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by Americans have moved into both Iraq and Afghanistan with not only the intention of fighting terrorism, but also to tout Democracy. It seems that while Saddam Hussein and the Taliban had unhealthy totalitarian holds on their people, they were also holding together many of their citizen's more explosive qualities at the same time. In the absence of rule-by-fear, Iraq is slipping into civil war and the drug trade is fueling a resurging Taliban within Afghanistan.
In Iraq, the Shiites were suppressed under Hussein's Sunni regime. Now, as the majority, Shiites press the government forward while the Sunnis fight to regain political power. According to ABCNews, 'The rivalry between Shiites and Sunnis has now turned into an almost daily cycle of sectarian clashes, bombings, assassinations and mortar attacks on each other's neighborhoods.' The outgoing British ambassador says, 'the country is sliding toward civil war and is likely to divide eventually along ethnic lines.'
Afghanistan once contributed to 70% of the world's opium production, but dropped production by 96% when the Taliban forbade its growth. In 2001 and 2002, reports and warnings poured into America and European nations about a global increase of opium production due to the lack of Taliban control on the poppy farmers in its territories after the US lead invasion. Fighting in Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan has increased of late because the major poppy growing season has ended. 'It's believed that the harvest was quieter because able men of fighting age were busy gathering the poppies that would be processed into heroin. Now that the work is finished, many of the men have joined the Taliban.'
In the throes of a civil war, Iraq is struggling with establishing internal security and cannot provide safety for its people. Given that poppies are one of the fastest growing crops available, many Afghani farmers have stopped planting edible crops altogether in lieu of lining their pockets with opiate money. Essentially, throughout the millennia of tribal life in the region, a form of Democracy has never naturally developed amongst the Bedouin peoples. Could it be that these are people that need to be ruled with iron fists, as opposed to tolerance?
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I get it now!
Reinstate Saddam Hussien, put Hillary in the White House with Kerry or Kennedy and all will be well. Maybe we can down size or even do away with our military. Its all so simple, why can't Bush see it.
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predictable mess by starm_ :: NR0 :: Show
I always said, you cannot impose democracy at gun point. Democracy is a cultural thing. People need to be convinced of its benefits. Dictators are not in place just because they threaten others. They always have a huge following which keeps them there, otherwize, if they lost too much of their popularity, they would be overthrown. When a culture works in a certain way, you can only change it by supporting the groups who want change and using propaganda to convert enough people.
IMO starting an unprovoked war will most likely turn against you, not only the people of the affected country, but outside observers who can identify themselves with the attacked and thus this will result in many potential enemy to militarise to eventually opppose or attack you. This was a quite predictable effect of the Iraq war.
Now the iraq war is a disaster, not just because of the mess in Iraq but because of how it is shaping the middle east. Iran is now a serious threat. Its president openly taunts other countries. He makes little effort to hide the fact that he is working on Nuclear weapons, and he implements violent, sadistic and immoral sectarian laws on its own citizens. Iran is much more of a threat than Iraq ever was. If this was 2001 and Iraq was acting like Iran is today, the coalition against it would have been much greater than it was and most countries would have been with the US in the war. But now that the US has lost its credibility it is not able to act as a leader in the more serious matter of Iran.
Would Iran have become a threat if it wasn't for the Iraq war? Maybe. Maybe not. However, there are a few points. First, they would have had much lesss reasons to think they would be attacked and hence they would have had much more incentive to mind their own business. Second, the world would not be tied in all kinds of conflicts, military or diplomatic and would have been more ready to respond massively and unilateraly when Iran would start doing their shit. That alone would serve as a great deterant. It is much harder for the world to deal with rogue countries when the civilised countries don't get along and the rogue countries do know that. I think "emboldened" is the word usually used. Preventing this kind of situation was the goal of the UN which the US worked so hard to undermine. The UN was to serve as a front in combating serious threats and forcing countries with too much ambitions to stay within their borders. All this not even mentionning the incidental fact that Iraq under Saddam was a natural enemy of Iran that could have served to keep it in check.
You might say hindsight is 20/20 but the kind of situation we are witnessing is exactly what the anti iraq war liberals were predicting would happen. We were right.
I leave you with the Marquis de Laplace quote, from his book on probability theory written in 1814. I pasted this on O-nerd a while ago.