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Member Posts: 3945 From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior) Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
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Author | Topic: Iraq needed Saddam? | |||||||||||||||||||
Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
It seems likely that only an authoritarian regime could hold Iraq together--the Brits and the French drew the current lines which contain the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds--groups so mutually repelling that removing Sadam was like loosing nuclear bonds.
The predictable outcome of toppling Saddam--effective tripartite civil war--was both predictable and predicted. The neoconservatives assured us that we'd be welcomed as liberators by the "Iraqis"--an entity that has no real existence. The Shiites are the majority in Iraq as in Iran--most other Middle Eastern nations have different demographics. Democracy in Iraq means Shiite rule, a prescription for ethnic revenge and a regime that supports terrorism and revolution in the name of "radical" Islam. The GOP has always portrayed itself as the pragmatic, realpolitik party, but the geopolitical ignorance and arrogance of the U.S. invasion was monumental. We have sacrificed thousands of American lives, shattered tens of thousands of others, and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, while at the same time alienating most of the world's Muslims, backhanding most of our allies, and strengthening the regimes most opposed to our interests. The likely result of "democracy" in Iraq will be a horror show of sectarian bloodletting and the destabilization of other Sunni-dominated states such as Saudi Arabia. It reminds me of the WWII cartoon with two weary GIs: "Well, we liberated the hell outta that town." Ruins smoke and crumble in the background. Or the real Vietnam military spokesman 30 years later: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." What a bunch of maroons. The division of Iraq into thirds seems the least dreadful outcome. There's one thing I do know:There's a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia. --B52s Edited by Omnivorous, : No reason given. Edited by Omnivorous, : all typos, all the time Edited by Omnivorous, : ditto Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
cavediver writes: Does this not rather admit that "those people" are incapable of governing themselves, full-stop, and need separating? Haven't most national democracies been born in the context of considerable homogeneity? What "those people" most certainly didn't need was being lumped together and arbitrarily labeled a nation by colonial powers. I certainly don't believe any particular people are more suited than another for democracy and/or self-governance. Modern democracies might well have evolved in the Middle East if the region had not been sliced, diced and Frankensteined by the West. Having aborted the emergence of modern nation-states in that region (and others, e.g., Africa), we can now congratulate ourselves on our relative lack of fratricidal factionalism. Perhaps a system of three largely autonomous states under a U.N. mandate would eventually lead to a more integrated republic. I think the only other option is bloody chaos. Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
cavediver writes: Does this not rather admit that "those people" are incapable of governing themselves, full-stop, and need separating? Haven't most national democracies been born in the context of considerable homogeneity? What "those people" most certainly didn't need was being lumped together and arbitrarily labeled a nation by colonial powers. I certainly don't believe any particular people are more suited than another for democracy and/or self-governance. Modern democracies might well have evolved in the Middle East if the region had not been sliced, diced and Frankensteined by the West. Having aborted the emergence of modern nation-states in that region (and others, e.g., Africa), we can now congratulate ourselves on our relative lack of fratricidal factionalism. Perhaps a system of three largely autonomous states under a U.N. mandate would eventually lead to a more integrated republic. I think the only other option is bloody chaos. Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
cavediver writes: Does this not rather admit that "those people" are incapable of governing themselves, full-stop, and need separating? Haven't most national democracies been born in the context of considerable homogeneity? What "those people" most certainly didn't need was being lumped together and arbitrarily labeled a nation by colonial powers. I certainly don't believe any particular people are more suited than another for democracy and/or self-governance. Modern democracies might well have evolved in the Middle East if the region had not been sliced, diced and Frankensteined by the West. Having aborted the emergence of modern nation-states in that region (and others, e.g., Africa), we can now congratulate ourselves on our relative lack of fratricidal factionalism. Perhaps a system of three largely autonomous states under a U.N. mandate would eventually lead to a more integrated republic. I think the only other option is bloody chaos. Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
berberry writes: W.W.E.D.? E.W.L.T.B.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Chiroptera writes: The examples of homogenous autocracies and of non-homogenous democracies suggests to me, personally, that this correlation between democracy and homogeneity is more an artifact of the idiosyncracies of European history than an inevitable part of human nature. What examples? Are you offering Western Europe as an example of a "highly inhomogenous" region? You've offered no other example, and I don't find W. Europe a persuasive one.
