Ever wonder why you never see IRAQIS at the peace marches?

[Epoetker]

This could be pretty close to something like Best.Article.Ever.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/314yltit.asp

The understatedness of it is just palpable. I'd be more inclined toward something like:rant:

[Alden]

All I can say is wow. I think this should be widely covered.

[Epoetker]

Indeed it should.

(Revivifies topic)

(Anticipates no reaction whatsoever from Kiwimac and other knee-jerk anti-war people)

[flipper]

Interesting. I hadn't realized the Iraq people were a single united monolith whose views could be adequately represented by exiles. I thought Iraq was represented by a number of diverse and somewhat opposing views. For example, there has been a sizeable Kurdish presence at the London peace marches, many because the Kurds are afraid of what the Turks might do in a new Iraq.

So the Iraqi exiles are in favor of war? I fully expect those who have understandably fled into political exile because of their opposition to Saddam Hussein would like to see him removed. Exiles understandably want to return to their country of origin, but only when it is safe to do so.

However, I don't know that the views of the few can necessarily be directly correlated with the view of the many. I don't think the vocal anti-Castro groups in Cuba speak for the whole of the exile community, and they certainly don't speak for the whole of Cuba (although they also say they do). I think that the whole Elian Gonzales affair adequately demonstrated that, don't you?

And please, let's not re-review the US or British record of working wih and supporting dictators who also had terrible human rights records, despite the protestations of their exiles. It's embarrassing for everyone.

For what it is worth, I am fairly sure that the Iraqi people would like to be rid of Saddam, but I think they are scared by the odds of coming out unscathed at the end of it. I also suspect that they're not enamoured with the prospect of being occupied by a foreign power. I also bet that the people of Tikrit are not looking forward to an exile government.

[Epoetker]

Interesting. I hadn't realized the Iraq people were a single united monolith whose views could be adequately represented by exiles.

Yeah, maybe we should consult the %100 of them who voted for Saddam Hussein. They're obviously WAY more qualified to speak than the silly excitable exiles. Thought of answering this assertion yet?

Many of them are recent arrivals who came here after the Gulf War left Saddam in power in 1991. And many are in regular contact with friends and relatives still trapped in Iraq.

The views of those Iraqis back home "are the same as the Iraqi Americans," says Peter Antone, an Iraqi-American immigration lawyer in Southfield, Michigan. "They are not free to speak, so we speak for them."


I thought Iraq was represented by a number of diverse and somewhat opposing views.

Would it be going too far to assume that most could agree that Saddam is a Very Bad Person?

For example, there has been a sizeable Kurdish presence at the London peace marches, many because the Kurds are afraid of what the Turks might do in a new Iraq.

The Turks are not the Iraqis. Their interference is something that needs to be dealt with, but I'd be thinking Kurds would be even LESS likely to support Saddam's regime than the Shiites or the Sunnis. Fear of reprisals and repurcussions from foreign powers(which is being taken into account by the US, of course) might make a case for being careful about it, but the Kurds who are afraid for their families do not make the best case for being anti-war.

So the Iraqi exiles are in favor of war? I fully expect those who have understandably fled into political exile because of their opposition to Saddam Hussein would like to see him removed. Exiles understandably want to return to their country of origin, but only when it is safe to do so.

However, I don't know that the views of the few can necessarily be directly correlated with the view of the many. I don't think the vocal anti-Castro groups in Cuba speak for the whole of the exile community, and they certainly don't speak for the whole of Cuba (although they also say they do). I think that the whole Elian Gonzales affair adequately demonstrated that, don't you?

Demonstrated what, exactly? The Cuban-American community living in freedom wanted Elian to stay with a few opposed; the Cuban street and Elian's father under the repressive rule of Castro were bloc-solid in wanting him back. I'll take the Miami Cuban's advice over the natives any day of the week.

And please, let's not re-review the US or British record of working wih and supporting dictators who also had terrible human rights records, despite the protestations of their exiles. It's embarrassing for everyone.

What, you mean the nasty sacrifices we chose to make in combatting the much greater evil of Soviet Communist totalitarianism, whose decrepit leftover sympathizers in Iraq(Saddam was always a big Stalin admirer,) Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela are still clinging to power and creating trouble for the civilized world, while all of "our SOBs" are either dead or exiled many from our own efforts? Yeah, it's embarrassing for anyone of a leftist or anti-American bent, that's for sure.

