leonardcohenforum.com

NEHOC ~

Your Dear Patronizing Old Man ~

By what measure do you consider your comments thus far to not have been negative, I can but only wonder. Whilst you co-opt Leonard's words, I'm sure I could hunt up some makeup remover to dissolve some of that concealer. I've seen some of Leonard's inner sweetness. So far, not the case with you.

~ Lizzytysh

NEHOC wrote:Tom,


I don't believe I have written a post "directed" to you. Lizzytysh would not approve of your addressing me.

Oh NEHOC

somehow you got the prejudice into your headpiece that anybody here waits for approval before posting?

Maybe in the kind of army you're used to, but not between free speech people. No "Sir, Yes, Sir!" here, can you understand that?

No, you didn't write "a post directed to" me . That's why I'm insulted. If you don't throw mud at me, something must have been wrong with my posts.

Tom

Dear tom,

S P L A T !

Linda,

1 - Yes, I would say that calling George W. Bush a warmonger would fall under 'name calling' - but I don't believe I did so in any of my posts. If I did, I would certainly be pleased if you pointed that out to me. I would certainly apologize for doing so. I am loath to judge and form opinions of 'anyone (even those on this forum who disagree with me,) who I have not had the opportunity to meet personally so that I can make a judgment based on our personal interactions. That is not to say that I cannot form opinions on the actions taken by a public person and possibly question their motives. Actions taken by 'leaders' of our nations are appropriately questioned and challenged because they occur in an historical and global context and have ramifications beyond all the rhetoric they (or we) might use.

2 - I guess an answer to question number two must be based on whether one believes that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, has ties to international terrorist groups, and is of direct threat to the west, and the US in particular.

As has been pointed out here with sources quoting the likes of the CIA and others, (and easy to find searching online): Iraq was not involved in 9/11; no ties to any terrorist group has been found - esp. al-Queda - Iraq has been on the list of Arab nations Osama bin Laden wants to overturn, and even attempted to have Saddam assassinated; Saddam's military, as with many of the Arab nations, is more than 30 years out dated. It was no match for the allied forces which drove him out of Kuwait 12 years ago, and that army has been deteriorating since then. He is certainly no match today, as the recent war is certainly making quite clear.

Does he have weapons of mass destruction? According to a news report I watched this evening, if one were to go to the documents of the Inspector's, which is apparently free to view online, it is more than probable that he does not. The correspondent taking part in the discussion (Eric Margolis,) stated that if one were to take the time to read through them, it is clear that Iraq in fact had destroyed what they had. I haven't yet had the time to check this out, but I intend to. I have also read an article from one of the previous Inspector's that more than 90% of these weapons had been destroyed in the first two years after the gulf war.

As far as the UN and its failure over the past twelve years to force Saddam to adhere to the resolutions? As I have stated previously, the failure of the UN is because of the lack of willingness on the part of the five 'permanent' members and their veto powers. If these members would put aside their 'personal interests' they could work together to put some teeth into the UN and the Security Council to make it work. Do you think that in the interim between the first gulf war and 9/11 that Iraq even registered much on the radar of these nations? It certainly didn't when he gassed the Kurds in Hilabja - the UN could have proclaimed Hussein a War Criminal at the time for these acts (much as they did in Kosovo a few years later with Milosivic). This would have justified the use military force against him at the time. I have heard it said on some of the newscasts by some of the -experts- that if tack had been used on this go round, the US would likely had gotten the support it needed, and a resolution to go to war legally.

As far as the Inspector's being lead around by the nose, if one takes in a little history of the past inspections, it is easy to see why they (the Iraqis) might act this way.

BBC News Online
Iraq had obstructed inspectors, denying them access to so-called 'presidential palaces' and refusing to co-operate.

It repeatedly accused the body of spying for the US and Israel.

The UN later acknowledged that inspectors had been passing information on to US intelligence services.

Another report I read on this included admitting to Israeli intelligence involvement as well.

While these latest Inspections were going on, it was clear that the US was very intent on going to war. Do you think it unreasonable even for a Leader such as Saddam, not to want 'spies' in his country when a war seemed all but inevitable regardless of what the truth might be?

Alexander

I'm sorry if you took the reference I made to indoctrination personally. It was not meant as a personal attack on anyone. I was posting my view on the idea of being brainwashed as this was an open question from another poster(er?), and I hold the view that we are not brainwashed, but are 'indoctrinated' into the cultures or societies in which we live. Maybe another term could be 'influenced' This is not to say that we are brainless and cannot think for ourselves. It does imply that these things influence us and we would be foolish to think that they did not.

