Iraq: I Thought We Were Fighting for Their Democracy
One of the premises for the war in Iraq was to free the people and allow 
them to form a democratic form of government. The White House propaganda on the subject was that a democratic Iraq could serve as a light and a change agent for the whole middle east reason. This was one of the primary justifications for continue with the war even when it was determined their were no weapons of mass destruction as original stated. With this in mind, I read today that 20 members of the Iraqi government were arrested for attempting to revive Saddam Hussein’s old political party. According to the AP article:
More than 20 employees of Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior have been arrested on allegations that they were plotting to revive Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath party, government officials said Thursday.
It further goes on to state that:
Outlawing the Baath party was the first official act of the U.S.-run occupation authority which ruled until June 2004. The purge of thousands of Baath party members from government jobs cost the country the services of skilled people who knew how to run ministries, university departments and state companies. - Source: Yahoo News
I understand that initially when taking down a despotic leader one would want to potentially deconstruct the major party under pinning him. But at what point, if the real premise is of the war was democratic change, can you justify eliminating democracy to create that change? Isn’t that oxymoronical? Or was the war less about creating a true democracy and more about us A) putting a foot in Saddam’s rear end, and B) establishing another presence in the middle east? I hate being the cynic but…….
Others Blogging (Sort Of): Booker Rising
Iraq may yet have to be divided. The current administration is in too deep to see things clearly, so it will be up to Obama’s Administration to bring the whole thing to closure. I just hope it does not take another 2-3 years; we have enough to worry about right here.
By: brotherbrown on December 19, 2008
at 8:19 am
I agree Iraq should be divided, but the problem is, none of their neighbors want a Kurdish state on their borders and Sunnis don’t want a Shiite Arab state.
I would recommend a de facto independence, like Switzerland, that is so devolved politically, each canton is almost like an autonomous region, they can then just divide the oil wealthy based on % of population in each region. The problem is that Iraqis, I don’t believe are as “civilized” as the Swiss. They also don’t have the motivation. Switzerland came together, not out of like for each other, but because they did not want to be taken over and ruled by larger powers, they saw that a Zero Sum game was not going to work and they had to work together despite linguistic and religious differences. Iraqis are not in that situation and don’t have such a mindset (not in mass).
By: Dragon Horse on December 19, 2008
at 7:31 pm