Bush Blackmailing Iraq To Stay Longer

Giving private contractors legal immunity = horrendously stupid idea.

Indefinite occupation of Iraq is an equally horrendously stupid idea. The occupation is a catastrophic failure precisely because the Iraqi people know that "democracy" for them is a euphemism for suppression, corruption and theft.

Sheesh! You are really going to be surprised by the large turnout in the next Iraqi election this fall. Even the Sunni groups who boycotted previously are saying it was wrong of them to do that.

But you will probably just ignore the results anyway.

Hey, aren't you the guy who makes sunshine out of neighborhoods being bombed and civilians getting killed?

No, that was Scott McClellan.

Shit. It's the hands. Gotta be the hands.

I think Obama will be secretly grateful after he is elected President if there is already a Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq. When he is in office and really has the weight of responsibility for peace in the Middle East on his shoulders, it will give him an excuse for why he won't be pulling troops out of Iraq as fast as he promised all the anti-war voters. He can blame it on Bush.

If there is no agreement, it is going to be allot harder for him to explain why it will take so long for troops to leave. I believe there will still be at least 30,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq by the end of his first term, whether there is a SOFA Agreement negotiated by the Bush Administration or not.

No, I am the one who's for the Iraqi civilians. Fighting the bombers, militias and kidnap gangs with our Military until the Iraqi Security Forces and the Elected Government are able to take over the job. Not abandoning them to be led by whichever militia or insurgent group has the most guns.

I thinks the Iraqis were brave to stand in lines with a high turnout to vote for democracy despite being attacked by suicide bombers during the last elections. That's why I think yt is so wrong about democracy in Iraq.

The proof will be during the next Iraqi election when the turnout is even higher than the last time. Anyone here think the turnout will be lower since Iraqis think "democracy" is a euphemism for suppression, corruption and theft according to yt?

I have. Bleagh.

Which ones? The ones you killed? The ones you dragged from their homes and imprisoned? The Sunni? The Shiite? The millions of Iraqis who took refuge after you destroyed their country? I'd say the fact you support invading them and occupying their home puts the lie to your claim.

On the other hand, your bid for forbidding official criticism of your buffoon of a torturing president tells me you're desperate to exonerate him.

Democracy means having a representative government, not standing in line waiting to dip your finger in ink. Not that it matters. The argument that its okay to invade and occupy if you manage to successfully force another government on the locals is nonsense.

And no, I don't think you should abandon the Iraqis. I think you should open your borders to as many Iraqis as can make it, and I think you should pay reparations to whatever government is running Iraq when the dust settles. That the only alternative to occupation is abandonment is a weak false dichotomy.

^This ^
A million times over.

Thank you.

But I really, really must learn to control my temper. Must be all the rain.

And, once again, do we have any sort of estimate at all as to when we'll reach this miraculous stage? How many troops will we need to keep in Iraq to "support" this elected government and its security forces? How many years will we have to keep them there? How much it is going to cost us, in lives and treasure?


Unsurprisingly, you completely missed the point yt was trying to make. But please, keep pointing at "turnout" as some great barometer of success. Makes you look like a political genius, that.


And a sidenote to Seabass -- no, you don't need to learn to control your temper. Whenever some Iraq Invasion supporter accuses those of us who've been against this goddam atrocity from day one that we "don't care about Iraqis, and only care about news that makes Bush look bad", we have every right to get mad as hell.

Agreed. Lots of people turnout for elections in the Philippines. Anyone who thinks democracy is working in that case hasn't been there: Its a beautiful country with good people ruled by a shit government. Ask a middle-aged Filipino when the best times were, and you'll be surprised when the response is "Marcos". But wait, what the oppression and the shoes? At least during that time the corruption was streamlined enough to not totally wreck the economy and the country was secure, whereas now every dirty official has their hand in the pot. Same in Indonesia...Indonesians who are old enough to remember miss Suharto, when the country was safer and the economy was better. Is that the way it should be? Hell no, fuck dictators. The idealist in me hates to hear that democracy isn't working somewhere, but thats the way it is. These countries were not ready for democracy, and neither was Iraq.

Just because democracy works well enough in the U.S., doesn't mean you can force it on a country/people that aren't ready for the responsibility.

I'd say we haven't done that great in terms of eliminating corruption in our democracy either, thus: this thread. I wish we could employ an agency of actual psychics who regularly scan all politicians and people in political elections to eliminate the corrupt, but the psychics would probably start taking bribes.

Or taking over. The Corps is mother, the Corps is father.

Great reference!

Of course we do. But it doesn't really do me any good.

Thanks.

I guess you just skimmed my post above where I made a very clear estimate on the amount of troops I think we will have in Iraq by the end of the next administration, even with a Democrat Administration. Are you willing to make your own troop level estimate?

