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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:37
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quote:
The real left don't want success in Iraq at all, as it would set a dangerous precedent. It would have been better if the lesson could have been learned without the expense, but Bush is a stubborn and ignorant man. |
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Because the whole war is bull and its success would lead to more idiotic adventures. It may surprise you, but the majority of the world do not like the idea of the US forcing people to accord with its own diseased ideals. |
Then they are fools. "Success" of the type that would produce more of Iraq-style adventures is already out the window. "Success" at this point would simply be a stable Iraq that has some semblence of democracy. Which will have come at a very high cost, both in dollar figure and diplomatic capital, not to mention coalition casualties (which, in the grand scheme of things remain pretty low) and civilian casualties/damage. The whole experience has been quite traumatic for the U.S., and even more so for those allies that joined us. Therefore, I disagree strongly with your assertion that success would lead to more Iraqs.
Outright failure (Iraq collapses into anarchy and becomes a terrorist breeding ground, or becomes radical islamist state, or any number of other possible disasterous scenarios) would be terrible, for both the Right and the Left in the West. But the far Left doesn't seem to give a **** - they're willing to have that happen to prove a point that, IMO, has already been proven.
-Arrian
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Cruddy
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quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
Then they are fools. "Success" of the type that would produce more of Iraq-style adventures is already out the window. "Success" at this point would simply be a stable Iraq that has some semblence of democracy. Which will have come at a very high cost, both in dollar figure and diplomatic capital, not to mention coalition casualties... |
Well, if you don't want to mention it, fine.
However, the cost implications are important. If the current Iraqi regime survives, would it justify the cost?
The cost is really getting rid of Saddam, not giving the Iraqis democracy. That's more of a happy byproduct.
Only when the matter is over will the true cost be known - but it is likely the US electorate is going to collectively crap themselves when they get the final demand.
quote:
Originally posted by Arrian
Outright failure (Iraq collapses into anarchy and becomes a terrorist breeding ground, or becomes radical islamist state, or any number of other possible disasterous scenarios) would be terrible, for both the Right and the Left in the West. But the far Left doesn't seem to give a **** - they're willing to have that happen to prove a point that, IMO, has already been proven.
-Arrian |
It is the purpose of opposition parties to oppose the govt. I personally think them going along with the whole idea without moaning and *****ing a much worse prospect.
Democracy can be ugly sometimes.
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Bereta_Eder
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why is failure used to signify iraq being liberated from its occupiers and the people establishing a true sovereignity over their country?
that's success. wether it happens or not, although things are not as black and white. % of resistance = % of leverage
and yeah the more resistance there is
a)it's good 'cause it drives occupiers and murderers away and opens the way for people to take their own fate and country in their own hands
b) it will disuade america from trying anything else in the near future. this will be a reminder to them: we cant go bomb and kill and occupy as we please. there are people there with dignity and hearts of lions that will kick our high tech lily asses back to our funny little country of low quality ice cream
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Bereta_Eder
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but the role of the invaders and occupiers in destabilizing this country is dire. all the people killed, all the movements emerging and bombing...
this struggle for power rarely was more straighforward and crude (no offence to cruddy) and at least there's hope that this are signs of collapse of the american reach.
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Bereta_Eder
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america will try and get its oil and it stays
but it's now in a position that even if it doesnt manage to do that (which is a heavy blow) it cant leave completely lest there is an outbreak of civil war which would be due to its actions.
i hardly see how they are making any kind of service seeing as this would be a catastrophe (even bigger than the present one) for US leverage worldwide.
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Bereta_Eder
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funnily enough your bigger ally in all this was countries like France. it was one of the few that warned you that you'll **** up and you did **** up.
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Bereta_Eder
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quote:
Originally posted by Verto
Anyone using the war for oil argument deserves a 3 day banning just for their sheer stupidity. |
i doubt you realize you're a smal minority in the world who DOESNT believe it was about oil.
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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:37
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quote:
June 29, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Who Lost Iraq?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The formal occupation of Iraq came to an ignominious end yesterday with a furtive ceremony, held two days early to foil insurgent attacks, and a swift airborne exit for the chief administrator. In reality, the occupation will continue under another name, most likely until a hostile Iraqi populace demands that we leave. But it's already worth asking why things went so wrong.
The Iraq venture may have been doomed from the start — but we'll never know for sure because the Bush administration made such a mess of the occupation. Future historians will view it as a case study of how not to run a country.
Up to a point, the numbers in the Brookings Institution's invaluable Iraq Index tell the tale. Figures on the electricity supply and oil production show a pattern of fitful recovery and frequent reversals; figures on insurgent attacks and civilian casualties show a security situation that got progressively worse, not better; public opinion polls show an occupation that squandered the initial good will.
What the figures don't describe is the toxic mix of ideological obsession and cronyism that lie behind that dismal performance.
The insurgency took root during the occupation's first few months, when the Coalition Provisional Authority seemed oddly disengaged from the problems of postwar anarchy. But what was Paul Bremer III, the head of the C.P.A., focused on? According to a Washington Post reporter who shared a flight with him last June, "Bremer discussed the need to privatize government-run factories with such fervor that his voice cut through the din of the cargo hold."
Plans for privatization were eventually put on hold. But as he prepared to leave Iraq, Mr. Bremer listed reduced tax rates, reduced tariffs and the liberalization of foreign-investment laws as among his major accomplishments. Insurgents are blowing up pipelines and police stations, geysers of sewage are erupting from the streets, and the electricity is off most of the time — but we've given Iraq the gift of supply-side economics.
If the occupiers often seemed oblivious to reality, one reason was that many jobs at the C.P.A. went to people whose qualifications seemed to lie mainly in their personal and political connections — people like Simone Ledeen, whose father, Michael Ledeen, a prominent neoconservative, told a forum that "the level of casualties is secondary" because "we are a warlike people" and "we love war."
Still, given Mr. Bremer's economic focus, you might at least have expected his top aide for private-sector development to be an expert on privatization and liberalization in such countries as Russia or Argentina. But the job initially went to Thomas Foley, a Connecticut businessman and Republican fund-raiser with no obviously relevant expertise. In March, Michael Fleischer, a New Jersey businessman, took over. Yes, he's Ari Fleischer's brother. Mr. Fleischer told The Chicago Tribune that part of his job was educating Iraqi businessmen: "The only paradigm they know is cronyism. We are teaching them that there is an alternative system with built-in checks and built-in review."
Checks and review? Yesterday a leading British charity, Christian Aid, released a scathing report, "Fueling Suspicion," on the use of Iraqi oil revenue. It points out that the May 2003 U.N. resolution giving the C.P.A. the right to spend that revenue required the creation of an international oversight board, which would appoint an auditor to ensure that the funds were spent to benefit the Iraqi people.
Instead, the U.S. stalled, and the auditor didn't begin work until April 2004. Even then, according to an interim report, it faced "resistance from C.P.A. staff." And now, with the audit still unpublished, the C.P.A. has been dissolved.
Defenders of the administration will no doubt say that Christian Aid and other critics have no proof that the unaccounted-for billions were ill spent. But think of it this way: given the Arab world's suspicion that we came to steal Iraq's oil, the occupation authorities had every incentive to expedite an independent audit that would clear Halliburton and other U.S. corporations of charges that they were profiteering at Iraq's expense. Unless, that is, the charges are true.
Let's say the obvious. By making Iraq a playground for right-wing economic theorists, an employment agency for friends and family, and a source of lucrative contracts for corporate donors, the administration did terrorist recruiters a very big favor. |
link: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/opinion/29KRUG.html
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29-06-2004 17:31
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