Originally Posted by georged

I keep looking, but am unable to find any new information on Turkey's position regarding Iraqi Kurds and that group's semi-autonomous status under the US wing. Is Turkey standing on their initial statement of there will be no independent Kurd Nation to further tempt Turkey's substantial Kurd population into open civil war? Complete with a modern, formidable Turkish military including the latest in US Air Force toys to back up that statement?

If you will remember, Turkey was massing troops near the border during the invasion. They are still there. That indicates to me that they are pretty damn serious.

Democracy sounds good, but there are so many modern ME nations with sharply divided ethnic and tribal differences that I think it takes a very dominant government just to maintain civil order. Even before the Ottoman Empire was dismantled as war loot, it took an iron fist to govern in the ME. Saddam was an example of many ME leaders, past and present. I still can't believe we were and are that stupid with our foreign policy. As I've long advocated, write the check to pay for our mistake and get out. Let Iraq do what it needs to do and let the chips fall where they may. This stupidity driven by ego is becoming very boring and increasingly costly.

I am all for that. Forcing peace is nothing mroe than prolonging the violence. Let them get their killing out of the way then they can move on. People kill other people. It is human nature. We have been doing it for tens of thousands of years. We form tribes, the kill each other. Kind of a hobby.

As things presently stand, I would say the odds of a stable and peaceful Iraq are nil. Look at bosnia. We "stopped" the violence, and they have been killing each other ever since.

Daewoo: surely there is a better way than to simply allow the country to fall to pieces (faster than it currently is) and avoid a long and gory civil war? I cannot say what this way might be but we need to work one out. The current millitary presence cannot continue true, but we (i.e. 'the occupying powers') should not simply 'bail out.' I mean alright killing each other is a hobby, but so is my smoking, they're both something we should do less of.

Originally Posted by C. Langana

Daewoo: surely there is a better way than to simply allow the country to fall to pieces (faster than it currently is) and avoid a long and gory civil war? I cannot say what this way might be but we need to work one out. The current millitary presence cannot continue true, but we (i.e. 'the occupying powers') should not simply 'bail out.' I mean alright killing each other is a hobby, but so is my smoking, they're both something we should do less of.

Like what? This is the same problem we see with UN "police actions". Forcing people to stop fighting DOES NOT WORK. They have to fight it out, then MAYBE something can be accomplished.

Is there another way in Iraq? Sure. We give them another tyrannical government. We are well on the road to that, and ensuring that the new government has as much power as Saddam did. THEN we can leave and they will have a democratically elected Saddam crushign them in an iron grip instead of the old dictator saddam

Saddam was essentially keeping the people from killing each other, and the means he use, while brutal, were effective, which is why we adopted the same means (mass arrests, torture, holding people without trial or bail, etc...) to the same end. If that is what we end up with, we would be better off if we had never invaded, as would the Iraqi people.

Rawanda today is relatively peacful. They fought until their blood lust was satisfied. Sierra Leone is still in the grip of a civil war...it is just a quieter one. The DRS is relatively peacful. The rivers flowed blood, but finally enough people were killed that they got it out of their system and moved on. Bosnia is still in the midst of a quiet civil war.

Intervention just slows the killing. It does not stop it. In fact, it prolongs it indefinatly. Better to get it all out fo the way. Give everybody in the country a machine gun and let them go to town on each other. Once enough have died, they will stop. Iraq will probably be 3 seperate states, but the killing will have stopped, the people will be stronger for it, and there will be stability.

I agree that there probably is no good way to solve the iraq problem and that the invasion was akin to kicking a wasp's nest but surely we simply say 'let em kill each other and have god sort 'em out' (which isn't what you said) we ought at least to try and work something out surely?
The thing is, your probably right, there will be a civil war etc, but that does not mean we shouldn't try to find a way to stop it.
Once again I cannot say what that way is, it's not my place to say it, however we should try to find it.

Originally Posted by C. Langana

I agree that there probably is no good way to solve the iraq problem and that the invasion was akin to kicking a wasp's nest but surely we simply say 'let em kill each other and have god sort 'em out' (which isn't what you said) we ought at least to try and work something out surely?
The thing is, your probably right, there will be a civil war etc, but that does not mean we shouldn't try to find a way to stop it.
Once again I cannot say what that way is, it's not my place to say it, however we should try to find it.

Why? If we pull out, we loose face and there is a lot of killing. If we stay ind try to force peace, we potentially destabilize the entire region, drag out the killing for years, maybe decades, and the Iraqis have no peace or chance for it for years. Let them figth their civil war. It will be over ina few years and they can move on. We give a couple trillion dollars to the winner (or divide it among the winners) in liu of our rebuilding responsibility and call the whole thing good.

I'm not advocating that we should remain in Iraq, I confess that things have been a royal charlie foxtrot for sometime. As I said your are correct that the war is probably a certainty, however we ought at least to find a solution to stop it or lessen it.

Originally Posted by C. Langana

I'm not advocating that we should remain in Iraq, I confess that things have been a royal charlie foxtrot for sometime. As I said your are correct that the war is probably a certainty, however we ought at least to find a solution to stop it or lessen it.

