Lewis McKenzie on Iraq

[Kreskin]

I was listening to him on the radio today speaking about the liberation of Iraq and the implementation of democracy. It was interesting to hear his opinion on what went wrong. He said he believes the premise of democracy being an important factor for stablizing the region is incorrect.

He said, paraphrased, 'if you implement democracy into a region like that you force everyone to create political parties, which in turn everyone creates the same tribal-customed parties, and each one then elects a general to co-ordinate a war with the other parties'.

Nothing changes except the violence becomes better co-ordinated. With a long history of undemocratic rule they are more peaceful without democracy.

..........

I still personally believe that the biggest strategic error was not improving relations with Hussein both before and after GW1. He wasn't a great guy by any stretch but it worked in Iraq. He was fighting the same nuts the west is today. His demonization was fueled by the political propoganda campaign of the century.

 

[darkbeaver]

I was listening to him on the radio today speaking about the liberation of Iraq and the implementation of democracy. It was interesting to hear his opinion on what went wrong. He said he believes the premise of democracy being an important factor for stablizing the region is incorrect.

He said, paraphrased, 'if you implement democracy into a region like that you force everyone to create political parties, which in turn everyone creates the same tribal-customed parties, and each one then elects a general to co-ordinate a war with the other parties'.

Nothing changes except the violence becomes better co-ordinated. With a long history of undemocratic rule they are more peaceful without democracy.

..........

I still personally believe that the biggest strategic error was not improving relations with Hussein both before and after GW1. He wasn't a great guy by any stretch but it worked in Iraq. He was fighting the same nuts the west is today. His demonization was fueled by the political propoganda campaign of the century.

Any reasonable person intent on peaceful resolution would exactly exactly as you say, improve relations through dialogue. However that was never done, Iraq was bombed incessantly from 1991 right up continuing today. Hindsight allows us to determine that complete and total destruction of that countrys infrastructure was the desired outcome, the brutal sanctions were also applied with horrific results, peaceful resolution was never the intent of the western Anglo-American coalition, complete and utter subjugation was.
Early on the media made it perfectly clear that oil and regional stategic supremacy were not the goals,that was easy to do since we have no independent main stream media, but rather freedom and liberty for Iraqis was the altruistic benevolent intent of all the bombing and forced starvation caused by the sanction. This is the insanity of du jour, the newspeak of Orwell. The good General characterizes Iraqis and all people of the region as backward savages unable to appreciate democracy, this is just another example of the demonization of an entire race which is completely insane but all to easily swallowed by us uneducated unsophisticated western minds who believe contrary to all evidence that we ourselves live in the apex of democratic development.
The facts of the matter are contrary to our delusions, this war on terror is in fact a war on democracy, democracy will never be tolerated by the elite clique that owns and operates our world and we will all learn in the coming months the truth of that. The election in the states is a farcical fraudulent circus and nothing else but. We will endure the totalitarian fascist continental state Fortress North America is about to become a physical political reality and we will learn at last what the conquered nations have long ago had to endure.
A higher standard of life accross the board was enjoyed by the people of Iraq in 1991 than is even now endured by Americans, that and geology was thier crime.

pardon the rant I'm tired and cranky this morning

 

[Nuggler]

Hang GWB, then revisit the problem

 

[MikeyDB]

Nuggler

GWB was the puppet, the "front-man" for an agenda that's got little to do with GWB.

Negotiated peace is always more difficult than military action. Military action is easy compared to accepting compromise and exercising tolerance. Never mind that there weren't weapons of mass destruction, never mind that the war that was fought between Iraq and Iran was encouraged by the United States, never mind that Kuwait was the local access terminal to feed America's petroleum dependency, never mind that the very same atrocities accused by the U.S. of Saddam Hussein were only minimally different than many of the military actions of the U.S. in supporting oppressive dictatorships around the world.

You don't have to be clever to drop a bomb or launch a missile, but you do need to have an understanding of the dynamics at work inside those nations you're so happy to bomb and invade if you're prepared to consider anything less barbaric than the behavior of the United States.

 

[Nuggler]

..................right...............

8O

 

[darkbeaver]

GWB is a symptom of the massive contempt the elite class has for the common citizen. I used to admire Lewis McKenzie about fifteen years ago. After the rape of Yugoslavia my respect for him evaporated. When will the general population of North America clue in to the coming global war being initiated by the Anglo-American coalition of fascism. This morning on CBC news, it opened with a brief skewed piece on the wall bombing in Gaza and then item two was the dead movie star. This is unaceptable as journalism, this is not even an attempt at journalism it'e not even news worthy in the face of reality, it's plain naked propagandization. Who the hell gives a damn about a dead superstar when nations are being raped and destroyed and the markets are crashing. I f jesus were returning we'ed easily be peroccupied with the Academy awards, we are just to stupid to live.

