Ravi, with all due respect, Iif the US really wanted to make things better the money that they spend now could buy many more Islamic soldiers, without the stigma of US control.
If the US left Iraqis decide the fate of their gov't, it would probably be anti-American and theocratic. Engels once said that the worst time for a bad government is when it first tries to do good. Doing good in this case will not be easy, but the military is too blunt an object to acomplish anything good. But the US is not interested in doing good. It wants to avoid humiliation. One of the generals said that the US can take its humiliation now or later. It has to decide how much humiliation it wants. But then, maybe with enough money and lives, the US can establish an ARENA-like party that will do its bidding, allowing the US to sneak away. I doubt it, though. On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 10:37:15PM -0400, ravi wrote: > Devine, James wrote: > > ravi writes: >what then of US responsibility to clean up the mess we > > created?< > > > > shouldn't it be "what then of the US power elite's responsibility to > > clean up the mess they created?" > > > > for an iraqi is there a difference? or even for us? 30-50% of the taxes > i pay go towards funding american adventures in other countries and the > further excesses of client states like israel. am i not complicit in the > suffering of iraqis and palestinians and east timorese? > > > > Do you think that US troops are the best tool for cleaning the mess > > they were hired to create? > > > i don't know. that's why i am trying to follow this debate. but often > all i hear is dismissal without justification of the opposing position. > perhaps the reasons are obvious? > > > > It seems that they are serving the US > > corporations, so if you're calling for "US corporations out of Iraq," > > you're also calling for their servants to leave. > > > i dont know about the last part. perhaps US troops as part of a > multinational force could help ensure peace. that might be a naive hope. > the corporations (hallibortun, bechtel, etc) are by their very nature a > corrupting and degenerate influence. > > > > BTW, did you see that the Sydney Morning Herald reported that "Iyad > > Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed > > as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just > > days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim > > government... > > > indeed i read about this, and it only adds to my doubt. i am not very > knowledgeable about iraq but is it not possible that the thugs who will > rush in to fill the void left by a suddenly departed US army, would be > worse? i remember reading pieces about east timor, rwanda, and > elsewhere, of the horrors that ensued when any provisional authority > pulled out (in those cases these authorities were a bit more legitimate, > such as the UN). > > isnt it important not to forget that their thugs are as bad as ours? > only, we can try to control our thugs but they cannot control theirs or > ours. > > --ravi -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
