isn't intervention (ie iraq war) in itself denying their own right to fight for self determination? are you saying a third country/party started the american revolution or civil war?
sure we are the dictator and whether or not we object to the sides splitting is irrelevant to your question. genocide is hypothetcal as regards how an all out civil war would end if we left and comparing the the pre-intervention regime to the current situation is like comparing a steaming pile of **** to a steaming pile of ****. difference is now we also smell like ****. they are currently fighting for their self determination in iraq and whether it will be better than living under sadam is unknown. does it matter to you how many die before there is peace after this civil war?
Depends if the civil war is really going to end in self-determination. The vast majority of civil wars in Africa lead to no such thing - they ultimately just result in a new, ultimately corrupt, dictatorship. The civil wars that you described were all in countries with basic infrastructure so people can worry about something about beyond just finding basics to get through the day. The ones I described are at the other extreme - in many African nations, the ability to find food and water on a daily basis takes precedence over what type of government you have. Iraq is somewhere in the middle. Beyond that, this "civil war" has too many outside players - international terrorists, US troops, etc. And too many outside countries that have an interest in the end result due to the oil reserves, ensuring that the result won't truly be self-determination.
C'mon now - I know most of you guys don't WANT to say its better to have a civil war than to be under a despot. Only insane man has come forward to say it so far. The rest of you are hell bent on bickering over alternate histories and sub-track questions. Let's get to the point. In this world we (the US) made the choice - if an agreement is not reached with the coalition goverment (which I know we all still hope for) and the three big groups start to duke it out - is that better than continuing to live under a despot. It strikes at the heart of our own country's foundation. Stop the avoidance and just answer the damn question. Please.
I don't see how that is possible since those who wished to have self determination had empirically been unable to overcome Saddam's apparatus. Nope. Not saying that. There was third party involvement - but I think I may be missing your point. If you want to elaborate I'm happy to respond!
why can't accept the fact that your question is flawed in the first place as what alot of people here been pointing out.. would you answer a flawed question?
The Iraqi people are picking their own representatives - I fail to see how that corresponds to a dictatorship. True. Good point! That, my friend, is the question! You've worked through it! What do YOU think? We are speculating here, obviously - none of us can claim that our speculation is 'the truth.'
But they did that and Saddam killed 300,000 shiites and a couple hundred thousand Kurds when they rose up against him. I think like you, I wish they had been successful. But we cannot go into the past. I am asking about what is GOING to happen. Thank you, though, for your honest and rich answer!
Just so. Very good point and thank you for pointing that out! I didn't actually see you describe any particular civil wars - but Iraq is not Africa last I checked. There is no indication that a divided Iraq would have problems with basic substanance. Besides it begs the question - whether or not the effect of their choice is bad, is it better for them to choose or to be under a despot? That is the question at hand. 'Ensuring that the result won't truly be self-determination' is completely out of the blue. You can't possibly support that statement, Major. I value your opinion - for sure - and thank you for expressing it - but that is way over the top. You declare an endgame when you have no basis to do so.
Silly, its not just mutants, its ALL superheros. pfft....ignorance In this case, the Civil War is caused by the governments passing of the act, Captain America is opposed to it and says that passing it will cause a civil war. Therefore you can't be on Captain America's side, because he is against the government causing a civil war. You are actually on Iron Man's side.
Hmmm. Thank you for your insight. They 'fall' to whom? Please explain - I know its a pain, but again I don't understand.
Actually I haven't seen an explanation that it is a flawed question. But if you'd like to explain I will surely respond. Thanks for the input!
DOH! Foiled again! Hmmm, ok I stand corrected. My experience from Captain America was when he was fighting the Red Skeleton Nazi dude. I always liked Iron Man - Stark Industries baby!
the us has completely screwed up this country by trying to make everybody happy if Iraq enters into a full-scale civil war, the state has a good chance to fracture due to its artificial nature....each main group would then have an outside sponsor step-in to support it....kurds will receive help from other kurds in neighboring countries, shi'is will get aid from iran, and sunnis from arab states...i dont think this scenario is anyone's best interest if people are just interested in stability, then i'm not sure a dictatorship can even get it done, because of the organized resistance groups all three sides have at their disposal either way a lot of people are dying and will continue to do so, which is unfortunate and this can be placed sqaurely on the shoulders of washington the best chance for an improvement in the situation is to stop trying to satisfy everybody...shut the sunnis out, put down the resistance, which is mainly sunni fueled, and allow for majority rule....stop allocating positions within government strictly for women, relgious, and ethnic minorities....trying to make everybody happy is a recipe for disaster the problem is that the us wont allow for majority rule, because that would mean the shi'is dominating the iraqi govt and thats a no-no, because of their ties to iran it seems that its the recalcitrance and unrealistic goals of the us that will continue to screw-up iraq
Ok, no offense but the rest of your post isn't really relevant to the question. This part is, though, and I thank you for offering your opinion! If Iraq split into three states - each of the Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds got their own state, why would that be bad - and more importantly -why would that be worse than them ALL being under a despot? Thanks in advance!
A civil war at this point, wouldn't be a civil war against a dictator. The time for a civil war against a dictator has come and gone. The problem with the uprising in the early 90's is that they were expecting support they didn't get. You claim they did want Saddam gone ASAP. They even tried, and were slaughtered. So I think you answered your own question. Either the civil war wasn't good, because the dictator won. Or had they not been lead to expect help from the U.S. they might have organized and faught a civil war differently in a way that they could have possibly won. Perhaps a purely organic civil war might have been a good thing. Or at least fighting one with trustworthy allies. At this point, though, the civil war isn't against a dictator and his minions, unless you are calling the U.S. and the council running things there a dictatorship. In the long run I agree with Grizzeled. There is a better way than civil war. Like a war it would require people to be willing to lay down their lives, and pay a heavy cost. The way that it can be done is by nationwide strike. Saddam doesn't have enough people to run the country with his folks alone. Yes, he would imprison, and kill people who were on the strike. Much like a war people will die. But he can't kill too many or again, he can't run the nation. Eventually the power the is with the masses. A govt. needs people to run the nation. The businesses, and economy won't run without them.
I didn’t say that no one wanted Saddam removed now, but you can’t possibly be arguing that they chose to have him removed now or even that the majority wanted him removed now in this way. There has to be a typo in there somewhere. These people aren’t stupid. They knew what kind of trouble thousands of US troops on the ground in Iraq would bring into Iraq, trouble that was not theirs but that was being force on them and that they would eventually pay a heavy price for. Remember that the civil war component is only one part of this war. The question you are asking is a hypothetical one about a situation that doesn’t exist. The US is obviously a foreign power playing a major role there but there are others interfering as well. Some are there just to attack the US and some to try to create the kind of state they would like Iraq to become, Shiite, Sunni, Islamic theocracy, US friendly, Iran friendly, and maybe others. It wouldn’t surprise me if other countries’ special operatives are in Iraq just to keep the US caught in a quagmire. Other countries are currently using the fact that the US is largely incapacitated now to advance their own world power. Iran alone can list several of these reason for being involved. And it’s largely because of the large number of key external stakeholders who were sure to get involved that an intervention in Iraq at this time was virtually guaranteed to be a failure. This is why the US didn’t go in after the Gulf War. Saddam was a very bad guy but you don’t remove him unless you have a good plan for how you’re going to make the situation better. Removing Saddam should never have been the objective. Making the country a better place for its citizens should have been the objective, and if you fail to understand the difference you end up with a nasty surprise and you very likely will end up with a worse situation than you started with. This is exactly the kind of mistake that was made.
