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Post by BadCompany on Apr 23, 2003 7:43:53 GMT -5
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Post by Cranky on Apr 23, 2003 8:17:55 GMT -5
Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a moderate, was killed so his could not spread the moderate word. WHY?
What this is, very simply, is a power play by the clerics to sieze control of the country. Iran has 23 million people but what the papers are carrying as defacto is that 14 million are demanding a religious goverment. Not so. What we see on the streets are ALL and I mean ALL the radical elements. Basically, the clerics are trying to frighten the US and all the rest of the Iraqi's into their way of life. Don't forget one thing, the Iraqi's were secular before Saddam.
I find it interesting that people want the US to fail in their mission so they can say "There, I told you so......". I call that the “Chirac Syndrom”.
Would it not be better for the Iraqi people if they succeeded? Or is that not important?
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Post by BadCompany on Apr 23, 2003 8:41:57 GMT -5
The Iraqis were secular under Saddam up until the First Gulf War. It was only then that Saddam tried to rally the Islamic world "against the infidels." Saddam is not a religious fanatic, he is (or was) a power fantatic, and he only used religion as tool to obtaining, or maintaining power. He killed off most clerics in the country, after all.
I have no interest in seeing the US fail. Quite the contrary. I have an extremely vested interest in seeing them succeed, because I fly quite regularily in the States, and don't want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, because US apathy to the mess they have created happens to annoy some fanatic with nothing to lose.
The problem is, already Iraq is passing out of US public conscience, to be replaced by CNN headlines of Laci Peterson, Lebron James and next season's twist ending of Survivor. Or whatever the next story of the century will be. Much like Afghanistan already has. Do people realize that the Taliban is regrouping, and re-emerging in parts of that country, with local warlord support? That Osama bin Laden still hasn't been captured, and neither has the Mullah Omar? Does anybody care? They should, because guys like that don't "retire" you know - they will be back.
People need to be reminded that Iraq continues to exist, and that there are a myriad of forces at work in the region, most of them anti-American. The US cannot, they CANNOT sit back now, and say "we did our job, let them fix their problems themselves" because that WILL come back to haunt them. You say its only radicals? Perhaps. But the US now has to get rid of those radicals, and make sure that the climate in which radicals are born no longer exists. This is not a 6 month job, or a 1 year job, or even a 5 year job. As quoted in the article, this is a 25 year job. An entire generation of people has to grow up thinking the US will be there when they need them. They are failing in Afghanistan. We cannot let them fail in Iraq, for our own safety. We NEED to keep reminding people, we NEED to let keep telling them that they are in this for the long haul. It was my original fear, and my main reason for being against the war - I did not think the US was going to be in this for the long haul, because I did not think they realized the size, and the difficulty of the task they have undertaken. Less than a month after liberating Iraq, and already there are anti-American demonstrations. Less than a month.
What will it be like 5 years from now?
There is an old saying; "If you save a person's life, you become responsible for that life." The US has "saved" Iraq. Now, how will they handle the responsibility?
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Post by Cranky on Apr 23, 2003 8:59:51 GMT -5
I have no interest in seeing the US fail. Quite the contrary. I have an extremely vested interest in seeing them succeed, because I fly quite regularily in the States, and don't want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, because US apathy to the mess they have created happens to annoy some fanatic with nothing to lose.
Now that is what I call "vested interest". You can always tell the bombers that you are Canadian, I'm sure they will understand.
They wont lose interest, after all, it's about oil? Everybody knows that it's about oil. Right?
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Post by BadCompany on Apr 23, 2003 9:15:58 GMT -5
I thought it was about nation building? About fostering democracy, and tolerance, and love for all things American? If its about that, then the US had better be prepared to counter these “radicals” and to eliminate them in the ways proposed above. They had better be prepared to make a 25 year commitment, in other words.
Because if its just about oil, then the US will install a puppet government, ignore racial and religious tensions, commit a minimum amount of troops and money to the country, and protect only their military and financial interests. Sort of like what they are doing in Saudi Arabia.
Course, no terrorists ever come out of Saudi Arabia, right?
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Apr 23, 2003 18:17:48 GMT -5
I found the 25-year project reference sort of convenient.
The administration hopes the U.S.-led war in Iraq will lead to a crescent of democracies in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied territories and Saudi Arabia. But it could just as easily spark a renewed fervor for Islamic rule in the crescent, officials said.
“This is a 25-year project,” one three-star general officer said. “Everyone agreed it was a huge risk, and the outcome was not at all clear.”
Hmm ... didn't think that one out very well did they?
Reading further on, the same article stated, “There is a big difference, a tremendous difference, between Persian and Arab Shiites,” a U.S. official said.
The US would much perfer an Arab Shiite state rather than a Persian one. A Persian Shiite state would be a much more fundemental Islamic state. However, they were warned about this scenario in advance.
Some U.S. intelligence analysts and Iraq experts said they warned the Bush administration before the war about vanquishing Hussein’s government without having anything to replace it. But officials said the concerns were either not heard or fell too low on the priority list of postwar planning.
I wonder what the coalition will do if this turns into a civil war? This is a very realistic scenario. Pro-western Arab Shiites vs. Persian, Iranian Shiites. It's not to so much that they didn't think of it, they ignored advise from the beginning.
The next article is also interesting. It was only a matter of time before we heard the anti-American bravado. However, I have friends that may soon deploy to Iraq in a humanitarian scenario. I fear for them even though Canada (politically) didn't support the action. Anti-American sentiments can easily be turned into an anti-western fervour very quickly.
God love them though. If they get the word, they're going in with doctors, engineers, communications infrastructures, whe whole nine-yards. The only distraction may be that they will be wearing military uniforms. Hopefully their efforts will be appreciated by the local peoples.
Cheers.
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Post by Cranky on Apr 23, 2003 19:24:54 GMT -5
Dis, Unfortunately, I have to agree with BC.  If the Americans are taking casualties every day and they watch America p*ssed at every day, live and in colour, then they are likely to pull a Mogadishu. Unfortunately, they will see the radical element with blood spurting down their foreheads and think that ALL Iraqi’s are the same. They will not see the family of 6 who have no running water or electricity and starving. Where did I hear the old saying that " people chew on the leg that is attached to the arm that feeds them". |
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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on Apr 23, 2003 19:35:34 GMT -5
No worries, HA. I, too, agree with "le bad one" as you call him.
I found the links very good reading. I'm just disappointed that the US administration chose to ignore the warnings of various experts and adopted the "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," opinion. Then, conveniently of course, a three-star general is quoted as saying, "... yadda, yadda, yadda ... 25-year-plan ..."
I guess the positive in all of this is that, democracy permits protesting in order to promote one's views. Somehow, I don't think these anit-US demonstrations are what the coalition had in mind.
But, hey, it's a democratic process.
Cheers.
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