Thanks for all the fun, USA, we'll take over from here...

[Neubob]

A Modest Proposal...Peace, liberty and amnesty for the insurgents.

A quote:

Those sound like the demands of some of the insurgents themselves, and in fact they are. But they're also key clauses of a national reconciliation plan drafted by new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who will unveil it Sunday.

PM's sure got a set of balls on him... My only question is, who's to pay for said compensation to victims of the coalition's military operations?

I have a feeling I know who's going to be taking the blame when this new administration is digested and summarily excreted from the Iraqis' collective bowels.

Here's a little exercise in free thought... How as it that post WWII Japan was successfully occupied and restructured, and this place, from what it seems, cannot be? A fundamental difference in the occupation? A fundamental difference in the national identity? Or was it simply that we left Iraq with too many options, and Japan with none at all?

[dmf]

Amnesty for insurgents who attacked American and Iraqi soldiers?
Yea lets do that, Oh, while were at it lets give them some wepons of mass destruction and a few dozen missles.

[bj229r]

Japanese are honorable people, even in defeat--cannot say the same about many arabs

[Pongo]

Well how do we all think this will end or progress?
Sounds like a great solution if you want to keep the country together.
I dont think the US will let it happen though.. I think they will probably guerentee the protection of the northern curds or the southern shia and withdraw from the center and let the country splinter.  Let the southern oil fileds join Kuwait and make a kurdish state from the south end of the northern oil filed all the way north.Most of thier military problems become more managable and most of the resources stay under control if they follow that plan.

[DiabloTX]

Originally posted by Neubob How is it that post WWII Japan was successfully occupied and restructured, and this place, from what it seems, cannot be? A fundamental difference in the occupation? A fundamental difference in the national identity? Or was it simply that we left Iraq with too many options, and Japan with none at all?

MacArthur.

[Pongo]

Originally posted by Neubob

Here's a little exercise in free thought... How as it that post WWII Japan was successfully occupied and restructured, and this place, from what it seems, cannot be? A fundamental difference in the occupation? A fundamental difference in the national identity? Or was it simply that we left Iraq with too many options, and Japan with none at all?

Japanese where not only granted amnesty after the war for crimes that make anything every commited by any iraqi look like kids play, their national leader who led them to war was granted amnesty and kept his palace for decades after the war. So I dont know if that comparison is the one you want to pick. (how many US service men have been slowly consumed while kept alive by Iraqi insurgents?)
But if you insist

Japan commited some aggression to warrent the invasion, that might be an issue.
Japan was not created by the amalgamation of several distinct cultural groups at the whim and to the benifit of an external power.
Japan was defeated in the war they chose to fight, the Iraqi insurgents have not been.

[detch01]

Originally posted by Neubob
Here's a little exercise in free thought... How as it that post WWII Japan was successfully occupied and restructured, and this place, from what it seems, cannot be? A fundamental difference in the occupation? A fundamental difference in the national identity? Or was it simply that we left Iraq with too many options, and Japan with none at all?

The fundamental difference was in the culture. Japan had/has a cohesive culture and national identity under a single revered (and just de-deified) figure-head who decreed that MacArthur's constitution would be honored and therefore it was. None of the leaders of Islamic states can do the same, Iraq least of all.


my $0.02



asw

[dmf]

Originally posted by Pongo
Well how do we all think this will end or progress?
Sounds like a great solution if you want to keep the country together.
I dont think the US will let it happen though.. I think they will probably guerentee the protection of the northern curds or the southern shia and withdraw from the center and let the country splinter.  Let the southern oil fileds join Kuwait and make a kurdish state from the south end of the northern oil filed all the way north.Most of thier military problems become more managable and most of the resources stay under control if they follow that plan.

Heres how I think it will progress, we pull out, democracy ends, a muslim fundementalist govt takes over, and were right back where we started.

[Neubob]

Originally posted by dmf
Heres how I think it will progress, we pull out, democracy ends, a muslim fundementalist govt takes over, and were right back where we started.

Somehow, I don't think that democracy is something that they need, understand or even want. Democracy, at least in theory, allows the people to have serious sway over the direction their governments take. I firmly believe that given this right, they'll just put themselves under the command of another dictator within a generation or so, and yes, as stated above, all democractic checks and balances will be removed and the net progress will be zero.

Trying to impose our beliefs on them is a mistake. Either they identify a problem and proceed to fight and die for their own freedom, or they continue to live and die under their own tyranny. We will never successfully win liberty for them.

[Hangtime]

We should pull out.. then issue the Iraqi Security Force our new Top Secret Weapon.

The .5 kiloton Nuclear Hand Grenade.

[dmf]

Originally posted by Neubob
Somehow, I don't think that democracy is something that they need, understand or even want. Democracy, at least in theory, allows the people to have serious sway over the direction their governments take. I firmly believe that given this right, they'll just put themselves under the command of another dictator within a generation or so, and yes, as stated above, all democractic checks and balances will be removed and the net progress will be zero.

Trying to impose our beliefs on them is a mistake. Either they identify a problem and proceed to fight and die for their own freedom, or they continue to live and die under their own tyranny. We will never successfully win liberty for them.

I didn't say they needed democracy, democracy won't work in a land that has been tribal for thousands of years.

[DiabloTX]

Originally posted by dmf
I didn't say they needed democracy, democracy won't work in a land that has been tribal for thousands of years.

Ummm, you do know where the term "cradle of civilization" comes from, right????

[Toad]

Umm.. you do know the Cradle of Civilization and the Cradle of Democracy are two different places, right?

[DiabloTX]

Ummm...you do know it's "arsenal of democracy", right???

[Hangtime]

Originally posted by dmf
I didn't say they needed democracy, democracy won't work in a land that has been tribal for thousands of years.

Match, game; set.

You, condi and my ex wife should do lunch. It'll be the three smartest women in the world...

lemme know whatcha come up with for border security and education reform.. if the subject gets around to world hunger, I'll have my people call Jolies people.. solve that one and we'll call it a trifecta.