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You guys have to see this.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
0
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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I think I watched the pulling down of the statue on every channel. I just keep thinking there's nothing worst a country can be involved in than war...or better than liberation.
Remember, thousands have died, including people that work for the company I work for...The girl that sent them to All Staff was told to recall her message.
Moving as it may be, there are still people living in fear and without water or food, and there are many people too scared to do anything but fight back.
But they have the opportunity to live in a democracy...and they couldn't wait until they expressed themselves. The Iraqis egged the American soldier on to do that. Then someone came up with an Iraqi flag. He tied it around the statue's neck. Then he took that off and towed the statue off.
Democracy is very unlikely in the face of announced plans to place US generals in charge only to be followed by an imposed regime bowing to Washington. I don't suspect you would willingly go live under such a set up. How very convenient that you don't have to.
Well France and Russia and Germany want the UN to administer the oil. And France is owed 1 billion and Russia is owed 3.5 billion in oil contracts.
If you weren't into those countries wouldn't you find their motives suspect?
I personally believe that if the pro-war lobby examined the rhetoric that justified this invasion and remained true to what was claimed, then there should be no question that the UN should assume complete authority over the rebuilding. The galvanizing principle claimed by Bush and co in defence of this action was first and foremost the enforcement of UN resolutions concerning the disarmament of Iraq.
So unless you wish to now dismiss that basis (as the Bush admin has always intended to do once it got the job done and public sentiment could be manipulated in another direction) you would have to accept that it is the UN's mandate more than the US or any member of the coalition of the bought to administer a liberated Iraq. If you wish to maintain any consistency whatsoever.
Anything less than this will be proof positive of the Bush admin's lies and spin and will signal not a liberation but a true conquest as many have consistently held it to be.
I do hope your attention span lasts long enough to follow the developments as the years pass by. I doubt it will given the fad nature of the our domestic media, but I hope you do nevertheless. You may well see just how great Washington's presumption truly was.
They might be too ignorant or stupid to do that Clandestine. NYC had a big pro war rally today and the Gov. of NY said at ground zero: "the war started here."
Well, no. Not really. And other quotes from people were that there's no difference between Al Qaeda and Saddam.
I can see the validity of the war but not from that perspective.
Its been that way for longer than you or I have been alive. One day I hope youll really learn just how much untruth you and the rest of the nation have been and are yet being fed.
Truth is found in the reality of one's perceptions! I suppose all those cheering Iraqis are simply the creation of the American propaganda machine.
One simply does not know how things will turn in the end but it must be for the better. Things have been going along brilliantly!
By the by I got a message from a friend who is in Baghdad with the American forces!:D
Point is, isolated groups have been used to give the US public an overall impression that everyone is suddenly jubilant over our invasion, which is patently false in a country of 10's of millions of inhabitants.
What is closer to the truth is a state of near chaos with some expressing gratitutde, many more hiding away in fear and mistrust, others continuing to fire on our troops and others on a looting rampage.
Now comes the crux. If coalition forces begin to act as the policing authority there will undoubtedly be a growing realisation that it is our will that is being imposed over the lives of ordinary Iraqis rather than a restoration of their self determination.
If our forces place the enforcement of law and order in the hands of this or that ethnic group, say the Kurds, this too will go over badly and open the fractional rifts that have traditionally existed in the country.
There is little margin for political maneuvering that will become all the more aparrent to Washington as it tries to come to grips with the much more complex issue of building the peace.
The invasion was a comparative cake walk, it is the aftermath that the anti-war movement chraged this administration with not having thought through, nor correctly estimated in terms of the nature of Iraqi society itself.
My main point was to dampen somewhat the presumption of those so eager to gloat before the dust has settled. The real vindication of either position is to come, as any German who was caught up in the initial jubilation over the fall of the Berlin Wall could tell you.
No, they were the result of the thought that these people won't have to live under Saddam's regime anymore. THat whatever replaces cannot be as bad as they have had.
You main point appears to be, as usual, a lack recognition that something positive has been done by the Bush regime.
Put this way, the Iraqis can see the demise of a hated figure, once they get over their initial jubiliation and start thinking about what this really means for them things will calm down some.
Yes, all those poor oppressed East Germans, how they must regret that moment...
I will not compliment the Bush admin for doing what may well have been done in other ways. The mad rush to to take control of Iraq is already showing up the lack of comprehension this admin has not only for Iraq but for the region and the larger geo-political stability of the planet.
I would say you too are presumptuous if you think that things will merely calm down when the dust settles. The rampant looting, the fact that many elements loyal to the Baath party remain, the continuing refusal of Israel to cease from its attrocities against the Palestinians, the rising hatred over the duplicity of Washington throughout the Middle East, not to mention the inevitable imposition of a regime of Washington's own choosing and the inevitable necessity of maintaining a military presence to support it against a very likely civil uprising, are elements you far too casually dismiss or ignore.
Like I said time will tell, but I suspect the pro-war camp will be mightily surprised at just how mistaken their glorious vision of universal acceptance and gratitude was.
On another somewhat humorous, but equally as disturbing, matter I suppose you saw reports of the recent Bush/Blair meeting in NI?
Further demonstration of this admins lack of international diplomatic ability the passes worn by the US press corps and visibly displayed around their necks, announced that they were the American media "travelling with the Presdient on his mission to Belfast, Ireland...". And this is an administration you wish to laud?
More likely their actions will do little more than open a whole new assorted can of worms which they are demonstrably incapable of resolving.
What you have missed is that today, Iraqi citizens are in a much better position than they were this time last year.
Today they have hope.
We may shit on them at a later date, and they may turn to dislike us. But at least they, as individuals, will have that option. Before hand they had to do as they were told.
I see that as a success.
I see that these people have the right to choose if they hate the US, the right to choose to hate other ethnicities within their local. Of course they may choose to like them too...
"may well have been" doesn't mean the same thing as "has been" and it certainly doesn't offer a time frame - what may happen eventually is not the same as "are".
Tell a person "you may be free eventually" or tell them "you are free" and which is the better option from their perspective?
Bush, for all his failings, has achieved.
I said the Iraq reaction would calm down. They are like kids let loose in a sweetshop at the moment. They are thumbing their noses/offering the "v" sign to those who were once in power. Let them get that out of their system. God knows they've earned it.
Hate to tell you this, but most people I know refer to Belfast as being in Ireland too...
My suggestion is that in rushing presumtpiouously into armed conflict* as the world's policeman, in a region which has seen untold examples of US foreign policy duplicity is merely opening numerous cans of worms whilst closing the book on one.
I will, as I said, bide my time until we see what is what exactly. But I suspect far greater problems for us down the road by endorsing this kind of militaristic unilateralism.
The aspect of oil is the concern of those who make the decisions and the corporations who back them. They are more than happy to give the public sentimental images to get all jingoistic over if it provides them the carte blanche to carry on pursuing their more self interested agenda at the same time.
Thats what you should be worried about if you wish for this moment in time to mean anything years from now.
Of course, burning £20k and aquiring £24m would be a good thing, wouldn't it?
And I take your suggestion on board and point out that diplomacy was never going to result in the end of Saddam's regime. He had too much to lose, to give it up freely.
I on the other hand, will offer a warm welcome to the freedom that Iraq now has. I only hope that they have the wisdom to use it wisely.