every possible way, I pray that these horrific events will lead to success for our president’s plan or whatever he calls it.
Just because I have wasted billions of 0’s and 1’s in this blog criticizing the current misadventure in Irock – this does not mean that I think only evil will come from the war. I believe, and have some historical evidence that good comes out of wars (just and otherwise). Even the Crusades…which in no way can be considered justified brought back to Europe a crisis for the Roman Catholic church and the political/religious leaders who wanted something like the Crusades in the first place….
…this “stuff” brought back as a result of the Crusades became a great blessing in my life.
The stuff? Aristotle, or more correctly Aristotle’s complete corpus…
His books – not that you sick fucks.
The Crusades were supposed to engorge the Christian kings with riches and free the “holy” lands at the same time…but not only were the soldiers unable to hold these places (no matter what brutal methods they used) the universities of Europe (established and run by the RCC) were infected by Aristotle’s work. Students (mostly priests) wanted to learn about Aristotle for a variety of reasons. The problem for the Church?
Church fathers understood that Aristotle’s work was dedicated to providing a comprehensive account of human happiness. In a way the RCC and Aristotle are contenders for the same prize. Any reasonable person can read the POLITICS and the ETHICS and see that for Aristotle – human happiness is for this world only – happiness as an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. Soul for Aristotle doesn’t mean the same thing as it does for the RCC but that’s not the issue…
Happiness for A is not a reward – it is a present activity…or only possible in the present.
Through St. Thomas Aquinas the RCC was able to accept important elements of Aristotle’s philosophy.
Ironically enough (and I will write at length about this at some other time) it is Aristotle that helped bring me back to Christ’s holy church on earth. By the way, it was not St. Thomas’ Aristotle…but Aristotle Aristotle. The pagan philosopher’s discussion of “telos” and the connection between stuff, function and some higher things that point us in a particular direction…this is the beginning of something like a miracle to me.
This is a long way from my stupid Zarqawi observations.
- - - ------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - --------------- - -- -
On to more important matters – Good job again Mr. Cintron. Sadly, I was playing Margaritaville on the accordion at a party full of Cubs fans while you worked your magic in the late innings last night – but I saw your hit on Komkast SportsNet at midnight. I love you.
Komkast SportsNet, you can go to hell.
1.) The new PM seems to have a name, a personality and at least talks the talks – gets his name in the news and acts like a leader.
2.) I am glad they got Zarqawi
BUTTTTTT – who was Zarqawi before the war? Sometimes we raise up an ally and he becomes an enemy (I hope this doesn’t apply to #1 above…but it certainly applied to the previous #1 Man in IRock. The great joke about Sadman and his weapons of ass destruction: How do we know SadMan has WMD? We have the receipts.)
Zarq was a pain in the ass to Jordan before the war. I think he had a disparate group of Jordanian exiles operating out of Germany or someone in Europe. The leaders of Jordan knew him – but I’ll bet a hundred dollars none of us knew who he was before Operation Infinite Chaos.
I hope this will lead those in the insurgency to think their efforts are futile. I hope this will lead to less bombing of Irackeee police stations, civilians and of course our own people on the ground there (civilian and military). Even though this war seems to be a mistake in every possible way, I pray that these horrific events will lead to success for our president’s plan or whatever he calls it.
Just because I have wasted billions of 0’s and 1’s in this blog criticizing the current misadventure in Irock – this does not mean that I think only evil will come from the war. I believe, and have some historical evidence that good comes out of wars (just and otherwise). Even the Crusades…which in no way can be considered justified brought back to Europe a crisis for the Roman Catholic church and the political/religious leaders who wanted something like the Crusades in the first place….
…this “stuff” brought back as a result of the Crusades became a great blessing in my life.
The stuff? Aristotle, or more correctly Aristotle’s complete corpus…
His books – not that you sick fucks.
The Crusades were supposed to engorge the Christian kings with riches and free the “holy” lands at the same time…but not only were the soldiers unable to hold these places (no matter what brutal methods they used) the universities of Europe (established and run by the RCC) were infected by Aristotle’s work. Students (mostly priests) wanted to learn about Aristotle for a variety of reasons. The problem for the Church?
Church fathers understood that Aristotle’s work was dedicated to providing a comprehensive account of human happiness. In a way the RCC and Aristotle are contenders for the same prize. Any reasonable person can read the POLITICS and the ETHICS and see that for Aristotle – human happiness is for this world only – happiness as an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. Soul for Aristotle doesn’t mean the same thing as it does for the RCC but that’s not the issue…
Happiness for A is not a reward – it is a present activity…or only possible in the present.
Through St. Thomas Aquinas the RCC was able to accept important elements of Aristotle’s philosophy.
Ironically enough (and I will write at length about this at some other time) it is Aristotle that helped bring me back to Christ’s holy church on earth. By the way, it was not St. Thomas’ Aristotle…but Aristotle Aristotle. The pagan philosopher’s discussion of “telos” and the connection between stuff, function and some higher things that point us in a particular direction…this is the beginning of something like a miracle to me.
This is a long way from my stupid Zarqawi observations.
- - - ------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - --------------- - -- -
On to more important matters – Good job again Mr. Cintron. Sadly, I was playing Margaritaville on the accordion at a party full of Cubs fans while you worked your magic in the late innings last night – but I saw your hit on Komkast SportsNet at midnight. I love you.
