Right now the "left-blogospher" struggles with just how deep
allegations of sloppiness on 9-11 should be made political. I remember a diary I particularly liked but just because it had the tag "9-11 was an inside job" I went from recommending to unrecommending. It's an interesting question, but seriously guys some things should just wait until we're in power and can have a real bipartisan investigation before declaring it was an "inside-job". The investigation was clearly white-washed, yes, but theories of inside job are founded on 2nd hand evidence from what I can tell. Clearly there are many of us who have had harsh thought for such theorists.
But at the same time the "right-blogosphere" must come to terms with the fact that many of their justifications for the Iraq War has been proven utterly false. One things that would make me so sick when discussing before "Shock and Awe" actually began was those who sited post-war Japan as an example where the United States invaded a country and left behind a friendly Democracy. But Japan and Iraq have completely different cultures and histories thus justifying the invasion on such a premise is
at least as ridiculous as comparing Iraq to Vietnam (where 50,000 US soldiers had died). I don't know much about Iraqi culture, in fact before the invasion I knew just about nothing, which I imagine is the case for most Americans, but I do a little about Japan and from what I can tell they were at completely different points in history.
Japan strikes me in many ways as very similar to the United Kingdom but with an even denser in population. They really have just mastered their environment in a way that allows them to live internally at peace. The protected from outright invasion by water that is only worth traversing for profit and thus ideas and culture are still exchanged. Japan has very little crime, studies hard, and works harder. But most importantly they live in such density it has forced them to put aside all ethnic sectarian strife. The constant battling philosophies in Japan are no longer expressed in literal violence but varying ways of peaceful lives.
Again I don't know much about Iraq, I've never read an English translation version of any book published there. But I have read a couple books translated from Japanese, one is the Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa and like all autobiographies is full of self-embellishment, but still it shows just how already influenced by Western ideas it already was before our counter-invasion. Here's some example passages:
Recently I drew up a will. We often see in foreign stories an episode of great surprise and wailing at the disclosure of a man's will after his death. I am not impressed by such tales at all. Why should a man make a secret of anything that is to be disclosed after his death? Western people must be doing this only from an unenlightened custom. I declared that I would have my own way about my will, and I have shown it to my wife and children.
He knows enough about Western culture to make a very legitimate criticism. I'm sure in Iraq they do too, but they've also probably been forced out as dissidents; unlike Yukichi Fukuzawa, who became a well respected school administrator and newspaper editor.
Judging by the fact that Iraqis are still more than persecuting Christians, it probably wasn't allowed that a someone as trusted as a newspaper editor would think:
There should be no shame in being defeated in a dispute. I have no mind to accuse a man for having once made an error of judgment. But it seems to me that when a man fails in a dispute, it is his part to take his defeat and retire from active society. They have sough high positions in the rival government and, having obtained them, are proud.
So I dunno, many of you Kossacks are so much smarter then me I was wondering what do you know about Iraqi culture? Have they had such figures as Yukichi Fukuzawa who is still featured on Japanese money?