If democracy can work anywhere at all in the Middle East, it will work in Iraq. That is one major reason why we are starting there (aside from Idiot Hussein making himself an easy target). As I said, it is an experiment, but I am confident that the Iraqi people will succeed. They are fairly secular, Khan, not just the government. Witness the free Kurdish areas in the north. But we will see.
I'm confident...or at least hopeful...in and for the Iraqi people: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_conquered_town_2&printer=1 U.S. Marines Rip Down Saddam Portraits Fri Mar 21, 9:41 AM ET By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press Writer SAFWAN, Iraq - U.S. Marines hauled down giant street portraits of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in a screeching pop of metal and bolts Friday, telling nervous residents of this southern Iraqi town that "Saddam is done." Milling crowds of men and boys watched as the Marines attached ropes on the front of their Jeeps to one portrait and then backed up, peeling the Iraqi leader's black-and-white metal image off a frame. Some locals briefly joined Maj. David "Bull" Gurfein in a new cheer. "Iraqis! Iraqis! Iraqis!" Gurfein yelled, pumping his fist in the air. "We wanted to send a message that Saddam is done," said Gurfein, a New York native in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "People are scared to show a lot of emotion. That's why we wanted to show them this time we're here, and Saddam is done." The Marines arrived in Safwan, just across the Kuwait border, after Cobra attack helicopters, attack jets, tanks, 155 mm howitzers and sharpshooters cleared the way along Route 80, the main road into Iraq (news - web sites). Safwan, 375 miles south of Baghdad, is a poor, dirty, wrecked town pocked by shrapnel from the last Gulf war (news - web sites). Iraqi forces in the area sporadically fired mortars and guns for hours Thursday and Friday. Most townspeople hid, although residents brought forth a wounded little girl, her palm bleeding after the new fighting. Another man said his wife was shot in the leg by the Americans. A few men and boys ventured out, putting makeshift white flags on their pickup trucks or waving white T-shirts out truck windows. "Americans very good," Ali Khemy said. "Iraq wants to be free." Some chanted, "Ameriki! Ameriki!" Many others in the starving town just patted their stomachs and raised their hands, begging for food. A man identifying himself only as Abdullah welcomed the arrival of the U.S. troops: "Saddam Hussein is no good. Saddam Hussein a butcher." An old woman shrouded in black — one of the very few women outside — knelt toward the feet of Americans, embracing an American woman. A younger man with her pulled her away, giving her a warning sign by sliding his finger across his throat. In 1991, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died after prematurely celebrating what they believed was their liberation from Saddam after the Gulf War. Some even pulled down a few pictures of Saddam then — only to be killed by Iraqi forces. Gurfein playfully traded pats with a disabled man and turned down a dinner invitation from townspeople. "Friend, friend," he told them in Arabic learned in the first Gulf War. "We stopped in Kuwait that time," he said. "We were all ready to come up there then, and we never did." The townspeople seemed grateful this time. "No Saddam Hussein!" one young man in headscarf told Gurfein. "Bush!"
Max, that is a great article. Seeing people with no hope have hope again is an awesome thing. I want these people to have what many of us (including myself often) take for granted daily.
I find great humor in this post. The Bush Admin and many Americans are currently very upset at France, for behaving like a democracy is supposed to behave. The vast majority of the French were against the war with Iraq and wanted France to veto the US/UK UNSC war resolution. A democratic Iraq may very well be run by conservative Muslims (since the Shiites are the largest group of people in Iraq). A conservative Muslim democracy in Iraq may not be the right "type" of democracy, in the eyes of most Americans.
i'm glad you find humor in it. you find it to be hopeless...i don't. next. the united states didn't act as a democracy because we're using that word loosely...it acted as a representative democracy..where we elect leaders who make decisons. no, we don't take straw polls...though if we did right now, the war would continue. when we talk about democracy in the middle east, we're really just saying that the people have some form of self-rule as opposed to theocracy. i don't know whether or not direct democracy would work there better than representative democracy would...but since we really haven't had real direct democracy anywhere in the world since ancient Athens, i'm betting they would model our government.
Oski, was it you who questioned my assumption before this war of Iraqis dancing in the Streets? Just want to collect my dues here.
So, I guess that means the rest of the world, including yourself, is upset at the United States for acting like a democracy, since the majority of people here are for the war with Iraq?
I think that we're upset with the French people for being idiots who are incapable of understanding th security threat, but moreso with the government for stabbing us in the back. But then the French have been stabbing us in the back for nearly 40 years, so maybe we're upset more with the pattern of behavior they have displayed towards us? Withdrawing from NATO, tipping off Radovan Karadzic *twice* that snatch operations were coming, passing intelligence to the Iraqis pertaining to No-Fly operations, busting sanctions against Iraq... The list is long. It didn't just start six months ago.
Just before the war started, only 47% of Americans were for the Iraq war without a UN vote. If the United States decides not to offer any new resolutions on Iraq and goes forward with military action without a new U.N. vote at all, half of Americans would oppose an invasion of Iraq, while 47% would be in favor. I am only posting this poll to suggest that the overwhelming majority of Americans were not unconditionally either for or against the war. BTW, I am more upset with the duplicity from the Bush Admin about the war than the war itself. I am also very upset with the Bush Admin's lack of effect in diplomacy.
