What if the UN was in charge of Iraq?

[olyclimber]

...? You gotta love scoring a petty little page top on a serious political argument.

[Dru]

but it's better if you change the subject thread so it says "What if a snafflehound ran Iraq" or something....

[Crux]

JoshK... why do you hate the U.S. so much?

 

Hating the U.S? I don't think so.

 

A more likely condition voiced in this thread, and one shared by many Americans that love their country, is not of loathing for the U.S., but of a resolved contempt for a few bad soldiers that shamed the nation.

 

Consider the following, written by a WWII veteran and journalist:

 

"If you were going to make a list of the great times in American history, you'd start with the day in 1492, when Columbus got here.

 

The Revolution when we won our independence would be on the list.

 

Beating Hitler.

 

Putting Americans on the moon.

 

We've had a lot of great days.

 

Our darkest days up until now have been things like presidential assassinations, the stock market crash in 1929, Pearl Harbor, and 9-11, of course.

 

The day the world learned that American soldiers had tortured Iraqi prisoners belongs high on the list of worst things that ever happened to our country. It's a black mark that will be in the history books in a hundred languages for as long as there are history books. I hate to think of it.

 

The image of one bad young woman with a naked man on a leash did more to damage America's reputation than all the good things we've done over the years ever helped our reputation." -- Andy Rooney, Our Darkest Days Are Here

 

mc

[cracked]

[scott_harpell]

The day the world learned that American soldiers had tortured Iraqi prisoners belongs high on the list of worst things that ever happened to our country. It's a black mark that will be in the history books in a hundred languages for as long as there are history books.

 

Dude... ever hear of Vietnam?

[cracked]

NO SHIT.

[willstrickland]

This whole thread is a bunch of hyperbole, and while I generally enjoy hearing Andy Rooney's commentary, that's a load of shit.

 

Fifty years from now the only thing people will remember is that we ousted Hussein, on dubious premises, and what the eventual outcome was...democracy sweeping the region, a quick transition to radical islamic theocracy..whatever. The eventual outcome will do more to color the perception in the history books than any prison abuse scandal.

 

Furthermore, I would HOPE that the indefensible brutality of the radical muslims...suicide attacks on innocents, beheadings of non-combatants, innumerable terrorist acts....would be what stands out in the history books.

 

This administration is inept, and has sold conventional conservatives down the river with their bungling, fiscal irresponsibility, and blind arrogance in sticking to their preconceived notions.

 

I don't condone or make excuses for the Abu Ghraeb situation. I believe it's beyond a "few bad apples acting of their own volition" and that those who ordered it should be punished.

 

Nevertheless, the degree of outrage shown in both the media and the arab street over this, in direct comparison to the LACK of outrage shown in the arab world over the murder of Berg, Daniel Pearl, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, and the four contractors who's bodies were burned and mutilitated is sickening. Where is the perspective? We have lost some moral high ground because of this, but when the moral example perpetrated by the jihadists is on the order of cold blooded murder of innocents and subsequently receives less condemnation and outrage and faces no accountability within the muslim world...somebody has a fucked up sense of comparison.

[scott_harpell]

Damn. Right on

[Fairweather]

[gotterdamerung]

Will, I think you really hit the proverbial nail on the head with that one. We can't condone our own abuses, but we can't turn a blind eye to the abuses that we have suffered either. The United States has done far more good than bad for the people's of this world, and I believe that we have the chance to do good in Iraq. Like you, I don't neccessarily believe all the hype the Bush administration has thrust down the throats of the American public, and I wish there were some better candidates in the pipes right now to choose from other than Bush and Kerry.

 