 

[jimshort19]

Kreskin, "He said he believes the premise of democracy being an important factor for stablizing the region is incorrect."

It has never been American foreign policy that democracy be installed by force before GWB or since Trueman It was more practical to back a favoured dictator, ideally the one already in charge. The premise that democracies are fundamentally more stable in terms of policy and fundamentally less so in terms of personnel is an accepted fact. The notion that democracy will benefit Iraq in the long term is a fact. The flip side that it will take years to stabilize is common knowledge. The view that it cannot be done remains unproven. The benefits of democracy are well proven.

Showing favour to democracy is a moral imperative. Killing the political oponents of democracy is assumed to be the lesser of evils as long as it doesn't cost too much.

MacKenzie, "With a long history of undemocratic rule they are more peaceful without democracy."

So at times we were once more 'peaceful' under the likes of Saddam Hussein. It took a long time to accomplish our history, and it was bloody. Iraq will do it far faster than we did. It will take a heavy hand. MacKenzie seems to be saying that it is not worth it. The word he breathes against democracy is out of the desire for order, for stability, a word in favour of militarism. We made our minds up on this a long time ago.

Now that real action is taking place in a primitive country, we have the noble experiment that we need to confirm or disprove whether it's 'worth it' or not. If we stop the experiment halfway through the worst days, then we are none the wiser. As for MacKenzie prefering a military dictatorship, I agree with him, but it has to be our military dictatorship during ordered transition to democracy.

If MacKenzie is right and these tribal savages cannot be rehabilitated in 50 years with a trillion dollars, let's not do this again, shall we?

__________________

 

[MikeyDB]

Beve

That's being taken care of....

The "let's pretend" of Hollywood and television is the great equalizer. If someone can lament the death of a young actor or starlet like Anna Nicole Smith that's opporunity to be convinced that you're an 'emotional participant' capable of feeling all the right feelings when somone dies.... It's less envigorating to watch the arms and legs, the chunks of flesh and bone collected beside an IED or cleaned-up off the streets after an exciting bombing and strafing run by an F-16..... It's all nice and clean and as equally anonymous to "greive" for the burgeoning starlet or pretty-faced hero of TV and film. It's a device to let people feel their "in-touch" with empathy and grief...in a nice clean orderly way...not the messy pictures of children with burned flesh hanging off them.... as we exercise our "right" to live the good life....

 

[darkbeaver]

Mickey Mouse is a war criminal, Ronald McDonald is a pedophile, the Pope is Satan in drag,
Mother Terresa was a hooker. War is peace, democracy is fascism. I think I got it now. :canada:

 

[MikeyDB]

Gymshorts

When did you live under the Saddam Hussein regime? Can you count your ancestors back through generations and embrace the faith of Islam? When sectarian violence in Iraq was the order of the day, that violence was product of tribalism and "belief", and while it was indeed a long road to "civilization", and there was perhaps the necessity of a steel-fisted dictator to bring what peace could be brought to the situation.... What have the peole of Iraq got now? What has happened to the city of Baghdad and the infrastructure of a reasonably prosperous nation? When Saddam Hussein was a "friend of the administration" there were pictures of a smiling Donald Rumsfeld walking arm-in-arm with the Butcher of Baghdad.....what changed?

What changed was that the war ended between Iraq and Iran and that didn't make the folk in Israel very happy...and when the folk in Israel aren't happy you can be guaranteed that the folk in America won't be happy either.....

 

[gopher]

Hang GWB, then revisit the problem

No argument from me! ;-)

 

[gopher]

Tuesday: 3 GIs, 90 Iraqis Killed; 7 Iraqis Wounded; Mass Grave Found

http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=12315


``A mass grave containing dozens of bodies was discovered west of Samarra. Elsewhere, a small but deadly U.S. raid on a civilian residence was reported for the second day in a row. Overall, 90 Iraqis were reported killed or found dead, and seven were wounded across Iraq. Three American servicemembers were reported killed in two separate incidents.``


Bad news for the warmongers whose victory celebrations were a tad premature.

 

[gopher]

... but good news for the wealthy elites whose bankrolls continue to climb thanks to the war profits being given to them by Bush!

 

[gopher]

Image of U.S. soldier wins World Press Photo prize:


http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSL0815678120080208?sp=true

```An image of an emotionally and physically spent U.S. soldier in a bunker in Afghanistan by Britain's Tim Hetherington for Vanity Fair magazine won the top World Press Photo prize for news photography on Friday.
Judges described the photo as an image that shows "the exhaustion of a man -- and the exhaustion of a nation," adding people everywhere were tiring of the world's numerous conflicts.```