UN security council caves in, page 1

Originally posted by dom
I think you're confusing communism and socialism Leveller, two very different branches of thought. The UK is fundamentally a socialist society, we look after the weakest members of society, we try to treat all of our citizens equally (NHS, etc.). These are all socialist principles, and I prefer to live in a country where if I get a brain heamorrage, I don't have to get into ridiculous amounts of debt to pay for the best treatment.

I don't understand how you can say that federalism is socialist however. It's just infrastructure. Federalism is exactly what the US have, so I doubt that a federal model is going to fatally cripple Europe. I think the UK might fatally cripple Europe, but that's different.

Once again Dom, I utterly disagree with you.

I didn't say federalism IS socialism. I suggested that the European system is going to merge into it. One will lead to the other. And it WILL fail.

The UK is in no way a socailist state. You use probably the worst example of socialism I can think of - The National Health System. A system that is down on it's a$$. It never has and never will, be a success. It drains money from the people and gives very little in proportion to what it has received.
Then to top it all we have as many families living in poverty as we ever have before. Why? Look to the attempt at socialism here. We supply people with the means to survive and they give nothing back in return. A vicous circle of poverty ensues. We have just as many tramps on our streets as under the Conservative government (Yanks read that as Republican).
And us? Bring Europe down? Financially we can eat those countries for breakfast. Only Germany has the money to stand up to the UK. But they won't for much longer. Their economy is in tatters and like every other country in Europe their system is corrupt.
Europe is just a way for the French and Germans to try to retain their lost sense of dominance. They are on the road to a sad lesson in misery. I pray that the UK brings Europe down - if only for the sake of the people in Europe.

But let's return to the subject of lifting sanctions. Has it ever occured to you that the UN wants to lift the sanctions?
Don't you think that they might have kept sanctions in place because there is a wider plan in practice in Iraq?

You have to look at the bigger picture. Go back to the looting. Chaos? Or planned? I say the latter. You're telling me that the most powerful army on the planet couldn't deal with a few hundred or few thousand looters? The Iraqi army would most certainly tall you differently.
Create chaos!!! Create poverty!!! But don't do it yourselves as you will get the blame!!! Let the people do it themselves. AND LET THEM LEARN FROM IT!!!!
Bring the Iraqi society to it's knees. Put everyone on the same level. Wipe out any vestige of the previous system. The smart people will float to the top - the people who know how to make things work.

And now the time has come. Lesson one has been learnt.
The smart people now know that they have to rebuild. They've been there at the bottom and they have seen how disorder can cause miserey - they witnessed it first hand. The smart people are the educators. They will build a new system because they recognise that they cannot survive without one. They have seen the depths of the last society in it's death throes and they will want no truck with it.
Just yesterday the US started paying state workers. They say that they had to pay the power workers because they had threatened to strike. STRIKE!!!! Don't you see how out of the ordinary that word is when put into context in Iraq?
Then what do the US decide to do? They double teachers and doctors wages and half the security forces pay. In with the new and out with the old. Pay the educators and weaken those who supported the previous system.

YOU HAVE TO SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE!!!!

The problem that people have, is that they view Iraq, incident by incident. They always think the worse. They don't realise that there is an awesome power at work. Not just one of military might - but one of cunning and patience. EVERYTHING WAS PLANNED DOWN TO THE LAST DETAIL!!! There was no disorder. The looting was always under US control. So was the poverty. It's unfortubate that the Iraqis had to suffer but the alternative was FAR worse.

The UN is doing what is right. The US has a system in place and now it needs the money to build it. For the UN to keep sanctions in place would only undermne any hope that the Iraqis have of a future.

That is if you even believe that the UN and US were ever at odds in the first place.

Personally, I don't.