My New, Simplified Plan For Iraq

[Free Thinker]

Quote from hapaboy:

Ah, so the Iraqi people DESERVED Saddam?

Does a Christian nation like the US, whose citizens pray to an unseen deity that never answers back, also deserve a sadistic tyrant that rules with an "iron fist"?

Is that what you're saying?

Or are you going to go the moonbat route and, despite the fact that you enjoy umpteen freedoms Iraqis never had under Saddam, and can post what you write without fear of being dragged away in broad daylight to be fed feet-first into wood chippers, say Bush is that sadistic tyrant?

____________________________

Member of the ET Anti-Troll Brigade

Iustus ignarus troll

the difference seems to be that the muslims take their religious superstitions seriously. in america even though most americans profess to believe, for the most part most of them know its bs and ignore the religious leaders and act in a secular way.
the fact that there are almost no muslim democracies is an indication that they can not function under self rule.

 

[hapaboy]

Quote from vhehn:

the difference seems to be that the muslims take their religious superstitions seriously. in america even though most americans profess to believe, for the most part most of them know its bs and ignore the religious leaders and act in a secular way.
the fact that there are almost no muslim democracies is an indication that they can not function under self rule.

So only the "serious" Americans who embrace Christian doctrine, have deep faith, live their lives in a peaceful and forgiving way in accordance with their strong beliefs, and pray to an unseen deity that never answers back deserve a sadistic tyrant who rules with an "iron fist"?

The Amish, for example, deserve to be governed by a man like Saddam?

 

[slowdown]

Quote from Rearden Metal:

Serious question: Why did the Marshall Plan go so well, while the 'new version' is failing?

Is it just that the people of Western Europe <b>truly wanted</b> a new era of peace, prosperity & stability... while Iraqis are not quite as interested in such a result? Could it all be that simple?

Couple of points: There is a extended debate (see the excellent summary by William Hitchcock in The Struggle for Europe) as to whether the Marshall Plan really accomplished all the things that have been attributed to it. More likely, it was a good trigger that set off a sustained development based on conditions in Western Europe that are very diifferent from those in Iraq. That is to say, things would have picked up anyway a bit later without the Marshall Plan. But with regard to the differences between post-Saddam Iraq and post-Hitler Germany, there are so many that I do not even know where to start. Here goes:

1. Germany did not have the religious and ethnic divisions of Iraq.
2. There was a large labour force (including the many refugees coming in from the East).
3. There was, Allied bombing notwithstanding, an industrial infrastructure and, much more importantly, a lot of highly specialized white-collar experts. Some historians argue (and it's a very perceptive point) that the post-war German boom already started around '43, with Speer's reorganization of the German industry (for example, moving manufacturers into rural areas).
4. There was a decades-long post-war boom which benefited the European economies (and in particular Germany); very different from today.
5. There was no detrimental outside intervention from neighboring countries, i,.e., no Syria or Iran.
5. Germany had a democracy prior to the Nazis, and although it was not very successful, the idea of instituting democracy was far less alien.
6. The guilt factor: The so-called economic miracle ("Wirtschaftswunder") was also fuelled by the desire to forget about the immediate past and its crimes and flee, as it were, into industrial activism and to become a good member of the West (just as East Germany became the poster boy of the East). To put it cynically, precisely because so many more Germans had profited from the Nazi Regime than the average Iraqis had from Saddam, there was a greater desire to refashion the nation and render it, once again, fully respectable.


There are many more points and my post is nothing but the tip of the iceberg. sd

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from hapaboy:

So only the "serious" Americans who embrace Christian doctrine, have deep faith, live their lives in a peaceful and forgiving way in accordance with their strong beliefs, and pray to an unseen deity that never answers back deserve a sadistic tyrant who rules with an "iron fist"?

The Amish, for example, deserve to be governed by a man like Saddam?

if americans ever took their religious superstitions serious enough to get to the point of becoming like northern ireland where the Protestants and the catholics were blowing each other up just as they are now in iraq, an iron fisted leader might need to emerge to stop it all.
lets just hope america always has a secular government.