Have you been reading the news coming out of Iraq recently? The Iraqi Army is finally capable of leading missions and taking control away from militias and insurgents in Iraq's three largest cities. This is a result of all the training that has been going on behind the scenes over the last few years. It is finally hitting critical mass. Whenever I brought up the Iraqi Army's slow but steady progress in past threads, you guys doubted it with your usual pessimism.

I am very optimistic about the future security situation in Iraq over the next two years. I will make another prediction. I will be walking in a peaceful Baghdad as a regular tourist in 2015.

I can't believe you ignore turnout as an important factor in free elections. Very interesting! There have been three elections in Iraq and each one had a higher turnout than the last.

I have explained why I stopped reading Juan Cole in other threads in the past. It mostly boils down to reading blogs from Iraqis pointing out all of Cole's mistakes he has written about their country. So I stopped wasting my time reading his analysis.

By the way, what's with the deal with the name calling?

At least half of America thinks they live in a beautiful country with good people ruled by a shit government. Sounds like a functioning democracy to me.

With it's three large ethnic/religious groups, Iraq will only survive as a single country with a representative democracy or with a iron-fisted dictator who crushes dissent.

It will be a bloodbath if it splits up and the Sunnis are left oil-less in the center of the country.

I wasn't talking about democracy in the U.S. where it works pretty well overall despite some bad apples in government. Thats not the point and your response totally dodged what I was saying. If your saying the Phillippines has a democracy that works then you don't know shit about the place - game on if you want to argue this. This isn't Filipinos boo-hooing about government like we do, these gripes are real involving starving people and crime like 20 times that of 1980s Miami. It doesn't work there.

You can't force democracy on a country that not ready for it. Democracy does not currently work in the Philippines and Indonesia, much like it isn't working (and won't work) in Iraq. Just because we think its the best form of government and want it to work there, doesn't mean it will.

Are you judging the success of representative democracy ONLY on voter turnout?

Democracy is a natural, organic process that evolves from the people. Having it foisted upon you by an occupying nation on it's terms, terms that I might add are for economic, political and strategic military gain, kinda of loses you the high ground.

High turnout is indeed a factor in free elections. How this justifies, or even relates to, the invasion and occupation of Iraq eludes me. Hooray! The survivors got to vote for the guy the US govenrment is going to push around.

Big fucking deal.

I am not saying that all democracies are equal. But democracy with free elections, a country gets the government they choose and deserve. If you have a bad government, elect reformers to fix the problems. If the Phillippines has some obstacles that I don't know about that restricts good people from running for office, that needs to be fixed. A coup by some strong man is not the answer.

I took my Government class in high school so I know that a benevolent or wise king/dictator can actually be the best form of government, but his heir or the next leader can be a tyrant. Democracy stays pretty stable in the middle.

I disagree that allowing people to choose their own government is forcing anything. Watch that chilling video of Saddam becoming president in 1979 and reading out names of people to be summarily executed as he cleansed the government. That is force.

If the Iraqi's really didn't want democracy, they could have all refused to vote in the last three elections. Instead they turned out in higher numbers each time.

No, of course not. But I do feel it is a great judge of citizens' interest or lack of it in a free election.

Its been needin' to be fixed for a long time now and democracy hasn't solved the problem. Corruption is so rampant that the only way to bring it under control is a strong man. Oh the voters will help you say? The education system there is shit, and so you have an assload of uneducated voters who don't really know what is in their best interest. For example, they voted an ex-actor into office (Joseph Estrada) on name recognition who shit on the country from 1998 until he was ousted in 2001. This isn't the equivalent of a bad president in the U.S. or the handful of ex-actor governers, this guy raped the government coffers and watched the economy go to hell while doing nothing but building mansions. My point is, democracy hasn't worked there.
You seem like a good kid, but you have this idealistic view that since democracy is so great in the U.S. (and it is) that it MUST work everwhere. It will only work when the country evolves to it on its own; Agee's post is 100% correct.

It looks like Khaunshar will have one less thing to worry about in the SOFA agreement according to the New York Times.

Personally, it sounds like the agreement will give Iraq alot more control over their country than they currently have under the UN Mandate.

Like I said, a wise king/dictator could be a better government than a democracy, but who chooses this leader to take over? Someone who is powerful enough to seize power by themselves isn't normally the greatest guy.

Someone like Pinochet, who alot of people felt helped improve Chile into becoming a greater country, had his fair share of atrocities. Saddam was considered a fairly good leader who got things done effectively as a powerful Vice-President. But soon as he became President, he went off the deep end.

How do you make sure a country gets the right kind of strong man it needs, KConan? You are just using the same excuses all dictators use to justify taking or staying in power. Even the really bad ones think they are doing what is good for their country. Mugabe thinks he is the savior of his country as he makes it worse and worse.

