31-01-2005 21:01									#211
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quote: But I have trouble imagining that the loss of priviledged status is the reason (let alone the only reason) why the Sunnis have such a strong support for violence. Not to explore the reasons, and to dismiss the possible demands, is only bound to failure IMHO. Unless one plans to exterminate a population, it's always a good idea to keep that population sufficiently satisfied so that it behaves. And saying "screw them", or not exploring their motivations, will only end in the utter alienation of the Sunni community. A viable democratic Iraq cannot cope with that.

Sure it can. The majority can put down the revolt of the minority. Democracies have done this from time-to-time in the past. It's enough to inform the minority that a resort to violence is unwise, when other legitimate avenues for making your desires known are available.

	31-01-2005 21:28									#212
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quote: Reguarding Juan Cole I pointed out several problems in my first post about this which you insist aren't problems at all though I imagine most thinking people followed what I said.

If you think they're such big problems, then defend your accusations. Ignoring my refutations, and then insisting that the piece is hackery, is dishonest. I'm not going to go on with this irrelevent tangeant about Juan Cole's credibility when you don't have time to back up the meat of your objections.

quote: A quick look at the net reveals a great deal about Juan Cole and his hyper partisan crusade in Iraq; I read several of his works and I can't find a single one that is supportive of anything. That's fair enough but what is unfair is to try to prance a partisan hack like Cole out as some sort of fair minded individual which he clearly is not.

Spare me your self-reighteous bullshit. First of all, I didn't prance him as the perfectly objective guy - I just quoted his post because I generally agreed with it, and it'd spare me the trouble of rewriting the same ideas. Secondly, how does generally opposing the gov't's actions make you a hack? Does generally supporting the gov't make you a hack?

quote: Jeff Jarvis is a liberal writer and his last article on this page is about Juan Cole. http://www.buzzmachine.com/archives/2004_12_14.html That last link is interesting because it shows just what type of conspiracy theory nut job Juan Cole is. Cole accussed Iraqi bloggers who were positive about the eletion of being CIA Agents as no body else but the CIA would dare say anything good about Iraq. In that link Cole gets his ass handed to him from being the partisan nut job that he is. Please remember these are fellow liberals who are slamming Cole for his stupidity.

I looked at the link, and I couldn't find him calling them CIA agents. I couldn't even find the phrase "CIA" in the post they quoted. He just said that they seemed suspicious with their beliefs, their host, and IIRC, they disputed something that Cole said which is supposed to be a basic fact about Najaf's history, which Iraqis are supposed to generally know. I don't know what the situation is (nor do I particularly care), but you're totally misrepresenting him, here.

quote: That last one is a link to the Iraqi blog which Juan Cole accussed of being evil CIA agents.

You don't bother to double-check the facts regarding people you disagree with, and you call Cole a hack?

	31-01-2005 21:36									#213
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quote: Which part of it is undemocratic, exactly? While we do get to see the lists earlier than that, they're dictated by party leaderships.

And party memberships.

Where the lack of democracy comes from is the widespread lack of knowledge regarding who comprise the party lists. Since, again, the party lists were announced shortly before the election, and then there was virtually no public campaigning in large parts of the country due to the security situation (presumably, that's not the case in Europe).

	31-01-2005 22:06									#214
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo [You don't bother to double-check the facts regarding people you disagree with, and you call Cole a hack?

Cole said they were suspicious cause theyre blog was on a server in Texas. Cole didnt bother to check why they were using that server, or to inform himself that many Iraqi bloggers use out of country servers.

One expects higher standards from a University of Michigan Mid East Studies prof, especially one so widely quoted as Cole, than one does from a 'poly poster, even one so compelling as Oerdin. He didnt use the word CIA, but simply questioned where they get their support from, in words that implied CIA. Standard fare from the likes of Cole.

Its hardly surprising that Cole is feeling down today.

	31-01-2005 22:10									#215
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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/inte...1401698,00.html

	31-01-2005 22:12									#216
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david adesnik of oxblog on Coles recent post:

"The 1997 elections in Iran were much more democratic.

Maybe if I said stuff like that I could get a job in the history department at the University of Michigan. Oh, and here's another bit of Ann Arbor scholarship, taken from the same post:

If it had been up to Bush, Iraq would have been a soft dictatorship under Chalabi.

Well, maybe under President Rumsfeld."

	31-01-2005 22:26									#217
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark Oh, and here's another bit of Ann Arbor scholarship, taken from the same post:

Makes me wonder about the education of a certain doctor that posts here.

