FinnMacCool said:
Okay so basically this is what we did.
We invaded Iraq for "freedom"
Among others.
FinnMacCool said:
We took care of the insurgency (this is assuming what Gysgt says is correct)
It is on going, but for the most part their tactics are considrably unorganized and their attack numbers are no where near the strength it once was. They are losing steam. Not too many Islamists are eager to callously throw their lives away in Iraq, despite their masters wishes. Our biggest problem today is the Sunni dissention.
FinnMacCool said:
The Sunnis and Shi'ites are in civil war but thats okay cause we did what we had to do (whatever that was).
Not quite, but would that be a bad thing? Democracies and nations are built on such things. Iraq is a country where three different sects have been forced to live together and as long as one sect held a higher status than the others, their was a false peace.
FinnMacCool said:
Now we will leave and hope they don't blow each other to bits. And if they do blow each other to bits, it's their fault not ours for invading them in the first place.
We cannot change their diapers forever. We cannot hold their hands through what they seem determined to do to themselves. Democracy is learned and earned. It is not given. We removed their dictator, we gave them opportunity, we kept them as safe as possible from the insurgency as they voted for their own leadership and on the laws that would govern them (a first for the Arab world), and we hare training their military and police force. What we cannot do is protect them from their own people. It is impossible.
FinnMacCool said:
Now we leave. Look back at Iraq. What the **** did we accomplish?
What did we accomplish? Well, first you are trying to announce the final score in the second quarter. But, let's look at our recent history and see what we have accompished with Iraq....
The Cold War deformed American strategic thought and our applied values beyond recognition. From the amoral defender of Europe's rotten empires, we descended to an immoral propping up of every soulless dictator who preferred our payments to those offered by Moscow. We utterly rejected our professed values, consistently struggling against genuine national liberation movements because we saw the hand of Moscow wherever a poor man reached out for food or asked for dignity. At our worst in the Middle East, we unreservedly supported--or enthroned--medieval despots who suppressed popular liberalization efforts, thus driving moderate dissidents into the arms of fanatics. From our diplomatic personnel held hostage in Iran a generation ago, to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack on the United States, we have suffered for our support of repressive, "stable" regimes that radicalized their own impoverished citizens. In the interests of stability, we looked the other way while secret police tortured and shabby armies massacred their own people, from Iran to Guatemala. By ousting Saddam Hussein we turned our backs on our past and faced the future. It was an act of defiance against that "Old Europe" mentality of maintaining stability above all else. We can't possibly do this everywhere all at once, but times are changing.
With Iraq, we freed a people that unfortunately are unable to sustain themselves without the brutal oppression of their former leader. This is very sad. However, that way of life is unacceptable anymore and we can no longer afford to maintain the stabilitiy of those types of governments. The Iraqis are going to have to go through their growing pains. It is simply unacceptable for an entire regional civilization to slaughter one another based on religious bigotry, lines drawn in the sand, and sect persecution in the 21st century.
