I understand your frustration. But were driven by a poilicy or Realpolitik, not your irrelevant analogies. Iraq just blew up again over the last 3 weeks and this time it was the Sunnis aligned with militant Shia killing Marines. By coopting the Sunnis - which are the Baaths - the US has just put itself between them. The aim is stability at this point and a working framework for a democratic republic, which, by definition, includes all. No one says that at some point further the criminals should not be tried. But the country needs to be pulled together and the interests of all considered. They should make the worst violators stand trial and begin a national reconsiliation at some point in the future. Your point is we should be strong, stand on principle, have an inflexible policy, deal with the insurrection militarily and continue to and let out Marines get killed at ever greater rates. Bad idea. A political solution is better. We look stronger in fact. We now have a stronger hand dealing with the majority SHia by engaging the Sunnis. It was a long overdue, but a brillaint coup by Bremer & Co.
Hmmmmm...interesting. Kinda like a reverse phsycology thingy. I dont think it will go as smoothly as you think..but then again we need to try all of our options at this point. Although, this would seem to be equivalent to leaving the country and letting them blend on their own.....
Hey, you forgot one: "The president said Iraq's refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors presented a threat to the entire world." "Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons," "Along with Prime Minister (Tony) Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy or warning," "If Saddam can cripple the weapons inspections system and get away with it, he would conclude the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will," He would surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction." "The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people," --Slick Willy Clinton, addressing the Nation, Dec. 16, 1998
"A lack of intelligence The Sydney Morning Herald Australia's spies knew the United States was lying about Iraq's WMD programme. So why didn't the Government choose to believe them? Andrew Wilkie writes. 'Intelligence" was how the Americans described the material accumulating on Iraq from their super-sophisticated spy systems. But to analysts at the Office of National Assessments in Canberra, a decent chunk of the growing pile looked like rubbish. In their offices on the top floor of the drab ASIO building, ONA experts found much of the US material worthy only of the delete button or the classified waste chute to the truck-sized shredder in the basement. Australian spooks aren't much like the spies in the James Bond movies. Not many drink vodka martinis. But most are smart - certainly smart enough to understand how US intelligence on Iraq was badly skewed by political pressure, worst-case analysis and a stream of garbage-grade intelligence concocted by Iraqis desperate for US intervention in Iraq. It wasn't just the Australians who were mystified by the accumulating US trash. The French, Germans and Russians had long before refused to be persuaded by Washington's line. British intelligence agencies were still inclined to take a more conservative position. And the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, even went so far as to say during a late April interview that "much of the intelligence on which the capitals built their case seemed to have been shaky". The CIA had clearly lost the plot if its October 2002 report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program was anything to go by. Either that, or the agency was party to a disinformation campaign designed to encourage support for a war. How else to explain the excerpt quoted by the Prime Minister in early February: "All key aspects ... of Iraq's offensive biological weapons program are active and most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War." The CIA's public acknowledgement of a review smells more like early positioning for its day of reckoning than a genuine interest in continuous improvement. The CIA can't afford another serious blunder so soon after its failure to pick up the September 11 attacks. Australian intelligence agencies made it clear to the Government all along that Iraq did not have a massive WMD program (that dubious honour remains restricted to at least China, France, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Syria, Britain and the US). Nor was Saddam Hussein co-operating actively with al-Qaeda. And there was no indication Iraq was intending to pass WMDs to terrorists. Now the WMD claims are unravelling. All that US intelligence garbage is on the nose. Coalition forces in Iraq have not found thousands of chemical artillery shells ready to be fired or ballistic missiles loaded with deadly bacteriological agents. One of the major concerns about the war now is the way it will encourage the proliferation of WMDs. America's adversaries are being encouraged to acquire WMDs to deter US aggression. Mutually assured destruction kept the US and Soviet Union from each other's throats for decades. And, for now, Iran's and North Korea's arsenals seem to be influencing the US to back off." continued: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/30/1054177726543.html Of course, US intelligence experts were also fully cognizant of the fact that Bush's double case of a desire for private family vengeance and corruption for his oil buddies was based on nothing but spin, deceit and lies: "White House 'exaggerating Iraqi threat' The Guardian Bush's televised address attacked by US intelligence President Bush's case against Saddam Hussein, outlined in a televised address to the nation on Monday night, relied on a slanted and sometimes entirely false reading of the available US intelligence, government officials and analysts claimed yesterday. "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-intelligence." http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,807286,00.html Dick Armey, the House (Republican) Majority Leader, says, "I don't believe that America will justifiably make an unprovoked attack on another nation." He also says, "It would not be consistent with what we have been as a nation or what we should be as a nation." Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) says the CIA has "absolutely no evidence" that Iraq possesses or will soon possess nuclear weapons. Brent Scowcroft, the former National Security Advisor to Republican Presidents, says a U.S. invasion of Iraq "could turn the whole region into a cauldron and, thus, destroy the war on terrorism." http://www.moveon.org/nowar/ QED Particularly as the Iraq war never had anything to with the effort against terror.
