Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (95518)	4/22/2003 11:23:00 AM
From: FaultLine	Respond to of 281500

Viceroy now you're smokin' ! --fl

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (95518)	4/22/2003 5:03:16 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<What if Iraqis want the USA to be overall boss, but Iraq has their own elections and runs their own affairs> Those two outcomes are mutually contradictory. If the U.S. is "overall boss", then the Iraqis aren't "running their own affairs". Choose. Finessing this is self-deception. <Put your signs, banners and protests away until the Iraqis have had a referendum.> The Brits held a referendum in Iraq after WW1, to legitimize their conquest. The Soviets regularly held elections and referendums in their Empire, to legitimize their conquests of the Hungarians, Poles, etc. Nobody but the credulous is fooled by referendums held under the guns of a foreign army of occupation. The middle east could be amazing within 10 years. A vast West Bank. Or a patchwork of U.S. client states, barely keeping their Streets down, by the regular application of liberal (sic) amounts of Force (like Egypt today). Or a patchwork of Islamic states, virulently anti-American, barely keeping their Streets down by Force (like Iran today). Or chaos (like Afghanistan today).Or some mixture of those. But prosperity and peace, no, that's not where the region is headed. Not now, not next year, not in 10 years. Maybe 20 years.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (95518)	4/22/2003 10:35:47 PM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 281500

A demonstration by 10,000 of a population of millions is a trivial bit of information. Unfortunately, it's not. The Islamist demonstrations - and they have now happened in Baghdad, Najaf, and Kut, to my knowledge, are the first political expressions we've seen since the war. They may not be large in any absolute sense, but they indicate that the Islamists are the first off the mark with political organization and the ability to mount a visible show of force. If you don't think that's significant, compare those actions to the force that Ahmed Chalabi has been able to demonstrate. He's got his 250 "Free Iraqi Fighters", and not much more. So far we've seen meaningful political organization only among the Kurds, with limited relevance to the rest of the country, and the Islamists, and that's not encouraging. We desperately need to see a middle-ground political force, supporting the Americans but not puppets, make its presence felt, and soon. The kicker here is that if we organize it, it's meaningless. If the Islamists seem to be gaining influence, the Kurds will want to secede, and who can blame them? That's what we have to avoid, and to do it we will need some Iraqi bodies on our side, not passively, but actively.