If you are Richard Cohen, you believe this!
Was Iraq so “broken” we never could have fixed it? Was Hussein’s despotism an avoidable tragedy, or was it, instead, a tragic necessity? I wonder about all these things. I tend to think now we never could have made it work.
I tend to think that most people are under the false impression that a free, capitalistic democracy in Iraq is supposed to look exactly like ours, but it won’t. It will be bound by their laws, and run by their leaders. This arguement that Cohen makes is just as ignorant as the one that is attempted to be made by the left with regards to the Middle East. People keep saying that the administration is destablizing the region…..Have these people been in a coma? Could any of you list a sustained period of peace in the Middle East during your life time? I don’t think so. This is 2007, and people don’t need to live under a dictatorship.Â
I wonder if Cohen gave any thought to the fact that he thinks nothing of people living under a dictatorship, while he types on his Blackberry as he is sitting in a coffee shop, complaining about the fact that the new iPhone is set up for personal and not professional use!Â
Here is how Cohen sees it:
America is still America — and we still don’t know what in the world we’re doing.
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34, John, Mattias is a “True Believer”. He won’t peddle his rhetoric to the Islamofascists or even to his Imam, but thinks the US should be the sole receptacle for his crap.
PCD and John,, epsosing fools once again. I am in Bulgaria for a couple of weeks for some R&R and back to Iraq. It is nice to post again. It has been a busy 2 years. Gotta run.
JG
36, Sounds like a business, John. Like we should have a sig that says, “PCD & JG, exposing fools since 3005.”
Cross over into Insurgent Detergent and we can cover all the enemies of the US>
Ah, the Doctor and the Insurgent Detergent.
I’d like to prescribe a Daisy Cutter for the next Al Sadr militia formation. And a Hellfire enima for the leaders of Iran and Syria.
Re 26 (Matthais):
“That was actually something called sarcasm…”
Besides the fact that the phrase “desparation parade” makes absolutely no sense in English, perhaps you should master the basics of the language before attempting such difficult endeavors over the internet such as sarcasm, something commonly lost of a BBS.
Tht said, the meaning of the phrase is still lost.
“because in your country actually NOBODY goes out on the street and protests for the thousands of civilian people that die every day in Iraq because your idiot of president destabilized the country with his stupid little war!”
You are completely ignorant regarding the happening in America, aren’t you Matthais? There are folks that protest virtually every day. Cindy Sheehan is among them.
However, the fact remains thatthe vast, vast majority of Iraqis are killed by insurgents and terrorist, and not Americans. They were killed en masse before we arrived by greater numbers than today.
“With “desparation parade”I refer kind of protest/shock the world showed when on 9/11 a number people senselessly died, while this number of people are dying probably every two months!!! AND NOBODY IN YOUR COUNTRY WHO SUPPORTED THIS MADNESS CARES!”
Again, the phrase makes no sense, however far more people have protested iraq than ever protested 9/11. But that fact remains that the commonality between what is happening in Iraq and what happened on 9/11 is that the vast majority of all of those people involved are being killed by terrorists and insurgents.
Re 30 (Matthias):
“so what’s the problem? Am I as a German too appeasing or too warmongering???”
What is wrong is your abject bigotry. Thus, my Germany comments to match your American ones.
40- “However, the fact remains thatthe vast, vast majority of Iraqis are killed by insurgents and terrorist, and not Americans. They were killed en masse before we arrived by greater numbers than today.”
Yeah, I knew somebody would say this. So now tell me:
Why is it horrible and a human rights violation if Saddam slaughters people that do an uprising against his regime, but a justified action if the US forces fight against “insurgents” who seem to represent a mass of people that go beyond a small terrorist minority???
It seems that the US-supported and democratically elected Maliki goverment does not find everybody’s approval in Iraq either (compared to Saddam)…
42- “.. the vast majority of all of those people involved are being killed by terrorists and insurgents.”
Apart from the fact the the US goverment consciously took the risk that the region would become destabilized when they started the war (I bet there are dozens of people in the Pentagon who do nothing but playing strategic “What-if”-scenarios day by day), I would even go that far that this effect is wanted!
“Hey, fundamentalist loonies want to blow sth. up? So let them! But let them do it far away from the US homeland. Rather have 30,000 victims abroad than another 3,000 in NY, LA or Chicago…”
That’s how the game is played!
Re 41 (Matthais):
Why is it horrible and a human rights violation if Saddam slaughters people that do an uprising against his regime, but a justified action if the US forces fight against “insurgents”who seem to represent a mass of people that go beyond a small terrorist minority???
Your premise is flawed. The insurgent and terrorists (two different groups) do not represent anything beyond a small minority of iraqis, Baathist and Sunni’s that forced their will upon the majority of people and the actual Terrosist factions such as Al Queda.
“It seems that the US-supported and democratically elected Maliki goverment does not find everybody’s approval in Iraq either (compared to Saddam):”
Democratically elected. You said it yourself. Yo governement has 100% support of they people they govern.
Apart from the fact the the US goverment consciously took the risk that the region would become destabilized when they started the war…
Again, your premise is flawed. The region was destabized long before the US arrived.
“That’s how the game is played!”
Yes, it is. I have no problem with that. You just justified what we are doing in the GWOT, including Iraq.