In Which The Gorilla Wonders About Something
Memsa’ab Marsh is ordering the brown people around again, and not for the first time either. I especially liked this bit of the memsa’abs diatribe:
“The Iraqis have voted. But while the governing elite in Iraq sit safely in the Green Zone, comfortable in U.S. troop protection, al-Maliki slanders our troops and our efforts, while the elected Iraqis still have not chosen a Minister of Defense or Interior, which has been put off indefinitely. Obviously, the ruling Iraqi elite think they have time to sit around without a decision. They need to be shown otherwise.
If the Iraqis in power do not want to govern their country it is not up to us to do it for them.”
Source: The Memsa’ab’s site [emphasis mine - mfi]
Don’t you just love the complete lack of self-awareness? Now let’s see:
- Doesn’t know the country.
- Can’t speak the language.
- Is sitting safely, very safely, a couple of thousand miles away.
- Is nurturing a sense of grievance that the way in which her country has repeatedly behaved in the Middle East isn’t paying the sort of dividend she likes
Slandering them is the one thing al-Maliki isn’t doing. The US army has a culture of racist brutality in Iraq. They’ve been conditioned from get go to see Iraqis all Iraqis as things to be pushed around, as less than human. Kind of like memsa’ab Marsh really. But then an army reflects the culture from which it sprang. (Kind of like Memsa’ab Marsh really.)
Master nation, master race, we’re the good guys, now do what you’re told….we sacrificed so much for you……
I wonder, to use her own idiom, what part of the word
ما من احد.
The memsa’ab doesn’t understand.
markfromireland
No tag for this post.
June 5th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
كل شىء :-)
June 5th, 2006 at 3:16 pm
بيت الظالم خراب
:-)
June 5th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
You two are very amusing. But it is very true الطبع غلب التطبعas we say.
June 5th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Translation please?
June 5th, 2006 at 3:51 pm
Haleema has said “everything” and smiled. Mark has said that tyrants live in ruinous houses and I have said that foolish people do not give up old habits.
A far more important is question is why are you here asking questions when you should be studying for your examinations :-)
June 5th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Because all work and no play would make me a very dull girl and I need to be sharp for these ones:-).
I need to take a break sometimes you know it gives a chance for the information to sink in.
You are well?
June 5th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
I am a little tired but I am well. I suspect that I am not so tired as you. Make sure you get enough sleep that was the biggest tempatation to me when I was your age to think that just one hour more would help when in fact it made it more difficult. It would have been more inteligant to go to bed earlier and rise earlier. Learn from my foolish mistake!
June 5th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
I’ll do that :-) Try to be safe. Break over back to my books. *Poof* as gor says.
June 5th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
Kind of sums up our attitude to the Middle East in general: people that need to be told and shoved around to meet our/Israel’s needs.
Without a more even balance of power nothing will change…
June 5th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
You are right Gert but when it comes to Americans I do not believe that they understand it. I believe they will only understand it after they have suffered a lot more pain. This person Marsh and people like the congressman Murta want to go back to a “gentler and kinder” tyranny. What they really complain of is that the tyrant Bush has ripped away the mask and the savagery and emptiness is seen by all. In his other place our Irish friend when he was weeping for my good friend Omar and his family he compared him to Hulaagu Khan and that is true in its way of a certainty it is true of the type of deeds they commit. But Hulaagu had something to back his deeds. The modern barbarian horde does not. Somebody who lies to himself as the Americans do is still a liar and a foolish one. Such people learn from one thing and one thing alone and that is pain. We Iraqis can give them much more of that until they run away from my home weeping for what they have lost, what they have lost is nothing compared to what they stolen.
I do not even know where my childrens bodys lie. Am I now to feel pity for some American as they grow ever more disgusting fat and all the time they lie about how they only want to be nice as they steal and borrow and steal and borrow and then kill as they steal yet again?
As to what you say about the Zionists they are crazed all they can think of is more death. Not Jews Zionists I know that most Jews wish peace as do we. It is Zionists who in a terrible reflection of what was done to them wish now to be a new herrevolk. The days of master races are over but Americans and their zionist friends do not know it.
