Why terrorists will ultimately fail...
POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Wednesday, August 26, 2026 00:13
VIEWED: 9344
PAGE 5 of 14
Quote:
Originally posted by Kpo:
Because installing democracy in Iraq is taking power from the hands of one tyrant and putting it in the hands of the people.
Except people vote for who their religious leaders tell them to vote for in Iraq, so if anything we're making the tyrants job easier.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
And as you know, these are open forums, you're able to come and listen to what I have to say.
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There are at least two big bones of contention in Iraq:
1) Who gets the oil revenue.
2) Who controls internal security.
Some Sunnis want to be part of a central government because they then get a share of the oil revenue. But they really, really don't want Shiites to be controlling internal security in "their" areas. It seems like the best solution is to allow a loose federation, where each group controls the internal security of its area.
I could also make strong case for why Iraq should be broken into three. Iraq seems very similar to the former Yugoslavia, which was an entirely synthetic state created out of religious, ethnic and language factions for the superpowers' convenience. After years of being on life-support, Yugoslavia was finally allowed to dissolve. Each portion or Iraq could have a regional "patron saint"- Iran for Shiite Iraq, Saudi Arabia for Sunni Iraq, and possibly even Russia protecting Northern Iraq. Since a "united Iraq" is such a big, tempting prize, surrounding nations have a serious interest in who dominates the outcome. The violence is even spilling over into Saudi Arabia.
BTW- Sadr is NOT a "moderate".
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Free as in freedom, not beer.
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Quote:According to the United Nations somewhere between 1.2 – 1.5 million innocent Iraqis (largely children, women and elderly) were killed as a result of Saddam misuse of Sanctions. Sanctions were levied against Iraq for about 10 years, and there’s little reason to believe that these sanctions had any appreciable positive net affect on moving Iraq in the direction of UN goals. But if we assume that sanctions would have worked if given another 10 years that is basically advocating a method that had already resulted in the death of over a million innocent people. This is as much collateral damage, as the 10,000 that you claim has been killed in Iraq as a result of the war. Therefore if your concern is for the innocent Iraqis caught up in Saddam’s reckless international policy then we can decide, with almost mathematical certainty, whether sanctions or the war were better options. The simple question is which number is larger, 1 million or 10,000? And if your concern is for the number of innocent Iraqis killed as a result of collateral damage then it is the war and not sanctions that was preferable.
Originally posted by SignyM:
It depends on when and how that would be accomplished. What makes a terrorist a terrorist is not his (or her) goals but methods. We effected "regime change" by spending Russsia into the ground (altho Afghanistan helped), we chose trade as our "weapon of choice" for China, South African apartheid was broken by sanctions and internal dissent, and we certainly destabilized our share of South American governments. But Bush's chose war and death...
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Only you would compare a (low biased) documented list against an estimate. If you want to compare apples to apples, you need to look at the estimated excess post-invasion deaths due to lack of medical care, malnutrition, increased crime and so forth, which is about 100,000 as reported in the Lancet.
I'm not in favor of sanctions. I just listed it as a possible option. INCREASED trade might have worked better.
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Free as in freedom, not beer.
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Awefully easy to smuggle bad things into a nation with increased trade though. Can you be sure the materials being imported wont be used to gas a Kurdish villiage next week?
The problem with Iraq is that there were no good options, just a list of terrible ones each with a potential cost in human lives. It's easy now to say that solution X has to be better than solution Y but that's only because we have the deathtoll for Y and have to believe that X would have been better. Had we done X we might now be wishing we had gone with Y.
20/20 hindsight is a bitch.
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To latch on to what Fletch was saying, even with hindsight it's still not clear what the best way was to deal with Iraq. Most people, including pretty much everybody in world politics that have commented on the situation, don't know what a workable strategy would have been, even with hindsight.
Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.
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Let's start out with the assumption that we HAD to deal with Iraq.
Why?
With atrocities being committed around the world- many of them worse than Iraq ever was- why focus on that particular nation? Maybe the best thing would have been to do... nothing. Yes, that's right- nothing.
Or, if you insist on bringing human rights to every nation, then maybe a good incentive is economic. A 5% tariff for not having UN-certified elections. Another 5% tariff for not recognizing human rights. A 10% tariff for not allowing UN inpsectors (BTW- inspections DO work). You can construct tariffs any way you want to reward good behavior, and the nice thing is you can apply this to any nation. Even better if you can get WTO to buy off on it. Or get the World Bank or IMF involved- better rates for better nations.
The point is that there are LOTS of alternatives, and if one doesn't work you try another. We're only stuck with a narrow model if we want to be. The only reason to invade was simple disinterest in alternatives. {HINT HINT)
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Free as in freedom, not beer.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
And what is our motive for killing? You can hardly call it "self defense" since Saddam never posed a threat. And if you say that we're interested in spreading freedom (or democracy, however you want to call it) with the business end of a gun then are we any better than the jihadist who wants to spread Islam at the point of a sword?
Your implication is that there is a moral equivalency between a totalitarian theocracy and a democratic republic.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
No, there isn't a moral equivalent between a totalitarian Theocracy and a Democratic Republic. But we are no longer a Democratic Republic. We are now a Corporate Aristocracy parading around pretending to be a Dem. Republic, which, in my book, is just as bad as the Theocracy. The war was fought for profit and the personal gain of a few corporations. The Islamic Fundamentalists fight for their ancient "holy" literature. Both reasons are equally wrong.
You're welcome on my boat. God ain't.
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Quote:
Originally posted by kpo:
... installing democracy in Iraq is taking power from the hands of one tyrant and putting it in the hands of the people.
HA!!! Democracy!!! That's a good one
! Oh... you weren't joking? C'mon, do you really think that we have given the power to the people? We've given it to a few people (just like in the U.S.) who are corrupt, self serving bootlickers (also just like in the U.S.), and who are pretty much guaranteed to back U.S. policy. We didn't give them Democracy. We made them a puppet.You're welcome on my boat. God ain't.
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Quote:The US is a federal democratic republic by definition, and the US was much more aristocratic in the past then it is today. People who seek to equate the totalitarian theocratic philosophies of groups like the Taliban with the democratic republic of the US have very little perspective on the issue. You know, disagreement with this war would carry more credibility if they weren’t based on fantasies. Calling Bush a terrorist or claiming that the US is a totalitarian state doesn’t make your anti-war argument more plausible; it just diminishes your credibility and reliability, thereby making your arguments appear less plausible. This is what we call shooting your argument in the foot.
Originally posted by reaverman:
But we are no longer a Democratic Republic. We are now a Corporate Aristocracy parading around pretending to be a Dem. Republic, which, in my book, is just as bad as the Theocracy. The war was fought for profit and the personal gain of a few corporations. The Islamic Fundamentalists fight for their ancient "holy" literature. Both reasons are equally wrong.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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