	31-01-2005 23:28									#218
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So where the hell were the insurgents? We have been told that the battle of Fallujah was only a tactical victory for the coalition, if that. We've been told that the arrests of various Zarqawi lieutenants is unimportant, indeed that the arrest or death of ANY insurgents is unimportant, as they can always recruit more, and there numbers are swelling. Coalition intel work is failing, and the iraqi forces are worthless, except for a handful of overstretched Kurds.

Yet on the day that the insurgency had publicly stated it HAD to disrupt, they achieved little more than they have on numerous days in the last few weeks. A total of 44 Iraqis killed, apparently including the suiciders themselves. NO succesful attacks outside the Sunni triangle.

So what happened?
A. They never planned to target the election, that was a bluff.
B. Theyre quite strong, but targeting a particular event is beyond them - they can hit only targets of opportunity.
C. Efforts by coalition and Iraqi forces were too strong
D. The insurgency IS fading.
E. A little of each of the above

	31-01-2005 23:31									#219
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The Sunnis are scared to death that the Shia will treat them like 2nd class citizens , so I don't blame them for boycotting the election.

	31-01-2005 23:32									#220
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I'd hazard at a combo of B and C. Security, I'm given to understand, was extraordinary, and on a level that cannot be sustained for an extented length of time.

As for fading, The Economist estimates they've grown considerably in numbers over the past year, FWIW.

	01-02-2005 01:02									#221
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quote: Originally posted by Odin The Sunnis are scared to death that the Shia will treat them like 2nd class citizens , so I don't blame them for boycotting the election.

I suppose also that you were in favor of the South seceding in 1861 for the same reason?

	01-02-2005 04:17									#222
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TEH ELECTIONS WERE A SUCCESSS!!!

quote: “United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting. According to reports from Saigon, 83 percent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong. A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam.”

- Peter Grose, in a page 2 New York Times article titled ‘U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote,’ September 4, 1967

	01-02-2005 04:18									#223
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quote: Originally posted by Ned I suppose also that you were in favor of the South seceding in 1861 for the same reason?

Let's be honest here: The South seceded because they wanted their ****ign slaves Ned.

	01-02-2005 05:01									#224
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quote: Originally posted by Sava TEH ELECTIONS WERE A SUCCESSS!!! - Peter Grose, in a page 2 New York Times article titled ‘U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote,’ September 4, 1967

Don't compare this to Vietnam, thanks. There isn't a potent enemy.

http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/39526.htm

"BAGHDAD — The man replacing the mayor of Baghdad — who was assassinated for his pro-American loyalties — says he is not worried about his ties to Washington.

In fact, he'd like to erect a monument to honor President Bush in the middle of the city.

"We will build a statue for Bush," said Ali Fadel, the former provincial council chairman. "He is the symbol of freedom.""

--------------

Just thought that was funny, but I dunno about the source.

At any rate, comparing Iraq to Vietnam, I think is sick in the head.

The insurgency is only fading in Iraq. That's the only plausible answer.

	01-02-2005 06:23									#225
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Jaakko

quote: Dear mr. Dissect-o-man, I'll reply to your post as a whole because it'll get disjointed and loses context otherwise. I would be much obliged if you could do the same.

Sorry, if I took you out of context then by all means show me and explain.

quote: Now, the Iraqis not having success under Saddam (which is obviously true) doesn't mean that the US is not an impediment to success. That happens on the merits of US' actions. For sure, they're a far lesser impediment than SH ever was, but I stand by my assertion that an impediment is what the US has been, and from the looks of it continues to be. As evidence, I give the deterioriation of the situation in Iraq, consistently contrary to the claims of pro-US boosters. Rebuilding was a sham, even the elections had to be pushed for by Sistani et al. The sunnis continue to be alienated, civil war edging ever closer. A US administration that speculates on the use of death squads to scare them into submission must surely be inadequate in the task of stabilising the situation. The bottom line is, "we're better than Saddam" does not a success make. Just saying that and patting oneself in the back is to ignore the still ongoing plight of many, many Iraqis.

What does this have to do with the fact, the fact you now seem to understand (sort of anyway), that the Iraqis weren't having elections under Saddam? You said Iraqi success would occur inspite of the US and I asked you about the lack of past success of Iraqis before the US went in. You're calling the catalyst of the current success a greater impediment to democracy than the Iraqis who would still be under Saddam if not for the US.

quote: I'm just trying to make Giancarlo to commit himself to something he can't weasel himself out of.

