If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
Bush :lol:
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
i'm just watching the press conference with bush and blair in northern ireland.
bush: "we are committed to the rebuilding of iraq, and the UN will play a pivotal role in it" or words to such effect.
am i the only one who finds it strange that he screws the UN, then says that the international community which he no doubt so respects, will play a major part in cleaning up the mess that he has made?
on a side note: i am in no doubt that the UN, and the international community will help in humanitarian aid, but come on, the man, and his government constantly contradict themselves.
bush: "we are committed to the rebuilding of iraq, and the UN will play a pivotal role in it" or words to such effect.
am i the only one who finds it strange that he screws the UN, then says that the international community which he no doubt so respects, will play a major part in cleaning up the mess that he has made?
on a side note: i am in no doubt that the UN, and the international community will help in humanitarian aid, but come on, the man, and his government constantly contradict themselves.
0
Comments
Of course they contradict themselves. They're politicians, it's what they do. It's an ingenious political strategy; after all, it's harder to disagree with them if you don't know what they actually stand for
I just hope the US and UK put in their fair share as well.......
The UN, the anti war nations and the anti war posters have all been DEMANDING that the UN play a part in the rebuilding of Iraq. When Bush says that he agrees, hes contradicting himself :rolleyes:
perhaps it was only me that found it funny, or it was the way bush presented it.
What if they vote in islamic extremists abd then have a referenda and decide to ally with Bin Laden.
What then?
then it'll be saddam all over again, but what are the chances that the yanks will let iraq have a fair election? it'll be rigged and another puppet, this time, one that they can control, will be placed in power
and bush has always said the u.n. will have a role if they want it, just not a leading role. personally, i hope that role is reserved for the countries who's men and women shed blood for iraqi freedom...or wmd's...or oil, whatever...
Being able to vote in islamic extremists is part of democracy isn't it?
i don't care about the costs. to me, the democracy is the thing, it's the best gift, the sweetest thing, we can possibly give to anyone.
as far as paying, the iraqis can (or will be able to) afford to pay for the civilian efforts (oil, remember?);) and maybe those countries who made up the coalition of the willing will pony up the bucks to help out. i'm not saying it should be a u.s./uk-only show, just that we should run it...i know that sounds kinda arrogant but who has the most experience at democracy and the iron to back it up??? plus, logistically, it makes sense for us to run the show. can you imagine some iraqi trying to restore water to his town and he has to go to a french representative who sends him to a russian-run port who says he has to talk to the swedish shipper who has to get the ok from the german parts supplier??? it's gonna be tough enough as it is without having to deal with a multitude of languages and different bureaucracies!:crazyeyes
If it doesn't come from the people themselves (and it should be noted that neither the general American public nor the administration seem to have grasped the historically factious nature of Iraq) then it isnt true democracy nor will it be valued.
That said, having witnessed our flag being hoisted in triumph belies the very notion that we come as liberators. The first time could be put down to a very undiplomatic mistake, twice and it becomes fairly obvious that what the public back home think we are doing there and what the troops on the ground understand as the purpose for the invasion are separated by a gulf of PR spin and sentimental rhetoric which have no bearing on the truth of the matter.
Saddam is gone, HOORAH! But as said many times already, we have easily won the war but will not likely win the peace. The Arab world certainly sees us as imperialist conquerers come to secure our own economic control over the region and with plans to install our generals as the supreme authority followed by an imposed regime made up of Pro-US exiles (none of whom have any significant constituency support in Iraq) time may well prove the Arab view correct.
I suspect that when the dust settles those who bother to track developments in Iraq (after it becomes yesterday's news) the presumed democracy as understood in the US will not materialise.
Time however will tell.
and just cuz iraq has been historically factious/fractious doesn't mean they can't grow out of that, or are they too primitive and backwards? seems to me you can't get a helluva lot more factious that us, right? blacks, whites, christians, jews, mexicans, germans, northerners, southerners, americans all. why can't we think anyone else can do that??? if anyone in the mideast can do it, the iraqis can! they are intelligent, relatively cosmopolitan, highly industrious. didn't (doesn't) iraq have the biggest jewish population in the mideast outside israel? i think the possibilty is there, we just have to convince the iraqi people it's in their best interest to pursue it and set an example in the cradle of civilization for the rest of the region.
i don't be trying to tell me we're imperialist aggressors just cuz some enthusiastic 19 yr old plants his nation's flag on the face of a dictators statue! he isn't the commandant of the marine corps and he doesn't set policy. he's a grunt who's proud of his country and what he's doing.
yeah, time will tell and i hope you'll be the one coming back here with a plate fulla crow!:D
The US was not handed democracy by any outside force if you recall, we decided upon it as colonists and fought for our own freedom, giving it the legitimacy of the common will. To think that we can gift any other nation with a principle that must be a priori to any successful intstitutional realisation is to de value the very principle itself.
This is not some consummable to be exported like coca cola, however much you might wish to believe it so.
My belief in this matter has nothing to do with how i view the sophistication of the Iraqis, but rather what i know of the sweeping sentiments of the Arab world at large over the presumption of the US to impose its unilateral will on the much more complicated historical and social complexities of the region.
Sitting comfortably in one's laz-e-boy in suburban America, it might appear to be a matter of only showing them what we have and thinking that they will buy it. Well be warned that many societies and nations know full well what we have and are not necessarily lining up to partake of it, especially when it is forceably shoved down their throats by our armed forces.
Can you legitimately tell me that you would accept such a gift from a nation you knew supported those who had murdered you family or perhaps even harmed you personally in some way?
Do not underestimate the distaste that is bubbling under the surface of what Washington chooses to show you. There is much out there, around the globe that still speaks to the long running duplicity of our foreign policy, and you can be sure that sophisticated Arabs, Iraqi or otherwise, have a much greater awareness of that duplicity than most of our countrymen who see what our leaders want them to see.
Remember too that our society operates on a notion of rampant individualism which is not in keeping with many societies, especially in the middle east.
as for duplicity, tell me what nation hasn't or doesn't practice machiavellian politics at one time or another. it's a dog eat dog world out there in the political world and sometimes you take your friends where you find them. if ANYONE can understand this, it's arabs!
Japan, despite its imperial legacy, had also wrestled with principles of democracy prior to WWII. Be it through the precursors to labour unions or the pursuit of capitalist development, the seeds were there long before we ever toyed with their constitution.
http://hnn.us/articles/1225.html
None of these nations' histories are comparable to the morass that Iraqi politics has long been.
I suggest you do some deeper research.
Also note that what most Americans would consider as democracy is not even practiced in a significant number of countries which are supposedly "democratic". This is likely to be the case come what may in Iraq as well (and more in keeping with the history of that nation)...
http://dns.usis-israel.org.il/publish/civic/archive/1998/zakaria.html
Am I the only one who sees the irony in the UN refusing to support the action, but then demanding to set up the new Govt?
Without a clear violation of another nation's sovereign territory, the UN cannot endorse military action and rightly so.
However, there is far more than irony at work in the wreckless foreign policy of the Bush admin, there is sheer hypocrisy. Ignoring and demeaning the explicit mandate of the UN and contravening internaitonal law to assume unilateral authority simply because one has the might to do so is little more than a tacit signal to all other authoritarian powers that they can do likewise, where and when they want.
Obviously the warmongers have become so smug in the comfort of the global peace they have largely enjoyed in the West that they are willing to set the clock back to the age of rampant nationalistic and imperialistic self interest that the Bush doctrine, for one, champions.
I suspect that smugness will be dampened significantly when the exercise of military might such types seem to revel in comes back to haunt us all in our own backyards.