Saddam Huu-What'shisface
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| Author | Topic: Saddam Huu-What'shisface |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Wednesday, December 17 2003 13:22
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Actually, I believe virtually all the Iraqis besides the Saddam loyalists, who are a tiny minority, are very grateful that America came in and ousted him. That doesn't mean they still want us there, but they're not angry that we moved in in the first place. Of course, there are only a few dozen other countries with hated dictators in the world. Is it our duty, or even our right, to remove all of them? —Alorael, who was just speaking to a journalist who was in Iraq earlier today. He had interesting perspectives from talking to different levels of the military and Iraqi civilians. He also unfailingly refused to give any personal opinions. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Wednesday, December 17 2003 14:43
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quote:What, you mean he didn't work for FOX (Fair and Balanced ©)? According to the New York Times, Bush's ratings in the polls are rising. —_— -------------------- We're all amazed but not amused By all the things that you said you'd do. You're much concerned but not involved by Decisions that are made by you But we are sick and tired of hearing your song, Telling us how you are going to change right from wrong, 'Cause if you really want to hear our views, You haven't done nothin'. Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Wednesday, December 17 2003 16:54
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Heh, heh, heh, Saddam stopped being important the moment we invaded. He is an excellent propaganda victory for us but does not have real meaning. Most of the resistance is religious fanatics and nationalists from Syria, Pakistan, and Iran along with a smattering of home grown we hate Americans types. Our goal is to stop a nationalist religious government which hates us from popping into power like it did in Afghanistan after the soviet union. Many shiites would love to have a mixed theocratic state half mullahs and half elected representatives. We still have not figured out how to stop this, because quite frankly there is not much that is better than Iran in the middle east for Muslims. Quite frankly it sucks for the average arab in terms of living conditions. You can have a crazed religious regime, an autocratic one party state, a sheikdom, or a military dictatorship. A Turkish style state might work in the middle east. It is the closest thing to a strong democracy for arab states. But quite frankly we cannot manipulate them very well and Washington would not like this style of state to exist in Iraq. -------------------- The Universe Never Did Make Sense; I Suspect It Was Built On A Government Contract- Robert Heinlein Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
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Babelicious
Member # 3149
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written Wednesday, December 17 2003 17:23
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What's wrong with a theocracy? Posts: 999 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Thursday, December 18 2003 09:56
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I would say ythe Shariah law, but quite frankly large parts of the US would be quite happy to have it. Aside from which, if Turkey's a paragon of democracy I think it might be better to be a despotism. Nothing personal, but Ifind Turkey's repeated human rights violations and brutal police tactics somewhat disturbing. The resistance isn't, so far a I understand, just 'we hate America' types. Plenty of Iraqi's have been pushed in that direction because the infrastructure's collapsed or due to the lack of sensitivity displayed by some US troops. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 1768
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written Friday, December 19 2003 18:36
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quote:Taken literally that means that there's at least 24 other hated dictators in the world. Besides, we've got a hell of a lot of power, and killing off evil dictators is keeping us from getting into worse mischief. I wish I knew a journalist that was in Iraq. :( -------------------- I want my Desert Plah back, (Drakey, check your PM's.) "Oh, North Wind, why frighten others? In Nature's family all are brothers. Puff and blow and wheeze and hiss; You can't frighten Shingebiss. Bring your frost and ice and snow; I'm still free to come and go. You can never frighten me, One who never fears is FREE!" -Shingebiss, the mighty duck Posts: 830 | Registered: Tuesday, August 20 2002 07:00 |
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Senile Reptile
Member # 547
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written Saturday, December 20 2003 09:26
