Saddam's Death May Bring Reprisals?

dangerousbiker

well..well..well. what happened to Saddam was just but right. i know it was a bold move and may bring reprisals but then, if no one initiates the move then who will? No Guts, No Glory!

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Kearney Cycles

sogood

That's the kind of B&W thoughts GW Bush had before invading Iraq.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac

CDAKIAHONDA

Yes! It's an economic issue. Now I know we don't all agree on the the implications of the term so I'll use "resource management and allocation" henceforth.

You can look at it from the individual aspect, the aspect of government and culture, or from the empiric stand point. Humans and society need resources to survive. These "entities" progress long-term in much the same ways.

The initial phases are of survival, it's the genesis of society on all levels. During this phase things start to get "ironed out if you will." Resouces are identified, and divisions of labor and specialization begin to create a limited prosperity and mere survival fades.

The new prosperity results in expansion an identification of "new" resources (technology.) As long as resources are plentiful, and some semblence of rationalized equity abounds things expand further. Expansion creates a semblance of unity within. A bond of family, group or "nationalism" for example. Prosperity brings growth and others join and are born.

The growth phase creates expansion, and expansion creates tension with neighbors. What stage they are in their "resource management stage" determines the course of action. Individuals bump up against individuals, and countries bump up against countries. Wars or alliance.

Alliances create Empires (sometimes through war), and further expansion as new resources (technology) expand, and as current resources cannot meet demand. What were once inclusionary entities during the early phases now must develop exclusionary "outward" ideology to maintain their internal unity against those outside tensions. Nationalism for example, religeon, and ideas of cultural superiority are all HUMAN constructs to acheive this.

Look at America, during it's beginning huge quatities of resources were available. An agrarian society needed land and we had it. We encouraged immigrants from all over to come, families to push westward and we created a "melting pot." We bumped up against an indiginous people in a completely different state of "resource management." The hunter/gatherer economy didn't work well with the fenced in agrarian economy of the settlers. We couldn't understand them either, and they us. So we wiped those who wouldn't conform into dust.

Technology brought a new economy, "resource allocation and management" changed. We're continuing to "bump" and other societies are "bumping back."

This is an incredibly simplified model, and nothing in it is new, but it allows for a lot of factors if you expand.

Democracy is just the same. It is a human construct designed to minimize the bumping, nothing more. It's highly inefficient, and rarely really practical. Representative democracy?
Bush is there because of Democracy (start typing now!) You don't use much democracy around the house, its not a popular form of management at work or on the fields of battle or of the substitues for battle like sport. It is really only necessary BECAUSE of the inequities in society. We simply can't trust that a " wise and benevelent dictator" will emerge and lead us in a paternal / maternal fashion.

Wait 'till Chinese "bumping" REALLY hits its stride!

slovakguy

are you the type to take the cap off your car's still hot radiator and blame the steam for scalding you? bush and his band of deluded advisors convinced themselves of their righteous adventure and then sold the nation a giant gulp of snake oil to send the troops in. all those years of oppression are now being released and now it has begun to disgust the chicken hawks.

i still find it amusing that so many republicans excoriated clinton for "nation building" in somalia and have now shown themselves to be even more inept than that attempt. but pointing a blaming finger at everybody else is surely something which comes easily to the republicans...liberals, clinton, immature iraqis...

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"To Hell with poverty, we'll get drunk on cheap wine."
--Gang of Four, To Hell With Poverty

Eldron

I am really looking forward to the next US general election...

Through my interaction with friends, family, internet pals etc. it would seem the vast majority of people (in & outside the US) think Bush should be removed from power (if not imprisoned!!!).

It'll be interesting to see what percentage of the US population support Bush when it comes to putting crosses on paper. Methinks the results will not reflect the current anti Bush sentiment...

wolfix

The vast majority of American voters do not think Bush should be imprisioned or removed from power. Even the elected liberal Democrats do not even think that way. The only people talking of imprisioning Bush are the basically unemployed liberals sitting around coffee shops .
Bush will not be on the ballot next time ,because he will have served his 2 terms already.,

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"I rule my world with a cellphone."

limerickman

If what you say is true - then the vast majority of Americans have only themselves to blame for electing an administration which has completely mismanaged the US economy, (rapidly devaluing currency, biggest federal deficit in history, largest balance of trade deficit in history, squandered the largest budget surplus going in to office in Jan 2001, relatively high unemployment, and and a net exporter of jobs out of the USA) and has managed to create the biggest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam.

Throw in Katrina, throw in Enron, throw in 9/11 :

Either he is the most unfortunate President in history - or he's incompetent.