At least in a democracy, the voters can kick out the worst ones. Let the people evolve with their democracy, don't baby them.

Great idea making your point by using two puppets of U.S. Foreign Policy in Pinochet and Saddam.

And KConan's examples of Suharto and Marcos were not? During the Cold War, very few dictators around the world were not puppets in some way to the U.S or the U.S.S.R.

That's why I think the old U.S. policy of supporting authoritarian regimes for stability purposes is wrong. It only builds resentments and invites terrorist attacks on the U.S. because we are propping up their hated government. (Same with Musharraf, supporting a non-democratic leader because he is an ally in the "War on Terror" is wrong.)

In democracies, the people can direct their anger at their own governments by voting them out of office. If the people think their government is too pro-USA, they can vote for anti-USA politicians. That's fine with me.

I want you to explain to me how you think the Iraqis would have been able to naturally, organically change their government of Saddam. We all know that the Shiites and Kurds which make up 75% of the population hated his guts, but they couldn't do squat. They both tried to rise up after Saddam was kicked out of Kuwait and were slaughtered untill we set-up the No-Fly Zones.

Then Saddam decided to cause an environmental catastrophe by draining the Marshes so the Shiites couldn't hide from him. Have you forgotten about that?

The Iraqis only hope for a organic, natural change in their lifetime was for Saddam to grow a heart and give up power. Not gonna happen.

Mugabe isn't what I'm talking about, nor am I making excuses for dictators. I'm saying that democracy doesn't always work. Our president is trying to force it on a country and people who aren't ready for the responsibility, and "being babied" is better than one sect trying to eradicate another.

In your idealistic country, we both agree that democracy works.

To answer your question, of course you can't "make sure" that your strong-arm guy doesn't get corrupt - but whats the difference between that and the corruption going on now in previously discussed "democratic countries"? Your wrong if you think that the "voters can kick out the worst ones" in every instance. You are assuming that every voter is an educated, non-starving American. In past elections in Indonesia, candidates have literally handed money, clothes, and/or food to people to vote for them. And the people are poor enough to where they don't have a choice. As I mentioned regarding the Philippines, the number of uneducated voters who don't know whats in their best interest outnumber the educated - Don't believe me? Ask a Filipino why Estrada got elected.

In Iraq's case, assuming I was still forced to invade, I would have installed someone (a Lee Kuan Yew type) iron-fisted that we trust rather then trying to shove a square peg into a round hole with democracy. Maybe the person we trust becomes corrupt down the road, but it is better than whats going on now. You are optimistic, and thats nice, but I don't think the dust is going to ever settle enough for the Iraqis to get along.

Mugabe was a fairly decent ruler for years after he came to power. He wasn't till he got old that he lost his mind. Dictatorships do require the person in power to be good at his job.

You almost said something here that made sense until you decided to ignore the fact that the U.S. regularly subverted/subverts democratic, popularly elected governments for Military and/or Economic gain.

If by "stability" you mean exploitation and domination you're correct.

In politically and economically stable first world nations where Democracy is interwoven into every level of society that's a great notion. I don't see how it has anything to do with Iraq. Hell, it barely has anything to do with this country.

Noah's personal beliefs and U.S. Foreign Policy for the last hundred years aren't the same. Just ask the Palestinians about that for a recent example.









How was the Indian subcontinent able to throw off the yoke of English oppression after 200 years? How did Solidarity do it in Poland? How did we do it against the greatest Nation-State since the highest glories of the Roman Empire? The means are not what's important. Only the ends.

Iraq's foreign minister has confirmed that immunity for contractors has been dropped in the negoitiations.

U.S. drops immunity from Iraqi SOFA

It might make it harder for the contractors to hire workers for Iraq, but I think it will weed out the bad actors. If security companies are firing indescriminitly into crowds of Iraqis than they deserve to sit in a Iraqi prison.

If you mean subversion by supporting unelected governments over a democracy like in Pakistan, then I agree with you.

I don't like Chavez in Venezuala but as long as he remains in power through free and fair elections, America should not try to remove him no matter how much it would help the US.

I am glad that people are able to realize that just because I support the Iraq War does not mean I agree with every other foreign policy decision of the Bush Administration or give the US a free pass on it's past mistakes.

I think installing democracy with the help of the military force is only one way of doing it and should be the last option. But outside forces have a lot to do with helping democracy take over inside a country.

Ghandi might have achieved independance from England anyway, but it was alot easier when it's Empire was severely weakened from World War II.

Solidarity could not have done it in Poland with out all the pressure on the U.S.S.R. by the West during the Cold War.

I doubt America would have won the American Revolution without money, soldiers and navy ships sent from France.

We will just have to agree to disagree then. We just have completely incompatible ideas.

I agree totally with that. Do you think democracy will spread from Iraq to the rest of the Middle East anytime in the next 10-20 years? I'm guessing that we would both disagree on that as well.

