Big Thread O' Iraq (with bonus Iran!)

[Tydeus]

Originally Posted by fifthfiend

Naw you're cool. I mean as far as this thread I actually think we probably agree on a lot of this, more than may be readily apparent.

Anyway I'm the last person to say anything about people being long winded. I don't think anyone's gonna stress it too hard as long as you're not being long winded and getting pissed off at people at the same time.

Cool. Just wanted to make sure.

Originally Posted by fifthfiend

In all honesty yeah, that's probably about what I do think America owes the Iraqi people.

Minus the part about us piping in American culture, I mean, I don't think we're doing anybody any favors there.

Yeah, Iraq could probably do without Paris Hilton. We could do what my parents did with me when I was younger -- tell them they only get PBS. If I'm any measure, we could keep 'em fooled for, like, at least ten years.

Originally Posted by fifthfiend

But mainly it's just that all that is politically and logistically impossible, for a lot of reasons. And - and this part's pretty important - even if we were capable of bestowing such largess, I think by this point things might just be so far gone that the Iraqis as a whole would never accept such an offer from us.

Yeah, I wonder about that, too. At some point, you've just destroyed people's hope to an extent where there's really no way of repairing it, as an outsider. I mean, just look at Africa. You wonder if we really can do anything to improve people's lives in most of those nations. I mean, in Darfur, obviously we could be doing more, but in most places, there needs to be a more organic solution, one supposes.

And, yes, of course it's all politically impossible. I think in part because most people are kidding themselves one way or the other: "Just a few more years, 20,000 more troops, and everyone will suddenly stop fighting," or, on the other side of the aisle: "This is just like Vietnam, and and soon as we leave, they'll stop fighting. Definitely we're just undermining a legitimate government which fought for freedom and is politically motivated, as opposed to ethnically and religiously. Totally just like Vietnam. Yup."

No one's got the balls necessary to discuss what really we need to do, because it'd be political suicide. A draft? Massive tax hikes? All to benefit other people? Whaaaaaaaaa? This is America, you commie hippie/fascist corporate (depends who's yelling at you) bastard!