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.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets" - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

sogood

+1!

Funny how voters often forget about the democratic process in that they are the ones who put the President in office. They should think again of their last vote and how stupid that vote for Bush was.

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Morphed Bianchi Camaleonte IV 2006, Ridley Damocles 2006, Garmin, Mac

Carrera

"Expansion creates a semblance of unity within. A bond of family, group or "nationalism" for example. Prosperity brings growth and others join and are born."

One point I'd like to make is that, contrary to common belief, nationalism is absolutely fundamental to national strength.
Now, take a look at Iraq: Iraq has been under huge pressures for some years facing sanctions, invasion and turmoil. Finally, the pressure has reached a degree Iraq is no longer able to hold together as a structured society. What we see, above all, is ethnic division. Pressures placed on Iraq have caused Shias, Sunnis and Kurds to fragment and we have a virtual civil war taking place.
Compare this with Hannibal's invasion of Rome or Persia's invasion of Greece. Persia, at the time, was hugely more powerful than Greece in terms of size of army, resources and the fact Persia was an Empire.
However, in the case of Greece, the Greeks didn't fragment when placed under huge pressure. Greece was a far more nationalistic country than the U.S.A. so, soon as all Greece united under a common set of Hellenistic values and Greek nationalism, Persia couldn't prevail. Greece was comparatively small but very united so Dariuis the Persian King suffered defeats by Sparta and by Athens in naval battles.
Put another way: Had Bush invaded Greece, he'd have failed the same way.

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"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

CDAKIAHONDA

[QUOTE=Carrera
One point I'd like to make is that, contrary to common belief, nationalism is absolutely fundamental to national strength.
.[/QUOTE]
Absolutely! And with respect to Iraq, if you look at it in that light, the current reaction is completely understandable. There is no longer a "Nationalistic" Iraq. This is why Iraq "could be / was" much more stable under Saddam then it is now under occupation, even though WE might suppose that the conditions are better suited to stability.

In other words: "why are they squandering their shot at Democracy and freedom that WE "gave" them? When they are asking why we can't let them decide for themselves what they want now? It is why they were initially grateful for Saddam's removal, but are rebelling against our occupation and rebuilding. Iraqi "nationalism" can't be built by American "nation building."

The point you make is also valid in another light, and that is that we assign "values" of "right and wrong," and "good and bad" to terms and ideas like "nationalism." We make judgements that "democracy" is good and the alternatives are bad, for example. The forces that guide the social development of the individual and the societal whole are not necessarily quantifiable in that light. Sometimes the forces result in good or bad things happening, but in themselves.....It's like waves crashing on the cliffs. You get lots of erosion, but people seem to like the view.

Carrera

This is my point about the U.S. and I'll try and state this without causing undue offence to anyone:
The Greeks were gifted with more than one military genious such as Alexander or perhaps Hannibal. Above all, the Greeks knew how to apply pressure to an aggressive enemy by exploiting division.
According to Plato, multicultural societies were treated by Spartan generals as a "collection of States" under one flag (which is what Julius Caesar found in Britain when he invaded) i.e. "divide and rule".
So, if a Spartan general was fighting the U.S., he'd first identify the "divisions" within that society which are, a poorer class of black people, a totally huge proportion of poor whites, ethnic divisions between Hispanics, Europeans, Asians and what have you.
So, first of all they would arm the black people and cut them a better deal under Hellenistic Government than the situation in the U.S. where black folks are marginalised. I suppose many black people would then defect as the Ukranians did when Russia was invaded during WW2. After all, foreigners in Greece weren't given Greek citizenship but they were allowed to prosper and trade within Athens e.t.c.
Next, it would be a matter of arming the poor classes on the fringes of society (seeing as most U.S. capital is in the hands of an elite group of bankers and tycoons).
Divisions would then be sown between Hispanics, European and Asian Americans. Society would fragment before the Greek troops even stepped foot onto U.S. soil. That would leave only the mercenary army such as the U.S. marines.
Seeing as there is no national service in the U.S., invading troops wouldn't really encounter much in the way of populist organised, armed resistance from the populations of Texas e.t.c. Of course, please bear in mind I'm drawing comparisons between armies and tactics that have a huge technological gap over 2,500 years of history but we should also assume the Greeks (by now) would be just as well armed as the Americans.
The result: The U.S. would, for the first time in its history, be the subject of huge pressures exacted internally. It has never faced such pressure before which is why I disagree with the whole concept of "The U.S. is the world's number one superpower" philosophy people here in the U.K. continually promote.
I once recall Krushchev saying the U.S. was essentially surrounded by weak neighbours such as Cuba, Venezuela and Peru e.t.c. He also stated that if war broke out between the U.S. and USSR, the U.S. would surely face a Soviet ground invasion as well as advances of Soviet troops into Berlin. Therefore, the U.S. would have to have fought a ground war within its own borders. Russia already faced this ordeal during conflict in WW2 by Nazi Germany.
So, really, my view has always been the U.S. is only a superpower in as much as it has a vast amount of nuclear weapons. In other aspects, it falls way short and nuclear weapons, of course, are also self-destructive.