As far as the US Army being 'bad,' again, my response was to another post where the following comment was quoted:

"well, yeah - our troops have so much better equipment and are so much better trained than the British."

My response was that though they may be better equipped and the most powerful army in the world, in my 'opinion' they are not the best. I went on to support this view by mentioning the incidents of friendly fire and civilian killed by direct fire. These incidents are factual, and it is interesting that in the case of civilians, there have not been any (that I have seen) reported cases by British troops. Since that posting there have been a couple more civilian deaths and friendly fire events (the Kurds.) My view is that the US army depends too much on its technology to the detriment of its fighting men.

I also mentioned the 4 Canadian deaths in the Afghan war. Recently, prior to the war starting, but after Canada had stated that it would not join in, the officer prosecuting a preliminary hearing into those deaths stated that the evidence indicated court martial/criminal charges against the pilots involved was appropriate but recommended against it. Why? Because the US was going to war and pilots shouldn't have to 'second-guess their actions.' Perhaps they shouldn't have to second-guess, but they should make sure of their targets.

One last thing, Alexander, you state that 'perhaps we think more because our lives will be the ones to go first.' This indicates to me that you are likely in the military. I think what this war is proving is that soldiers do put themselves in harms ways, but it is more often the civilians who 'go first.' It is the soldier who has the equipment, armour, weapons and fire power to defend/protect themselves (not to mention NBC warfare gear) not the civilians.

PS: I am Canadian and not American, and have served in the military so I do know a little about 'military indoctrination.'

PSS: A brief article: Globe and Mail Sunday April 6

Privately, some British officials have voiced concern about the apparently heavy-handed tactics adopted by the Americans as they stormed through the city on Saturday. They contrast this with the much more cautious approach of the British in Basra.

"There's already enormous and deep suspicion throughout the Arab world about why the Americans are doing this," one official said. "The worry is that you'll feed every anti-American suspicion by going in there and breaking all the china."

Vern

Candice,

I am curious why you chose this particular article to post regarding Pte Lynch's rescue. Could it be because the article inflamed you and you needed to share your anger and outrage with us?

'Pfc. Jessica Lynch was beaten more severely than first reports indicated, doctors said yesterday. Besides two broken legs and a broken arm, the 19-year-old Army truck driver suffered fractures to her right foot, right ankle and a disk in her spine, and a gash on her head. ...

'Officials have refused to say why so many of Lynch's bones were broken, but it's likely she was tortured. An Iraqi man who told the Americans where to find her urged the troops to hurry, saying she was being tortured.'

I wonder why you didn't post the one that told how 'Lynch ... fought her captors fiercely ... firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition and shooting several soldiers.' This, in due course, was proven not to be true, but the media and everyone sure jumped on it.

It's interesting that in all the other articles I could find, including ones with interviews with the Iraqi lawyer, no mention was made of torture. (I will include two of them at the end of this post.)

The following is an excerpt from one:

'He was visiting his wife, who works as a nurse, when he saw a burly Fedayeen guard slap the injured 19-year-old soldier. ... doctors planned to amputate one of her legs.

'I decided to go to the Americans ... She would not have lived.'

Her injuries could have been caused when the vehicle she was driving came to a sudden stop as a result of an ambush. His concern for her life could have been the fact that the Iraqi hospitals do not have the drugs and supplies they need as this excerpt from an article indicates:

'Baghdad's hard-pressed surgeons, flooded with war-wounded, are amputating the limbs of children and adults with too few anaesthetics to block the pain and too few antibiotics to protect the patients, a Greek doctor newly arrived from Iraq reported yesterday.'

His wife, being a nurse, would have known that. (I know the article is about Baghdad, but if hospitals in Baghdad do not have supplies it is unlikely others would.)

I am not trying to say that she wasn't tortured. I am trying simply to point out that we cannot jump to conclusions based solely on one report. When I read articles as inflammatory as the one posted, I cannot help but want to find other sources. If they all report the same that it is more than likely to have some basis in fact. Otherwise, I write the article off as propaganda, designed to enrage.

It reminds me of the time a week or so ago when PM Blair asserted that two British soldiers had been executed by the Iraqis. I went online and found where a British officer commenting on this remark stated that in fact the two soldiers had been killed on the battlefield. In another, a family member of one of the slain soldiers stated that he was told that the soldier had been killed in battle.

Here are the other articles.

Rescuing Pfc. Lynch: Central Command releases details
Posted 4/5/2003 9:41 AM Updated 4/5/2003 11:23 PM
USA Today

CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar (AP) "Jessica Lynch," a U.S. soldier called out. "We are United States soldiers, and we're here to protect you and take you home." On her hospital bed, Pfc. Jessica Lynch peered out from the sheet with which she'd been covering her head in fear.

