Zo Re..Well, let's see here- what did it take to turn France and Germany into a democracy? It took about, what, a revolution and 40 years of civil war and repeated regime change in France? Do the words Robespierre, Reign of Terror, and Napoleon mean anything to you? Dresden was razed to bring democracy there
And Iraq has suffered through 20 some yrs of Saddam. Perhaps they are ready for a change.
No, the question is whether or not we are willing to earmark enough troops and money for a long enough period of time to make it work. My doubts on this are increasing, and as they do, my feelings towards the upcoming war are becoming more and more ambivalent.
I got a feeling it won't take a lot of troops. We certainly could take the troops out of Germany, and put them in Iraq, where they might be more welcome. Frankly, I don't see a big problem. You can bet there are some good generals, and civilians in Iraq, who are capable, and will be able to form a good interim gov. until the laws, parliament and constitution can be set up. Also, I don't think the Europeans will stay out long. The middle east could be the new Pacific Basin, as far a growth goes, if terrorism can be rooted out.
Turkey, for one, had a secularist revolution in the '20s, though they're changing over to an Islamist society as we speak. They only manage to remain a "democracy" because they oppress all of their minority groups, such as the Armenians and the Kurds. They've killed MILLIONS of Armenians and at the very least tens of thousands of Kurds.
AFAIK most of those problems are behind Turkey. Turkey didn't have the devastation, help, or oil Iraq has, so it takes a long time to change things gradually.
Just a question- Dave appears to think that the Iraqis can democratize on their own. If President Bush were to come out today and show a roadmap which shows Saddam defeated in 2003 and the U.S. out of Iraq by '04 under the reasoning that the Iraqis can "democratize themselves", would you be in favor of the war?
I would only be in favor of the war if we can control the end, or at least give it one hell of a try. If we leave Saddam and OBL in control of the middle east, you can bet SA would be in big trouble. And OBL controlling Sa oilfields would spell big money fro Al qaeda,, and big trouble for the US. If we pull out of Iraq, OBL could easily fill the void, plus we would have to stay long enough to get rid of the WMD. So, no way do I think we could pull out within 2 yrs. My bet is that we will have around 2 yrs. to start showing a positive outcome in Iraq, before the arabs start getting surly. At that time, we should know, whether it will be a success or a hold on to your hat type of deal.
But they're not going to do it on their own. We're going to have to restrain them from fighting and force them to work together until they see the benefits.
Absolutely. However, after 20 yrs of Saddam, they might be fairly amendable to change. That will be the question. How bad do they want it, and will Al qaeda be strong enough to disrupt the healing process. We actually don't have a lot of troops in Afghanistan, chasing down Al qaeda, so a similar number might work in Iraq. |