Oh the irony.

	01-02-2005 06:33									#226
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quote: I suppose also that you were in favor of the South seceding in 1861 for the same reason?

OOooo!

quote: Let's be honest here: The South seceded because they wanted their ****ign slaves Ned.

What the Sunni supporters of Saddam did to the Kurds and Shi'ites was worse, thats why they're resisting.

	01-02-2005 09:42									#227
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Jaakko Sorry, if I took you out of context then by all means show me and explain. What does this have to do with the fact, the fact you now seem to understand (sort of anyway), that the Iraqis weren't having elections under Saddam? You said Iraqi success would occur inspite of the US and I asked you about the lack of past success of Iraqis before the US went in. You're calling the catalyst of the current success a greater impediment to democracy than the Iraqis who would still be under Saddam if not for the US.

I'm just saying that removing Saddam in itself doesn't make the Iraqis succeed, nor does it make the US their friend or willing helper. Those have to be determined by the actions of the US after they took out Saddam, and their track record doesn't make the US come out looking very good (failed reconstruction, looming civil war, even the elections came to be because of Iraqi pressure). To use an extreme example of what I'm driving at, consider East Germany. The Soviets did take out Hitler, but does that mean we should celebrate their occupation of East Germany as the catalyst of East-German post-Hitler success?

Edit: also, I'm not saying the Iraqis are worse off now than under Saddam, I'm saying that the US is a lesser negative force. Please make that distinction in the future.

Edit2: regarding context, I was referring to the discussion as a whole. If we go to dissecting, I myself lose track and get stuck to bits of sentences instead of the whole thing, which isn't good.

	01-02-2005 10:00									#228
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It is a complete lie to claim that the US wasn't going to have elections at any point in Iraq. The US has always had the intentions of holding elections as soon as it was feasable though the exact day was never nailed down. It's clear that Bush & Co were nervous about the elections being a failure so they wanted to delay until the country was as stable as possible but that is a very different thing from saying the US didn't want elections.

That Jaakko my lad means you have a basic fact wrong dispite what people like Juan Cole claim. Also I wouldn't call reconstruction a failure by any stretch of the imagination since more Iraqis have electricity and clean drinking water then at any point in history plus most roads have been repaved and several new ones built. Clearly, the Iraqi people had high expectations (I'd say unreasonably high) that the US was going to turn Iraq into a 1st world country like Germany, Japan, or Korea. If that's the bar then the US didn't even attempt to jump it; reconstruction wise the infastructure is better then before the 1991 war and much better then the 2003 war.

	01-02-2005 10:10									#229
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quote: Originally posted by Oerdin It is a complete lie to claim that the US wasn't going to have elections at any point in Iraq. The US has always had the intentions of holding elections as soon as it was feasable though the exact day was never nailed down. It's clear that Bush & Co were nervous about the elections being a failure so they wanted to delay until the country was as stable as possible but that is a very different thing from saying the US didn't want elections. That Jaakko my lad means you have a basic fact wrong dispite what people like Juan Cole claim. Also I wouldn't call reconstruction a failure by any stretch of the imagination since more Iraqis have electricity and clean drinking water then at any point in history plus most roads have been repaved and several new ones built. Clearly, the Iraqi people had high expectations (I'd say unreasonably high) that the US was going to turn Iraq into a 1st world country like Germany, Japan, or Korea. If that's the bar then the US didn't even attempt to jump it; reconstruction wise the infastructure is better then before the 1991 war and much better then the 2003 war.

The US would've had elections when Iraq was "ready", which is to say never, considering the rate the Bush admin has been and is screwing up. They would've propped up some friendly strongman and gotten the hell out of dodge afterwards, if the Rumsfeld doctrine had been applied to the full.

For the peachiness in Iraq, cite? As far as I can see, there are still a whole lot of blackouts and fuel shortages in Iraq, and the economy remains firmly in the crapper, because nobody in their right mind wants to invest in such a high-risk place (I'm not even going to go into the US cronyism, bureaucracy and hostility towards potential investors).

Edit: let's not forget the unemployment, 30-60 percent depending on who you ask.

