Plus regardless of who is in power, the Ukraine seems to be quite sided with China, having supplied components like engines for tanks and warships, helped provided maintenance and engine expertise on aircraft such as the Su-27, and **radars and radar related work** to the Chinese. So you can be sure who gets to see the stuff works first before the Russians do.

Reduced violence only means that the bad guys are staying low or moved elsewhere (and can come back). It can also mean, which is the part of the strategy, that agreements have been brokered with the Sunnis, which you will need as a counterweight against the Shiites. It does not mean that the problem is resolved (potential for wide scale ethnic violence ala Kosovo/Serbia.) Historically, insurgency, especially Islamic ones, can stay there forever. The US first encounter Moslem insurgency via the Moros in the Philippines in the early 1900s (why the 1911 handgun was made), and their descendants of that insurgency, under names like the MNLF, are still there a straight century after, despite training and arming the Philippine armed forces. Personally however, is the insurgency does not appear to be in danger of toppling the government, then let the local government handle it. Concern yourself elsewhere. We once thought that the Taliban was finished, now they’re coming back. Exactly like my first sentence. But you can always bring back forces if problems escalate.

The new Iraq is getting too attached to the US via an umbilical cord. That cord has to be cut and the only way to know if they can make it on their own, is let them go.

Stay too long, and Iraq, like a grown child, may become permanently—and parasitically—dependent on you. That won’t be good for you on the long run in economic terms.

The majority of the US and the World hardly agree with your take on it. I would also add the freedom that you expressing here would not be possible in your beloved Russia as all opposition is crushed……….what really are you fighting for anyways??? As a matter of fact why don’t you move to Russia??? So, you can express freedom speech and protest against the goverment and its policy’s. Good luck with that one……….

BS. What majority of the US and the world? The majority of the US, more than two thirds of the population in fact, are not in approval of the current administration. As for the rest of the world, every buddy Bush had have been practically voted out from Blair to Howard.

There is freedom of speech in Russia, just not freedom of organized revolt against it. Russia is not Communism anymore, just an autocracy. In the decades, I’ve been to countries the US supported that were essentially autocratic from Singapore to the Philippines (Marcos period). Freedom of speech happens in the US because it is protected by the Constitution of the United States, but as one CIA analyst puts it, our real job is to protect the country, not to spread democracy and freedom (especially if that democracy would prove contrary to US foreign interests like getting a leftist president elected in some latin American country).

For the West, it seemed okay if Yeltsin tried to cheat on the Russian elections. And just remember, Putin and Medelyev are all elected, and are very popular (over 80%) in Russia right now. Just because you got free speech, does not mean that this speech (or the vote) is going to be for US foreign interests.

That is hardly BS as embargo’s rarely work and Saddam had great resources to purchase whatever he wanted! (i.e. Oil) As for Saddam living longer………Well, you mite not consider that an issue. Yet, the Iraqi people who lost hundreds of thousands (not including the many wars) during Saddam Reign may not be so happy with that outcome!

BS. The embargo meant that even medical shipments to Iraq was curtailed, with effects to the young population. And whatever the blood Saddam incurred, its not running hot the way it is now. You’re really in a total delusion of what is happened in Iraq.

As for the other many shortcoming you claim of the US. I don’t see the rest of the world taking a different route! So, they are either guilty of association or guilty of doing nothing? So, by the way which county are you from and what policy’s have they supported for the last several decades???

I am in the US and I don’t agree the path this country has taken since Iraq. It clearly hasn’t been visibly better for the US and the rest of the world.

By the way, what have you said against Georgian atrocities? Not a single word against them deliberately firing artillery at population centers?

Start reading more about political science. Russia does what it does because of fear. Fear for the survival of the nation itself. This is a country forged out of the historical consciousness of having been invaded by the Mongols, Turks, Napoleon and Hitler. And millions and millions have died. A history of true human misery. So it tends to see things in the way that Marx best puts it—a historical struggle. A long term historical struggle. It is eat or be eaten.

Russia tried the “new way” and look what it got? Social chaos and disorder around its borders. The feeling of the lack of sincerity from the “West”, who in two occasions in history, had invaded them and cost millions of live. Maybe you don’t think of it that way, but for the Russians, putting missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic amounts to the Soviets putting missiles in Cuba. That’s how a serious issue that is to them. And another thing, the West is arming a country whose country had ultra-nationalistic tendencies at its southern border. You won’t be happy either if Spetnaz was training Mexicans, if Mexico had a Hugo Chavez like president and getting arms from the Russians. The Russians don’t like near countries with ultra-nationalistic governments with leaders with dreams of grandeur with an eschewed sense of racialism. (Racism= prejudice against other races; Racialism is the idea that you are some sort of chosen or messianic race destined on Earth to be superior and change the world order.) Remember when that happened to another country west of its borders?

