U.S. to allow Saddam's party into government Bremer wants to allow Baath Party members into the postwar government. The Bush administration is moving to change a postwar policy that blocked members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party from Iraqi government and military positions. Civilian administrator Paul Bremer, who put the ban in place, now wants to change the policy as part of an effort to convince Sunnis, who dominate the party, that they are welcome in the postwar political transition. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This comes from the CNN website. The Bush Administration is confused / drunk.
Disgusting. What have our soldiers been bombarding, invading and DYING for? Wasn't it to get rid of Saddam and his ilk??? Makes no sense.
I think this illustrates the difficulty of imposing democracy before a country is ready for it. So now we will have a government formed by radical Islamists beholden to Iran and recycled thugs and murderers from the former government. In retrospect, what we should have done was attempt to keep the Iraqi military in existence, thrown out the top officers who were Baath loyalists and appointed some professional Iraqi colonels to run it, then used that force to keep order in the country. Then we could have gradually moved to a secular democratic system, much as Turkey has done. Instead they disbanded the military, leaving tens of thousands of disaffected young men with no way to earn a living, and invited Muslim clerics into the government structure. Bush is extremely lucky that he does not have a credible opponent because he has truly made a mess of this occupation.
Excellent post, as usual, AAA. I would question your first sentence, though, in this way: If we have to impose a democracy, is it really a democracy? As others have pointed out, both here and on the television networks, maybe these people just can't live under a democratic form of government. They apparently just simply have a different mindset about the various aspects of living life, than most Americans have. IMHO, seems as though they have been literally beaten down to somewhat of a slave mentality. As long as the "master" gives them just enough to live on, I wonder if that isn't pretty much what they expect out of life.
Yup, I agree. AAA, you made excellent points (as usual). BSAM had a very good point too, about imposing democracy. I just find it pretty sad that you had to add the line about Bush being "lucky". Not that it isn't true. It may well be. But it sort of ruined the post (for me) ...in that I truly thought you were going to complete a post without politicizing the topic. But in the end, it seemed that you were compelled to add a line that was irrelevant and only served to keep your streak alive. You aren't Cal Ripkin. What is more important to you? Policy? Or politics? Peace, RS
I think it was insane to disallow the Baath party in the first place. What kind of democracy is that?? Max
Max.....Unless we had the intent to eliminate the ideology and practices of the Baath Party, why did we attack in the first place? To me, today's news is just a MAJOR, MAJOR blunder / reversal. Kinda makes me feel we are yielding to the terrorists. I think this is going to throw more doubt into the minds of the Bush supporters. I mean, considering what our policy has been since the beginning of this whole Iraq deal, this is the move of a very confused administration. If the terrorists resist a little more, maybe the Bush administration will say.....uh.....o.k......Well, we'll let Saddam come back, but not as president; he can only hold a cabinet level position!??!