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

To: geode00 who wrote (197605)	8/15/2006 11:35:49 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

2. Where is your reference for this: The majority of the deaths in Iraq amongst civilians have been caused by terrorists, not coalition, or even Iraqi, forces.] iraqbodycount.org Now where is YOUR REFERENCE?? And what it you, or Sly, who claimed that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed by Americans in Iraq?? Would love to see a source for that!!! 5. WE have NO INTEREST in Iraq other than to find a way to make less of a hell-on-earth disaster than rightwing Republicans have created. Lady.. you have no concept of what "hell on earth" translates to.. Iraq has been such a hell on earth for the past 50 years that many of it's Iraqi Christian and Jewish population has been forced to flee. It's majority Shi'a has been systematically oppressed and terrorize by the Sunni minority. The Kurds were forced to live the hills as a result of trying to overthrow the totalitarian regime in 1991, and WE FAILED to hold up our end of the bargain in fulfilling regime change in Iraq as punishment for Saddam ruthlessly invading and occupying Kuwait. But Iraq, despite the violence (it's ALWAYS been a violent society) has held it's FIRST EVER free and fair election in history. And while the rest of the world has been reporting for over a year now that the country is on the verge of full-scale civil war, that has not YET occurred. You're expecting everything to be hunky-dory overnight. And I'm sure that this administration hoped and prayed that would be the case. But it's not. Al Qai'da opted to fight for Iraq, and joined forces with the Former Regime Ba'thists in order to destabilize the country. And in addition, Iran has continued to support its own militant proxies by way of arming and training Muqtada Al Sadr's Mahdi Army. And given that the UN FAILED IN ITS RESPONSIBILITY TO ASSIST IN LEGITIMIZING THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT IN A TIMELY MANNER (and has still limited its participation in providing "nation building" support), there have been more difficulties than there should have been. So it's going to take a lot longer than we hoped. And it may fail. Because whether it succeeds or fails is now in the hands of the Iraqi people. But had we followed the apparent advice of people like yourself, Saddam would still be in power and all sanctions would have likely have been ceased. We wouldn't know about whether Saddam possessed WMDs or not, and we wouldn't know about the EXTENSIVE complicity and involvement of his Iraqi Intelligence Service's with Al Qai'da and targeting of Americans. Given the option of a tumultuous fledgling democracy, still wrangling with how to properly share power and unify itself against its enemies, internal and exteral, and being a party to preserving the brutal totalitarian regime of Saddam, I can only say that our duty to the human race is to take every opportunity to create democratic reform. Now if you don't believe in democracy for anyone else but yourself, that's your burden. And if you can sleep soundly in your knowledge that evil totalitarianism, religious or secular, is being empowered by your unwillingness to confront it, then fine... But I believe we, as the first democratic nation in 300 hundred years, have an obligation to work to foster democratic reform and legitimate governments throughout the world. Maybe not all at once, and certainly not if it means that other means are available than war. But if we are confronted by a threat so insidious and contrary to humanitarian values, the international community of democratic nations MUST stand together to confront it. And I don't believe we should deal "kindly" with such regimes, or those who advance such totalitarian values in complete contempt for humanity. They are lucky we don't treat them in the manner that they treat their prisoners and victims. Hawk