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"Everybody has a philosophy. However, what philosophy you have is a matter of choice, and most people don't make a conscious choice with regard to what philosophy they accept."

CDAKIAHONDA

yes sir! Notwithstanding the logistical problems you already mention, the goal would be to destroy the "Nationalism" of your opponent under which those groups existed together in the first place. From the other side, the trick is to maintain that nationalism. Forgetting the "relative" good or bad for a moment, Saddam represented a "Nationalism." We don't offer a new one, we offer a vacuum.

One critical difference from the Greek strategy is also that the US actions don't match the US rhetoric. We have destroyed the Iraqi Nationalism, that's why we have Civil war after all. But we "say" we're not there to conquer so much as to liberate. If that's the true goal (and how many of us even believe that anymore), the Iraqi would logically expect us to leave now that "liberation" is complete. Yet we stay??????

The conclusion would then logically be, from the Iraqi insurgent standpoint anyway, is that we are there to stay and rule. The Greeks never would have gone in and toppled the regime without being ready to install their own and then rule the country. They would supplant the old with a new nationalism as quickly as possible. It may have been a somewhat inclusive new program, but it would have been undeniable that the Greeks and their system was there to stay, like it or not. "Play ball or be crushed", and playing ball became pretty attractive compared to being crushed. Otherwise, do you think they would've even gone in, in the first place?

So the US muddles through with a force insufficient to accomplish conquest, yet too big to be seen as merely a support to a legitimate Iraqi government, as seen from the Iraqi perspective anyway. Then we say..."just trust us." Actions vs words.

Conquer and integrate it, or leave it alone, that's what the Greeks would have done if I read you correctly.

slovakguy

...do you two actually read your posts before putting them up? you discuss iraqi nationalism as though it were an actuality. in what fashion did the kurds and shiias come together under this secular materialist nation concept of iraq except as they were conscripted in the iraqi army? with hussein as the strong man at the centre and almost all of his ministers all coming from the sunni sect (the closest ones drawn from his home town of tikrit), the nation held together only as many others have throughout history, not by popular participation but by cowed acquiesence of the populace. once unleashed from hussein and the ba'athists, this infighting should have occurred. to be blunt, one finds it difficult to believe that the unrest in iraq which is directed at the u.s. is coming from all factions. much of the violence is the settling of old scores which can hardly nor should be characterised as iraqi on iraqi violence. this is the very type of quick thinking which does not recognise the cultural differences at play here. simply superimposing a template drawn from western history will not explain the mess in iraq or the almost inevitable failure of the u.s. sponsored government in afghanistan...

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"To Hell with poverty, we'll get drunk on cheap wine."
--Gang of Four, To Hell With Poverty

CDAKIAHONDA

NO....., "He "represented" a nationalism...who's NOT reading?"


"Play ball or be crushed", and playing ball became pretty attractive compared to being crushed ---now or then.

So:

"Forgetting the "relative" good or bad for a moment, Saddam represented a "Nationalism." We don't offer a new one, we offer a vacuum"

"The conclusion would then logically be, from the Iraqi insurgent standpoint anyway,"......the US actions don't match the US rhetoric.

????????? Help me on this one... who is doing what to whom?.......It does point to the fact that neither side will be willing to be put back in the box by the other WHEN and HOW the New order is "somehow" established.

Oh, but it does, respectfully. "The Greeks never would have gone in and toppled the regime without being ready to install their own and then rule the country."--- Think about it. The Iron fist was removed and replaced with what? You can't have it both ways..... I agree, the military fist wasn't enough just by itself, But the fist also controlled the economy. And by your own admission, they weren't ALL "cowed into submission" but enough of them were to give stability. No one is saying Saddam was a good guy, although plenty are saying that Iraqis were better off under him than now...that's not my point of view, it's a value judgement, but they were certainly more stable. ...And yes, Afganistan will fail too...for the same reasons.

You mentioned being upset at "being burned from the steam of the still hot radiator after removing the cap..." Don't forget to replace the water and retighten the cap before you start driving again. You'll seize the engine otherwise.

Who's thinking quick? Had the Bush Administration looked at history, they may have known....