Quote:
Originally posted by Optimist Prime
Okay...they didn't back down from war before the war started. They walked thruogh U.N. in the name of national security and soverninty. But then we took over a country and kicked out the leader, who would, if ever found, be killed on sight within seconds of our boy out there snipping him. So that means they loose the war. That means we should OWN Iraq, and not back down. All politicalions, even Bush, says "we respect Iraqi sovereignty". That is bullshit, because if we did, we would not have over thrown their goverment. But since we did, then we should control it. WE should own Iraq. They should be a Sateletie Nation of some kind of treaty we'll draft up with the IMPORTANT nations of the world.
This gives me speech topic idea, thanks gc.
|
Assuming that the first post of this thread was in English, and that's a rather large assumption, I'll try to understand it and respond.
First, no war has ever been fought for one reason.
I understood that before we went to war, that it was necessary, not because of WMD, but because of geopolitics. There are five nations in the Middle East that are heavily tied to terrorism, either through direct state support, through the implicit, or explicit support of madrasas, and/or state run media that demagogues the U.S. (and Israel) for everything including pot-holes and broken street lights. These nations are Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Iraq borders all of these nations except for Egypt, and Egypt's government is sufficiently malleable as to be influenced by a change in the political makeup of the region. The geopolitical strategy of the U.S. is bold; it is to remake the region. In many ways 2003 is like the U.S. in Europe in the 1940s compressed into a single year; The U.S. fought WWII and then implemented the Marshall Plan as a prelude to the Cold War.
Iraq was also special in another way: it was the only regime in the Middle East that was genocidal. In the first week of March of this year, Eli Weisel, the Nobel Peace Prize winning holocaust survivor met with President Bush and urged him to remove the Iraqi regime. There was a moral imperative that was absolute and irrefutable, by all without an axe to grind, to remove the Baathist regime. Any argument made to avoid war because of pacifism, when that war is directed against a genocidal regime, is both intellectually and morally dishonest. This line of thinking was been well established, and accepted, in the wake of the Holocaust. A poignant fact is that fewer Iraqis will have died in 2003 due to the combined effects of murder from the Iraqi government and collateral damage due to the war, than were murdered by the Iraqi government in 2002. Fewer by more than an order of a magnitude.
Due to the oppressive nature of Nazi Germany, General Eisenhower was unable to obtain accurate information about the state of German society, politics, and military capability. The reason why he was so cautious about advancing to Germany, and why the Soviet Union was able to capture Eastern Germany, is that the German propaganda machine was perpetuating a fallacy that there were several divisions of the German Army holed up in the Swiss Alps ready to attack the advancing allied armies. Due to the oppressive nature of Baathist Iraq, the current U.S. administration was unable to obtain accurate information about the state of Iraqi society, politics, and military capability. To criticize the Bush administration for inaccurate information is disingenuous. No war can ever be prosecuted with full knowledge of the opposition. It was simply not known that the current obstacles would exist.
The respect of Iraqi sovereignty is very real, but strictly in the context of a democratic regime. There can not be elections right now for two important reasons. The first has to do with the only viable form of democracy for a nation as diverse as Iraq. Iraq can not survive under a democracy with a powerful presidency. It really needs a parliamentary form of government. There can be no fair elections of a parliamentary government until a census is held. A census has not been taken in Iraq in decades. This will take several months to execute. The second reason that Iraq can not hold immediate elections is that there has not yet been established a consensus driven constitution. This will also take several months, at least. Unlike the Constitution of the United States, most (if not all) constitutions created for democratic nations in the post WWII era are comparatively long documents, and very technical. This needs to be done, and done right.
Oh, and about that WMD argument. That was not made for the American People. President Bush felt indebted to Tony Blair for his staunch support. The only viable way to obtain support in the pre-war political climate in the U.K. was to go through the U.N. The only viable argument with the U.N. was to use the WMD argument. It was not known that France would lie to Secretary Powell about understanding the repercussions of UN Security Council Resolution 1441. It was also not known that French President Chirac was adamant about reordering the international hegemonic structure, or that France's strong economic ties with a certain genocidal regime would rear its ugly head. Vichy France lives.
The real goal of this war is to stop state sponsored terrorism, and the two primary factors in creating recruits for terrorist networks; madrasas and state-controlled Middle Eastern media.
The U.S. executed the fastest military victory in history. Now some people want the transition to a democracy to happen in three weeks as well. That is patently absurd. Patience is needed, and anyone who can lucidly view current events in a historical context will give the U.S. Government that.