"I'm an American soldier, too," she replied.

U.S. Central Command on Saturday released the dramatic details of Lynch's rescue, as the 19-year-old supply clerk, now safely at a U.S. military hospital in Germany, awaited a meeting with her family

Air Force Maj. Gen. Gene Renuart, speaking at a briefing in Qatar, said a team of Navy SEALs, Marine commandos, Air Force pilots and Army Rangers carried out the rescue Tuesday in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah.

While troops engaged the Iraqis in another part of the city, the rescue team persuaded an Iraqi doctor to lead them to Lynch, Renuart said.

Lynch, who'd been held since a week earlier when her unit was ambushed, had suffered a head wound, an injury to her spine, and fractures to her right arm, both legs, her right foot and ankle. The rescuers quickly evaluated her medical condition, secured her to a stretcher and took her to a waiting helicopter.

"Jessica held up her hand and grabbed the Ranger doctor's hand, and held onto it for the entire time, and said, 'Please don't let anybody leave me,'" Renuart said. "It was clear she knew where she was and didn't want to be left anywhere near the enemy."


Renuart did not shed any new light on how Lynch sustained her wounds ... whether she was injured in captivity or when the 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed March 23.

Iraqi lawyer risked life to help rescue of PoW Jessica Lynch
Tania Branigan
Saturday April 5, 2003
The Guardian

An Iraqi lawyer risked his life to help the American PoW Jessica Lynch escape from a hospital in Nassiriya after seeing a guard slap her in the face, it emerged yesterday

The 32-year-old man tipped off US marines outside the southern city and repeatedly returned to the hospital to gather information for their rescue mission on Tuesday.

He was visiting his wife, who works as a nurse, when he saw a burly Fedayeen guard slap the seriously injured 19-year-old soldier. Private Lynch had not eaten for days and doctors planned to amputate one of her legs.

"My heart is cut," said the man, known only as Mohammed because of fears for his family's safety.

"I decided to go to the Americans ... She would not have lived. It was very important."

The lawyer crept into Pte Lynch's room to reassure her - "Don't worry, don't worry" - before walking six miles along a treacherous road dubbed "Ambush Alley" and approaching marines with his hands raised to tell them of his discovery.

Mohammed's home was ransacked by Fedayeen that night - only hours after he had sent his wife and six-year-old daughter to stay with friends - but he returned twice to Saddam hospital at the request of US officers. He counted the number of troops on guard and, with his wife, drew maps of the facility.

Five days later, US special forces launched a midnight raid and spirited the captive to safety by helicopter.

"A person is a human being, regardless of nationality," Mohammed said, explaining why he had risked his life for Pte Lynch. "Believe me, I love Americans."

He added: "I am afraid not for me. I am afraid about my daughter and my wife, because I love them so much."

Mohammed spoke to reporters from the Washington Post and USA Today at marine combat headquarters in Iraq, where his family was staying en route to a refugee centre in Umm Qasr. He said he would return home when Saddam Hussein's regime had fallen.

"He's sort of an inspiration to all of us," said Lieutenant Colonel Rick Long.
Yesterday Pte Lynch's father described Mohammed as an "angel" in an interview on American TV station NBC.

"I am truly grateful for what he's done. I realise he risked his own life to do this," Greg Lynch said.

"The man's an angel and a god in his own way."

Pte Lynch, a supply clerk, was captured on March 23 when the 507th Maintenance Company took a wrong turn in Nassiriya.

She was yesterday undergoing surgery at a US military hospital in Germany, having suffered two broken legs, a broken arm, spinal injuries and a laceration to the head.

But Colonel David Rubenstein told reporters that she had not been shot or stabbed, as originally feared, and the prognosis was excellent. She was receiving psychological as well as medical care and was in a "jovial" mood.

Nine sets of remains found buried outside the Saddam Hospital, and thought to be those of American soldiers, were recovered by marines during their rescue mission and arrived at a military mortuary in the US yesterday.

Twelve other members of the 507th unit were feared captured in the ambush and five are officially listed as PoWs.

_____________

Vern

King Leonard in reverse,

I should've taken more time to look up the passage you have been referring to (boots, you remember).

There's another difference, and this might be the essential one: David commented on an article quoted. In this article, those who have ears can confirm, the sound of boots was present. David, however, did not suggest that any participant of the current discussion nor any other memebr of the Forum was by any means close to Fascism.

