Home
With our normal American arrogance and a rock-hard belief that our form of sometimes democracy, where representatives of various segments of society can meet in non-violent settings to rationally discuss and then decide on laws and policies that are best for everyone (of course, we've never gotten it right in our own country), and that we have a responsibility to force our way on everyone else, it should be no surprise why we always get it wrong.
Most of today's mid-east nations were created at the end of WWI, by the victorious nations -- with borders drawn to define exactly where the winners would have almost total control of Arab resources. No respect was given to the ancient traditional tribal affiliations that had been in conflict in various regions for thousands of years -- and who would expect western, Christianized political and military leaders to take any notice whatever of the concerns of the peoples who inhabited the places they had now stolen?
One thing for sure; in the country we called Iraq the basic tribal divisions were Kurd, Shiite and Sunni, and it required heavy-handed leadership to force these people to "get along." Saddam, a sadistic and brutal leader, had what it took to do that job.
Then along comes Bush the great Christian crusader, who, with his berserk advisers determine that we needed to remove Saddam and make Iraq a functioning democracy -- a bastion of Americanism -- that would payoff big for our influence in that region. Saddam's brutality was wrong. We would do it with American dollars and salesmanship and shock and awe.
Doomed to failure from before the start, Iraq has descended into an uncontrolled quagmire of tribal warfare.
And Obama's 300-man commitment to save the one-sided Shiite government of Maliki (which we set-up at a cost of a few trillions of dollars and close to 5,000 lives) is a similarly doomed strategy.
One of Obama's reasons for this policy is, according to him, to prevent the region being taken over by Jihadists who are our enemies.
Mr. Obama fails to recognize that left to their own desserts, the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites have no desire to be part of any single government -- whether it is one driven by American influence or ISIS. For the moment, while they are in the business of destroying Maliki and Shiite control of the whole country of Iraq, ISIS is useful. After the Shiites lose the power to control the Kurds and Sunnis, something else will evolve -- most likely with Iraq being divided among the three dominant tribes.
If we simply back away and let these tribes decide their own future, we may diminish the hatred all three have for us after our disastrous military and political interference.
In our own country, thousands live in poverty, 1% of the ultra wealthy control more than 90% of our treasure, our political factions are so divisive our government is no longer functional, our educational and healthcare institutions are failing, our infrastructure is decrepit, and we continue to pour too large a portion of our budget to furnishing a military that has not truly won a war in 60 years.
Yet we continue to boast we're the greatest nation ever.
Reality!
Most of today's mid-east nations were created at the end of WWI, by the victorious nations -- with borders drawn to define exactly where the winners would have almost total control of Arab resources. No respect was given to the ancient traditional tribal affiliations that had been in conflict in various regions for thousands of years -- and who would expect western, Christianized political and military leaders to take any notice whatever of the concerns of the peoples who inhabited the places they had now stolen?
One thing for sure; in the country we called Iraq the basic tribal divisions were Kurd, Shiite and Sunni, and it required heavy-handed leadership to force these people to "get along." Saddam, a sadistic and brutal leader, had what it took to do that job.
Then along comes Bush the great Christian crusader, who, with his berserk advisers determine that we needed to remove Saddam and make Iraq a functioning democracy -- a bastion of Americanism -- that would payoff big for our influence in that region. Saddam's brutality was wrong. We would do it with American dollars and salesmanship and shock and awe.
Doomed to failure from before the start, Iraq has descended into an uncontrolled quagmire of tribal warfare.
And Obama's 300-man commitment to save the one-sided Shiite government of Maliki (which we set-up at a cost of a few trillions of dollars and close to 5,000 lives) is a similarly doomed strategy.
One of Obama's reasons for this policy is, according to him, to prevent the region being taken over by Jihadists who are our enemies.
Mr. Obama fails to recognize that left to their own desserts, the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites have no desire to be part of any single government -- whether it is one driven by American influence or ISIS. For the moment, while they are in the business of destroying Maliki and Shiite control of the whole country of Iraq, ISIS is useful. After the Shiites lose the power to control the Kurds and Sunnis, something else will evolve -- most likely with Iraq being divided among the three dominant tribes.
If we simply back away and let these tribes decide their own future, we may diminish the hatred all three have for us after our disastrous military and political interference.
In our own country, thousands live in poverty, 1% of the ultra wealthy control more than 90% of our treasure, our political factions are so divisive our government is no longer functional, our educational and healthcare institutions are failing, our infrastructure is decrepit, and we continue to pour too large a portion of our budget to furnishing a military that has not truly won a war in 60 years.
Yet we continue to boast we're the greatest nation ever.
Reality!
Last edited by Wordslinger on 6/23/2014, 6:38 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : Ran out of Rum)