We were robbed of a chance of a decisive victory when some pencil pushing desk geeks pulled a random force level number out of a hat and ordered the charge of the light brigade into Iraq. We were enlightened when our double dealing European "allies" showed their true colors and put their own national monetary interests above ousting a dictator and assisting us in our efforts to achieve a stronger signature in the middle east. Our misgivings about the UN were solidified when they showed what a useless tin-pan organization they really are. We are a better people now to see just how inept some elements of our government are in dealing with realities in the world, and we are chargrained to realize that despite all of our technologies on the battlefield that all of our smart bombs and missiles, night vision, high tech rifles are virtually useless when confronted by an enemy that has little to lose and everything to gain. We are engaged in one of the lowest levels of technological combat since Beirut and lost in a sense of our own arrogant greatness. When we bomb people to the stone age as we did in Bosnia/Kosovo and we take no casualties the people of the US turn to reality TV and game shows scarcely taking notice. When one American is killed many suddenly proclaim themselves indignant that the US would engage in efforts like this. There is only one way out, and that is through complete victory through ruthless combat action, resolve in the face of adversity, and a sense of national unity. If we lose this misguided adventure we will be engaged in war on a scale that will affect more than the economy and a few hundred thousand Americans immersed in a culture old as time itself. When I return home I am deeply unimpressed by what I find here. Not from the perspective that we are not an advanced culture, but by just how arrogant the average American is. How disconnected, how priveledged, how blind they are. The amount of human rights we are afforded and take for granted, always screaming out for more, or promoting self interests above the interests of others. How easily we could finish this thing if we were to simply act as one for a change, do the job right, and leverage the good that we can out of the bad. Our priorities seem misplaced in this country. I fear that we have become everything the rest of the world says we are, and maybe we need to take a good hard look at all of ourselves for a change before it's too late.

[gotterdamerung]

Question for Gotterdamerung:

 

Have you had any dealings with The Kurds? What are your thoughts? I am worried that these people are going to get screwed when we eventually pull out. It seems like they have upheld their end of the deal they made with us.

 

I don't feel comparable angst for the Shea or Sunni. Should I?

 

I've had several dealings with the Kurds and I have been in Kurdistan twice. Travelling in a blackhawk as you head north there is an imaginary line that is crossed between the hell down south into a land puncuated by deep green rolling hills, jagged mountains, and clear blue rivers. Medieval villages lie in fertile river valleys, and sheep herders scramble to contain their flocks when rotors tear into their peaceful somnolence. Thunderclouds loom overhead and striking architecture suddenly looms on the highest hilltops. Solitary mosques lie as sentinels along the frontiers and you are graced with a sense of peace and order. The air tastes clean and cool, the wind blows among trees, and like you would at home you stare off a distant mountains, and wonder what it would be like to climb them. The people are generous and you sense that they are your friends. The raw nerves and restless agitation of life in the south fades away quickly, and it is difficult to keep your 'game face' on. Men bring platters of sweets to pass around, and Rani is handed out as well as cokes with Arabic writings for labels. There is nothing western here, but it holds the same sense of familiarity that you would find in Estes Park or Winthrop. Steep mountain roads wind around and each new turn has a subtlety that cannot be ignored. Beautiful stallions running on one switchback, and the next one a park for picnics and gazing across the valley. Huge wooden doors lead into marble rooms graced by persian rugs. You stare into them and feel awkward standing on them when a Kurd tells you they are 1000 years old. Food of every variety is taken once business is finished and sweet chai is distributed in tiny cups with silver rims. Everyone smiles and greets one another with respect and awe. Always evident is the lack of any woman in sight, but once when returning to CPA north, school was just letting out and we got our first glimpses of Kurdish women and children. Striking women and beautiful children are the true riches of Kurdistan. Exotic and distant, a pipe dream for those starved for beauty. Always a sense of fatalism to return to the south, those last few glimpses of Kurdistan painful, as we return to a country that bears little resemblance to this place that has been cruelly associated with Iraq. Wishing that we would put all of our resources into this land in the north and simply withdraw from the south once and for all. Leaving the Sunnis and Shias to their politics and timeless hatreds. In Kurdistan I would gratefully give my life for their freedom if they asked me to.

[gotterdamerung]

[gotterdamerung]

[gotterdamerung]

[markinore]

Fifty years from now the only thing people will remember is that we ousted Hussein, on dubious premises, and what the eventual outcome was...democracy sweeping the region, a quick transition to radical islamic theocracy..whatever. The eventual outcome will do more to color the perception in the history books than any prison abuse scandal.

 

Wow, you sure are confident. What is it that we remember about Vietnam? All the positive things that the U.S. did there? I think for most people the memories are of how badly the war was conceived and conducted and how many lives were lost for reasons that can't quite be remembered. For some there are other memories of events that were not representative but nevertheless indelible: My Lai. Kent State. When we try to make predictions of how our actions will go down in history, in may be useful to consider the longer perspective. Chou En Lai, in meeting with Nixon and Kissinger, was asked what he thought of the French Revolution. "Too soon to tell," was his reply.