I will not say that the Palestinians have not in the past been foolish but the Zionists are now both racist and foolish. They will most probably end up like their Afrikaner friends. Dependent on the tolerance of civilised people Jew and Palestinian alike for their safety.
June 5th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
All they have to do is leave and take the civil war they are trying to start here with them.
June 5th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
They think that we will weep to see them go we will not. Sunnah, Shi´ite we are all Muslims and we are all Iraqi. This division that the crusaders and their death squads try to bring. It is false. We know who Steele and Casteel are and where they work and who it is they work for and it is not for Iraq.
June 5th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
I am having a lot of trouble with blogger - please be patient.
June 5th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
Maryam speaks truth.
Noor
June 5th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
They are trying to do us now what the British tried to do. This “Iraqi” army that they keep talking about it isn’t Iraqi. What the crusaders want is a armed group loyal to their interests to keep us under their heel and they do it just like the english did it. It will end the same way too that was how Saddam came to power.
IRAQ FOR THE IRAQIS
June 5th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
That’s my reading of it too they’re trying to create an officer class - a colonial elite, who rely on them for their position their bribes and their armaments and that’s why they’re trying to break the place up. It’s also why they’re refusing to hand over control of any well-trained units. They want a cantonised Iraq in which weak local governments with inexperienced adminstrators sign PSAs and FSAs.
June 5th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Have you seen these?
Kuwait
and this one from the Wahabbists?
Saudi
June 5th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
Ya Allah!
June 5th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
Maryam - indeed. Especially considering who has signed the Kuwaiti one.
Abbas - Next time you do that could you please first warn me to put some cushions on the desk my jaw now hurts. I’m very behind on my reading. Is there much like that?
June 5th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Yes do you want me to send links?
June 5th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
anonymous who asked if you wanted links was me.
June 5th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
I guessed :-). Yes please and if you have the time a digest?
June 5th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
I will I am sorry about your chin ;-)
June 5th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Thanks. I’ll hit google and clusty.
June 5th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
MFI,
I am impressed with your Arab readership.
I never understood why this Taylor Marsh was one of the contributors to FDL. Many of us disagree with significant portions of what she says. Do not assume that she represents liberal Americans. Juan Cole might be closer to my position.
One explanation for why Americans are like they are is that they are obsessed with power (and obsessed with money which brings power). There is probably a good psychological reason for it but that’s not my specialty. The only question is if we can reverse this obsession and drag our country back from the brink. If we were a parlimentary democracy we could have booted Bush out years ago. We are not and the chances of impeaching both Bush and Chaney at the same time are probably zero. The only hope is that if the Dems retake the House and, hopefully, the Senate, there will be enough brakes put on the imperialism and aggression that we can reverse.
However, it is unlkely. Pretty sad. We had such promise!
June 6th, 2006 at 12:25 am
Ali,
thank you for writing. My condolences for the loss of your children. There can be no greater loss. May Allah be with you.
June 6th, 2006 at 12:25 am
I bethought me of that old Irish proverb doc :-)
“If at first you don’t succeed cheat”
So I hopped over to my forum and put up a message asking any of the regulars who could be bothered to do so to post a comment here. I knew I’d get results as generally the vast majority of my readership doesn’t come from the States, or from Europe either for that matter. I do track where visitors come from, how long they stay, and which pages they visit.
As to the rest - America has never suffered the consequences of a defeat, and history is written by the victors. I keep on saying that there’s nothing wrong with enlightened self-interest and it’s starting to dawn on your fellow countrymen that this war is lost. They’re starting to see what’s being done in their name and they don’t like it. They’ll like it even less as expensive petrol and heating oil cuts into their lifestyle.
How many Americans are already struggling from paycheque to paycheque? Interest rates are going to have to rise. For lots of Americans a medical problem represents a major finiancial crisis etc etc.
It’s also starting to dawn on a lot of them that the crowd of thieving thugs in office would cheerfully opress them if they thought they’d get away with.
I’d say you guys still have lots of potential. You just have to wake up a bit.
As to memsa’ab Marsh it’s beyond me why the hell she was invited to write on FDL. Her last piece put me in such a bad temper that I left. Happily she got a thorough pasting from the regulars, who don’t buy into that Bidenesque/Liebermanesque codology.
