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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (17305)	4/15/2003 8:27:30 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

its' = evidence of possession MS Word agrees. I ain't no particular expert on grammar. When in doubt, I check MS Word. If'in they's wrong, I'm in deep doo doo. Many bright fellers managed to have exemplary careers in all manner of political & public life. Successful peoples is not always grammatically intellectual elitists. Or sumpin' like that.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (17305)	4/15/2003 8:39:04 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 89467

"perhaps we should have used 2000 Special Ops troops" If we took that route, the global outcry would have been even louder than the misplaced, deceitful, distorted & unfounded allegations we have seen with this just war. And many of those expressing opposition would have had compelling arguments against such a surgical strike. Perhaps it would have worked, but I doubt it. We would have had to kill them all in a very tight time frame or word would have spread quickly. Our intelligence is not capable if identifying all leadership & their precise location at any given time, let alone for a lightning strike throughout Iraq. I don't know where you got your 80,000 Iraqi soldiers killed either. I'm sure it's much higher than the several thousand reported in the media, but right now 80,000 may be wrong by a magnitude of 2 or 3. In any event, the actual number would have been much lower if Saddam & his henchmen didn't force unwilling participants to fight under threats of death to them & their families.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (17305)	4/16/2003 2:11:34 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 89467

How to Build a Democratic Iraq Adeed Dawisha and Karen Dawisha From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2003 What follows the war in Iraq will be at least as important as the war itself. Nurturing democracy there after Saddam won't be easy. But it may not be impossible either. Iraq has several assets doing for it, including an educated middle class and a history of political pluralism under an earlier monarchy. <font size=2>Adeed Dawisha is Professor of Political Science at Miami University, Ohio. His latest book is Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair. Karen Dawisha is Walter E. Havighurst Professor of Russian Studies at Miami University, Ohio. Her books include the four volume Democratization and Authoritarianism in Post-Communist Societies. <font size=3> THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME Thus far, most of the endless talk about the war in Iraq has focused on several issues: the scale of the operation, Washington's motivation, and the rift in the Atlantic alliance. It is now safe to assume, however, that if and when war comes (as of this writing, the battle had yet to begin), the United States and its allies will win, Saddam Hussein and his cronies will be toppled, and some sort of massive military occupation will follow. In the aftermath of the war, the occupiers will focus on immediate tasks, such as ensuring order, providing relief to the long-suffering Iraqi people, and asserting control over the country. Very quickly, however -- even before they have met these goals -- the victorious powers will have to answer another pressing question: How, exactly, should they go about rebuilding the country? Saying simply that postwar Iraq should be democratic will be the easy part. Just about everyone agrees on that, and indeed, for many this end will justify the entire operation. The more difficult question will be how to make it happen. Fortunately, the job of building democracy in Iraq, although difficult, may not be quite as hard as many critics of the war have warned. Iraq today possesses several features that will facilitate the reconstruction effort. Despite Saddam's long repression, democratic institutions are not entirely alien to the country. Under the Hashemite monarchy, which ruled from 1921 until 1958, Iraq adopted a parliamentary system modeled on that of its colonial master, the United Kingdom. Political parties existed, even in the opposition, and dissent and disagreement were generally tolerated. Debates in parliament were often vigorous, and legislators were usually allowed to argue and vote against the government without fear of retribution. Although the palace and the cabinet set the agenda, parliament often managed to influence policy. And this pluralism extended to Iraq's press: prior to the 1958 revolution that toppled the monarchy, 23 independent newspapers were published in Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra alone. Not that the Iraqi kingdom always refrained from electoral fraud, harassment of opponents, or abuse of emergency powers. The government also occasionally banned newspapers that dared to indulge in particularly virulent criticism of the regime (although the bans typically lasted for only short periods). To be sure, Iraq's history -- both under the monarchy and especially after the 1958 coup -- has been filled with plenty of authoritarianism, tribalism, and ethnic and sectarian violence. The postwar reconstruction of Germany and Japan, however, not to mention the more recent transitions from communism in eastern and central Europe, all testify to the way in which democratic political institutions can change such attitudes in a country -- often quite quickly. Having said that, the success or failure of democracy in Iraq will depend on whether the country's new political institutions take into consideration its unique social and communal makeup. It is therefore important to start talking about specifics. What should the blueprint for a future democratic Iraq look like? LET'S ... foreignaffairs.org