IRAQ seems to be falling apart

[thebiggameover]

Originally Posted by ranxer

I don't think we will get much international support until the American corporations relinquish control of the contracts and open it to fair bidding.

word. i dont look foward to helping friends move unless they say there gonna buy me some beer afterward.






but i still help them move ether way...
:/

[Brandon]

I'd like to remind everyone that just because certain Iraqis say we're morally heinous doesn't mean that we actually are.

I don't see these uprisings as motivated by unjust oppression but by a desire to fill the massive power vacuum that the U.S. will leave behind. Sadr will use any sort of religious rhetoric he can come up to rally support from common, impressionable Iraqis, but, in my estimate, he's just got designs on Saddam's old throne.

[mburbank]

I don't think we're morally insensitive, just dense. Jockying for power in a power vaccuum? Dangerous political factioning in a tribal multi ethnic country ruled by a dictatorship for years? Who could have forseen it?!?

The main reason we're up shit creek now is we had zero coherent stratgey beyond toppling Sadaam. This administration refused to even concider all the reasons Bush Elder decided NOT to occupy iraq, preferring the basurd idea that we'd be welcomed with flowers by a unified Iraq.

We don't have to be morally repugnant. We're the occupying power. We haven't restored order, we aren't keeping people safe, and historically, most people aren't terribly keen on their occupiers in the best of circumstances. These are not the best of circumstances. It's a really, really tough set of circumstances.

Here's what I expect from our leadership when approching a really, really tough set of circumstances.

1.) See if it's absolutely neccesary.

2.) Weigh your countries other needs and make a comparison so you can determine where your resources are most wisely spent.

3.) If you still have to engage the really really difficult set of circumstances, make a plan that hs contingencies. If your first plan doesn't work, if the things you think will happen turn out diffferently, what will you do?

I think we've failed miserably on all three of thse steps. That doesn't mean I thinkl we're getting what we deserve, and it doesn't mean I think religous fanatics are right and we are the great Satan. I think we are a perfectly lovely country doing an absolutely terrible job in a really rfeally difficult situation and making a mess which will bite us in the ass for generations, but only when it's not too busy biting us in the thorat.

[Brandon]

First of all, Max, I think you're completely ignoring the positive changes that have come from the war. The Iraqi people are simply much better off than they were under Saddam Hussein, and the violence in Fallujah is not "proof" that the majority of Iraqis hate us.

Secondly, while I definitely think we could have planned better for post-war reconstruction, it would also be naive to assume that a country that spent so many years in turmoil could become Anytown U.S.A. overnight.

[kellychaos]

Brandon does have an important point. Did the administration, with all their intelligence capabilities, think they were turning the power over to a homogenized muslim community? Even the U.S., which is NOT a theocracy, would have religious leaders hovering over the carcass were we to be invaded and forced to establish an alternate form of government.