The surprising origins of the current Jihad

[solutions in a box]

Amazed by nothing

Mercator TSM

If you would bother to read the post you would realize that I said that I was amazed that ths type of info would appear in a prominent international trade journal.

How many kids have to die for big oil companies before you guys wake up and act like responsible adults?

post only a number please.

 

[The Smoking Man]

Mercator TSM

If you would bother to read the post you would realize that I said that I was amazed that ths type of info would appear in a prominent international trade journal.

How many kids have to die for big oil companies before you guys wake up and act like responsible adults?

post only a number please.

LOL.

I have re-read your post and stand by my interpretation of what you said.

Your expression of surprise followed by

My God if this is what is really happening in Afghanistan we have been lied to by our own government for over 20 years.

Even worse, I hate to think that this is what the rest of the world thinks of us. Other countries and many large companies are involved. But it appears that the USA is the ringleader.

led me to believe you had heard none of this before. Your subsequent plea,

I woud actually be very pleased if someone can disprove this informaton with a credible link. I can not seem to find one.

made it seem like you were wanting to deny it.

If we have misunderstood waht you were saying ... well I can only apologize for seeing it in my way.

 

[vanesch]

A straight answer to a straight question: I would find it offensive. Actually, I would find it more than offensive - it would be totally unacceptable and I would refuse to send my children to school. Children get subjected to enough damaging propaganda in the school system as it is.

I think you people are over-estimating the political agenda behind these "let's kill an atheist" schoolbook material. Now, this is only my opinion, based upon analoguous situations elsewhere, but I think that these Afghan schoolbooks are simply the result of highbrow research in "science of education". I'm sure that, before writing up those books, some great experts in science of education went to study the mental world of the future apprentice, and saw a lot of 8 year old kids with guns, counting their bullets, and saying that they wanted to become great mudjahedeen killing Russian heathen hounds.
In order to facilitate the internalisation of knowledge, and to attach abstract concepts to everyday world ideas, these experts then changed the vocabulary in existing teaching sequences in order to adapt the teachings to the local population and their perception of the world.
So they changed a typical Florida teaching book:
"8 chicks with big boobs are lying on the beach ; Joe comes along and gets laid with 3 of them at the same time, so how many chicks can Jack try to convince to have a party with ?"
into:
"8 Russian hounds are sitting in a tent, Mohammed shoots 3 of them, so how many can Rachid still try to shoot ?"

But the abstract concept to be interiorated is still the same:
8 - 3 = 5.

The wordings are only adapted to the concrete conceptual world of the apprentice, which changes.

See, no political agenda, just science of education

 

[The Smoking Man]

I think you people are over-estimating the political agenda behind these "let's kill an atheist" schoolbook material. Now, this is only my opinion, based upon analoguous situations elsewhere, but I think that these Afghan schoolbooks are simply the result of highbrow research in "science of education". I'm sure that, before writing up those books, some great experts in science of education went to study the mental world of the future apprentice, and saw a lot of 8 year old kids with guns, counting their bullets, and saying that they wanted to become great mudjahedeen killing Russian heathen hounds.
In order to facilitate the internalisation of knowledge, and to attach abstract concepts to everyday world ideas, these experts then changed the vocabulary in existing teaching sequences in order to adapt the teachings to the local population and their perception of the world.
So they changed a typical Florida teaching book:
"8 chicks with big boobs are lying on the beach ; Joe comes along and gets laid with 3 of them at the same time, so how many chicks can Jack try to convince to have a party with ?"
into:
"8 Russian hounds are sitting in a tent, Mohammed shoots 3 of them, so how many can Rachid still try to shoot ?"

But the abstract concept to be interiorated is still the same:
8 - 3 = 5.

The wordings are only adapted to the concrete conceptual world of the apprentice, which changes.

See, no political agenda, just science of education

If you get an 'A' you are Mujahadeen.

If you get an 'F' you are a suicide bomber?

 

[vanesch]

If you get an 'A' you are Mujahadeen.

If you get an 'F' you are a suicide bomber?

Exactly ! Apple figured that one out long ago And if you get 5 "mujahedeen" stamps in a row, you get a picture of Ben Laden

Education is all just a matter of making contact with the conceptual world the apprentice lives in

 

[Art]

Exactly ! Apple figured that one out long ago And if you get 5 "mujahedeen" stamps in a row, you get a picture of Ben Laden

Education is all just a matter of making contact with the conceptual world the apprentice lives in

So in Texas instead of 10 Green Bottles... the children sing;

One oil barrel sitting on a wall
One oil barrel sitting on a wall
And if 1 muslim country should accidently fall
There'll be 2 oil barrels sitting on the wall

 

[Mercator]

Mercator TSM

If you would bother to read the post you would realize that I said that I was amazed that ths type of info would appear in a prominent international trade journal.