	01-02-2005 10:13									#230
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quote: Cole said they were suspicious cause theyre blog was on a server in Texas. Cole didnt bother to check why they were using that server, or to inform himself that many Iraqi bloggers use out of country servers. One expects higher standards from a University of Michigan Mid East Studies prof, especially one so widely quoted as Cole, than one does from a 'poly poster, even one so compelling as Oerdin. He didnt use the word CIA, but simply questioned where they get their support from, in words that implied CIA. Standard fare from the likes of Cole. Its hardly surprising that Cole is feeling down today.

Hold up, calling someone on the internet a troll is equivalent to saying they are CIA? Whaaa....? That'd make half of Poly CIA agents.

Maybe he should've looked more into the server situation before writing about it, but this ain't investigative journalism about real politics, it's his personal thoughts regarding the credibility of a blogger. Frankly, all I can get out of the situation is a big "meh."

quote: So where the hell were the insurgents? We have been told that the battle of Fallujah was only a tactical victory for the coalition, if that. We've been told that the arrests of various Zarqawi lieutenants is unimportant, indeed that the arrest or death of ANY insurgents is unimportant, as they can always recruit more, and there numbers are swelling. Coalition intel work is failing, and the iraqi forces are worthless, except for a handful of overstretched Kurds. Yet on the day that the insurgency had publicly stated it HAD to disrupt, they achieved little more than they have on numerous days in the last few weeks. A total of 44 Iraqis killed, apparently including the suiciders themselves. NO succesful attacks outside the Sunni triangle. So what happened? A. They never planned to target the election, that was a bluff. B. Theyre quite strong, but targeting a particular event is beyond them - they can hit only targets of opportunity. C. Efforts by coalition and Iraqi forces were too strong D. The insurgency IS fading. E. A little of each of the above

For a guerilla outfit, targets that are heavily defended are bad targets. Of course they were never going to throw everything they had against the voting machines, I could've told you that. Because, for no other reason, more violence would've been pointless in terms of enforcing the Sunni Arab boycott:

quote: "Nobody came. People were too afraid," said Madafar Zeki, in charge of a polling centre in Samarra, in the Sunni heartland, where the insurgency has been bloodiest. According to preliminary figures provided by a joint U.S. and Iraqi taskforce who safeguarded Sunday's vote, fewer than 1,400 people cast ballots in the city of 200,000. The figure includes votes from soldiers and police, most of whom were recruited from the Shi'ite south.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticl...&storyID=663751

quote: david adesnik of oxblog on Coles recent post: "The 1997 elections in Iran were much more democratic.

Yes, I'd say so. Or are you saying that Khatami and the Reformists gained power partially due to problems in the electoral process?

quote: Maybe if I said stuff like that I could get a job in the history department at the University of Michigan. Oh, and here's another bit of Ann Arbor scholarship, taken from the same post: If it had been up to Bush, Iraq would have been a soft dictatorship under Chalabi. Well, maybe under President Rumsfeld."

I'm not sure what the distinction is, in April, 2003.

	01-02-2005 10:30									#231
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Jaakko

quote: I'm just saying that removing Saddam in itself doesn't make the Iraqis succeed, nor does it make the US their friend or willing helper. Those have to be determined by the actions of the US after they took out Saddam, and their track record doesn't make the US come out looking very good (failed reconstruction, looming civil war, even the elections came to be because of Iraqi pressure).

They had elections in Iraq yesterday because the US removed Saddam, not the Iraqis. So why is the US a greater impediment to democracy than the Iraqis themselves who could not bring about that change?

quote: To use an extreme example of what I'm driving at, consider East Germany. The Soviets did take out Hitler, but does that mean we should celebrate their occupation of East Germany as the catalyst of East-German post-Hitler success?

If thats an extreme example and Iraq is not, why offer it? The USSR didn't let E Germany elect people in a democracy.

quote: Edit: also, I'm not saying the Iraqis are worse off now than under Saddam, I'm saying that the US is a lesser negative force. Please make that distinction in the future.

We aren't debating "worse off", you said Iraqi success will be inspite of the US and you called the US an impediment which presumes the Iraqis are not an impediment or at least a lesser one. This is pretty simple, the elections they just had are a result of the US shedding blood and treasure - GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE!

quote: Edit2: regarding context, I was referring to the discussion as a whole. If we go to dissecting, I myself lose track and get stuck to bits of sentences instead of the whole thing, which isn't good.

I find debates easier to follow when people use quotes and respond fully, but I didn't criticise you for liking another way.

