War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

😉

i didn’t want to get that complex with everyone mayey but the point is that democracy on its own never seams to be the cure

rabie :9

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 30-12-02 AT 00:03 AM (GMT)]”The current Northern No Fly Zone becomes an Indenpendent Kurd ruled country. “

I disagree. In all of their speeches the Americans have talked about a coalition of the current opposition to Saddam taking power when (if) he is removed. There has been no seperate mention of Kurds… presumably because of the Turkish allies whose bases are necessary.
At most the Kurds will get autonomy but I doubt very much they will even get that.
The nofly zones will become redundant if saddam is removed.

I personally think that to reduce losses to its own ground forces the US, if it does have to go in, will do what it did in Afghanistan and Kosovo. In both cases small groups of US (and other) special forces personel lead groups of the local forces (ie Northern Alliance and KLA respectively). When the enemy massed to counter these forces they were hit from the air. Such massed targets being easier to hit. Those enemy forces that didn’t mass to fight back were taken out by the massed ground forces. No problems with ground force losses as the locals are of course expendible and the odd Spec Op loss was a “training accident”.

Of course such tactics will not work in urban areas where there is to much cover and battle lines will be blurred.

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 29-12-02 AT 10:53 PM (GMT)]Actually liberalism as it was meant to be has never existed. The founder of the modern liberalism, Adam Smith, 18th century (wealth of nations) would probably disgust from the thing we like to call free-market-economy in the west. Face it, the state is protecting its economy now more than ever (we would even go to war for it, which is as extremist as going to war for a god, like the crusades). This has nothing to do with the private vices, public benefits – philosophy from the 18th century.

Europe and the US have very little in common with the original ideas of liberalism and democracy. In fact, democracy and liberalism are even contradictions. Democracy is based on platonism, which is about the opposite of the utilitarism, from which liberalism was created.

The west shares a lot more I think with the ideas of Marx and Nietzsche. The idea of an Uebermensch (or Ueber-society like we think of ourselves in the west), taken from Nietzsche. Or with the materialistic society created by Marx.

‘Don’t worry. Iraq will not be a soverign nation for long.’

Even if Saddam will be replaced by a new leader (maybe Bush still has a nephew who could apply for this job, just like the old days), Iraq must continue to exist as one country, maybe a different structure. Turkey will never accept a free Kurdish state on its southern border. Breaking up Iraq would end up in Iran becoming more powerfull in the region. And Israel for instance said a couple of months ago that Iran was of a much bigger concern for them than Iraq.

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

I wont touch upon democracy since the last nine posts have been about different theories of democracy but I will talk about the future of Iraq.

First, I want to comment on this quote….”find this rather alarming as these oil wells legally belong to IRAQ, a soverign nation”

Don’t worry. Iraq will not be a soverign nation for long.

Second, here are some questions I have…. Will the Turks invade northern Iraq and help the Kurds who they have been fighting in Turkey for a long time?? Will the Turks help the Kurds set up an independent country located in Northern Iraq? Will the U.S.A be able to keep Israel from joining the war after scuds break through Patriot and Arrow 2 missile screens? What will other Muslim countries do when/if Israel attack Iraq?

Some guesses/theories of mine.

Israel stays out of the war but takes losses from Iraqi attack.

The current Northern No Fly Zone becomes an Indenpendent Kurd ruled country. The current Southern No Fly Zone Stays intact and becomes an U.N. Safe zone that Iraqi forces can not breech. Saddam is gone with his sons (dead or living in a cave with Osama never to see freedom again). Iraq elects a new government after all former political parties are banned.

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

democracy really mean ancient greek democracy where back then all the “free men” voted on every decion and took part in goverment.

this is obviosuly unworkable today

what we have today is a corpution of this, a mix with liberlism (the people who fear the “tyranny of the majority”.

liberal democracy works quite well (well everything else seams to have failed) and it workd by not having pure liberlism or pure democracy.

so all these pratts who hark on about taking democracy to all these countries that have just had dictorshis forget about the liberlism part and hence IMHO democracy fails in amny places

think about hat one for a bit all you carslberg drinkers 😉

rabie :9

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 29-12-02 AT 06:15 PM (GMT)]The problem with democracy is that the West looks at it as just another procedure. Democracy is not just about electing a leader, it`s also about certain values. 200 years ago, after the American and French revolution, philosophers started thinking about what democracy is. Now, nobody seems to know the answer anymore. Therefor, the EU for example thinks they are really helping a country by sending observers to Kenya, who will leave the day after the elections.

When Bush uses the word `democracy`, than we can only consider this to be smalltalk. The guy doesn`t even know what the word means. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen!

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

The US, the world’s most often praised democracy doesn’t have a directly elected head of state, nor does it have universally representetive government. The amount of corruption in US politics is often surprising (especially when in some other democratic nations large corporations are not allowed to fund election campaigns) etc etc. Democracy is, scientifically speaking, quite a vague term. The Soviet Communist party was democratic in that party members vote for a leader. It’s a buzz-word, thrown about by the press and politicians to signify western leaning, global-capitalist values and political systems. The fact is that the US/Europe don’t give a sh!t if a country is “democratic” or “free” so long as it does what they want. Look at Saudi Arabia, Kuwait etc.

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

I don’t hate democracy, but I don’t think it is as wonderful as some might suggest. Hitler was democratically elected and for a while was considered a genius for dragging the German economy out of depression.
(I have seen photos taken in the late 20s of small children making kites out of billion mark notes because they had devalued so much they were worth more as paper than as money… usually accompanied by a photo of a man with a wheelbarrow full of money to buy one loaf of bread.)

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

i kind of agree with u garry, but democratically elected leaders arent quite as bad as u say. occationally we get a few bad eggs, but so does everyone else.

as i see it, the biggest advange a democracy has over a dictatorship is that the country will never remain on the wrong path for long, and the again, the biggest disadvantge is that a democracy never remains on the right path for long either.

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

” Malaysia is not generally regarded as a free democracy in the traditional Western context.”

A self fulfilling prophesy… Is it not considered a free democracy in the traditional western context because it is an Islamic nation?

No one in the world has true democracy… it is an unachievable myth.
They listen to you so you vote for them for the next 3-5 years they do what they want, then they start to listen again, but it is too late, you know them too well so you vote for the other guys… and they turn out to be just as bad. Of course by the time their term is up you’d forgotten how bad the last lot were, or the current lot stuffed the country up so bad it made the last guys look good.
Either way the leader doesn’t pop around for dinner and ask the population what it thinks about banning landmines or signing the Kyoto agreement. They do what they like when they like while they are in power.

3-5 year dictatorships followed by 3-6 months of baby kissing slimeballs.
The stability of a dictatorship sound nice sometimes.
(Remember in a so called democracy a party can get in simply on one issue and not represent the population at all on the rest.)

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

How about Lebanon? Seems to be a fair bit of freedom there.

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

Malaysia is not generally regarded as a free democracy in the traditional Western context.

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

One free democratic Islamic nation huh?Malaysia.

RE: War on Iraq……Northern Iraq…..OIL RICH!!!

Well, I’m not sure what else could be done. After the downfall of Saddam, Iraq will essentially cease to function as a country. Different regions will demand independence. A part will veer towards “evil” (Iran) and other parts will want to be independent.

To keep the whole thing together, divide and rule will be necessary. Hopefully, democracy will feature a bit. But some commentators have suggested that democracy and islam are incompatible with each other (challenger – name ONE democratic and free Islamic state?)

Therefore, we might well see a US puppet regime.