How many kids have to die for big oil companies before you guys wake up and act like responsible adults?

post only a number please.

Cool down. Alexander's is part of my daily reading fodder. If you look in the archives you will find many more pearls you never knew existed. If you would, like me, work in the industry and follow what's happening in the energy sector, you would not be surprised to find that most of the big world events are linked to it. Talk to any honest man working in the petro/petrochemical business (s***, THAT's and oxymoron) and ask him who in the industry did NOT know that Iraq as well as Afghanistan is all about oil, they wiil laugh in your face. They are all cynics, laughing behind the backs of people believing that there are "higher" motives behind the events in the ME and Eurasia.

But to answer your question: 0 . My tolerance was exhausted long time ago. Yes, I'm a cynic in my own way. But now and then I kick b***s and only of the ones on top of me, if you know what I mean. No political motivation or such, just a small retribution for all the dirt I have seen in my life. And guess what, I enjoy it!
Now tell me, what is YOUR number? How many kids have to die for you to stop playing innocent?

 

[solutions in a box]

Innocents long lost

Mercator:

Great post:

Thanks for a straight forward reply. I actually think I needed that.

I also have many links from Alexanders and dozens of others saved.

I lost my innocents as it applies to the world, at age 19 in Vietnam, where I was involved in "operaton Phoenix".

My view of the world changed forever. The world situation hasn't changed at all.

My number of is also 0.

I think I just came here to vent my frustration.

 

[Rev Prez]

The current "jihad" is somewhat amorphous - because it involves a broad network of groups.

A characterization that held four, ten and even twenty years ago. In short, the "current" jihad looks a lot like the old one: a significant terrorist body politic related to smaller, autonomous organizations through little more than common cause and the more than occasional recycling of personnel. There is a slight difference in technical means available to terrorists, and in an extreme domain a frightening increase in lethality, but for the most part it's still a few thousand largely intrastate or transnational yokels with conventional explosives and cheap small arms from the former Eastern block and China.

Rev Prez

 

[vanesch]

Talk to any honest man working in the petro/petrochemical business (s***, THAT's and oxymoron) and ask him who in the industry did NOT know that Iraq as well as Afghanistan is all about oil, they wiil laugh in your face.

Oh, I'd say that if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I think these oil people take themselves for more important and influencial than they really are, and no, Iraq and Afghanistan were not ALL about oil. It was a factor, but far from the only one. Hey, what happened to the nuclear sector ? Those people were once said to be the players behind the scenes for almost everything that happened, and now the field is almost non-existing (I know, I'm part of it).

 

[loseyourname]

In many parts of the world, water is the single most politically significant commodity, and it will only become more so as populations continue to grow, especially in fast-growing areas like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Orange County, that exist in deserts. Unlike oil, we cannot simply make the problem go away by switching to alternatives, either. You can't just start drinking methanol instead.

 

[Art]

In many parts of the world, water is the single most politically significant commodity, and it will only become more so as populations continue to grow, especially in fast-growing areas like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Orange County, that exist in deserts. Unlike oil, we cannot simply make the problem go away by switching to alternatives, either. You can't just start drinking methanol instead.

If you start drinking methanol it will definitely make the problem go away: permanently. lol

 

[The Smoking Man]

You can't just start drinking methanol instead.

Shpeak for yershelf

It is funny but now that you bring it up, agencies and organizations like One World for example have been putting the stress on water for decades now. They have even been instrumentat in attempting to place water as a 'basic human right'. (http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/115220/1/ )

What many first world countries mistakenly think is that they need oil and industrialization to make them truly happy.

I first became aware of the problem about twenty years ago when I watched a program by Dr. David Suzuki who was filming in Mexico.

In this particular piece he was standing in the corner a dry arid field that met three other corners of three other fields below a hill.

He explained that just over the hill was a farm surrounded by a chain link fence where he had been forbidden to film by local authorities and the owner of the land ... the Dole corporation.

It seems the farms he now stood on were now abandoned because the local farmers had no water to irrigate their crops and they had been forbidden by local ordinance from digging deeper wells.

Over the hill, the Dole corporation had set up a pinapple farm and had sunk wells that sucked so much water out of the ground they had effected the water table.

The four families were now living in Mexico City.

Here is some more news on Coke apparently some Universities DO issue endorsements.

Our man from Del Monte also sleazes around in ajoining fields to Dole, http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2096/.

 

[Mercator]

Oh, I'd say that if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I think these oil people take themselves for more important and influencial than they really are, and no, Iraq and Afghanistan were not ALL about oil. It was a factor, but far from the only one. Hey, what happened to the nuclear sector ? Those people were once said to be the players behind the scenes for almost everything that happened, and now the field is almost non-existing (I know, I'm part of it).

Let's say energy sector.