For what it is worth, I am fairly sure that the Iraqi people would like to be rid of Saddam, but I think they are scared by the odds of coming out unscathed at the end of it. I also suspect that they're not enamoured with the prospect of being occupied by a foreign power. I also bet that the people of Tikrit are not looking forward to an exile government.

I would imagine that they'd trade Saddam for exile-rule any day of the week. (And they'd trade Saddam for, say, General Tommy Franks 24-7-365.) These people know how to make concessions and take the lesser of the two evils, or do you presume that all will descend into war and bloodshed just because their ruler isn't Sunni enough? Leave the patronizing posturing for those without a sense of history,:read: morality:deal: or proportion:huh:

[flipper]

Yeah, maybe we should consult the %100 of them who voted for Saddam Hussein. They're obviously WAY more qualified to speak than the silly excitable exiles. Thought of answering this assertion yet?

What assertion was that? I was just warning you of the dangers in assuming the views of a vocal minority are the same as a vocal majority, is all. Oversimplification is a risky business.

...Cuban-American community...

Cuban-American community =! Cuban population

People can be funny about their dictators. Stalin, the biggest mass-murderer in history, was genuinely mourned by the Russian people and is still widely revered today.

What, you mean the nasty sacrifices we chose to make in combatting the much greater evil of Soviet Communist totalitarianism, whose decrepit leftover sympathizers in Iraq(Saddam was always a big Stalin admirer,) Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela are still clinging to power and creating trouble for the civilized world, while all of "our SOBs" are either dead or exiled many from our own efforts? Yeah, it's embarrassing for anyone of a leftist or anti-American bent, that's for sure

I love a good "end justifies the means" argument. It's so hardbitten and gritty! So selling out your morally dubious allies as soon as its no longer expedient to support them is a good foreign policy? I personally subscribe to the belief that the Soviet Union collapsed because of its own internal contradictions.

I might add that US support of a Chinese dictator helped put the PRC where it is today and ensured that the US wasn't even going to get a diplomatic look-in until the Nixon era. So when the Chinese hands the US its collective butt in a sling in manufacturing and R&D 30 years from now, I shall be sure to see this as the fruits of wise foreign policy.

[Eyeheart Pumpkin]

So you have a journalist who dug up some Iraqi-Americans who want the war. Another journalist could as easily dig up some who don't. It is a good demonstration of slanted journalism, though.

Here in St. Louis, we have a sizeable foreign Arab population, especially at the University. Several of those Arabs, including Iraqis, have taken part in peace protests and anti-war campaigns in and around St. Louis.

[Eyeheart Pumpkin]

03-10-2003 @ 05:16 PM
Epoetker:
Yeah, maybe we should consult the %100 of them who voted for Saddam Hussein.

This 100% allegation is according to our media, and probably according to some exiles who wish to portray Saddam in the worst light.

According to an Iraqi classmate of mine, a Saddam-hater, this 100% total is a gross exaggeration.

[Epoetker]

What assertion was that? I was just warning you of the dangers in assuming the views of a vocal minority are the same as a vocal majority, is all. Oversimplification is a risky business.

Then I'll happily ignore the anti-war marchers, thank you very much:brow:

Cuban-American community =! Cuban population

Cuban-American life >>> native Cuban life. And the ones here often have experience of both, and thus a basis for comparison.

People can be funny about their dictators. Stalin, the biggest mass-murderer in history, was genuinely mourned by the Russian people and is still widely revered today.

:rant:No frikkin' duh. Stalin and Saddam both rolled out gigantic propaganda ministries and jillions of life-sized photos and 8-by-10 glossies, and made sure that anyone who criticized the mustache or the policy met with a quick whacking. And the longer they got to continue this personality cult, the more ingrained it got and the less easily it could be extricated from the population. One of the arguments for taking out Saddam NOW instead of later is that the Iraqi people will be more tractable to new leadership currently than 10 years from now. Read 1984 recently? Do you think it's a GOOD thing for people to get all their information on the outside world through Saddam's propaganda ministry?

I love a good "end justifies the means" argument. It's so hardbitten and gritty! So selling out your morally dubious allies as soon as its no longer expedient to support them is a good foreign policy?