That is exactly why the UN will never work, each country has it's own agenda, and in most cases the problems before the UN are not universally supported by the world. Kosovo in 98 for example, Russia threatened to Veto the military action, and France and Germany asked us to go ahead and attack Milosovic, so we did. Now we ask for their support on a similar matter and they refuse....... Shows who your true friends are doesn't it. DD
exactly..it's just so entirely inconsistent...one minute they're blaming us for being unilateralist...the next they're asking us to work alone to solve some world problem. at the very least, the stature of the UN is way diminished in the eyes of most americans in the wake of all of this.
Exactly. Russia also won't tolerate resolutions on Chechnya. China won't of Tibet and India of Kashmir. In the UN's 58-year history, each of the five permanent Council members has gone to war or invaded another country without Council approval. No Worries, I think we all agree with you on the diplomatic side. But to call it an American diplomatic failure is unwarranted. Seven months were dedicated by this administration to work this out diplomatically. It took the U.N. security council over three years to wrestle with the Kosovo matter until Clinton spearheaded the NATO effort. As for the administration's 'duplicity' they would be further critiqued if they went in unilaterally. Hey, I don't care for us buying countries loyalty either but the lives of our troops and innocent Iraqis are at stake. We need this support. Whether it be intel, military, or medical all effort should be put in to preserve and protect the sanctity of life on the battlefield and in Iraq. Whatever your position I think we can agree on that.
Well having the UN come in after Iraq, will help defray the cost. Those that say Iraqi oil will pay for reconstruction may be right, but it should be up to the Iraqi people. The Iraqis should have control of their country, they should be the ones to decide if France has a hand in the new Iraq, or if the U.S. has a hand in it. The idea is supposed to be give the country to the Iraqi people. Any talk about who gets what is hopefully just speculation. If it turns out that this wasn't really a war for Iraqi independence, and the U.S. ends up administering post war Iraq, then the French, Germans, Russians, Chinese, and world popular opinion would have been right after all.
I am pretty sure the Iraqi people will have no problem with their oil building roads, schools, and rebuilding their country. DD
I think the Iraqis will have a choice when it comes to the former but not the latter. The US has already let out contracts to US firms for rebuilding Iraq.
This is what bothers me the most because I fear one will contradict the other. Should our presense be entirely millitary instead for peacekeeping then it raises the issue of imperialist occupation instead of democratic reconstruction. This circumstance is entirely different than our millitary occupation of Japan and Germany. Diplomatic: Bush has already commited to Tony Blair about bringing the reconstruction of Iraq to the UN. Blair has been the main proponent of reconstruction through this route. It was Britain who gave us the most credibility in the "international coalition of the willing". We could stab him in the back, make our international standing worse, and give more fodder to the conspiracy theorists. And it wouldn't surprise me. All of the world wants to know how we're handling Iraq in order to gauge how we will react to other areas of the world. We need all the diplomatic effort in order to contain N. Korea right now because the bulk of our naval and ground power is in Iraq. A millitary occupation could spark more arms proliferation in Iran, China and even US friendly Muslim nations. Shock and awe might embolden instead of frighten. Iraq isn't the last problem in our international agenda, but we're acting like it is. Economic: The oil fields will defray the costs of reconstruction, but the estimated costs of the war is around 70-80 billion and the reconstruction costs are estimated to be around that or even more. With diplomatic goodwill on life support, nations aren't going to line up to donate money if it looks like we're occupying and dictating Iraq while in transition. In the first Gulf War, we paid around 5% of the total costs where Japan, Kuwait, Europe, and Iraqi reparations paid the rest. That's a lot of money, and sponsor countries will want to feel like they have some influence in determining where their money goes. We would too. Defense: Currently, 1/4 of the entire British forces are deployed to Iraq. The logistics of supplying an occupying force to maintain security in Iraq would strain their millitary capacity. This means that it will be mostly an American force in Iraq should the UN not participate. Furthermore, without international legitimacy, it will provide radical opposition forces more credibility. A possibility of terror attacks and sabotage on our millitary isn't far fetched. And in the right perspective, our response could generate press like the Israelis have faced. A larger peacekeeping coalition like the one operating in Afghanistan would lessen tensions in the Arab world to a great degree, and it would give a greater opportunity to work past the events leading up to the war. So... we have a lot to gain by going though the UN for reconstruction. There's less chance for inciting uproar if a millitary scandal happens there, and it would disprove a lot of fears that the rest of the world would have. Economically, we wouldn't feel the crunch from maintaining the occupation and funding reconstruction alone, and having to pay the bulk of the war costs ourselves. Plus, our planners have said that we would stay there in no more than 5 years. Germany and Japan took longer than that. A UN approval could ease tensions if reconstruction takes longer than planned. And terrorist acts wouldn't appear as justified as it would be in the Arab world if the forces aren't entirely American. Iraq is a multiethnic nation. We can appease some groups inside the border, but we can't appease all. So what about France? This isn't the first time that the French has gotten in our way and it won't be the last. But if we build a general consensus in the UN, then they will be forced to abstain or else look weak in the international standing. We might not even need to compromise if we play our cards right. We would have to downplay our dominant involvement in rebuilding Iraq and put emphasis on token international peacekeeping, even if what's happening is far from the truth. This is what we've done for the past 50 years. It sounds like we're giving the other countries too much clout, but really it gives their leaders something to advertise back home to their people. And it doesn't make us look hated either. Going through the UN would put less of a strain on the War on Terrorism, our economy, and less the danger of our soldiers occupying Iraq. This isn't a new idea. It's what we've done in Bosnia and Afghanistan. Why take the harder path and stiff countries we will eventually need some time or other?
