Posted by Garnet71 on March 6, 2009, at 0:57:13
In reply to Re: Bush, a friend of Africa, posted by Sigismund on March 5, 2009, at 19:08:51
Iraq is going to be much better off in the long run. We can debate endlessly whether the U.S. was right or wrong in its pre-emptive invasion and overthrowing the Ba'ath party, but the truth is that Sadaam ruined Iraq. Iraq used to be the top place in the Middle East with advanced institutions-education, medicine, etc. Beauty-art-culture..Sadaam destroyed the country's strengths and replaced it with control, fear, mismanagement and terror. The thing about dictatorships is--they cannot ever be effective. Everyone that is the right hand man of the dictator is scared to death to oppose him even when he is blatantly screwing up, and also will not tell him when things are going wrong in sectors of the society. One of my best friends is Iraqi, a son of one of Saddam's former Generals. He is extremely well- read, and we have had long discussions about his country. I don't doubt him and his history lessons, although I have also been educated on the subject from Western viewpoints.
It is in the U.S. interest to have a democracy in the Middle East aside from Israel, which was the only one true/free democracy until Iraq. Nation building is an argument in itself, but countries with power will always do what is in their best interest. It's been going on for centuries, it is going on today, and will continue on into the future. We may have unintentionally strengthened Iran in doing so, but I really think the people of Iraq will have a much brighter future now. Aside from the democracy building, after Kuwait, Saddam had plans to go after Saudi Arabia too. He threatened the stability of the entire Middle East.
Bush can't say he regrets the war, not that I think he does. He can't come out and say that over 4,000 soldiers were killed because we 'really shouldn't have been there in the first place'-- especially when there are still soldiers over there doing their jobs courageously. He has to support the ongoing effort rather than invalidate everything.
The 3 worries I have for Iraq are corruption and unemployment; and importantly: in the transition from all of the state-owned enterprises to private businesses, foreign investors are buying up Iraq while the Iraqi people lack ownership. On the bright side, more kids are in school now than when Saddam was in power, and oil production is likewise higher. In terms of conflict, when the Sunnis, who feared losing everything they had, were permitted by the U.S. to engage in governance again, that facilitated a shift in cooperation.
I'm optimistic--I really do think Iraq is going to be great again someday. That does not mean I agree with all of U.S. foreign policies, but I think as a nation, we should be working on making the best of the situation rather than looking back. In addition, sometimes if we follow only one group's ideologies w/o seeking out alternate views, we don't have all the information we need to make true progress.
poster:Garnet71
thread:883454
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20090221/msgs/884010.html