Posted on 11/19/2006 4:34:49 AM PST by billorites
Edited on 11/19/2006 4:54:05 AM PST by Lead Moderator. [history]
WE HAVE given the Iraqis a republic and they do not appear able to keep it.
Americans flatter themselves that they are the root of all planetary evil. Nukes in North Korea? Poverty in Bolivia? Sectarian violence in Iraq?
Breasts are beaten and fingers pointed as we try to somehow locate the root cause in America.
(Excerpt) Read more at unionleader.com ...
Boy, you gotta carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time
Boy, you gotta carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time
(jmo)
We should have broken Iraq up into three states, or imposed a federal system; parlimentary democracy is notoriously unstable unless everyone is already pretty much in agreement.
Laura Ingraham interviewed a Medal of Honor recipient (Viet Nam era) this past week. He said that the roots of all failure in Iraq can be traced back to Bremer's decisions to not order the shooting of the looters, and to not require the disarming of the citizenry. Good points, I think.
remind me again why wwe are still in Europe and Asia after all these years after the wars?
But Iraq IS picking up the load.
It is just that they are carrying it in a manner to which Americans are not accustomed to seeing.
The right solution for Iran may have been to allow the formation of Kurdistan, Mesopotamia and Assyria from the territories that are Kurdish, Shi'a, and Sunni. By this division, the Sunni would have been cut out of the localities where petroleum resources are plentiful, and the logical course would have been join the Assyrian Sunnis to either Saudi Arabia or Syria. Kurdistan would most likely expand across existing international boundaries into Iran, Turkey, Syria and Azerbaijan, which if the governing powers of thes countries had the sense the Lord gave a goose, they would willing cede the territory to the Kurds, just to be rid of a very troublesome minority. And the Mesopotamia Shi'ites would at this point, probably become allies with Iran.
But this is not a rational world.
Goodness, doesn't anyone see Bush's vision? Right smack dab in the middle of a region
where people are surround by dictatorships, repressive gov't's, extreme Islam, you have
the biggest nation becoming a democracy hopefully speading it's tenticles far and wide
taking care of terrorism where it originates so we don't have to take care of it as much
in the future!
I don't think, this vision is a lost cause in it's infancy. This WOT is just as big as WWII
and more crucial to our survival. This WOT, over there will last at least a generation!
You better be patient America, or our cities are going to be lit up like bondfires.
Point:
If I'm thinking this way as a conservative backer of this WOT how do you think most fencesitting moderates are thinking about that headline?
May I join you in your point of view. Thanks for putting your thoughts down so well. jan
In Iraq the famous quote, "A Democracy is three wolves and two sheep voting on what to have for dinner" certainly applies. The separation of Church and State must be mandated in the Iraqi Constitution or all our efforts there may only serve to establish a theocratic sharia Muslim government that is more allied with the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran then with the U.S. Then the slaughter between the different religious factions in Iraq will be as bad or worse then it was under Saddam.
In retrospect, I think we made several serious mistakes -- not shooting looters, not installing an Iraqi exile government right away, and not taking out Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army in its infancy in 2004 -- that greatly compromised the occupation.
It's still not to late to do some of the above...however
Are the Arabs intrinsically incapable of democracy, as the "realists" imply?
I guess I'm a "realist" because I think the Arabs are intrinsically incapable of democracy. It is alien to their 1000 year old culture of theocracy.
We went into Iraq and got rid of Saddam. We are obliged to ensure the Iraqis achieve better conditions that they have now.
Anti-war folks say we should have concentrated on fighting Al Qaeda (and other deadly forms of Islamic fascism) rather than Saddam. Al Qaeda and other deadly forms of Islamic fascism are now fighting in Iraq, so why should we leave now?
In less than 3 years, under President Truman, we lost 30,000 men in Korea.
I agree. At the Battle of Normandy alone, over a 90 day period, American troops alone lost approximately 10,000 soldiers.
thanks for posting... didn't realize the two main Shiite groups in Iraq were increasingly coming into conflict creating the possibility of a new more moderate cross-sectarian political realignment... maybe this way Iran's and Al Qaeda's influence can get squeezed out. according to Mr. Krauthammer:
"Such a coalition was almost created after the latest Iraqi elections.
It needs to be attempted again. One can tinker with American tactics or troop levels from today until doomsday. But unless the Iraqis can put together a government of unitary purpose and resolute action, the simple objective of this war -- to leave behind a self-sustaining democratic government -- is not attainable."
Tribalism cannot govern a democracy. Theocracy cannot govern a democracy. Until tribalism is abolished and theocracy is abolished, there won't be democracy. Democracy in iraq is a pipe-dream by people who need yet another evolving excuse for a continual misapplication of military power. The answer to the WOT is not democracy in iraq, but defeat of iran and syria.
You are exactly right! I may disagree with Bush on a lot of domestic issues, but for the most part - his vision on the WOT is farsighted and history will show he was right on!
Yes! Look at a map people! I was having trouble with it too, until one day I printed out a map of the Middle East and suddenly it became crystal clear to me. Iran is surrounded by Afghanistan and Iraq - our presence there is crucial right now.
Where I think missteps were made were mostly after that whole Abu Graib debacle and Bush felt forced to wage a "kinder, gentler war" - which everyone knows you cannot win. The libs latched onto Abu Graib (and to this day, I think lib implants brought that whole thing about) and it was downhill from there. But still, the Iraqi people, by and large, have put their lives on the line for a chance to make their own government. People want freedom and for us to pull out now would be absolute disaster.
Hindsight is always 20/20 and it's easy for arm-chair generals to say, after the fact, what should have been done, but history will show George Bush stepped up to the plate and did what the rest of the world should have been doing in the Middle East.
I just wish he had been as firm with the democrats as he has been with the terrorists.
Also an acknowledgement by our government that most funding for the Islamic terrorists comes from the whabbiland of our ally Saudi Arabia, and that our enemy is given safe haven in the mountains of our other ally, Pakistan.
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