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

To: Karl Siemens who wrote (118732)	11/6/2003 9:04:07 AM
From: epicure	Respond to of 281500

Putting aside emotional arguments, wouldn't you say that rather than defining those foreigners as patriots of Iraq, they are, rather, idealists, fighting for a cause- very much like the Americans who went to Spain to fight in the Spanish civil war. Of course we may prefer the ideals of the Americans who went to Spain (or we may not) but the motives, imo, are similar.

To: Karl Siemens who wrote (118732)	11/6/2003 2:09:08 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

re: < the foreigners who have come to Iraq to kill the liberating forces> My position is very simple: Iraqis should rule Iraq. They cannot rule Iraq, if foreign soldiers hold power in Iraq. An Iraqi patriot is anyone, no matter what their other beliefs, no matter what their methods, who fights to achieve that. Again: A patriot is anyone who fights to expel foreign soldiers from their nation. A quisling is anyone who helps a foreign army maintain its occupation. So, the short answer to your question is: yes, all armed foreigners should leave. Iraqis can't run their own country until that happens. The long answer is this: Many people define the boundaries of their "nation" as different from the boundaries of a State. They may restrict it to one tribe within a State. Or they may extend it, to include everyone who speaks the same language, or prays to the same God, including people from many States. Europeans are in the process of redefining their sense of "nation", shifting some loyalty to Europe as a whole. Most of the States in Africa and S. Asia have absurd borders, and are too small to be viable economic units. They, too, in time, will do what Europe has done, collecting into larger units that can't be bullied by the U.S., Europe, and China. We will see a new Califate, some day, stretching from Morocco to Iraq, and perhaps even to the S. Philippines. Arabic-speaking Muslims from Morocco or France may not be considered foreigners in Iraq, while (non-Muslim non-Arabic-speaking) Americans and Spaniards definitely are. Another complication: weak nations often need allies, to maintain their independence. They may have to invite one foreign army onto their soil, to avoid conquest by another foreign army. There is always the danger that the "friendly" foreigners may start to imitate the "unfriendly" foreigners, as soon as they kick them out. Many examples of this, throughout history: The Russian Army pushed the German Army out of Poland in 1944, but then seriously overstayed their welcome. The only longterm way to retain control of your own country, is without any help from any foreigners. As soon as any nation starts depending on foreigners (not just their soldiers, but their weapons, money, intel), sovereignty bleeds away. The mistake made by the Occupation Authority, was in disbanding the Iraqi Army, and not rapidly turning power back over to Iraqis. Our ambitions were grandiose, utopian, and unattainable: turn Iraq into a liberal pro-American secular democracy, a permanent base to exert U.S. domination over the region, and do it quickly and cheaply. We are in the process of reducing our expectations, to something attainable and realistic, but we are doing it way too slowly.