So the U.S. is an imperialistic occupier huh?

The U.S is in iraq to take it over, to steal oil and to torture iraquis huh?

Then explain this.
www.cnn.com...

2 days early!

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

So wait, does this mean they take control of their oil as well? I wouldn't call it totally free until the democratic elections anyway, but did anyone really expect the US to establish themselves as a tyranny in Iraq?

I saw this on the news tonight, and the first thing I thought was "I bet there is a foolish post about the transfer on ATS right now telling people to "stick it".

yeah, I'm sure all the Iraqi's can finally sleep soundly in their beds from tonight...

The reason the Iraquis cannot sleep soundly in there beds is because of terrorists living within thier midsts. The U.S. has kept its word to the Iraqui people so far. As soon as thier military and police are up to snuff we will leave for good.

frankly, i am more scared of someone claiming to be part of Gods chosen people (me good, rest evil) then of some diehard iraqis... your religious fundamentalism doesn't do much good on your credibility

just because we are 'giving' 'control' of iraq to an iraq interm govt doesn't mean that the U.S. is out of iraq or even that the U.S will not be pulling the strings. this does not mean that all the bombings and kidnappings will stop. ditto Tomashi
and yes AMERICA has turned into a 18th century colonial power in the 21st century. AMERICA will control by influence and money what it can't control by military means.
and yes i will put that in my pipe and smoke it

Wow. Iraqis are free now!

Please, the handover is to a puppet government. Everything will remain the same. The U.S. will sit in Iraq until the oil is gone.

I don't want to be rude,but I have difficulty believing that anyoine really thinks that this is a genuine hand-over of power. It's called PR, or spin. It looks good.
And they are not terrorists. They are nationalists. They have this crazy feeling that they would like to run their own country. They would like to pick who's in charge, rather than having the US do it for them.

Its amazing, those of you who think the U.S. is only pretending to handover power to the Iraquis. What would you suggest we do? Leave immediatey and pull out all of our troops so guys like zarquawi can start a civil war between shias,sunnis, and kurds? Newsflash the handover is real. The Iraquis will be participating in the first free elections in over 20 years this january, and as soon as the Iraqui army and police forces are properly trained and funded our troops will leave. So what are all of you going to do then? What are you going to say when the elections go off? That the U.S. fixed them? What are you going to say when the troops leave? That we have invisible soldiers running around in Iraq? Maybe its time you all realised that the U.S. is doing a good thing in Iraq. That we are keeping our word to the Iraquis to give them a free nation whose destiny is in thier hands. Then again the sense I get from most of you is that you will manufacture reasons for critisizing the U.S. even if none existed.

Some food for thought. The Iraqi Interim Government (the organisation the US handed power to) can conduct diplomacy, and adminsistrate the laws in place. But "the IIG will ... not be able to amend the TAL.[Transitional Administrative Law]" It is therefore worth examining what exactly is contained within the TAL, before declaring the nation autonomous.
The most interesting section for me, is the following.

"Article 59
This article is likely to cause considerable controversy, since it compensates for the absence of an agreement over security arrangements in an audacious manner.

First, the article effectively places the Iraqi military under American command (in the form of the �unified command� of the �multinational force�). Second, it mentions UN Security Council Resolution 1511 and effectively uses it to prolong such a security arrangement until a permanent constitution is approved and operating.

Significantly, of all the provisions of the draft constitution, this was the one major issue not to leak."

So, the sovereign nation Iraq, is to have no control over its own military, let alone any influence over the action of the US/UK military. NOr can the IIG do anything about this, as it has no power to modify the TAL in which this is declared. This leads me to question the nature of the handover of power.
In answer to your question about elections, I will believe them when I see them. I am concerned that they might follow the pattern set by the US supported elections in Latin America during thelate '70s and early '80s, in which parties on the left were routinely excluded from standing, voting was obligatory, there was no secret ballot and those who were seen to have voted the 'wrong' way were then persecuted by the military and the deathsquads. Unless the Iraqi electoral process is validated by international observers, such as Amnesty, then I will remain deeply dubious. I hope that this will happen, I hope that the elections will be entirely fair, but I do not believe that this will happen. dont forget, the most recent US presidential election was ultimately decided by the judiciary, which as far as I'm concerned is NOT democracy. You may, nay will, dispute this. You're welcome to.
And by the way, God Blesses Everyone, Not Just America.

I agree that the interim government does not (and in my opinion should not) recieve military power in Iraq. The fact is the interim government was appointed not elected. As such they cannot change the laws or create the constituion as they do not represent the will of the people. However I have no doubts that the will of the people will be heard in january. As for having Amnesty oversee it I personally would prefer the U.N. overseeing it. While the transfer of power is not a complete handover it is the first step torwards that happening. But complete control CAN NOT be transferred UNTILL there is a freely elected government of the people, by the people, and for the people. To hand over full security control to the interim givernment would in my honest opinion be akin to saying "here ya go become the next saddam"
I mean tell me YOG do you think it would be smart to hand over full power to people who were not chosen by those they represent?

As for the last presidential election Bush won the electoral votes, people like to forget that America is not a 1 for 1 democracy it is a representative republic. We as voters dont vote for the president we vote to decide how our electoral will vote.
Although there are times when, like in the last election it means that people who win the popular vote can in fact lose the electoral vote thats our system.
And speaking as a resident of Florida I can say that all those old people who voted for buchannen deserved what they got I mean seriously you can run 10 bingo cards at a time but you can't vote properly?