 

[bigarrow]

There's a monkey locked up in a house and it's shitting everywhere and on everyone in the house. Everybody is working their butt off cleaning up shit but the monkey shits faster than they can clean. They start fighting about the best way to clean up the shit, because it's a stinking mess and getting worse.
Guys, Bush is the shitting monkey and until him and his cronnies and followers are gone there's gonna be shit everywhere no matter what plan is in place.

 

[hapaboy]

Quote from vhehn:

if americans ever took their religious superstitions serious enough to get to the point of becoming like northern ireland where the Protestants and the catholics were blowing each other up just as they are now in iraq, an iron fisted leader might need to emerge to stop it all.
lets just hope america always has a secular government.

So what was required in Ireland, where around four thousand people were killed because of the "Troubles," was an iron-fisted leader like Saddam who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people and caused a war with a neighboring country that resulted in an estimated one million casualties?

____________________________

Member of the ET Anti-Troll Brigade

Iustus ignarus troll

 

[CaptainObvious]

Quote from bigarrow:

There's a monkey locked up in a house and it's shitting everywhere and on everyone in the house. Everybody is working their butt off cleaning up shit but the monkey shits faster than they can clean. They start fighting about the best way to clean up the shit, because it's a stinking mess and getting worse.
Guys, Bush is the shitting monkey and until him and his cronnies and followers are gone there's gonna be shit everywhere no matter what plan is in place.

Actually, in reference to the topic of the thread(solving the problem in Iraq) it's the Iraqi people that are the shitting monkey.

 

[bigarrow]

Yes for for the Iraq people they are their own monkey but for us Americans Bush is our monkey, he caused our problems there.

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from hapaboy:

So what was required in Ireland, where around four thousand people were killed because of the "Troubles," was an iron-fisted leader like Saddam who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people and caused a war with a neighboring country that resulted in an estimated one million casualties?

____________________________

Member of the ET Anti-Troll Brigade

Iustus ignarus troll

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A senior U.S. diplomat said the United States had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq but was now ready to talk with any group except Al-Qaida in Iraq to facilitate national reconciliation.

i think if bush could get back to the level of stability he had with sadam he would take it.
as far as the people sadam killed i realize that was bad but 600000 have been killed since the war started. even sadam would not have killed that many.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0E16FF3B540C728DDDA90994DE404482
DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war here. The figure breaks down to about 15,000 violent deaths a month, a number ...

 

[AAAintheBeltway]

Quote from ZZZzzzzzzz:

Once again we see the myopic neocon thinking.

Until such time that you understand the Iraqi people, the Arab people, the Muslim people, what drives them, what they want, what they desire, what they live for and are willing to die for, your attempts to project American values on them will produce failure after failure...

Were you a real Christian, not a name only American Christian who worships Capitalism above God, you might understand that to some people there is more to life than capitalism and western values...

For once in your life try to imagine being an occupied country, occupied by force by a power who seeks their own self interest and to utilize your natural resources to keep their own military industrial complex capitalistic machine running.

If you had any pride at all, you would reject such invaders and their plans on principle alone...

You continue to romanticize the insurgents as heroic freedom fighters attempting to drive a cruel invader from their midst. I know that fits in with democrat party orthodoxy and is why liberals desperately want our troops to suffer defeat there, but it is totally at odds with reality. In truth, the vast majorityof the violence is directed at other Iraqis. It is largely sectarian turf battles, against the backdrop of a violent struggle to determine which group of thugs and religious lunatics will control the oil wealth of Iraq when we leave.

Of course, we created the power vacuum that led to this unfortunate situation, and our foolish capitulation to islamic demands in the name of "respecting their culture" saddled them with an unworkable part religious, part secular government. Give Saddamhis due, he did manage to keep the rabid clerics on a very short leash. We handed them the keys to the government.