I'm seriously starting to suspect that Noah is one of these guys the right is hiring to post stuff on message boards to argue their case for them.

And they're certainly getting their money's worth.

Here it is, Bush's Holy Grail. This certainly gives context to all the saber-rattling about offshore drilling etc etc, and makes me throw up a little in my mouth when juxtaposed to the Bush administration's justification for invading Iraq. Here's what all that unholy death, destruction, torture and police state action really comes down to:

Whole thing is here. And for a real laff riot, check out nytimes.com and try to find this headline.

No, I mean actively overthrowing populary elected governments that came to power through the democratic process because they didn't like who was elected and the policies and change didn't jibe with American goals. It happened in Chile with Allende (and you're the one who brought Pinochet to the discussion. The man who our country helped put in charge) and a host of other places and is still going on today re The Palastenian Authority.



You're inability to accept the facts of the case that this Iraq Occupation is the same kind of "past mistakes" is the bone of contention.



What this has to do with the evolution of democracy among a native populace I can't fathom. And this is only true with the huge assumption (and I can't find a case in the history of the last 100 years this is true) where democracy is the goal for a foreign power invading another sovreign nation that has never attacked them.

Sure but this isn't the case in Iraq and we're not talking external pressure causing societal changes. We're talking about the invasion of a soverign nation by a foreign power under false pretenses. The Japanese invading mainland China is a more apporpriate comparison.


India was on the road to independence. Anti-Colonial sentiment post-World War II, the economic realties facing Britain post-war and the new change in government by the Labour Party all contributed. India also possessed a widespread, popular nationalist movement opposed to colonial rule.

Not comparable to Iraq at all.


"The pressure by the West" didn't doom the U.S.S.R. The Sino-Soviet Split did.

Again, a populist national movement unhappy with economic and ideological domination by a foreign power.


I can't even dignify this with a response because it shows an extreme lack of understanding of everything being discussed.

Have we not been saying this invasion was undertaken to give US companies access to Iraq's oil? Have we not said this for years?

I'd hate to see the United States attacked again, but sometimes I wonder why.

First, it is America blackmailing Iraqi with the SOFA agreement and then it turns out America is pretty flexible in the negotiations on issues like contractor immunity which the Iraqis care strongly about. Now, a few small two-year oil contracts with no oil licenses awarded and it's blood-for-oil propaganda all over again.

I actually found the article to be a nice well-rounded analysis of the situation with pros and cons for both sides. Good job, New York Times.

The more successful Iraq is as a democracy, the quicker it will happen in the rest of the Arab World. It is already starting to spread with parliament seats contested or with small local elections in several Arab countries. Do I think the entire Middle East will be total democracies in 20 years, probably not.

If Baghdad (one of the historical sites of Arab leadership) can do it, so can the others.

I can't believe I am debating one person (KConan) who wants to replace underperforming democracies with unelected strong men on one side and another (Bancroft Agee) who thinks people who are suffering under brutal dictatorships need to figure out how to achieve a new government organically.

Bancroft, when the Kurds were being gassed and the Shiites were being brutally put down by Saddam when they tried to free themselves, what was your thought process? When the Iraqi Exiles after that were asking for America's help to overthrow Saddam, what would you're response have been, "Tough luck, try harder next time. You Iraqis are obviously not ready yet."

Did you think the no-fly zones were a step too far? What about funding the opposition or the world enforcing economic sanctions or taking over control of oil revenues from Iraq's government? Where does the natural, organic line get crossed for you?

No wonder the Burmas of the world feel no need to respect the will of the marchers in their capital city. The rest of the world is waiting for the monks to figure out how arm themselves and overthrow the junta on their own, I guess.

Not every dictator is as soft as Milosevic in Serbia who gave into democracy marchers and even he had to be softened up first with military force that took his grip off of Kosovo.

I don't know if it is worthwhile to debate you any longer. You don't seem to understand me even on subjects where I am in complete agreement with you. I said I was against America actively overthowing democracies in order to promote it's goals with my Chavez example and you come right back and disagreed with more examples of the same thing. Weird

Much like I can't believe I'm debating with someone who thinks democracy is ALWAYS the best form of government. You think placing a strong man in Iraq is bad, and yet you act as if they are just experiencing "growing pains". There are back-and-forth murderous rampages while your favorite form of government is being shoved down their throat. You can add up all the "voter turnout" you want, just be sure to include the number of bodies in your overall calculation to determine if its worth it.

Find someone from Brunei and tell them they should oust their King so they can experience the awesomeness of democracy (for best results wave a huge American flag in their face), and prepare to be laughed at. That place is great, and they aren't a democracy. Those heathens!

His 'fair share' of atrocities. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Fuck 'General' Pinochet and fuck anyone who thinks he 'helped improve' Chile.