Komkast SportsNet, you can go to hell.
posted by edP | 7:22 AM
10 Comments:
We should definitely pray for success in Iraq, thanks for saying that.
I heard Jesus studied Aristotle and Buddha during those "lost" years between 12 and 30.
Somehow I think that's gnos true.
One of my favorite lines about praying for things is from the comic Marshall Law (not the movie)
"They say I don't pray for my enemies. I do. I pray they go to hell."
and that's the sort of idiot I am
A part of me still wants to believe in gbushy's plan (or Cheney's, or Rummy's plan). I like big plans executed by people who are smarter than me, as long as they turn out good.
Speaking of gbushy-why hasn't he been around epissy lately?
As for Jesus' lost years, he lived in DeKalb. He's REALLY old school.
Jesus actually fell in the Kish and never left DeKalb. I think he used to work at the Duck Soup Coop.
And, old dog, the ongoing problems in Iraq are a result of the fact that those "smart" people didn't have a follow-up plan. They remind me of the Underwear Gnomes from South Park.
And, as far as Zarqawi goes: Yeah, he was an ignorant asshole butcher and somebody should have taken him out. On the other hand, he was only as big as Colin Powell made him when he incorrectly associated him with Al Qaeda prior to the war. He was such an asshole that Bin Laden didn't want to let him in. Unfortunately, we made him such a celeb in the Islamic extremist world that Osama was forced to let him in. Now, we've gone and delivered his fan base the martyr they were looking for and the problem is exponentially worse now.
We should have taken him out quietly. We'd best watch it or our bravado will get the better of us.
Ed, Did you mention Buffett and religion in the same post?
Oh, there's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning!
On a more serious note, I have to agree with bigsoda on his point that I think Zarqawi was a butcher but we likely pumped him up into this "prize catch", which is just bad no matter how you look at it. The ramifications are going to suck. Extremeists unite, the infidels have done it again. Sigh.
Bush cautions Americans in the Chicago Sun Times this morning that the killing of Zarqawi will not end the bloodshed or US military presence in Iraq, just as the capture of Hussein didn't. He asks the American people to be patient.
How patient do we have to be?
The Chicago Tribune reports this morning that, "the hand of a child poked from beneath a chunk of concrete--belonging to one of the six people who died with al-Zarqawi." This is just all such a big pile of bullshit.
With a heavy heart, Di
OD, re this:
"A part of me still wants to believe in gbushy's plan (or Cheney's, or Rummy's plan)."
I wanted to too. Tutu?
They have offered us nothing to which I say the only good that can come out of this war is something they din't intend. Maybe they'll find some more Aristotle.
I understand and sympathize with your position - we want to trust our leaders. We don't want our default position to be that they lied to us (or worse) they do not know what they are doing.
Also, I no longer think it is possible to argue that the IROCK war was cooked up by people smarter than me, you or anyone - this doesn't tell the whole story - but there is enough evidence out there to believe that former gbushy admin guy Wuff o'Witless said (before we went into Afgnstn) that we should "do Iraq" now because Afgnstn wasn't going to be a quick and easy victory.
Again you and I have talked about this before, even if there is a secret plan in place here - gbushy & Darth Mall (er dChain) have presented it as defending freedom spreading democracy misrepresented it as Irock's "connection" with terrorists that intended to do our country harm - mushroom clouds that will never appear - all the while the NKoreans & now the Iranians have achieved the thing the Iraqis were far from getting.
*sigh
Those guys do not deserve the defense and support of good Americans like you.
I also see the blasting of Zarqawi as yet another diversionary tactic. I saw big, bold headlines today and it made me sick. "Hey, look - we're still trying!"
I agree that if the asshole had to die instead of being brought to justice, it should've been quiet and without collateral damage. My guess is they've been sifting through a lot of rubble after bombings and this was just a lucky find regardless of how Tony Snow describes it.
I agree completely with the sentiment here that we should not be pounding our chests after taking that worm out. It will do us no good.
As far as supporting and defending
Bush, I can't really do that, and I haven't really thought of myself as doing that. How can I? I don't really know what their plan is. I can look at what they do, listen to what they say and try to determine whether or not it seems to be following a plan. I can guess what that plan might be, but I'm only guessing. I can also hope that they are doing things that I would want them to do. I certainly can't excuse them for not really thinking this thing through. That's clear to me, at this point.
Now, just because we can see that they have goofed, and we can see that it's not as rosy as they would like us to think that it is, this does not mean that it's really as horrible as their critics say it is. It might not be as BAD of a quagmire. There's got to be friendlies there, or we would not be able to operate at all (yes, we're an occupying force, but it's not like we're NAZI germany). I'm wondering now if gbushy and co. will be able to assess what the current condition is, understand what it will take to have a long term favorable outcome and then decide whether it's worth the investment to reach that goal. Either way, I think it's a matter of years, not months. As for the bare minumum thread of justification for it all-our choices were to continue the way we were (talk about a quagmire) and either get to this business eventually or dismantle the No Fly Zone, etc, and let Iran have its way with Saddam and Son's Devastation Co.
Yes, edp, as weakened as we know that little father and son operation was, it was still devastating to the average Iraqi.
Post a Comment
<< Home