So sailor, the wogs WANT tyranny, they LOVE dictatorship? I mean, who are we to help them form a government responsive to the population, when everyone knows that the ignorant Ay-rabs just wanna be brutalized? So we will have to FORCE the wogs to be free, since everyone knows they hate and despise freedom?
Bullshit.
Even if you all thought the war was a huge mistake, anyone who advocates unilaterally pulling out of Iraq is not a morally serious person. We have an obligation to establish some form of representative government in Iraq. It doesn’t have to be a mirror image of ours, but we have a moral obligation to prevent the takeover of Iraq by a resurgent Baath party, or Iranian-style theocrats, or any other dictatorial assholes. And before anyone gets any ideas, I’m including friendly to america dictators.
Lemur866, the USA is not assuring the interests of the Iraqis, it is assuring the interest of the USA. France proposed a UN plan to devolve authority to an Iraqi government as soon as possible and the USA has rejected that. The USA is not going to allow the Iraqi people to freely choose their leaders and their form of government. The USA is going to assure that it implements a puppet regime friendly to the USA which will lack all legitimacy.
Do you watch the news these days? Do you see the American vehicles on fire after being attacked? Do you see the Iraquis cheering? Do you see the oil pipes on fire? If there is one thing Iraqis cann agree on is that they want the Americans out. The US is not giving the Iraqi people what they want, it is taking it away. It is taking away their freedom to elect their government and has imposed a puppet government on them, This is going to lead to divisions and to great damage to Iraq.
Yesterday I posted this link
Today the same link has different information:
I have seen the footage many times. I have seen too many Iraqis celebrating after attacks on US troops to believe they want anything else but the Americans to leave. That is their will but the USA is making sure it can stay for a long time to come. If America wanted the good of the Iraqi people it would act very differently. It only wants oil and power and could not care less about the Iraqis. It should not be in Iraq killing innocent Iraqis every day.
Bush intends to stay in Iraq as long as needed to manipulate the whole thing. Probably at least a couple of years to implement and oversee a puppet government and then decades of military occupation to keep them in line. Great way to assure the “freedom” of a people. they are free to like the Ameicans and the rest can be shot as traitors.
I think its going to take a lot more time to get everything settled. Whatevcer your opinion of how things have been going, it would be a REAL crime to simply throw Iraq to the wolves right now - both in and outside the government.
Yes, it may be that we are forcing them to do our bidding right now, but if we do it right, they can gain confidence and build a political middle way democracy. The poll numbers I’ve cited (very sorry, I can’t recall the odd series of blog hyperlinks that took me to the official poll data) indicate a growing surge of support for that, anyway, and it needs time to gain strength and drown out the extremists.
In other words: they have complete freedom to choose any system they want as long as it is of the liking of the USA. You call that freedom? Because I sure don’t.
The fact is that so far the Iraqis are pretty much united against the Americans but my impression is that the longer the USA remains, the more divided Iraq will become and Iraqis will start killing each other (as well as Americans) for collaborating etc.
The US is bound by international law ( as if that matters to the US) to repair the damage caused through bombing, shelling, missile strikes, and general warfare.
This much is absolutely clear and plainly stated in all international areements that the US has signed, many of which the US had a part in designing initially.
While people worldwide are polarized as to whether or not the US has become a brutally aggressive nation driven by motives of pure corporate greed and dogmatic xenophobia, ( which can be argued either way quite easily), the facts remain unchanged. The US is bound (by the laws it helped create) to pay for it’s actions.
I personally expect the US to secure and control the oil flow while overall telling the severely hurting Iraqi people to take a flying leap. (Much like they’ve effectively told the Afghanis). In recent months the lack of American respect for international law and any semblance of real humane justice has become apparent to those who gather information from any sources outside America.
You know I’ve seen that link somewhere before…last time I posted this:
Bush avenges Kurdish massacre - oil not a factor
From your link:
"When we left mid-June, 57 mass graves had been found, one with the bodies of 1,200 children. There have been credible reports of murder, brutality and torture of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Iraqi citizens. "
Yes, there were terrible things done by Saddam. The worst of these was when he used chemical weapons in Northern Iraq, killing thousands. Two tiny points, which your correspondent above seems strangely unaware of:
the massacres happened over a decade ago. At the time there was no call from any Republican to do anything about it. You see, Saddam was then an ally of the US.
the man who sold most of the chemical + biological weapons to Saddam (principally for use against Iran, but there was enough left to commit the massacre above) has been pictured shaking hands with Saddam while on his arms selling tour. Fortunately Bush will not need extradition papers to arrest this man, since Donald Rumsfeld is believed to be somewhere in the US.
But since you claim to be knowledgeable on the subject (despite thinking that a local newspaper printing the views of a man who visited Iraq once is the last word on the subject) , perhaps you could answer this simple quiz:
which organisation first brought Saddam to power?
what originally did they hire him to do?
who sold Saddam WMD’s for use in the Iraq-Iran war (and was pictured shaking hands with Saddam)?
which think tank contains many of the Bush cabinet and planned attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq + others many years ago?
which group of companies got sole access to reconstruction contracts in Iraq?
how many of these companies make donations to a US political party (and which one)?
how many of these companies had a member of the Bush cabinet as a director?
what is the geographical significance of Afghanistan to a certain oil pipeline?
what change in Saudi Arabia can now take place since Saddam has been overthrown?
what organisation demanded this change?
which ally of the US forged documents about a Saddam nuke?
which ally of the US lied in claiming Saddam was going to attack its bases, and that he would be able to do so in 45 minutes?
which ally of the US knew before the war that the invasion would be likely to increase terrorism in the area?