Whereas you, dear NEHOC, suggested, and later reinforced your attribution, that David was indeed propagating communism. If you do not understand this essential difference, I don't believe anybody can help you.

BTW: usually I don't run to defend someone who, like David, is well able to stand his own points. But since your invectives made us lose David, I feel it is my duty to step in for the truth.

And the strange way in which Liberals are put into the same bunch as Communists only proves another point I made: Some posters simply don't care for correct wordings, or for adequate use of attributes; some simply don't know the meanings of political categories. They mix up the termini technici of political science, and thereby largely contribute to the ignorance that makes their untenable views popular. (In short: they rebel without a cause.)

I'm not trying to argue in favor of Liberalism or Communism, to be sure. Not now, at least. But I reckon everybody should be able to see that these are two totally different attitudes.

Tom

PS: I received what pretended to be the package of mud. If you really have "concealed" your "inner sweetness", you did a great job. Maybe, if you apply in the right places, you'll receive an Academy Award for it. Good luck.

I'm old. I was born and brought up in England. I read with some interest the piece about Old Europe et al.
I really need to know if the piece was directed at me because I'm old and England, which is part of the UK, is part of Europe. By that I mean, part of the land mass which makes Europe. Or perhaps I mean part of the political configuration which is termed Europe. I'm old and confused now.
I know I'm English and I live in Europe, but what is my status with regard to the piece about Old Europe?
I may be wrong (again) but I get the distinct feeling that I am in some way partly responsible for being part of Old Europe, whatever that means.
I take the point about the political, economic, and social histories of the constituent parts, which are all of the soveriegn states, which did, and do now, make up Europe, but I'm at a loss as to the relevance of all that, in a piece which is posted for personal consumption in a public forum.
If the contributor is in some way uncomfortable about their position in relation to their country of origin, then I can understand why that could be so. There are many issues I find difficulty in agreeing with in relation to the history and decisions of my country's past and present leaders. However, I'm happy to discuss these matters with my fellow Englishmen in a normal and civilised way.
Similarly, I am happy to do the same with my European neighbours.
What political leaders do in our names has caused much discussion over the centuries and will continue to do so.
Where I find difficulty with the aforementioned piece is its apparent targeting of the individual mindsets of forum members.
We can all go to a local library and spend months reading the histories of all and any countries we wish to. No two books will agree on most of the causes and results of national and international relations.
Bear with me here, because I'm trying to keep this as simple as I can. What we all have to realise is that,

No, I did not make a mistake by not finishing my sentence or posting in my previous piece.
Why? I hear you ask.
Because I want you to realise that history, economics, societies etc., are all fluid, living constructions which cannot be carved into stone and held up as the 'Truth' at any particular point in time.
To partition-off, label, box, group, segregate any ideaologies, peoples, nations, aspirations etc., is an attempt to do these things, by those who would wish to do all of those things, to others.
I find such aspirations to be deeply offensive when considering the lives of those who have gone before as a way of defining the lives of those who are here now.
I would expect that any reasonable person would look to the past and endeavour to ensure that past mistakes could be studied as an object lesson in how to avoid making similar mistakes again.
Unfortunately, human beings are the only creatures on this small planet who will stumble over the same piece of stone, twice. We all have to learn, but precious few do.
Lobbing great political and economic tracts across the oceans of this world is simply a 'surrogate metaphor' for lobbing bombs at one another. Hence my point about how we all have to learn, but only a few do.
My last piece is suspended in mid air, and is as clear a way as I can think of, to display that we are all in our own way suspended in our own space and time on this Earth.
Throwing dogmas and ideologies around as though they are an ultimate 'Truth' in themselves, is surely a way of avoiding having to look at our own responses to what troubles each of us?
We have to look inside our own humanity before delving into other peoples' tomes. We have to understand where each of us is in relation to our fellow human beings before taking chunks of literary fodder on board, as yet more baggage in this veil of tears.
I want people to be honest with themselves. The one aspect of lc's work we cannot fault, is that he is brutally honest and we admire that quality. I know I do.

Dear Byron,

I think you people are crazy. No one is brutally honest. No one reveals the real truth about themselves. Everyone self-edits. Especially Leonard Cohen. He's made a career of it. He's interesting and amusing and occasionaly profound. But brutally honest. NO

LC

Dear tom,

Stop crying. There is no need for a display of grief. David willl be back.

Count on it.

Dear Sore Loser, I think

Dear All

I wish you would all declare this thread dead and stop ripping pieces from each other.

Dear Paula, it's like Eastenders in here.

In future Byron will be known as 'Wellard' and has moved to India to be with Robbie. Goodnight, exits stage left, chased by the same bear.