Sold out? Let's see, most of the US-supported dictators left because of popular pressure or of their own free will (Pinochet.) As far as people like Saddam or Osama go, we didn't "sell them out," they turned traitor on US! And USA not like traitorious bastards! Shoot kill dead!

I personally subscribe to the belief that the Soviet Union collapsed because of its own internal contradictions.

Nice fuzzy little argument. Let me make it clearer it for you: The internal contradictions of the Communist Soviet Union were recognized and exposed because the US, as represented by a certain B-movie actor, was willing to up the defense and economic ante to levels they simply couldn't reach because of those contradiction. I suppose we should have let Hitler do whatever he wanted, since the internal contradictions of HIS regime would have been exposed after 50 years or so of misery.

I might add that US support of a Chinese dictator helped put the PRC where it is today and ensured that the US wasn't even going to get a diplomatic look-in until the Nixon era. So when the Chinese hands the US its collective butt in a sling in manufacturing and R&D 30 years from now, I shall be sure to see this as the fruits of wise foreign policy.

Ah, you see the great economic recovery AFTER Mao died and took his socialist policies with him, and the Chinese slowly and painfully adopted the tenets of capitalism(which the Brit-controlled Hong Kong had been prospering wildly under long before China even started on that road-and which Taiwan learned and gained the benefits of much quicker by having a clear diplomatic view of the Occidentals) as evidence that Kommunism RULZORS!

Think harder, flippy.:dunce:

[Eyeheart Pumpkin]

03-11-2003 @ 12:58 PM
Epoetker:
Sold out? Let's see, most of the US-supported dictators left because of popular pressure or of their own free will (Pinochet.) As far as people like Saddam or Osama go, we didn't "sell them out," they turned traitor on US! And USA not like traitorious bastards! Shoot kill dead!
When did Saddam turn traitor to the US? What order or agreement was he betraying? Here is an article from the Washington Post giving pretty good detail about why we shifted to support Iraq in the first place during the Iran-Iraq war.

Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A52241-2002Dec29&notFound=true)

Specifically these passages:

"When the Iran-Iraq war began in September 1980, with an Iraqi attack across the Shatt al Arab waterway that leads to the Persian Gulf, the United States was a bystander. The United States did not have diplomatic relations with either Baghdad or Tehran. U.S. officials had almost as little sympathy for Hussein's dictatorial brand of Arab nationalism as for the Islamic fundamentalism espoused by Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As long as the two countries fought their way to a stalemate, nobody in Washington was disposed to intervene.

By the summer of 1982, however, the strategic picture had changed dramatically. After its initial gains, Iraq was on the defensive, and Iranian troops had advanced to within a few miles of Basra, Iraq's second largest city. U.S. intelligence information suggested the Iranians might achieve a breakthrough on the Basra front, destabilizing Kuwait, the Gulf states, and even Saudi Arabia, thereby threatening U.S. oil supplies.

"You have to understand the geostrategic context, which was very different from where we are now," said Howard Teicher, a former National Security Council official, who worked on Iraqi policy during the Reagan administration. "Realpolitik dictated that we act to prevent the situation from getting worse."

To prevent an Iraqi collapse, the Reagan administration supplied battlefield intelligence on Iranian troop buildups to the Iraqis, sometimes through third parties such as Saudi Arabia. The U.S. tilt toward Iraq was enshrined in National Security Decision Directive 114 of Nov. 26, 1983, one of the few important Reagan era foreign policy decisions that still remains classified. According to former U.S. officials, the directive stated that the United States would do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran.

The presidential directive was issued amid a flurry of reports that Iraqi forces were using chemical weapons in their attempts to hold back the Iranians. In principle, Washington was strongly opposed to chemical warfare, a practice outlawed by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. In practice, U.S. condemnation of Iraqi use of chemical weapons ranked relatively low on the scale of administration priorities, particularly compared with the all-important goal of preventing an Iranian victory."

Our relations with Iraq continued to progressively improve right up until the Kuwaiti invasion. Although this article doesn't contain the piece, it has been widely reported that April Gilaspie's last visit to Saddam prior to the invasion of Kuwait left him with the distinct impression that the US would not oppose the maneuver. Actually, this article does contain her statement, though:

"When the then-U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, April Glaspie, met with Hussein on July 25, 1990, a week before the Iraqi attack on Kuwait, she assured him that Bush "wanted better and deeper relations," according to an Iraqi transcript of the conversation. "President Bush is an intelligent man," the ambassador told Hussein, referring to the father of the current president. "He is not going to declare an economic war against Iraq."

