Kymar, there's no point getting bogged down into a definition of occupation/presence, suffice to say that I think that quite a lot of the things you explained occur in your version of occupation are going to occur in Iraq regardless of what we call it. The very nature of post war Iraq is going to necessitate interference in political and internal affairs, is it not? I totally disagree with you if you are suggesting that if American troops are asked to leave that America will kindly and promptly comply with the request. I mean, depending on when that request is made. I don't see any chance of American troops staying any less than a year, and a year can be a long time. A lot of what happens does, of course, depend on the sentiment regarding the arrival of the American presence, something I mentioned before, but I don't think you really touched on. Given that the American presence in Iraq will have been established by an invasion -- let's not sugarcoat it -- and the bombing and the destruction that necessarily entails; coupled with the fact that there is bigtime outrage already within the Arab world regarding this attack; add to that the sanctions that are blamed for taking half a million Iraqi lives (I'd bet they're blaming the US exclusively); and all in all, I don't there are very good prospects for this being a peaceful "presence" at all. As for the euro-socialist utopia, I think that's a gross generalization, and a rather inaccurate one at that. I don't think seeking an internationally, generally acceptable consensus decision on how the Iraq situation should have been handled was unduly idealistic or unrealistic, certainly it was hardly utopian. And I definitely believe it is superior to what has actually taken place -- namely American arrogance in scorning world opinion and pursuing, what is regarded by most, as an illegal attack on a sovereign nation. I think, if your government really was so convinced that it was doing the right thing, then at the very least, there could have been some kind assurances made that if they turned out to be wrong there would be some accountability from the American leadership. (Now that's utopian! ) One more thing Kymar, although I am amenable to changing my mind, it's pretty unlikely concerning the Iraq situation. My position on this wasn't just adopted the night the bombs started to fall, it's something I've paid close attention to for quite a while; so this isn't just some emotional overreaction. I have long regarded American foreign policy to be devious, self-serving (not for America as a whole, but for a select few in it) and, in short, criminal. And that point of view was formed in light of indisputable facts. Now I'm saying this just to save you the time if you ever feel you need to denounce me for being whole-heartedly "anti-American*" because I already admit it. * (even though I've stated a few times that it's not the actual people of America, per se, or the American nation, that I actually have a problem with; it's soley in the realm of international affairs)
Imagine someone studied the Iraq situation to the best of their ability. Imagine they came to a conclusion as to the morality, legality, motivation of the Bush administration. Does that mean they are correct in their conclusion? No, it means they have simply formed an opinion. People all the time form very well educated, wrong opinions. The trick to spot whether they formed those opinions on the basis of genuine objective critical thinking, is how easily they accept they were wrong when new data demonstrates the error of their theory, and conclusions. When they become rigid, dogmatic, emotional when presented data that would require a recalculation, you can easily spot the flaw in their basic reasoning processes.
dgab, don't fall for Optional's bitter aspersions; he simply can't stomach that the fact my preference is to see an Iraqi military victory and that he failed completely to make a case that it was "wrong" for me to hold such a preference. At least you, yourself, as much as I disagree with you, have been prepared, it seems, to accept that others may hold opinions different to your own without your having villify them for it.
Agree, of course. Politics is all about power, and those who are the most adamant about professing their political preference on others are typically those who actually feel the most powerless in their own lives. This may be why we have yet to see a successful democratic version of the ideals of communism, and why socialist countries in Europe are in such severe economic straits right now, as it tends to go against human nature to conform to an ideal which runs opposite to the most basic instinct of most people....which is greed. Totalitarian thought is just not in the cards for human beings, given the way we are wired. Those who cannot accept the world the way it is, human nature the way it is, seek out avenues to try to create their own world. It is common for youth to seek out such totalitarian philosophies as they begin to confront the realities of life, but most outgrow it when they gain sufficient life experiences and learn to accept how messy and uncertain life really is. Upon maturation, most critical thinkers learn how gray the world really is, and when the begin to see the leaders of totalitarian movements up close, when they open their eyes, they begin to see the huge gap between the rap and the act and the disillusionment process begins. It happened here in this country, when the "revolutionaries" of the 60's grew up. Some did enter politics, but only the successful ones learned how the game is really played. They can make a difference, but it is slow and requires playing the game. Clinton understood this, but his fatal flaw of his own need for instant gratification and adulation, led to his downfall. Tragic really. Those who choose to support Saddam in a "lesser of two evils" choice, in their hatred of America and the current administration, are in essence making a justification for Stalin like leadership. Anyone who would choose Stalinesque leadership over Bush's administration is lacking objectivity. With all of Bush's flaws, and he has many, he really is the lesser of the two evils, no doubt. Amazing how they can convince themselves that Stalinesque tactics are okay, as long as it counters any attempt on the part of Bush's present administration to rid the world of this despot without their own stamp of approval. It is an inconsistent thinking, and an indicator of a weak and lazy critical mind that the left can actually take up a side in defense of a despot like Hussein. "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow....." True then, true now.