US attempts to resolve the situation in Iraq consist of building 'new' Iraqi
military and civil police forces to control the country. In the Shia and Sunni sections of Iraq, that's primarily Shia. The Kurds are allowed autonomy as a US supported buffer between Iraq and Iran/Turkey and have their own forces, questionable at best in the interest of a unified Iraq. In progress to date, those 'new' forces have proven to be every bit as ruthless and oppressive to the general citizenry as those employed by Saddam. Iraq's prisons are undergoing constant expansion with death squads and torture being commonly used enforcement methodology.

Originally Posted by georged

US attempts to resolve the situation in Iraq consist of building 'new' Iraqi
military and civil police forces to control the country. In the Shia and Sunni sections of Iraq, that's primarily Shia. The Kurds are allowed autonomy as a US supported buffer between Iraq and Iran/Turkey and have their own forces, questionable at best in the interest of a unified Iraq. In progress to date, those 'new' forces have proven to be every bit as ruthless and oppressive to the general citizenry as those employed by Saddam. Iraq's prisons are undergoing constant expansion with death squads and torture being commonly used enforcement methodology.

What I find particularly difficult to comprehend is how we feel justified in demanding a non sectarian government while helping the kurds build their own private army. It seems like what we are essentailly demanding is a non sectarian governing effort between the Shia and the Sunni, with the kurds as an outside, autonomous force in all areas except for oil revenue payments.

GeorgeD: Just because they're doing it doesn't mean we shouldn't (to a reasonable point) try to stop them.
Are you familiar with the history of Germany post 1918 to about 1929?
The abdication of the Kaiser took out the political establishment but the allies left every other institution intact, leading to a perpetution of the old order with a few new politicians who try as they might couldn't change the whole state, or so the pessimist historical theory goes.
Anyway I wonder if we are seeing a similar thing here?

Originally Posted by C. Langana

I'm not advocating that we should remain in Iraq, I confess that things have been a royal charlie foxtrot for sometime. As I said your are correct that the war is probably a certainty, however we ought at least to find a solution to stop it or lessen it.

I don't believe there is one. If the occupation had been handled differently (for example not bombing the country's infrastructure into oblivion; not disbanding the Iraqi army; not having a US proxy electoral candidate; making sure oil revenue went through the roof for the Iraqis; not putting Ba'ath officials back in power in places like Basra) then action could have been taken in the first few months to ensure something like this did not happen.
Even so, given the divisions along cultural, religious and geographical grounds already in place in Iraq, it is hard to see how violence could have been avoided once the ruthless dictator was ousted.

I fully agree with Daewoo that war now seems inevitable, and I think the lesser of two evils would be to let them have it out. If we continue our intervention the war will just be longer and more bloody than otherwise.
Look at Europe. Apart from North America (which consists of just 3 huge countries) and Australia, it is the only area of the world experiencing real stability (excepting the Balkans). The reason is WWII. Prior to that Europe's history was one of continuous conflict and bloodshed, only brought to and end by Europe being brought to its knees by a conflict which changed the world.

With Western Europe as the victors, with Eastern Europe now free of Soviet tyranny, with Germany forgiven and rebuilt from devastation, with borders permanently demarcated, with economic co-operation between the survivors, and with a visceral fear of intra-European conflict, Europe has finally come to the most stable point in its history to date.

The middle east, with its arbitrarily defined borders, divided populations, popular religious fundamentalism, and a history of colonial/government repression and age-old tribal grudges is nowhere near approaching a stable situation. It is impossible for us to magically transform the area into such a state, it can only come about by releasing all that historical tension, unfortunately only resolvable by conflict.

Originally Posted by C. Langana

GeorgeD: Just because they're doing it doesn't mean we shouldn't (to a reasonable point) try to stop them.

Who are they and stop what?

Originally Posted by Liminus

The middle east, with its arbitrarily defined borders, divided populations, popular religious fundamentalism, and a history of colonial/government repression and age-old tribal grudges is nowhere near approaching a stable situation. It is impossible for us to magically transform the area into such a state, it can only come about by releasing all that historical tension, unfortunately only resolvable by conflict.

We (US) remain in denial regarding our ideology not fitting other parts of the world and continue our fruitless attempt at pounding the square object into the round opening.

Originally Posted by georged

We (US) remain in denial regarding our ideology not fitting other parts of the world and continue our fruitless attempt at pounding the square object into the round opening.

And even the US had its formative wars, the War of Independence and the Civil War, which led, through conflict, to stability.
I am all for organisations like the UN and alternative methods, like diplomacy(!) but I also recognise that this is wishful thinking on my part; one look at history shows stability has only ever arisen from the ashes of conflict.

Originally Posted by Liminus

And even the US had its formative wars, the War of Independence and the Civil War, which led, through conflict, to stability.
I am all for organisations like the UN and alternative methods, like diplomacy(!) but I also recognise that this is wishful thinking on my part; one look at history shows stability has only ever arisen from the ashes of conflict.

We tend to forget those facts when attempting to impose our brand of democracy on other nations as the only 'real' solution.