	01-02-2005 10:34									#232
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quote: The US would've had elections when Iraq was "ready", which is to say never, considering the rate the Bush admin has been and is screwing up. They would've propped up some friendly strongman and gotten the hell out of dodge afterwards, if the Rumsfeld doctrine had been applied to the full.

We can all create hypotheticals like you are doing, but Bush has been excedingly clear about his desire to have elections as soon as practical. It's disingenuous to try to spin a long-distance silent backscratching between Bush and Sistani into a big disagreement on the merits of a vote. Indeed, we crossed most of our allies in the region, who were pressuring Bush to delay or scrap the vote because they want to keep the Shiites down and their own power untouched by the ballot box.

	01-02-2005 10:41									#233
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quote: The US would've had elections when Iraq was "ready", which is to say never, considering the rate the Bush admin has been and is screwing up.

Iraq just had its election, does reality conflict with your prediction? Oh, Sistani wanted it? He talked the neo-cons out of their big game plan for the world? Or he advised the Bushites to have the election sooner than later even if it meant low Sunni turn out? Seems to me that might have been a mistake but I wouldn't turn that into some nefarious plan to run Iraq.

	01-02-2005 10:46									#234
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DanS beat me to it. Great minds think alike, great minds on medication just type slower.

	01-02-2005 10:48									#235
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quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Jaakko They had elections in Iraq yesterday because the US removed Saddam, not the Iraqis. So why is the US a greater impediment to democracy than the Iraqis themselves who could not bring about that change? If thats an extreme example and Iraq is not, why offer it? The USSR didn't let E Germany elect people in a democracy. We aren't debating "worse off", you said Iraqi success will be inspite of the US and you called the US an impediment which presumes the Iraqis are not an impediment or at least a lesser one. This is pretty simple, the elections they just had are a result of the US shedding blood and treasure - GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE! I find debates easier to follow when people use quotes and respond fully, but I didn't criticise you for liking another way.

So you're basically saying that the Iraqis weren't fit to govern themselves until the US came and showed them how. You're edging a bit too close to blaming the victim and some version of white man's burden here.

The thing is, once a dictatorship gets its oppression machine on the road, it's really hard to overthrow it from the inside, no matter who you are. The US invasion shattered it, yes, and it gave Iraqis the opportunity to start asserting themselves. However, it was an invasion executed under lies and false pretenses. I'm not going to give the Bush admin's motivations the benefit of doubt anymore.

	01-02-2005 10:51									#236
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quote: Originally posted by DanS We can all create hypotheticals like you are doing, but Bush has been excedingly clear about his desire to have elections as soon as practical. It's disingenuous to try to spin a long-distance silent backscratching between Bush and Sistani into a big disagreement on the merits of a vote. Indeed, we crossed most of our allies in the region, who were pressuring Bush to delay or scrap the vote because they want to keep the Shiites down and their own power untouched by the ballot box.

And that's because the US has never tried to install a puppet government in another country, right?

	01-02-2005 10:54									#237
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quote: And that's because the US has never tried to install a puppet government in another country, right?

Are you ever going to present a coherent argument?

	01-02-2005 10:57									#238
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quote: david adesnik of oxblog on Coles recent post: "The 1997 elections in Iran were much more democratic.

I'm sure they were, its just that they elected people who were pretty much powerless compared to the unelected Council of Guardians.

	01-02-2005 10:57									#239
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quote: Originally posted by DanS You're a waste of my time.

Uh huh. The fact of the matter is that the original US plan for Iraq had to be changed drastically when it became evident that reality wasn't what the Bush admin had hoped it would be. I attribute that change to the Iraqis, not the benevolence of the US.

You're a blue-eyed optimist, I'm the eternal cynic, but don't think you've got a special insight.

	01-02-2005 11:00									#240
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quote: So you're basically saying that the Iraqis weren't fit to govern themselves until the US came and showed them how. You're edging a bit too close to blaming the victim and some version of white man's burden here.

Fit to govern is not the same as having the ability to overthrow Saddam, this election was a result of the US, the former remains to be seen. Therefore it is illogical to say the US is an impediment, or a greater impediment, to achieving democracy in Iraq when it is instrumental.

quote: The thing is, once a dictatorship gets its oppression machine on the road, it's really hard to overthrow it from the inside, no matter who you are. The US invasion shattered it, yes, and it gave Iraqis the opportunity to start asserting themselves. However, it was an invasion executed under lies and false pretenses. I'm not going to give the Bush admin's motivations the benefit of doubt anymore.

All of which has nothing to do with what you said.