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US abandoning plans to bring democracy to Iraq, say Kurds

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  • #61
    Originally posted by Ted Striker
    Iraq had the highest standard of living and was the most advanced state in the Mideast until dumbass Saddam went after Iran, and then Kuwait.
    IIRC, Iraq was responding to Iranian provocations in the Southern region?

    Anyway, it was dumbarse Saddam that built the country up to what it was like before Gulf War I.
    (\__/) 07/07/1937 - Never forget
    (='.'=) "Claims demand evidence; extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence." -- Carl Sagan
    (")_(") "Starting the fire from within."

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    • #62
      However, no one wants an independent Kurdistan save for Iran.
      No one wants an independent Kurdistan save people who believe in freedom.

      Iran certainly does not, BTW. It has a large Kurdish population which it has brutally supressed. It doesn't want go trigger any Kurdish nationalism. Why do you think it's funding anti-(secular)-Kurdish terror groups (i.e. the group that Powell brought up that supposedly connected Saddam with al-Qaeda).
      "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. "
      -Bokonon

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      • #63
        Nah, Bush has proven he simply can't do it.

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        • #64
          If this is just a transitional government, then I have no problem with it. There better be real democracy down the line, however...
          KH FOR OWNER!
          ASHER FOR CEO!!
          GUYNEMER FOR OT MOD!!!

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          • #65
            The war hasn't even started (and I sure unrealistically hope it doesn't) and already people are bringing up secret "anti-democracy" plans and such...

            Nobody will ever get the exact Iraq they want, and it'll take a number of years of occupation and reconstruction for anything even ressembling democracy to begin to appear anyways, so this is all premature.
            DULCE BELLUM INEXPERTIS

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            • #66
              The Bush people told the Kurdish governments in Northern Iraq what they had planned. The Kurds, as well as the Iraqi National Congress, do not like this plan.
              Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

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              • #67
                Damn, I hope all the ethnic groups in Iraq get treated fairly. I know they can't just start having elections right away, but with Turkey and other ME nations involved I have my doubts if they ever will. An American democracy will not be welcome and I doubt if it will even work. Minority ethic groups are sometimes treated badly in a democracy that is not devoted to equal treatment. Equal treatment can not be guaranteed by the US. As soon as we pull out another tyrant could easily take over.
                "When you ride alone, you ride with Bin Ladin"-Bill Maher
                "All capital is dripping with blood."-Karl Marx
                "Of course, my response to your Marx quote is 'So?'"-Imran Siddiqui

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                • #68
                  I'm starting to wonder whether this Iraq war is mostly some kind of feel-good exercise for the american right.

                  There's only now some reasoning about the problems that will arise, and it's perfectly plausible that it goes like this:

                  A: Democracy.
                  B: Sounds great.
                  A: But what about the Kurds?
                  B: Uhm... Well they can't have it because Turkey would intervene.
                  A: And the Shiites?
                  B: Well they can't have it because they might tend towards Iran.
                  A: So it's democracy for the Sunni minority.
                  B: Yeah, something like that...
                  A: Might be easier to have a homegrown dictator. Also no need to stay for long, much cheaper.
                  B: Yeah... I think that's it...
                  “Now we declare… that the law-making power or the first and real effective source of law is the people or the body of citizens or the prevailing part of the people according to its election or its will expressed in general convention by vote, commanding or deciding that something be done or omitted in regard to human civil acts under penalty or temporal punishment….” (Marsilius of Padua, „Defensor Pacis“, AD 1324)

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                  • #69
                    Originally posted by HershOstropoler
                    I'm starting to wonder whether this Iraq war is mostly some kind of feel-good exercise for the american right.
                    What took you so long?
                    Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

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                    • #70
                      Not just feel good. It's also about domination in the 2nd largest oil reserves country in the whole world.
                      France already has good oil deals with it that's why it disagrees.
                      yet people have to keep their eyes on the ball: 500.000 people will die for the US/UK bloodlust for oil.


                      Feel-good only takes a minor part of this and that is:
                      Bush: can't really go on with trying to catch terrorists all over the damn world, better give something concrete and useful: bomb iraq.

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                      • #71
                        If the USA does go in, put up a nice democracy in time, and then the Iraqis vote in Islamist American-haters like the frontier provinces of Pakistan did recently, then what? A return to Iraq to correct the mistakes of democracy?

                        Just a question that I've been pondering. Does the USA have the stomach for real democracy among those it liberates?
                        Exult in your existence, because that very process has blundered unwittingly on its own negation. Only a small, local negation, to be sure: only one species, and only a minority of that species; but there lies hope. [...] Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence [and the] gift of revulsion against its implications.
                        -Richard Dawkins

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                        • #72
                          I still say the purpose is to oust Saddam. The resulting government is of secondary concern, but I just hope it's a good one.
                          "When you ride alone, you ride with Bin Ladin"-Bill Maher
                          "All capital is dripping with blood."-Karl Marx
                          "Of course, my response to your Marx quote is 'So?'"-Imran Siddiqui

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                          • #73
                            Originally posted by DuncanK
                            I still say the purpose is to oust Saddam.
                            I'm gonna have to take away your Marxist credentials now.
                            Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

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                            • #74
                              Repeatedly posted by Pattycakes:
                              500.000 people will die for the US/UK bloodlust for oil.
                              A perfect example of pulling a number out of one's ass and then repeating it as often as possible in the hope of convincing others that it's credible. At least you've been consistent. You managed to post it 4 times in this thread alone and not screw up the number.

                              As for the rest... I don't have a problem with the idea of a military provisional government, so long as the goal is a functioning democracy, and the government (US) is willing to stick with it. The problem is that I'm uncertain that democracy is the goal, and I'm reasonably certain that even if it is, we won't "see it through."

                              -Arrian
                              grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!

                              The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.

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                              • #75
                                A: Democracy.
                                B: Sounds great.
                                A: But what about the Kurds?
                                B: Uhm... Well they can't have it because Turkey would intervene.
                                A: And the Shiites?
                                B: Well they can't have it because they might tend towards Iran.
                                A: So it's democracy for the Sunni minority.
                                B: Yeah, something like that...
                                A: Might be easier to have a homegrown dictator. Also no need to stay for long, much cheaper.
                                B: Yeah... I think that's it...



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