This does not suggest that Saddam being a "traitor" had anything to do with our sudden shift from support to opposition.

[flipper]

Epoekter:

Then I'll happily ignore the anti-war marchers, thank you very much

Did I say anything about their position? I think not. Besides, we both know you were ignoring them anyway...

Read 1984 recently? Do you think it's a GOOD thing for people to get all their information on the outside world through Saddam's propaganda ministry?

One of my favorite books. I notice that more than 60% of your countrymen, following the propaganda push to tie Iraq to Al Qaeda now think that more than one of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi. After all, we are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

And regarding the president's speech on 03/06, I believe I actually heard him say: "The goal of this war is peace."

However, I'm not worried about a clunky socialist 1984. I'm worried about a shiny hi-tech one where your location can always be tracked, and your transactions can always be known.

Ah, you see the great economic recovery AFTER Mao died and took his socialist policies with him, and the Chinese slowly and painfully adopted the tenets of capitalism(which the Brit-controlled Hong Kong had been prospering wildly under long before China even started on that road-and which Taiwan learned and gained the benefits of much quicker by having a clear diplomatic view of the Occidentals) as evidence that Kommunism RULZORS!

Think harder, flippy.

Non sequitur, brainiac. Do I have to remind you that we're not talking about the various merits of capitalism versus communism. We're talking about dictatorships. I'm sure you're not trying to claim that a dictatorship can't be capitalist, because that would be inutterably styoooopid.

In fact, I think I observed that communism as practised in Russian contained within it the seeds of its own destruction. Especially over-extended as it was in Europe.

And if you're one of those people who believe that Star Wars was intentionally a clever ploy to bankrupt the Russians, then I have an X-Ray Orbiting Laser to sell you. Reagan earnestly believed it could work, mainly because he was slowly going loopy by that stage of his career, and because he was a scientific ignoramus who was given very bad advice.

[Epoetker]

One of my favorite books. I notice that more than 60% of your countrymen, following the propaganda push to tie Iraq to Al Qaeda now think that more than one of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi. After all, we are at war with Eurasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

We have always been at war with EastAsia. I would put it down to Saudi propagandizing and general ignorance of the states in the region. And the fact that it does not play well to kick around an ally for the moment (although I expect Riyadh to receive a much greater boot after Iraq's oil supply goes on the market at reasonable prices-that cartel needs to be broken NOW...)

And regarding the president's speech on 03/06, I believe I actually heard him say: "The goal of this war is peace."

So? I argued the same in my essay on 1984. Got a 50/50.:joy:

However, I'm not worried about a clunky socialist 1984. I'm worried about a shiny hi-tech one where your location can always be tracked, and your transactions can always be known.

Been to Google lately? I say, inevitable, might as well make sure that the technology is widely available to all who wish it. As technology grows, so grows the tech to fool it. TIA will make Google obsolete; implement it as quickly as possible to give the crazy revolutionaries a level playing field or something like that.

Non sequitur, brainiac. Do I have to remind you that we're not talking about the various merits of capitalism versus communism. We're talking about dictatorships. I'm sure you're not trying to claim that a dictatorship can't be capitalist, because that would be inutterably styoooopid.

Of course not. China is a oligarchist dictatorship that's allowing capitalism in "economic zones" to keep the state from yoinking itself on its own philosophy. Cognitive dissonance, if you will.

In fact, I think I observed that communism as practised in Russian contained within it the seeds of its own destruction. Especially over-extended as it was in Europe.

You haven't addressed my contention. So what? Are you trying to say that we should let them die a "natural" death, absorbing all the desperate last-ditch destruction and death(as well as the directed types) instead of trying to defeat them immediately when they're unpopular and vulnerable?

And if you're one of those people who believe that Star Wars was intentionally a clever ploy to bankrupt the Russians, then I have an X-Ray Orbiting Laser to sell you. Reagan earnestly believed it could work, mainly because he was slowly going loopy by that stage of his career, and because he was a scientific ignoramus who was given very bad advice.

Considering that the newest and best anti-missile laser is mounted on the rotating nose cone of a 737 (or haven't you heard about it yet?) the concept of an orbital laser doesnt sound too far-fetched. Long-term research project. But even that can intimidate very well.