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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clarksterh who wrote (85712)	3/24/2003 3:35:42 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

> Can there not be middle ground?...what would you do? My solution will never fly in Washington. I would let the Iraqi people figure it out on their own and I would prevent others to muddle it up for them. In other words, I would create a temporarily isolated Iraq for a while until a stable foundation has been set. BTW, when I am talking about isolation, I don't mean it in its negative way. I am talking about isolation the way America was isolated while it was being formed: we make sure everyone understands they cannot invade/supply arms/wage proxy wars/etc. Initially some economic isolation may be necessary too. Then after a few years I'd revisit Iraq with more sophisticated propositions. The key here is that internal problems of a country can only be solved by its people. Saddam for example was not an Iraqi solution. CIA supported the rise of Ba'th to power and Soviets played nice to Iraq for a long time too. There are examples of how this solution has worked. The one closest to the mark is the Kurds. In the course of half a generation, they have risen from "dumb rebellious villagers" status to that of people having a constitution, a budding democracy, and under circumstances, pretty good government. Nor are they hostile to US despite our past history. I don't see why what happened with Kurds (inadvertently I may add) cannot be done within Iraq on a larger scale. This would be the solution that actually "nation builds" without any of the drawbacks. It is not going to fly in Washington however because it will not allow Iraq to become the staging ground for exporting NeoCon policies. Nor will it provide the best control of the Iraqi oil. This is the price of peace: give up some control, short term profits, and treat people with respect, and in return don't end up in perpetual crisis management mode and have a chance to reap the benefits of peace and prosperity. ST

To: Clarksterh who wrote (85712)	3/24/2003 3:57:42 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

<Jacob refused to answer> I started to make a reply, then stopped and erased it, as I thought my reply would be so far "outside the box" that I wouldn't be able to communicate with you. Since you've asked repeatedly, I'll reply. Try not to have too emotional a response, just understand that I'm simply explaining how I see the world, not making any personal attacks on anyone. I make the following analogy: Colonization between nations, is like rape between individuals. In both cases, the act begins in violence, and ends in domination. Only the scale is different. Further: When a 30-year-old man has sex with a 13-year-old girl, the law calls this rape. And it doesn't matter if the girl said it is consensual. It doesn't matter whether the man is gentle, caring, provides for the girl's housing/feeding/clothing, sends her to dance classes and piano lessons, says he loves her, assumes responsibility for any resulting children. The law still calls it rape. It is rape, because the law assumes, simply and solely based on the disparity in power between the two, that the act could not have been consensual, that the act is exploitive. The same exact reasoning applies between nations. It does not matter how well we train our soldiers to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq. It does not matter how many roads and schools we build there. It does not matter how "smart" our bombs are, to surgically kill soldiers only. It does not matter whether we put a Karzai or Shah or Pinochet in power in Baghdad, and it does not matter if we supervise an election in which the Iraqi people "consent", after the fact, to our conquest. Rather, it should be assumed, based solely on the immense disparity in power between the U.S. and Iraq, that the "nation building" is motivated and carried out solely for the benefit of the U.S. It is an act that begins in violence, and ends in domination. To say that it is consensual, to say that Iraq will be the beneficiary, sounds to me exactly like the excuses I've heard rapists give. I'm never heard a rapist (and I've talked to many, many of them) who didn't have a collection of rationalizations and euphemisms and excuses. Nobody likes that self-image, so rapists and colonizers construct intricate, elaborate self-justifications to pretend it isn't so. Asking me how I would do "nation-building" in Iraq, is akin to asking me how I would do rape. I will leave it to the NeoCons, to explain in detail how this can be done in a civilized consensual democratic manner. And then I will dissect their answers.