Wow.. so you actually can write a decent response?? I applaud your effort. In fact, I find it quite refreshing..
Hopefully you're the one who actually wrote it.
And I actually can agree with some of your points, such as terrorism being "PR".. It absolute is. It's sole purpose is to convince the people that the current government cannot protect them from the terrorists, so it must listen to, and meet, their demands.
But it certainly doesn't cause "few casualties". The majority of the deaths in Iraq amongst civilians have been caused by terrorists, not coalition, or even Iraqi, forces.
And there may be a power vacuum for Sunnis, but the government is duly and legitimately elected. The UN and numerous other organizations have certified the legitimacy of the elections and their was a 63% turnout.
Sunnis are now fighting for their future in their own land against what is now the enemy: Shiite militia. That is called civil war.
Sunnis are a minority. They constitute some 20% of the total population, yet for decades, via the Ba'thist party, they brutally ruled and oppressed the other 80% of the population.
So yeah.. they knew they were going to face quite a bit of retaliation for what they wrought upon the rest of the country over the past 50+ years.
And now, we're seeing more Sunnis looking to coalition forces to act as their patron in negotiating terms of compromise with the dominant Shi'a led government.
It will never truly be a civil war, because the representative sides are so disproportionate. The Sunnis will never be able to return to power in the manner that they once did.
However, we have an interest in preserving the rights of minority factions in Iraq and preventing retaliatory oppression.
I've advocated a fairly based distribution of a portion of the country's oil revenues along the lines of the Alaska Permanent Fund dividends. I think this is a CRUCIAL AND CRITICAL proposal that must be implemented so that...
1.) it prevents the governmental leadership from controlling 100% of the country's revenues from its natural resources and decreases distrust that people won't "get their share".
2.) it provides a sense of shareholdership in Iraq's wealth FOR EVERYONE, regardless of ethnicity and religious belief. Making every Iraqi citizen a benefactor of the country's resources would be a strong motive for putting differences aside and looking to their common interests.
3.) it encourages economic and political accountability, and decentralizes investment capital from oil revenues from state based, to consumer based. This is the foundation of capitalism. Empower the consumers in an economy and the government will have to heed to that economic power.
Because face it, for all sides in the Iraq war, it's about oil, or more specifically, the money and wealth to be derived from controlling it. No one would really be fighting over Iraq if there were no oil there.
The US wants to secure a stable supply of oil for our economy. The Iraqi government wants to secure a source of revenues to rebuild and secure its country. Al Qai'da/Iran want to deny this oil to the rest of the world, while enjoying the benefit of its wealth to fund their own aspirations.
Thus, it's imperative that oil wealth be distributed in order to prevent any one part of the Iraqi society from using it as an economic weapon against internal, or external rivals.
That is one of policies, IMO, that will assist in resolving much of the terrorism. It will certainly deflate much of the support amongst many factions in Iraq for tearing the country apart in order that THEY be the sole controlling element over the country's wealth.
Hawk |