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Killing off disctators through assassination is a sure way of having another dictator take over, most likely one worse than his predecessor. And depending on how you define "dictator," there could be bunches more than two dozen on this planet. In my quite-humble opinion, to really reform a whole nation, you need to conquer it and make changes forcibly, and occupy the place for quite a few years until the natives get used to new ideas imposed upon them. EDIT: For this reason, I fully beleive it's going to be a rather long time before resistence will die down. Saddam's capture is a very, very small victory. Not insignificant, but it's not going to change much. EDIT 2: I draw a similar parallel to the situation in Iraq and that of Lithuania after the collapse of the SU. Although the communists were gone from power, there was little order left. When the Soviets were in power, at least people knew how the system worked and could make a meager living. But with Lithuania's independence, people lost the security in at least knowing what to expect each subsequent day. More than ten years later, the situation has certainly improved (I'd venture people are generally better off now than they were with the communists), but it's been a very long and rocky journey, and there are still many improvements that need to be made before Lithuanians have a general standard of living equal to that of Western nations. [ Saturday, December 20, 2003 09:36: Message edited by: Sir Motrax of Exile ] -------------------- Polaris Posts: 1614 | Registered: Wednesday, January 23 2002 08:00 |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Sunday, December 21 2003 07:56
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Motrax, that's implying that the problem is with the people for being ruled by a dictator. The real problem is with the country for making dictatorship the most effective government system there. Just removing a dictator and hanging around for a few years changing policies is no use whatsoever. You need to build up the infrastructure, put in place an apolitical, accountable and honest bureaucracy and give the people a stake in the new government. And by a stake I don't just mean a vote. The problem with much of the third world is that few people own land and average income is pretty tiny with virtually no hard cash saved, so the government gets little revenue from tax. This means governments are not very accountable to their own people, depending instead on wealth from foreign businesses. This either means you get dictators of the friendly variety who we hear little about and almost never depose or the products of popular uprisings against the first type of dictator. Of course, these categories are not completely defined. Almost every dictator feels a need to grandstand to his people, no matter what his affiliation and innumerable Marxist guerillas have suddenly moved to the right when they occupied the presidential palace. Unless you're content to let two thirds of the world's population live in standards the other one third wouldn't allow to be used for a condemned prisoner, there are only two solutions. One is to engage in land reform, by force if financial solutions cannot be worked out. This road is likely to lead to a lot of international disapproval and spilt blood, but would eventually give such a state a good basis to work from. The troubles could be greatly reduced if there was international support and foreign nations were prepared to prevent any bloodshed by stepping in. The other is imperialism. Whilst the colonised nation has a much richer nation paying its bills, this would lead to innumerable problems. Firstly, since the colonised country would not have the vote, it would be the first thing to suffer a budget cut. Secondly, improvements in infrastructure would have to be balanced against the potential for human rights abuses, since no matter how much some might welcome it at first, chances are imperialism wouldn't be popular amongst the imperialised for long. Thirdly, you'd have the problem of a deliberate or accidental brain drain from the colonised nation to the coloniser. This wouldn't stop when the imperialism did. Fourthly, I don't believe that the imperialiser would give up the colony with everything pertaining to it easily, no matter how noble its intentions. Either approach might work if it was followed unflinchingly for three or four decades, but I doubt that any of the G8 nations would have the stomach to do so, and it's anyway unthinkable that any G8 nation with the possible exception of Russia and maybe Japan might have the same party in power for that long. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2210
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written Monday, December 22 2003 10:17
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What a nice thought unfortunately a nice bureaucracy does not make for good government necessarily. Part of the problem is that any financial solution we try to implement will not work within the religious framework of Islam. They simply do not use the system of credit or spending we do. Islamic banks are not the same under Sharia. So we bring in people to put in a financial system that are corrupt automatically because they are acting against the majority religion and often are employing corrupt factions. The position is further exacerbated by the fact that wealth is not measured in cash so much in the middle east as land, assets, hard currency, and other less liquid things than electronic transactions, bonds, and stocks which are basically illegal under muslim law. Most of this kind of wealth is concentrated in families who own the land. There is not a lot of liquid wealth except "oil". Land reform would enrage most of the richer populace because wealth is measured in land and hard assets. The problem is how do you introduce manufacturing, a non-corrupt civil service, and land reform without using a western style credit system to create jobs for large amounts of people. Apparently the fundamentalists think they can solve this by creating muslim states. -------------------- The Universe Never Did Make Sense; I Suspect It Was Built On A Government Contract- Robert Heinlein Posts: 1084 | Registered: Thursday, November 7 2002 08:00 |