But another major problem is that democracy in the developing world (and the result that the resources of each developing nation would be used to benefit the people of that nation, not the Western economies) runs counter to the interests of the West. As a result, either stability is deliberately thwarted by Western policies, or it is the inadvertant result of political and economic policies forced onto the developing nations. I agree. Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Um, India? Well, India is certainly an example of a post-colonial democratic nation, but it could not emerge as a cohesive state until the Muslim majority areas were spun off as Pakistan, leaving a Hindu majority of 80%. Even now, that subcontinent's Muslim-Hindu friction makes it an A-lister for the first thermonuclear exchange. At any rate, I don't want to sidetrack the topic. While I believe strong elements of homogeneity--ethnic, religious, racial--favor the emergence of democracy by encouraging mutualistic tendencies and discouraging xenophobic ones, I wouldn't argue that they are essential. As you have already pointed out, the damage done by colonial empires and their modern economic and military hegemonies have made stable progress difficult in large parts of the world. I do consider the cobbling together of ersatz nations from often inimical ethnic, tribal, and religious populations just one of those difficulties. Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
Chiroptera writes: clearly any example I can come up with of a non-homogenous democracy will end up being "homogenous" after all. Precisely, because the preponderance of commonality is crucial to a viable state, democratic or otherwise, whether that commonality is a product of ethnic homogeneity, economic necessity, or an organic process of accommodation such as what once existed in Lebanon (and the Indian subcontinent) prior to colonization. BTW, it is a distortion of my comments to aim refutations at "democracy=homogenity" or "some folk wisdom that homogeneity is a prerequisite for democracy." I never asserted either.
{re the past/present possibility of India v. Pakistan war}The friction being between two nations that were formed in order to ensure "homogeneity" No, the friction being between two nations that were formed because the original notion of a single nation was dissolving into endless bloodletting. The ethnic/religious/regional strife determined first the partition and, later, pitched warfare between the two parts. Clearly, any nation state, nascent or not, experiences both centripetal and centrifugal forces, among them ethnicity, religion, economic interests, etc. The 19th and 20th colonial powers drew lines on the map for Iraq without regard to any of these, mindful of little more than the broad strokes of "those Middle Eastern people." A Sunni majority had for decades oppressed and exploited a Shiite majority; the Kurds were subjected to genocidal campaigns of regional ethnic cleansing. To suppose that the removal of Saddam would result in a well-spring of overarching Iraqi nationalism was as insane and ignorant as the original partitioning of the former Ottoman Empire. What the Sunnis apparently desire is a return to the minority supremacy enjoyed under Saddam; the Shiites are looking for an absolute majority rule that includes vengeance; the Kurds favor a solution that comes as close as possible to a complete "a pox on both your houses" independence. If the partition were made along these ethnic regional lines, the least viable would be the formerly ruling Sunni minority which would have little more than desert. The one glimmer of acceptable solution I have registered is a federal system of semi-autonomous regions with proportional sharing of oil revenues. We removed the iron hand that bound Iraq together: I cannot see that in isolation as a bad thing, but it is easy to see that the occupying forces are, one way or another--through active engagement or inaction--going to determine the shape of Iraq for years to come. Shall we preside over the institution of a tyrannical Shiite majority? Shall we attempt to impose a republic with strong minority safeguards more likely to be honored in the breech than the observance? All our options now are determining ones, like it or not. I agree that the "Iraqi people" should determine their own destiny, but that is a "shoulda" no longer available. There is no such thing as an Iraqi people or an isolated testtube in which they can become a diverse but united people without regard to the historical and contemporary interference of Western powers. Due to past and present errors, whatever we do now will largely dictate the outcome. We (the West) broke it, again and again: the question now is what form of disengagement is least pernicious. As Sartre said, "You must choose." Doing nothing--once already engaged--is also choosing. Similar conundrums faced withdrawing colonial powers decades ago, and their careless work constituted recipes for disaster. Any better solution requires a careful calculus of both centripetal and centrifugal forces in the region. Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
kuresu writes: wow. this is the first triple post i've ever seen. holy cow. I was lonely. Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3990 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 6.9 |
chiroptera writes: I mean, really! India is composed of hundreds of different ethnic groups speaking many different languages. Yet India is a relatively stable democracy. So somehow it must be homogenous. I know! They're all Hindu! Hey! Homogeneity! Our theory is saved! Bleh. And had the population been one third Muslim, one third Hindu, and one third evangelical Christian, in addition to that diverse ethnic mix, it would have cohered politically just as well as with the 80% Hindu population? I doubt it.
Saying that differences are the cause of instability and strife is like saying that oxygen is the cause of fires. It may very well be true, but becomes such a trivial observation that it doesn't really explain why some places are stable and others are not. That oxygen needs fire is not a trivial observation to a burning man.
If someone would come up with a metric for homogeneity, another metric for stability, and show a correlation through a linear regression analysis then maybe we'd have something sensible to talk about. I look forward to seeing that rigor in your future political comments.
quote: And may even be the right choice in some cases. Is that another example of trivial truth? Could you offer the metrics and regression analysis to support it? Perhaps Asimov's Foundation could help. Please show your work. Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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