The US did nothing for 14 Years. Well, what other country did anything during the same period???? NOBODY! Yet, you only blame the US yet again. Also, while the US didn’t like Iraq it was felt to be the lessor of two evils. (i.e. Iraq vs Iran) Also, you are forgeting that during that period the cold war was still on. Clearly, the old saying “your enemies enemy is your best friend” has merit. Really, you are just twisting history facts to your advantage or should I say to the disadvantage of the US.

So the ends justify the means. When you troll to that aspect, you lose your right to proclaim morale superiority, because morality isn’t situational. Its blind and it applies to all things. You cannot say this while doing that.

What other country did you ask? What business did other countries have? Boy, these other countries were supporting Iraq materially (France and Russia) and read again, the US was also tacitly supporting Iraq in exactly the same manner it is supporting Georgia now, providing advisement, materials and information. And being the “leader” of the free world, you also have an additional moral burden in your shoulders.

As for the UN WMD Inspectors. Iraq was hindering them at every turn……..and it wasn’t like anybody on the planet trusted what Saddam said. They had no idea what was really happening within Iraq. While, it may have turn out that Saddam didn’t have WMD. The UN inspectors had no idea…..on the otherhand the US so mistrusted Saddam and Iraq. It started to believe the worst. Which, is understandable considering the reality of the times and the parties involved.

And yet in the end, the UN inspectors were not convinced that Iraq had any remaining WMDs. So sorry but the UN inspectors did have some clue, and their own conclusions are the ones that Bush didn’t approve of. It was the Bush administration that clashed with Hans Blix, who in turn accused the Bush administration of inflating the Iraq threat to justify an invasion.

You’re so funny to bring up the UN inspectors, when in fact, the UN inspectors are the ones complaining about the US interference and disregard to their own work.

The UN inspectors had no idea

Oh really? Interviews from Hans Blix.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/18_blix.shtml

“There were about 700 inspections, and in no case did we find weapons of mass destruction,” said Hans Blix, the Swedish diplomat called out of retirement to serve as the United Nations’ chief weapons inspector from 2000 to 2003; from 1981 to 1997 he headed the International Atomic Energy Agency. “We went to sites [in Iraq] given to us by intelligence, and only in three cases did we find something” – a stash of nuclear documents, some Vulcan boosters, and several empty warheads for chemical weapons. More inspections were required to determine whether these findings were the “tip of the iceberg” or simply fragments remaining from that deadly iceberg’s past destruction, Blix said he told the United Nations Security Council. However, his work in Iraq was cut short when the United States and the United Kingdom took disarmament into their own hands in March of last year.

Blix accused U.S. President George W. Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair of acting not in bad faith, but with a severe lack of “critical thinking.” The United States and Britain failed to examine the sources of their primary intelligence – Iraqi defectors with their own agendas for encouraging regime change – with a skeptical eye, he alleged. In the buildup to the war, Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis were cooperating with U.N. inspections, and in February 2003 had provided Blix’s team with the names of hundreds of scientists to interview, individuals Saddam claimed had been involved in the destruction of banned weapons. Had the inspections been allowed to continue, Blix said, there would likely be a very different situation in Iraq today. As it was, America’s pre-emptive, unilateral actions “have bred more terrorism there and elsewhere.”

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/01/27/sprj.irq.transcript.blix/index.html

“I shall deal first with cooperation on process. In this regard, it has regard to the procedures, mechanisms, infrastructure and practical arrangements to pursue inspections and seek verifiable disarmament. While the inspection is not built on the premise of confidence, but may lead to confidence if it is successful, there must nevertheless be a measure of mutual confidence from the very beginning in running the operation of inspection. Iraq has, on the whole, cooperated rather well so far with UNMOVIC in this field.

The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect. And with one exception, it has been [without] problems. We have further had a great help in building up the infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and our helicopters have been good.

The environment has been workable. Our inspections have included universities, military bases, presidential sites and private residences. Inspections have also taken place on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest, on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. These inspections have been conducted in the same manner as all other inspections. We seek to be both effective and correct. “

===

“All of these contributions have an assistance in quickly starting up our inspections and enhancing our capabilities, so has help from the U.N. in New York and from sister organizations in Baghdad.

In the past two months, during which we have built up our presence in Iraq, we have conducted about 300 inspections to more than 230 different sites. Of these, more than 20 were sites that had not been inspected before.

By the end of December, UNMOVIC began using helicopters, both for the transport of inspectors and for actual inspection work. We now have eight helicopters. They have already proved invaluable in helping to freeze large sites by observing the movement of traffic in and around the area.

Setting up the field office in Mosul has facilitated rapid inspections of sites in northern Iraq. We plan to establish soon a second field office in the Basra area where we have already inspected a number of sites.

Mr. President, we now have an inspection apparatus that permits us to send multiple inspections teams every day all over Iraq by road or by air. Let me end by simply noting that that capability, which has been built up in a short time and which is now operating, is at the disposal of the Security Council. “

I would think that the F-4 Phantom and the MiG-21 Fishbed are the two most iconic aircraft of the sixties and the seventies.