Whenever a democracy fights a war against a totalitarian dictator, I will cheer for the democracy. Doing anything else while living in a democracy is a complete hypocrisy. That is, enjoying and exercising the freedom that democracy gives to freely voice one's opinion, while that opinion is for the downfall or defeat of that same democratic power. A pretzel might be able to join you in that feat of logic but no one else would.
Speak for yourself Babak, and let me speak for myself. I'm not calling for the downfall of "that same democratic power", ie the downfall of the US. Not even close. I would simply like to see them lose this war and have that be the catalyst for them to take a hard look at their stance on international affairs. Not that I hold out any realistic possibility for such happening. I guess there must be a LOT of pretzels in the world -- especially Arab pretzels (and, gee, you'd think their opinion -- being as into democracy as you are -- might be just a tad more important than yours huh?) -- that feel exactly the same way.
i simply find many articles in this website well worth reading. take your time to go through the "patriot" and "muslim" questionnaire or Cheney´s "twelve-step recovery plan" for instance. you´ll see that they are packed with loads of serious original thoughts - contrary to the endless shallow cut & paste jobs of your preferred neo-con/fascist "discussion partners". i´m certainly not trying to fool the usual foolish suspects - but to point the few open minded readers of this thread to a great and well-designed website, made by Americans [with a sense of humor and even irony] for Americans. besides: i love he beautiful posters http://www.whitehouse.org/initiatives/posters/index.asp
The bottom line, Alfonso, is that by stating the above you are advocating a preference for American deaths on a massive scale and, furthermore, the perpetuation of a brutal, Stalinist regime. That you can do so merely to teach the US a lesson you believe is forthcoming reveals not only your shallowness and naivete, but how cold-hearted you really are. It pisses me off to no end to know that you and those like you with such hate for my country either live amongst us or come and go at their leisure. The moment you set foot on US soil again remember that you are able to do so only because we are the most tolerant nation on earth. You better pray we continue to be.
A morally hollow victory No amount of PR will disguise the fact that this war is an outrage against humanity Mary Riddell Sunday April 6, 2003 The Observer The showdown approaches and the propaganda war moves on. Do not linger on images of a shroud-wrapped infant with a dummy clamped between grey lips. Do not think of a mother clasping the broken bodies of her two children in the car shot up at a military checkpoint. Or, if you cannot remove them from your memory, see such killings as the necessary price of liberation. Be mindful, as the endgame plays out, of the Home Secretary's guidelines on war coverage. Some British journalists, he complains, are reporting the conflict in a manner that lends 'moral equivalence' to the Iraqi regime and encourages a 'progressive and liberal public' to believe this distorted version. Mr Blunkett, who yesterday embellished his assertions, is doubly wrong. There is no bias, nor the slightest hint that Bush, Blair and Saddam register equally on the weighbridge of tyranny. On the separate question of whether Iraqi acts of war are on a par with those of the coalition, the answer is also simple. Ours are sometimes worse. The spectre of chemical attack remains, but, amid Iraqi Scuds unfired and bio-weapons undiscovered, reality trumps fear. The cluster-bombing of civilians by an invading force proclaiming its superior power is an outrage against humanity and the Geneva Convention. The Government defends their use. Clare Short's conscience has not visibly twitched. Geoff Hoon, when asked on Radio 4 to consider Iraqi mothers mourning their dead children, demonstrated the compassion of a haddock. How unsurprising that, from Basingstoke to Basra, the Whitehall psy-ops department has failed to win its PR battle. This, politicians say, is partly the fault of a feral media. Making 'snap judgments' on the basis of television footage is dangerous, according to the Foreign Secretary of a government that invited us to judge Saddam's mindset on the basis of a plagiarised PhD thesis. The First and Second World Wars might never have been won, Jack Straw mused, if they had been covered by 24-hour news channels. It is true that war reporting has speeded up since AD 106, the year that Trajan commissioned the column offering a picture chronicle of his Romanian campaign. The Bayeux Tapestry, many years in the making after the Norman Conquest, could not compete with any factual embroidery confected between Channel 4 News and The World