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Apprentice
Member # 3806
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written Monday, December 22 2003 13:58
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It seems to me like the people in power in our world today are progressively getting more power hungry and blind to anything with any importance to the lives of the people they are representing. Basically politicians are just lonely old men who wear suits and practice telling lies in their bathroom mirror every morning when they wake up. The people who want power always seem to be the worst leaders, but then again that is just my opinion and I've never personally spoken with any of these people... they're too busy throwing childish temper tantrums and accusing each other of crimes to talk to us ordinary people. -------------------- Love is what we are born with, fear is what we learned here Posts: 8 | Registered: Saturday, December 20 2003 08:00 |
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Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
Member # 919
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written Monday, December 22 2003 18:35
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Yes, yes, we all know that a human instinct is to hate the guys in charge. You don't have to illustrate it. Anyway, I think one of the biggest problems is dealing with the rebel groups that always pop up in these third-world countries. Many are created with good intentions, but almost all of them end up more corrupt than the government they are fighting. These rebel groups also appear when a new government takes over, as is the case in Iraq. But think about it: if the people of Iraq knew that no one but the U.S. would be in power, don't you think they'd be a bit more willing to help? They are afraid that we will leave the country up for grabs, and that the old Baathists will take over, or some new terrorist group; basically, a group that would kill them for helping the Westerners. After the people are free from this fear, they can do whatever they want; this will generally be to help stabalize the nation, restore order, get electricity and clean water, that sort of thing. But as it is, they do not want to make any move that would attract the attention, and the wrath, of those who they fear might take over. -------------------- And though the musicians would die, the music would live on in the imaginations of all who heard it. -The Last Pendragon TEH CONSPIRACY IZ ALL Les forum de la chance. In case of emergency, break glass. Posts: 3351 | Registered: Saturday, April 6 2002 08:00 |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Tuesday, December 23 2003 03:14
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Sharia just forbids charging interest. There are workarounds. Of course, western mercantilism didn't really get started until restrictions on usury were lifted and allowing outsiders to perform the profession just led to pogroms and it doesn't seem to me that Iraq might be any successful in that respect. David, it's hard to quantify corruption and decreased revenue is often due to the defeated party heading for Switzerland with half the nation's treasury. That's not to say that insurgents are saints, but it's by no means true that all of them are more corrupt than their predecessors. A popular revolution will (usually, Fiji is an example where this isn't completely true) be more interested in the welfare of the people that a military junta. Of course, they all too frequently tend to start caring for the poor and oppressed on the other side of their borders and escalate their defence budgets to levels that only the American economy can support, causing famine. David, I think you'd have just as many, if not more, problems if you made clear that America would be staying there for the forseeable future plus a decade. Wahhabism is strong across the middle east and the Shia lost any love for America when Bush Snr. didn't support their uprising and when every American government since the end of Gulf War I bombed their areas on a fairly regular basis. Iraq has communist, nationalist, monarchist, Islamicist militant and moderate, Sunni and Shi'ite parties and virtually every combination of those (including monarchist communists) and then it has those people who just want the electricity back, a good food supply, working schools and hospitals and not to have soldiers breaking down their doors at midnight and behaving in a threatening manner. The first group would never be satisfied with your suggestion and the second won't be until things reach at the very least the pre-invasion level and more likely a good deal above. -------------------- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned I'll tell you my story, man Though I wish I'd never been born I'm loose at the seams, I've broken my dreams And my hand it shakes the pen Come on, come on now baby, Let the good times roll again Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
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