I’d say there’s hope for you yet doc - discovering that empires, no matter what you call them, are ruinously bad for the health of the nation both at home and abroad is going to be painful but not I hope terminal. It’s just that people like the memsa’ab have to learn the hard way that payback can be … unpleasant. I’m looking forward to watching the process. Can you say schadenfreude?
June 6th, 2006 at 12:34 am
Thankyou Mr Griffon I am appreciative.
It might be heplful for you if you know that it is not necessary to say “Allah” - that is the Arabic word for “God” and we worship the same God - us, the Jews, and the followers of the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) such as yourself. So use the word you would usually use “God” we are after all brothers in humanity if not in religion. :-)
June 6th, 2006 at 12:35 am
Well said Ali.
Thank you.
June 6th, 2006 at 12:38 am
Folks there’s nothing more exhausting that fresh air so I’m wrecked tired g’night. I’ll post any further comments first thing in the morning if blogger.com let’s me. It’s been more than usually bothersome today.
June 6th, 2006 at 12:44 am
I have only now noticed the quotation at the top of your page. When did you put it there? It is BEUATIFUL!!!!! (and so very true!)
June 6th, 2006 at 4:31 am
You are very gracious, Ali.
I was concerned not to offend you as I am ignorant as to what may be offensive. So I did not say “God” or even “our one God” as I thought that might sound pompous.
Afterwards, I thought I should have followed my own advice which is “When in doubt, leave it out”. But I’m glad I didn’t because now I am able to see that we are definitely of one mind regarding God. God sees us all as brothers and sisters and to not act that way is to defy God, in my view.
June 6th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
Ali:
Thanks for your impassioned reply to my comment. There is very little in it I cannot find myself agreeing with.
As regards your children, what to say that won’t sound like a schmaltzy cliche? It’s terrible that such things should happen in the name of “freedom”…
“Pax Americana”? May the Lord help us all (even the agnostic like me)…
June 6th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Gert,
Ali was one of those who rose against Saddam at the urging of the Americans in 1991 and then betrayed by them. His wife and children were “disappeared” by the mukhbarat. He escaped capture only because he was badly wounded and hidden by neighbours.
Most of the rest of his family were killed by one of those “precision” “surgical strike” that the Americans are so proud of the ones that are very precise about killing women and children but somehow often miss their “legal targets.”
He visits an internet coffee shop when he can but I know his next won’t be for a few days. I will see him tomorrow and I have printed this page to give to him.
Thankyou to you and to Griffon for caring.
June 7th, 2006 at 7:13 am
Dr. C, I agree with you totally that Americans are obsessed with power and wealth, but what puzzles me and I’m sure many others is the ‘why’ of it…of what use is this power and wealth? How much money can a person reasonably spend? What use is it to a person to be able to impose their will on others? If you have enough to keep your loved ones fed and healthy and to be able to enjoy your favourite activities, what do you do with all the rest? No matter how much money and power you have, will it keep the dog from peeing on your flowers or stop the baby crying? Will it make your poetry flow or your teenager exercise good judgement? What kind of gratification can you receive from compelling others through force? From where does this obsession with power and money come? No amount of either could bring Ali’s family back, so what’s the good of it?
Just when I think I’m starting to understand things, I realize I’m totally clueless about what motivates the vast majority of my fellow humans. Thank goodness for places like this - everybody seems so normal! My regards to all, and thanks to MFI for providing a haven for reasonable discourse.
June 7th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
Abbas:
Thanks very much for that clarification, may you and Ali stay safe…
June 7th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
I have been monitoring the comments to the very dreadful memsa’ab’s posting for over 24 hours. I would start to comment and then erase - simply because everything I had to say sounded so trite. I am truly sorry Ali for all the pain and anguish you have endured and continue to do so. I agree with you that Americans will never fully comprehend everyday life in Iraq until we get a taste of our own medicine on our doorstep. Here in California I know countless number of memsa’abs and their idea of deprivation is having to wait in a long line for their ’soy latte kissed with chocolate’. I don’t quite know what it is going to take to get this nation off our fat complacent asses and accept that we can no longer assume ‘that we know best’.
June 8th, 2006 at 1:10 am
Test to see if blogger is still not accepting comments.