Besides like it or not we are far better off with bush than with gore had he been elected half of the T.V. shows, movies, books, and C.D.s would be off the shelf right now Regardless of the rest of his platform I will never vote for a Pro-censorship candidate.

First of all,

The only reason this happened is because they were scared of coming under attack. Chickenhawk in chief Jerry Bremer scooted out pronto (as expected) just as soon as it occured.

Anyone who believes the Iraqis are in charge are naiive in the extreme. Go read the small-print.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Why don't you test how safe the democratic streets of Baghdad by taking a stroll down one. Even wait a year or two.

Not one nuclear weapon or wmd related chemical or bio labs could be found. Not ONE. Then the premise became the Al Queda link with Saddam...what was it again. Then the premise was just removing a despicable despot. How can you NOT feel the US was duped into another war for ulterior motives. God knows what they were but they were NOT what was said.

We went to Iraq to remove Saddam hussein. We did that. The WMDs, we were wrong, he didn't (as far as we can find) have them. So what? Isnt deposing a dictator who has launched 2 wars of agression in 25 years and killed hundreds of thousands of citizens in both his country and others reason enough? Can anyone really say that the Iraquis were better off under Saddam? As for the safety of the streets, who is making the streets unsafe? I'll give you a hint, American troops aren't the ones laying roadside bombs and assainating the members of the Iraqui government. American soldiers aren't the ones firing RPGs out of Mosque windows. A lot of people in compton dont like the LAPD does that mean they should stop trying to reduce crime there? 20 years from now the Iraquis of today will tell ther chldren of the americans who gave them back thier country, and while they will not gloss over the hardships they are enduring now they will see that in the end it was worth it.
For both Natons

Actually we the U.S. goal is really as we say. We want now to provide this new government security, remove the finale terrorists while we are there, slowly(2 years last U.S soldier gone) transfer security to Iraq Army/Nato as they (Iraqi's) are trained/become loyal to Iraq Gov/. Eventually see even Nato depart (3-5 years)?

To see Sadam hopefully executed or jailed for life, and finally we truely hope Iraqi's can convert to a free voting society were they tolerate each others belifes and religions without trying to kill each other or others because of the same.

We Americans hope the Iraqi's will be happy and prosperous peoples.

That is the true american view minus the spin or even our own presidents (possible) personal motives. The great thing is Americans will see that these true American wishes happen regardless of our current president because if he does not do the above, we will kick him out or he will be replaced after 4 more years with someone more in line with these beliefs.

While our government may sometimes do things that we all do not agree with most Americans love humanity across the world and we do not have any motives to expand our nation. We do however stand strong against threats and will fight when our freedom and security is threatend.

We do not allways agree and hopefully when this happens withen 4-8 years we can change our government by election to the majority of our beliefs. Sadly what we get is not always what I want, but at least I am free to try and pusrsude people to elect those who believe the way I do.

I don't think Bush really thinks exactly like most of us here in the U.S. do, but you can see our free political system causing him to do it our way. If he refuses he will lose the election. This shows why for the people, by the people works.

Best wishes to Iraq and I hope we can get our men and women out of there as fast as safely possible.

This is a true American view. Not all, but I believe most.

X

Would the bombs be laid and the missiles be fired if the US was not still occupying Iraq?

Just something to ponder mwm1331.

No Lukefj but only because noone in the country would have been insane enough to do it under Saddams regime. Hell just sayng he was not a god in a cafe could get you arrested, tortured, and executed. And again what would you have us do? If we pull out completly right now then Iraq will fall into civil war. The only reason it didn't happen years ago was Saddams brutality. Are you saying we should reinstate him? Think about the freedom Iraquis now enjoy. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religon, did they have those 5 years ago or even 2? An iraqui can now sit in a cafe and without fear say "george bush is an assho*le" Could he have said the same about saddam in 1999? or 2002? NO!
Just something to ponder Lukefj

Originally posted by Xeven
We Americans hope the Iraqi's will be happy and prosperous peoples.

That is the true american view minus the spin or even our own presidents (possible) personal motives. The great thing is Americans will see that these true American wishes happen regardless of our current president because if he does not do the above, we will kick him out or he will be replaced after 4 more years with someone more in line with these beliefs.

Wasn't it an inept voting system that got him in to begin with, I don't see what Americnas did to rectify that, you were cheated out of a Democratic election, and you just sat back and took it. You won't tolerate injustice abroad, just at home......!!


"The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing"� Herbert Spencer

[edit on 28-6-2004 by Koka]

Too many people have swallowed too much propaganda.

George H.W. Bush tricked Saddam into going ahead with the invasion of Kuwait. That's not conjecture. It's fact. Iraq and Kuwait were embroiled in an economic war.

Look into that.

Saddam, it was decided, had to go. Not because he posed a threat, but (a) because he knew way too much and (b) Well, Iraq is sitting on the world's second largest oil reserves. And we weren't about to let OPEC switch to the Euro.

Definitely look into that. One of the best sites is www.copvcia.com

mwm1331,

Hahaha...believe me Iraqi's could sit in a cafe a year ago under Saddam and shout from the top of their lungs that Bush was an asshole. They did then and they still will in the future. As long as the US is there there will be fighting and attacks on US soldiers, which will subsequently lead to civilian deaths.

Yes, I do think the Us should leave. I don't think the US should have gone. I am glad that Saddam is no longer in power, but I think the Us has set a poor example by the manner in which they went about ridding Iraq of Saddam.

The Us should leave and peacekeepers from neutral nations should be deployed.

Lukefj.