Bush supports a racist agenda !

The BBQ Pit
1

So we all know Bush is behind the new Iraqi constitution right ?

Well I just found this little tidbit supposedly tucked away in this new constitution.

For those who think we are talking about a nationality, not a “race”, consider the statement “ten years for an Arab or twenty years for any other nationality”. Pretty sloppy, after all there is no such thing as an Arab nationality, but it is fairly clear to me ambiguity in definition of the term “nationality” allows for ambiguity in the difference between Israeli and Jew. That is not saying a strict interpretation of the term Israeli isn’t bad enough.

I can’t understand why the Kurds let this one pass. Puts a Kurd in a second class category.

This is a great excuse for pulling out. I can’t understand any justification for supporting a racist constitution. You would think the American “liberals” would be all over this one.

2

Ooops !

I thought I was in the Pit.

3

Whta odd reasoning. Yes, be is “behind” the constituion, but behind ≠ beging behind every jot and titel.

4

I hit submit instead of preview. :smack: That shoul;d read "

What odd reasoning. Yes, be is “behind” the constitution, but behind ≠ being behind every jot and title. "

5

“Tittle,” not title.

6

:smack: , part the third.

7

This thread is not starting out very well

8

For a whole host of reasons. (Hint: My bad spelling is not the worst part. Perhaps the blame lays elsewhere…)

9

Relax, no big deal. Don’t take it personally, but do you have to spell check all your posts?

10

Off to The Pit.

Cajun Man
for the SDMB

11

Meh. Many countries have multiple tiered citizenship/residency laws. Israel, in fact, has one of the more famous ones, but Germany does as well (or at least they did until very recently-- not sure if it’s been changed).

12

True enough.

But do either of those countries specifically prohibit the members of any other particular individual nation from ever becoming citizens?

(This is not merely a rhetorical question. I don’t know the answer.)

13

Plus what about Israeli Arabs? Do they make the cut, or no?

14

The OP didn’t say Bush wrote it. It said he supported it. Which he does. In fact, Bush is putting a lot of energy, not to mention American lives, behind this racist constitution. Germany and Israel’s racist constitutions are not Bush’s responsibility-- Iraq’s is.

15

Well, not too put too fine a point on it, if we are going to maintain that Iraq has the right to determine their own fate in a manner of their choosing we have to allow them to set up their rules the way they want to set them up. The constitution was drafted by (perhaps not “freely”) elected representatives who simply carried out the “will of the people”, as it were.

If we are supposedly fostering “democracy” we have to allow them the make their own rules. You may not like it, Bush may not like it, 49.9% of the Iraqi people may not like it, but if it’s in the Constitution and it passes it’s the law of the land. Welcome to democracy.

Or does it only count when the laws that other countries live by are ones that you approve of?

16

So, Airman, it’s fine and dandy that our countrymen are dying to put this racist constitution into place? There should be no sense of outrage over this? We should just not mention it because, well, it’s fostering democracy-- sort of.

This war is a colossal fuck up from top to bottom, front and back and now you are trying to tell me it should be all right for our country to be fighting to uphold discrimination in some forgein land? I don’t think so. Bush supports a racist constitution with the blood of Americans. He should stop doing that. You should be pissed that he is.

17

That’s an interesting question. Is “democracy” really nothing more than majority rule? Or does true democracy also require some baseline of human and civil rights, including racial equality?

It’s a debatable point, and I don’t think the answer is necessarily as simple as “democracy means the majority can do whatever they want”.

18

What makes you think that I’m not pissed off? I’ve lost 5 friends over there. Dead. My sister is about to get her marching orders to Baghdad. I’m going over for at least 2 months on Thursday. None of this is a good thing, especially because we were supposed to be gone by now.

But that doesn’t change the fact that by giving them the freedom of self-determination we should allow them to, well, determine for themselves how they want to live. If we have any integrity at all we’ll allow them to do so, come what may. It’s hardly a democracy if an outside body interferes. With any luck they’ll learn just as we have, but they have to be allowed to make their own mistakes. If that means that the citizenship rules are jacked, well, that’s the price we have to pay. If that means that women remain second-class citizens, sorry, but that’s their prerogative.

Or we can just set up a puppet government and stay there forever. I much prefer option 1.

19

Too bad not everybody there is going to actually have that freedom of self-determinism.

20

Well then, I agree with you except for the part where we actually support the racist agenda. When they put in the “everybody but Isrealites” clause in, we should have said, “Nice. Go with that if you like. We just won’t be a party to it.” Sure, we don’t shouldn’t tell them what should be in their constitution but we shouldn’t be fighting for something so fundamentally undemocratic.
P.S. We have a very nice democracy. One of the things that we have that makes it nice is a bicameral legislature. To sheild us from the tyranny of the majority.