It strikes me that the stated goal of the US was to rid Iraq of posession of WMD, and becoming a threat in the War on Terorism.
Kumar.. The reason WMDs were an issue in Iraq is because they were in the hands of a ruthless regime which had shown itself willing to use them to aggress against their neighbors (Iran) as well as against domestic groups (Kurds). Something no other nation had done since WWII (Japan using biological agents against the Chinese). They were not sought for the purpose of defense, or maintaining a deterrence with a rival power.
Now that the Baathist regime is destroyed, it would be foolish on our part to permit another totalitarian regime, especially one that is aligned with Iran in its anti-US rhetoric, to form in Iraq.
If the Iraqi people choose to have a theocratic government, thats their choice, and frankly, its none of the US' business, as long as they are not a threat to US National Security.
The hell it is.. Saddam was "elected" by an almost 100% vote of the Iraqi people, right? It doesn't matter that no organized, effective opposition was available, right?
Using your "logic", the Iraqi people "elected" Saddam and his despotic and aggressive regime, right?
Thus, wouldn't you have to acknowlege that, by your logic, this makes the Iraqi people responsible for his government, if not outright complicit in its brutality?
Obviously, very few people would concur that such a despotic regime, which oppressed nearly everyone within Iraq, was "elected", or represented the will of the Iraqi people. Nor was there any mechanism for implementing future change of government should the Iraqi people desire to do so.
Obviously we disagree about this point of logic related to whether a people can willfully elect a totalitarian regime to power.. I guess a people can elect to become totalitarian, sacrificing their ability to make future electoral changes, but what kind of rational population would ever choose to do so?? The logic is ludicrous at every level since it implies that people are willing to give up their individual rights to decide how they are governed. And that's just not human instinct...
And I would opine that even were such a situation true, it IS in the US interest to prevent such a totalitarian regime from being permitted to come to power since, like most despotic regimes, they can only survive through oppression and creating regional instability. And if the population of a country were to opt for a government that created such threats, then they deserve to share that government's fate.
I would really like to know where you originated this logic that human beings would willfully surrender their freedom to decide how they are governed. I know of no prior examples of such behavior, except perhaps in Nazi Germany. But even there, the German people were led to believe that the electoral institutions would remain intact should they desire future change. They elected a party, not a dictator. It was only later when Hitler effectively dismantled or castrasted the democratic institutions of the Wiemar republic that they realized what they had done. And by that time Hitler had filled them with delusions of Aryan grandeur and conquest to create the "third reich"...
And we all know what happened as a result of that...
Hawk |