"The president said Iraq's refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors presented a threat to the entire world." "Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons," "Along with Prime Minister (Tony) Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy or warning," "If Saddam can cripple the weapons inspections system and get away with it, he would conclude the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will," He would surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction." "The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people," --Slick Willy Clinton, addressing the Nation, Dec. 16, 1998
So, if you were 13 years old, lived in Baghdad, and a member of the Baath party knocked on your door, blowed your dad's head from the front door back into the kitchen, that'd be fine with you? Because, in the interests of democracy, by strictest definition, ALL should be included. Therefore, you'd have no problem letting this guy become the town mayor, or how 'bout maybe the head of the Human Rights Department? Sure,"the worst violators" should stand trial and would be easy to identify. However, someone who just did one or two dastardly deeds for "the party" (uh, like murdering your dad) would be much harder to track down (nearly impossible, since this has gone on for about 30 years). So, we should coopt the Sunnis? Look, you're talking about "politics". I'm talking about doing the right thing. dgabriel, ANYBODY can SUCK ASS. All the U.S. is doing now is sucking ass to TRY to make SOMETHING out of this QUAGMIRE. Appeasement never works. You don't come into a country, defeat the bad guys, then say, oh, well, guess you guys can go ahead and be the leaders again if that's what you reeeeally want. Imagine if we had done that with the Nazis is WWII??!!?? If you want to be a Baath Party supporter, that's your option. To me, you're just on the wrong side of the equation, or you just like to stir up shit on message boards. Whatever! Here's my message: NO MORE BAATH PARTY, as was the ORIGINAL policy of the United States.
I think your reference point is a civilized western nation. However, Iraq is a third world uncivilized country. Violence, many times in the extreme, is a norm for much, if not all, of its society. A high moral value for human lives and its attendant inclination to be morally responsible for the protection of it, does not exist there. ------------------------------------------ "The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people," --Slick Willy Clinton, Dec. 16, 1998
For now, I won't touch your bubble about Iraq=Germany ww2,:eek: Sooooo, you don't like the Sunnis, and the Shias are the extreme fundamentalist fanatic militant clerics....... Iraq's make up is about 35% Sunnis, 65% Shia's Sooooooo what do you suggest??exterminate them all? or setting up a "cough" democratic gov't that represents none of them???? Aren't we supposed to liberating them and democratize them? Where do you people get your logic from???????????
The problem is a "democracy" that is controlled by Islamist radicals is a contradiction in terms. One need only look to Iran to see what will happen. Just because there exist groups that people will vote for does not automatically entitle them to participate in the government. After WW II there was an extensive "de-Nazification" process in Germany. We understood we didn't fight a war to let the same goons run things. In Iraq we have had a problem of lack of cooperation because the Iraqi's rightly suspect or fear we will cut and run at the first sign of trouble, leaving them to face the Baathist thugs and Islamist radicals by themselves. We did exactly that in Iran when Carter pulled the persian rug out from under the Shah, leaving military figures who had long worked with us to be murdered. Living in a police state tends to sharpen one's instincts for self-preservation. What iraqi will cooperate with us now, knowing that the very people he is ratting out may be in charge by the end of the summer?
Good points, max. Oh, I very much realize Iraq is made up of uncivilized, uneducated morons. But we're there, so what do we do now? Keep changing our policy? Appeasement only teaches the bad guys the wrong thing, a la Spain.