Originally posted by budski
I think that brown wants to pull the UK troops out, but knows that leaving now before the job is done, would be disastrous for iraq.
That’s just the official propaganda line.
We screwed Iraq up the moment we removed a secular leader (and his leadership) who unlike over 23 governments before (which shared for about 30 years
between them) had actually kept order in Iraq for nearly 35 years.
No matter how you frame the argument, a man like Saddam who was
alleged to have killed
350,000 people in 28 years of direct
personal rule is a lot better than the consequences of an occupation which has almost certainly killed anything between over 650,000 and a million; in
little over 5 years.
We may have known it all along but there are certain areas of the world where democracy just doesn’t work. E.g. those areas of the world where the
majority of the population believes woman should be stoned to death (as my profile underlines).
However this argument became unfashionable since it seems to make the West superior in something, and is therefore xenophobic anyway. Now we have been
reminded of its wisdom (just at the cost of many, many decent people’s lives; especially when one takes into account of the terrorism we have
unleashed).
The thing that’s really wrong about your statement is that Iraq will only begin to stop collapsing when a dictator is found.
If we wait till Iraqi elections 2009 then it will be an Iranian loving Muslim Fundamentalists, and people of the Arab world will have done a
“Palestine” where they our golden theory of “democracy does no harm” to be the #te it is by electing something not dissimilar to Hamas.
The other option would be to find another Saddam, a secular leader capable of imposing control at less cost in blood than the fanatics (and that gives
quite a bit of lee way).
See this thread (I did) for the statistics and facts for what I just said:
www.abovepolitics.com...
I also think he wants to get us out of afghanistan - he really is a lot more old style labour on issues such as conflict.
That would actually be a good idea that would save many lives
if we left…
1. Using fungus spores against Afghanistan’s opium crops (apart from those areas we can feasibly use for legitimate medical purposes)
news.bbc.co.uk...
More on the Technology:
news.bbc.co.uk...
Sadly the United Nations pulled out of the idea…
www.sunshine-project.org...
(The United Nations would do; I mean it would present a solution to a problem, rather than just a talking shop).
2. Left leaving a few million landmines behind between the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. This isn’t so hard, some landmines can be both mass produced
and aerially deployed (a Soviet world war two design actually uses a plunge as a timer), and although this border area is very mountainous every
mountain has a dip-ridge, which is something the Soviets took full advantage of during their little war. Compensation to whoever owns the mountains is
obviously voluntarily, and difficult given the absence of a land registry. Although morally it’s a nice idea especially the little money needed.
3. Left the Afghan’s with a few helicopters to redeploy any mines the Pakistani militants decide to clear.
Sadly in order to do this England would need to consider reversing our Princess Diana landmine treaty, which we so politically correctly signed (even
though we never used the landmines like savages, just the people we sold them to, which meant the real problem was an arms control one all along).
The main problem facing the Americans is changing the biological warfare convention which makes destroying even drug crops a crime.
So there you have it, the real reason why our troops are dying in Afghanistan is because our frontline leaders lack the political will (or I.Q) to
change a few (sometimes) convenient bits of paper. Till then they, the Afghan civilians, and the Afghan fanatics who make it through, continue to die
in Afghanistan.
However I would caution you that even if we went for and obtained military victory as I outlined in the strategy above, it would still be almost 100%
worthless when dealing with real political problems.
The reason is quite complex but probably best illustrated by the Afghan journalist sentenced to death, and only saved because it caught the attention
of the mass-media press.
1.
www.independent.co.uk...
2.
www.dailymail.co.uk...
3.
www.foxnews.com...
Remember the journalist was sentenced to death for reading about women’s rights by the current Afghan government.
If you can’t see anything, at least see our troops are wasting their time. Even if you can’t explain or comprehend how it’s the case without it
better being talked about, at least understand it.
In the absence of the above we will loose the war in Afghanistan because they will breed to replace "Martia's lost" well after you and me have died
of old age. However loosing the war in Afghanistan would probably make us safer from terrorism than we are now, but then it's not really for
terrorism.
Side Note: Understanding the Nature of this countries 3 Evils
In my opinion Party politics is for 3 types of people…
1. Fools.
2. Those who like to reap the rewards of evil.
3. Those who know the above but who want to find ways to improve the above (either to make it less destructive or more efficient). (We by the way are
the little people who
sometimes get shot).
P.S. Don’t get confused with the Objectives of a Political System…
Political Stability: Domestic Politics (there is indeed some freedom and democracy here)
Wealth Creation: Serving Corruption (sparsely owned press, pressure groups ect)
Military Security: Keeping the wheels rolling (justifying-finding something to bomb, whether it needs it or not).