At 13:03 18-2-2003 -0800, Gautam Mukunda wrote:
Do you have any idea how insulting your statements are to the peace movement? The fact that we are protesting a war against Iraq doesn't mean we "don't give a damn about Iraqi civilians"; we do in fact care a lot about them, because we know that, as in any war, the civilians will be the ones who will suffer the most. Contrary to Bush propaganda, we do not consider the Iraqi civilians "a prop to attack the US with".1. The people protesting the war don't give a damn about Iraqi civilians - they're just a prop to attack the US with and 2. In Afghanistan there were well under 1000 civilian casualties by most estimates, but idiot war protesters still go around talking about more than 4000 - a made up number based on the Taliban's own figures.
War protesters are not idiots; at worst, a few among us are misinformed about the number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. The only idiots are those who promote war as if it is some kind of miracle cure that will bring peace to the world.
Millions of people around the world are protesting the war. What evidence do you have that they are the profound racists you claim they are? It sounds more like White House propaganda than fact.Incidentally, the profound racism of the opponents of the war - people who basically claim that Arabs don't want to be free, deserve to live under the rule of someone like Saddam, and that a single American/British life isn't worth freeing millions of Arabs - is something that I haven't seen explored nearly enough.
You know, we peace lovers think exactly the same thing. The only difference is that we see Bush and those who support him as bigots and enemies of freedom.Those of us in favor of freedom should not be afraid to name freedom's enemies as the bigots that they actually are.
I don't think the US will ever leave. Technically speaking, the occupation will end once a new (and probably US-puppet) government has been set up, but I don't think the US will pass on the opportunity to set up a huge military power base in the heart of the Middle East.I actually think that the US occupation of Iraq will be much shorter than you think, largely because we don't have any other choice - we _can't_ run Iraq for more than a few months, because doing so for any longer will be too easily twisted by our enemies.
Personally, I can think of only two reasons why the US wants to attack Iraq. Not for "fighting terrorism", not because of Iraq's alleged arsenal of WMD's, not "to liberate the people of Iraq". IMO, the only real reasons are control over a considerable part of the world's oil reserve, and the establishment of a power base in the Middle East.
Don't get your hopes up too high about the Kurds. They have every reason to want to get rid of Saddam Hussein, which makes them a temporary ally to the US. However, their ultimate goal is the formation of an independent Kurdish state. If you supply them with weapons now to fight Saddam Hussein, they will use those same weapons to fight the US later. Support for the US just happens to be convenient for the Kurds right now.What we're going to end up doing, I think, is setting up a democratic government and then acting as security guarantors for Iraq's borders, while pumping aid and advice into the country. That's a model that might actually work pretty well. The Kurds, for example, seem to be in favor of it.
This is utter nonsense, and sounds awfully like Euro-bashing. The BBC is probably the most reliable news source in the world right now. CNN used to be fairly reliable, but I think they lost quite some credibility after word got out about what they did to mr. Blix' latest report to the UN.There is very little coverage of what is actually going on in Afghanistan right now in the world media. That's partly because the situation is better now than it probably ever has been in Afghan history - and the BBC couldn't report that, God forbid
That depends on how you define "failure". Given the rhetoric about "freeing the people of Iraq", I would expect that all Iraqi's will eventually be a lot better off, a few years after the war. However, the US will try to make Iraq as much a capitalist country as possible, which means that for a happy few Iraqis the biggest change will be that they will become rich and powerful, while for most of the rest of the population the biggest change in their life will be the name of the country's president.Failure, if it comes, will be very slow and debatable, and people will move on in their concerns. I do not think it will come, but if it does, it will be far in the future.
That won't last. As you pointed out yourself, memories are very much short term. The image of "British and American soldiers bringing freedom to Iraq" (the role of other nations will undoubtedly be ignored) will be quickly forgotten if after a few years, much of the Iraqi people are still living in poverty.But the initial victory - that will be sudden, and public, and the eyes of the world will be focused on British and American soldiers bringing freedom to Iraq, and that's the image that will have the most power.
Jeroen "Make love, not war" van Baardwijk
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