Profile, Iraq, Terror, Democracy
RE: Profile
I'll throw my profile into the mix.
RE: Iraq
As for Iraq, I'll almost agree with the Minister of Propaganda. I think that the mission in Iraq is damn close to impossible at this point. I say almost, because though I can't see a way out... and I guarantee that the current administration can't see a way out... that doesn't mean that there isn't one. I'm still mulling over why the administration was dead set on Iraq in the first place. It's obvious at this point that the White House had enough information in its hands that it should have known that the WMD issue was a dead duck, and the terror connection was tenuous. Yet the administration chose these two points to justify the war.
So two things are possible. Either the administration actually believed this stuff, or there was an ulterior motive for the war. I believe the war was designed, as the Prop Minister asserts, as a first stepping stone in a Neo Con plan of democritizing the middle east. If this is true, then two things about it are typical of the Bush presidency. First, Lying about real motives and agendas. Second, the incapacity to thing things through. Did the administration actually think that we'd be seen as heros, and revered as the angelic liberators of the Iraqi people? Sounds like it.
Did the administration actually think we could democritize the region?
RE: Terror
As for the war on Terror, I don't believe that Iraq was the right front to fight. The war with Iraq was justified on the grounds that Iraq posed a serious threat to the US. This is why the WMD's and the Al Quaeda connection were so key. The implication that Iraq would/could provide those sorts of weapons to Bin Ladens' people demanded action. Any other scenario doesn't demand the immediate overthrow of the Baathists.
Any war on terror, or Islamofacism, is incomplete without addressing Saudi Arabia. And addressing Saudi Arabia is gonna be damn hard. Dealing with Saudi Arabia will piss a lot of people off.
Now, was Saddam really related to Islamofacism? Maybe. What about Mubarak, or Ghaddafi? Both are just as bad in different ways. Ghaddafi has seen the writing on the wall, and now he's sucking up to us. And we're letting him. Mubarak is almost as bad as Saudi Arabia at plaing the two faced game. They suck up to us, and say the right things to our faces, but STATE RUN media actually plays up Wahabist tendencies.
And on the subject of terror, it's good that we've vowed to hunt down the vermin responsible for this. Too bad that all the stuff at Abu Graib undermines any moral high ground we have here. And I guess this is my biggest frustration with the whole Iraq situation. There is a real fight to be fought. We haven't beaten Al Quaeda yet. We haven't really eliminated the Taliban. We haven't captured or killed Bin Laden. We didn't finish the job in Afghanistan. Bush was so eager to jump into Iraq that he left the bigger, real chore unaccomplished. This will bite us in the end.
RE: Democracy
I believe that democracy has two requirements. It must be wanted by the population in question, and it must be earned by the same population. In short a people that want democracy earn it by fighting for it. The cost is blood. I think any democracy imposed from without is illegitimate. Until an Islamic population rises up, and demands, and fights for, democracy, there will be no Arab democracy under the sun. We can't go in there and impose one on them. That's colonialism under a different name, and as Americans we should be dead set against that.
I guess partly what offends me so much about the current Iraq situation is that it is beginning to go against everything I believe in as an American. It seemed like a good idea initially. Here's a corrupt regime that poses a threat to us, and is holding it's population in terrible oppression. Because it poses a threat to us, we are justified in going to War. Then we can help them rebuild their government. Now it appears that rebuilding their government was our primary goal, and that nation didn't really pose a threat to us. (FYI wasn't one of Bush's main foreign policy points in 2000 to argue AGAINST Nation Building? Freaking Liar. Yeah, I know, 911 changed everything for him.)
OK, so now that we know that Iraq didn't really pose a threat to us, and the Administration had enough information in it's posession to know this, were we justified to overthrow a government for the sole purpose of installing a better one? No. What gives us the right to determine that Saddam is bad enough to merit an invasion? Merely that he's a brutal tyrant isn't enough. That's a given. If that were the only criteria, there are dozens of states that we should invade. North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, China, Just about any Sub Saharan Nation, California, and on and on. It's just not enough.
Do it for Democracy? That tells me that the Bushites not only don't understand how to read intelligence, they don't really know what Democracy is. Democracy to them, I guess, simply means Halliburton gets the contracts.
