I just had a conversation with Diva about the Iraq situation and I want to get this down before I forget it.
This section began with my question to her regarding whether she thinks the troops need to stay there and I asked her Spiderleaf’s question as to what she thought about Un peacekeepers taking over…her first answer was well put blue hats on the Americans and call them peacekeepers.
Then I asked, do you think we are causing more problems there than we are solving, answer no. Well then what is the problem with all the bombing and killing.
Now this gets a little involved and I will try to get it right….she says you have to understand that most of these men are uneducated, they can neither read nor write and all they know is that killing is easy #1, in the absense of power like Sadaam, they can now get away with it, with the added bonus they are now like Sadaam, the oppressor, doing their own oppressing.
She went on to say that these men do not known freedom or democracy from anything, all they know is they will be rewarded in heaven and now they have some power.
She also went on to say that a lot of the fighting is for power, they(various factions) do not want the present power structure so they are fighting for control.
So I then asked her what she thought the solution was, answer, not so easy that one, but it did have to come from within the country, the political system, etc. Bottom line in conversation up to this point, there is no law……..
With that she had to go to take another call so I will continue the conversation and then fill in more here.
If you have any questions about this or for her, comment here and if I have a chance will ask her.
Men.
Men who have so long felt powerless.
Men fighting for power.
Power as the right to control others,and insure safety.
Power/control equals being/feeling not only
“as good as,” but “superior to” other men.
Violence equals a means to gain power/control
Violence equals an effective outlet for rage.
Violence is an addictive quick “fix” for pressures of culturally imbedded sense of powerlessness.
Combine the following
Then. Add “shock and awe” removal, by arrogant, ignorant outsiders, of any existing controls or “containment” of this explosive mix, well, you better stand WAY back back, because you have just unleashed the furies of all kinds of hell.
And if you do not understand this, of you could not forsee this, and you happen to be the President of the “most powerful nation of earth”, who arrogantly DID order such “shock and awe”, without plans in place to deal with the hell you unleashed, well, you should not only be impeached, but convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment or worse, for crimes against humanity.
I think you summed it up quite well Scribe and then added some ribbon and bows and made a nice package.
Thanks for adding your words, they make sense.
Agressive nature of men.
Agression is not genetic, it is learned. Anthropological studies in matriarcal societies so indicate.
Put any species you want, and threaten a mothers offspring and you will see how agressive a feamale can be.
One musn’t discount the effects of testosterone on the human brain. As a male, I’m very aware of its effects on myself and on those ‘athletes’ that I have seen personally doing doses of extra testosterone to improve their ‘competitiveness’. It makes them extra aggressive.
Tetsosterone is not the only factor, and it never is. I believe that one of the main forcing factors in our current affairs is that while we have evolved to have large complex brains, our other systems have not caught up to the revolutionary impacts of this development. We are hormonally and instinctively tribal, but our brains allow for something much better. We have to train ourselves to control our hormonal and instinctive impulses. If an individual is caught in a struggle for survival, there is little time for developing or applying their higher potentials.
I still believe that argession and violence is culturally learned. Sex abused children are more likely to abuse other children. Similarly, those who are raised under totalitarian societies are more likely to seek violent solutions. It is a cycle that must be stoped.
I agree that as thinking rational entities, individual humans are taught more or less to struggle against and replace instinctive behaviors with higher, learned ones. If a parent has been taught faulty means and methods by their own parent, of identifying and meeting human agression, the lesson is passed to generation after generation. However, there is no disputing, I don’t believe, that we have instinctive behaviors evolved into our brains.
For example, when an individual is faced by an onrushing lion who may view that individual human as a threat or as a meal, the human will have an instinctive ‘fight or flight’ response, wherein their body will be flooded with corticosteroids and adrenalines, etc. This results in a temporary increase in ability of the individual to inflict violence against the lion, through increased bodily awareness and muscular strength, etc. It also increases the ability of the human to flee the dangerous situation by the same functions.
Likewise, if a human views another human as a threat, the bodily response will happen similarly, in varying degrees. Now, I have already said that our higher functions in our brains have provided us, individually, with the ability to learn to discriminate much more carefully what a real threat is. This is where we agree. Discriminating thinking and appropriate responses are learned.
When conditions of living are such that no resources are available for an individual to develop critical thinking, they are more likely to be ruled by the instinctive bodily responses, and to pass the purely instinctive methodologies down to their own children through training and indoctrination.
Diva asks me “WHAT kind of place is this booman tribune, that they would be so kind and offer so much help”, I say, “well we are like a big community and we are mostly all friends, and we help each other if there is a need or anyone if there is a need that we can fill.”
Then she says “I think what they need in Iraq is a Booman Tribune, maybe then people would develop empathy and love for their fellow man and help each other and solve this mess.”
She and her mother cannot get over the fact that strangers would be willing to help her, they just do not know this kind of thing in Iraq at all.
I am thinking this is an especially American Trait, just like in the early days of this country when a community would join together to do a barn raising and so on…and one that we can be proud of no matter that our leaders are marching us off to war and we look bad to the world for our war mongering, but the people of this country, this is what the people of US are like, just like this.
Forget bush’s mantra of spreading freedom/democracy(at gunpoint)around the world-looks like the best of bootrib should be spread far/wide-whoever says that all us keyboard bloggers are just taking up space or angry liberals don’t have a clue do they of just what a community like this can do.
I’m so happy diane that Diva is ok and that she is being helped by some friendly faces who really know her story-is she going to be able to talk to anyone do you know for her post traumatic stress? I don’t have any questions yet…just want to see her get settled as best she can right now. Has she heard from her Mother lately?
You are so right Chocolate about bootrib and the blog world…
good news she will be staying with someone the first week, versed in PTSD and I think she will have counseling available at U of K.
She talk to her mom everyday, she left her mom her cell phone as they do not have a land line where her mom lives…
Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could export the Bootrib and ‘Compassion in Action’ concept back to Iraq.
Diane, American people are very generous indeed. That is a good that this country should export in a massive way.
I would like to know what does Diva think of spliting the country so as to refrain any further violence.
I would also like to know whether she is Shia Sunni Kurd or Asyiran, so I can put her position into perspective.
Well I asked her about her ethnicity and she said she does not know, as many people there she is product of mixed marriages and Christian as well, just like here.
I will ask her about splitting the country, I suppose you mean into 3 parts….
one thing is apparent to me from our conversations and that was prior to Invasion of US most did not concern themselves with what sect they were, it simply did not matter for the most part. I wonder how much of this sectarianism is a result of US meddling, or perhaps it became an issue when potential power was concerned.
Since I am privy to many phone updates, I will try to answer this, but Diane will certainly correct me if I go astray.
She is Christian. And If I got it correctly, she doesn’t know or think of herself or her family this way, by the “divisions” that BushCo has insisted on making. She says there is a lot of intermarrying (inter-faith, inter-tribe, etc). And the way Diane told it to me it seemed like it was not the dominant theme for many Iraqi citizens (maybe in Bagdad) to place such labels on themselves as the ones our government insists everyone must fall into. She indicated it just is not like that.
If I got any of this wrong, I apologize and Diane will have the clarifying word on it.
I see Diane and I posted at the same time.
LOL
My girlfriend Diana is from Iran. She is Christian, Asyrian. There is a large Iraqi-Asyrian community, and I know that they are very identified with it. (I’m tiered of puting my foot in my mouth)Actually they dont call themselves Iranian or Iraqies.They are Asyrians.
It is good to know that she is not from any of the three manin groups, so I can take her perspective as unbiased.
BTW Please welcome her for me!!!