Tonight . But reporters have been embedded since Crimea and before. The Dunkirk spirit would almost certainly have withstood those images of conflict fit to be shown on Sky. In fairness, Mr Straw acknowledged the merits of front-line news and deplored delay and censorship that once 'helped governments to suppress the truth'. They still do. Only obfuscation is harder now, in an age of scrutiny. Politicians dislike ceaseless coverage not because it masks the truth but because it exposes it. You can no longer dismiss a marketplace bombing causing many civilian deaths and tell everyone, as Mr Straw did, that it seems 'increasingly probable' that Iraq did it. Two British journalists claim to have found fragments of a US missile, and most people prefer their word to the Minister's. Wartime PR is a slippery game. It always was. In America, in 1917, the administration grasped, for the first time, that war, like pop-up toasters, was a marketable commodity. Its salesman, Woodrow Wilson, who had run for office on a peace ticket, established a giant propaganda ministry, the US Committee for Public Information. Its mission was to persuade liberal progressives that war chimed with their ideas of a new and rational world order. 'Four-minute men' were recruited as volunteer preachers instructing their communities to shop unpatriotic neighbours as suspected spies. Citizens were warned that America might be renamed New Prussia, while Hollywood was told that no films could be exported without an undertaking to show US propaganda films alongside. But something more fundamental was happening. According to Stuart Ewen, the social historian of spin, the CPI extinguished the Enlightenment dictum that people were essentially rational. Public opinion was for mobilising and managing. The public mind, Ewen wrote, was now seen as an entity to 'be manufactured, not reasoned with'. The mantra, then as today, was to make the world safe for democracy. Although Wilson's war was more marketable than Bush's, the tactic of persuasion his agency devised has lasted. Almost a century on, politicians with battles to sell still seek to manipulate minds. The made-to-measure mentality is supposed to be as amnesiac and forgiving as required. It is primed never to ask, should no weapons of mass destruction be found: what was this war for? It is meant to agree that killing 1,000 civilians and countless thousand unlamented soldiers, some as young and hopeful as dead British 'heroes', is a down payment on a better world. It is groomed to think, against all precedence, that you can bomb a nation to democracy. Just in case the corpses do not speak for themselves, Blair is dropping some more leaflets to tell Iraqis that their new-look country will not be a Pentagon across the water. Except that it most probably will, if neo-conservatives have their way. But PR decrees that we must forget the dangers of such a move. Equally, we are supposed not to notice that Arab TV stations, a new and potent public-relations force, are inflam ing multitudes of hearts and minds with their graphic version of what the Western coalition has been up to. We, by contrast, are invited to despise the independent al-Jazeera, condemned by Mr Blunkett as a Saddam tool, and soak up good news images. Ignore the nastiness and think instead of the brave 'rescue' of Private Jessica Lynch from the hospital ward where she was being treated with all available medical skill. The PR campaign wants upbeat stories. It does not want curmudgeons who opposed this war because pre-emptive strikes against sovereign states run counter to law and sanity. If Baghdad falls mercifully quickly, and if there is no more terrible loss of life, the mind- management machine will decree that Bush and Blair have secured a triumph. They will be just as wrong as they were last week. Their setbacks have been of their own devising, not manufactured by media that have dithered between triumph and disaster. And, actually, 24/7 coverage has done the Government a favour. The soap of war, with its sanitised pictures and labyrinthine storylines, should be a politician's dream. Such visual Ritalin offers a distraction from how dangerous the bigger picture may look. Nato and the UN lie among the mangled bodies on the road to Baghdad. Ravaged cities continue to hold out against the coalition. Still, barring a catastrophic fightback by Saddam, the carnage may end soon. The PR machine decrees that, at such a point, all objectors should repent and give thanks for the wisdom of Bush and Blair. But victory does not vindicate a misguided attack or clarify its consequences. At least we knew roughly what sort of war we were getting. Marketing the peace will be a tougher challenge. We have been sold a new world order and no one can specify what the product will be. http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,930815,00.html