I'll throw my profile into the mix.
RE: Iraq
As for Iraq, I'll almost agree with the Minister of Propaganda. I think that the mission in Iraq is damn close to impossible at this point. I say almost, because though I can't see a way out... and I guarantee that the current administration can't see a way out... that doesn't mean that there isn't one. I'm still mulling over why the administration was dead set on Iraq in the first place. It's obvious at this point that the White House had enough information in its hands that it should have known that the WMD issue was a dead duck, and the terror connection was tenuous. Yet the administration chose these two points to justify the war.
So two things are possible. Either the administration actually believed this stuff, or there was an ulterior motive for the war. I believe the war was designed, as the Prop Minister asserts, as a first stepping stone in a Neo Con plan of democritizing the middle east. If this is true, then two things about it are typical of the Bush presidency. First, Lying about real motives and agendas. Second, the incapacity to thing things through. Did the administration actually think that we'd be seen as heros, and revered as the angelic liberators of the Iraqi people? Sounds like it.
Did the administration actually think we could democritize the region?
RE: Terror
As for the war on Terror, I don't believe that Iraq was the right front to fight. The war with Iraq was justified on the grounds that Iraq posed a serious threat to the US. This is why the WMD's and the Al Quaeda connection were so key. The implication that Iraq would/could provide those sorts of weapons to Bin Ladens' people demanded action. Any other scenario doesn't demand the immediate overthrow of the Baathists.
Any war on terror, or Islamofacism, is incomplete without addressing Saudi Arabia. And addressing Saudi Arabia is gonna be damn hard. Dealing with Saudi Arabia will piss a lot of people off.
Now, was Saddam really related to Islamofacism? Maybe. What about Mubarak, or Ghaddafi? Both are just as bad in different ways. Ghaddafi has seen the writing on the wall, and now he's sucking up to us. And we're letting him. Mubarak is almost as bad as Saudi Arabia at plaing the two faced game. They suck up to us, and say the right things to our faces, but STATE RUN media actually plays up Wahabist tendencies.
And on the subject of terror, it's good that we've vowed to hunt down the vermin responsible for this. Too bad that all the stuff at Abu Graib undermines any moral high ground we have here. And I guess this is my biggest frustration with the whole Iraq situation. There is a real fight to be fought. We haven't beaten Al Quaeda yet. We haven't really eliminated the Taliban. We haven't captured or killed Bin Laden. We didn't finish the job in Afghanistan. Bush was so eager to jump into Iraq that he left the bigger, real chore unaccomplished. This will bite us in the end.
RE: Democracy
I believe that democracy has two requirements. It must be wanted by the population in question, and it must be earned by the same population. In short a people that want democracy earn it by fighting for it. The cost is blood. I think any democracy imposed from without is illegitimate. Until an Islamic population rises up, and demands, and fights for, democracy, there will be no Arab democracy under the sun. We can't go in there and impose one on them. That's colonialism under a different name, and as Americans we should be dead set against that.
I guess partly what offends me so much about the current Iraq situation is that it is beginning to go against everything I believe in as an American. It seemed like a good idea initially. Here's a corrupt regime that poses a threat to us, and is holding it's population in terrible oppression. Because it poses a threat to us, we are justified in going to War. Then we can help them rebuild their government. Now it appears that rebuilding their government was our primary goal, and that nation didn't really pose a threat to us. (FYI wasn't one of Bush's main foreign policy points in 2000 to argue AGAINST Nation Building? Freaking Liar. Yeah, I know, 911 changed everything for him.)
OK, so now that we know that Iraq didn't really pose a threat to us, and the Administration had enough information in it's posession to know this, were we justified to overthrow a government for the sole purpose of installing a better one? No. What gives us the right to determine that Saddam is bad enough to merit an invasion? Merely that he's a brutal tyrant isn't enough. That's a given. If that were the only criteria, there are dozens of states that we should invade. North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt, China, Just about any Sub Saharan Nation, California, and on and on. It's just not enough.
Do it for Democracy? That tells me that the Bushites not only don't understand how to read intelligence, they don't really know what Democracy is. Democracy to them, I guess, simply means Halliburton gets the contracts.
posted by Anonymous at 5/12/2004 12:32:00 PM
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