http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/1858595 We still have a long way to go. Let's hold off on the back-slapping until all Iraqi cities have running water and the looters are contained.
Took 16 hours for the russians to get the statue of Lennin down, so don't hold your breath unless we decide to help with some heavy equipement.
Another article - while I'm not quite as pessimistic as the author, he raises some good points that the U.S. needs to ensure that the persons who are appointed to run Iraq during the transition are perceived as neutral. I also think it's in nobody's interest (United States, U.N., or Iraq) to have a man like Chalabi involved in the government. Would anyone here feel good if Charles Keating were appointed to a similar position? http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/1858350
The problem is that we haven't established any precedent for the most difficult part: the return of Iraq to stability and self-sovreignty. In fact, we haven't even begun, and the rest of the world will be watching very closely how we execute this plan. That's why I think we should hold back on the celebrating right now (unless your a Baghdad citizen). It is obviously in our interest for a post-war Iraq to be U.S. friendly, but we need to make sure that they are U.S. friendly for the right reason. That is, we need to ensure that the Iraqi citizens are the ones who recognize and benefit from strong diplomatic and economic relations with the U.S. But if we allow Iraq to be ruled by warlords and corporate robber-barons who hoard the countries wealth, then the average citizen is going to be way more sympathetic to extremism. In such a scenario, we could potentially be guilty of transforming Iraq from an tyranny with some ties to terrorism into a Saudi Arabia-esque aristocracy with multiple ties to terrorism.
I was having a discussion the other day about the difficulty of setting up a decent government after all this is over. The other guy was of the opinion that since we didnt do that great of a job in Afganistan, we will probably screw up Iraq. imo, it should be easier to setup a productive centralized government in Iraq than it was in Afganistan because Iraq has already been controlled from one place, whereas Afganistan had always been controlled by warlords in seperate parts of the country before the Taliban took over. Even after we took out the Taliban, the country was still so fragmented that it was simple for the warlords to setup their own little parts of the country again.. any thoughts out there on this aspect?
I completely agree with you. The "problem" is that we are in the process of establishing precedent. It's the Iraqis who are celebrating the removal of chains of the regime. Pardon us while we smile with them. There is much work to do in the future.
Iraqi society seems much more sophisticated than the Afghan. That should make strides more easy to accomplish.
You're comparing people running in the streets celebrating the end of a regime, to a riot brought on because a guy was beaten in the street. Give me a break. How about people running in the streets and tearing down symbols of Saddam. Is that enough of a "Baghdad Celebration" for you?
Looting is looting. Reuters is reporting that it isn't just government offices and Baath party HQs that are being looted. Shops and stores in Baghdad are being looted as well. Where would you like your break?
So using your logic World War II's ending was a riot because there was looting then. Anybody with a brain knows there will always be a segment of people that will loot a destroy things. But for you to compare all of the Iraqi people who are celebrating to the LA riots is ridiculous. And I'll take my break right now thank you.
Actually, Iraq is problematic because it is fragmented into three distinct groups: the Kurds in the north, the Sunnis in the center and the Shi'ites (spelling?) in the south. There are also small pockets of other groups throughout the country. The only thing unifying all of these people is the fact that they've all been chafing under Saddam's iron fist for the past 30 years. Even then, Saddam's control over the Kurds and the Shiites is at best equivalent to the United States control over the west coast during the mid-to-late 19th century. Before his time, they were all fighting and warring with one another. In fact, Thomas Friedman hypothesized that Saddam is as much a reflection of the brutality of Iraq as Iraq is a reflection of Saddam's brutality. So I don't know if Iraq is really better suited for a democracy in that regard. However, the fact that it is a much more secular and better educated country than Afghanistan does give me hope that we can pull off a "great experiment" similar to the one in the U.S. Again, it depends on how our government approaches the rebuilding effort (good government vs. gold rush).
not a good idea to put the American Flag up on the saddam statue. At least he realized what he did and took it down but I had a feeling that Aljezerra TV network would run with that and play it over and over again to the arab world.. and sure enough Im hearing that arab propaganda network is just focusing on that.
I saw Dick Cheney on MSNBC... I just love this guy...Here is his quote... "From the beginning, there have been those retired from the military that have criticized the war...those embedded in news studios"... LMAO...
Let's hope so. After all these years, the people deserve the chance to make their own decisions on who governs over them. If that doesn't happen for whatever reason, what are we even there for? Call me naive, but I like to think that given the fact that we are able to have a decently functioning government even with all the different groups of people we have...I would hope that they would be able to do the same. It would certainly make stomaching the human toll of this war easier to tolerate. re: the Irapi people jumping up and down on the fallen statue of Saddam... If those were Americans in that square celebrating the downfall of a tyrant, you would almost expect to see people taking a whizz on it. Looks like they are having fun with it right now...dragging the head down the street... Enjoy it guys, you deserve it!
Al-Jazeera has been on the U.S.'s case from day one. I never understood why Saddam's regime kicked them out. Al-Jazeera hasn't said one negative thing about Iraq. You think they would be happy that people who were being oppressed and have said they were being oppressed, are basically free and celebrating now. Hopefully we can put in a government so that the Iraqi people can run things themselves. The funny thing is all the arab countries and media trying to spin this. Iran is claiming that the U.S. fired a missile at them and killed a kid. On purpose of course.
