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

To: GST who wrote (125552)	3/3/2004 3:28:44 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

we did a miserable job of planning the occupation -- there is not much to debate. I, also, have criticized the lack of preparation and planning for an unexpected post-war scenario.. We expected all Iraqis to greet us as liberators, but it was only the Shiites and Kurds.. and the Shiites only for the time it took them to advance their own agenda to control and dominate Iraq, who did so. We certainly weren't greeted as strongly as liberators by the Sunnis, who were the primary supporters, and benefactors, of Saddam's regime. They just wanted Saddam gone, and another Sunni dominated government to take his place. Saddam ruled Iraq with an iron fist, playing ethnicities and family clans off against one another. This has left decades of long-standing feuds and ethnic distrust which will take years to diffuse and moderate. We made some terrible mistakes -- backing Chalabi and believing his horse manure in the first place are near the top of the list. So far as I know, Chalabi is merely a bit player in the IGC, which consists of 25 members (and will likely grow even larger over the coming months for the interim government).. Thus, he has to PROVE his worth and credibility, NOT TO US, but to his fellow IGC partners. We certainly didn't "install" him into overall power in Iraq, if that's what you're implying... He's just 1/25th of the government.. And btw, he's a Shiite, if you didn't already know that.. We ARE perceived as taking sides -- and we ARE in deep trouble. Who's side are we (credibly) perceived as having taken? We certainly haven't taken the side of the Sunnis.. We haven't taken the side of the Shiites (Al-Sistani).. And we haven't supported the Kurd's desire for an autonomous state.. We are not on a peacekeeping mission -- we invaded their country and have an army of occupation based in their country. Their country? Don't be ridiculous.. Like you really believed that it was "their country" prior to the US invasion? What did they own? Who did they elect to represent them? It was Saddam's country, with secondary ownership by the Sunnis.. The Shiites owned nothing, and neither did the Kurds... And they make up the greatest majority of the population.. We installed a puppet government and we have been signing up deals on their oil. Pretending otherwise is not going to move us forward. Then why are they doing what we tell them to do when we tell them to do it? Why are we having to twist their arms, conjole their cooperation, and compromise with one another?? That doesn't sound like a puppet government to me... Puppets aren't permitted to pull the strings, remember?? Hawk