I would like to see a vibrant democracy develop in Iraq. This is our mission. I was so happy with the recent elections in Iraq. Now, it is up to Iraq if this vision will bear fruit. They have a choice. They can choose between tolerant free country or descend into the bowels of ethnic strife and hate. What will that decision be? I don't know. I can only pray for the former outcome.
That would be the best-case scenario.
Will it happen, I don't know. I am a skeptic. I afraid that our hubris will result in monumental failure that will thrust Iraq in a bloody civil war. I'm afraid that our hubris clouds our judgment. And that perhaps the reality is that we must learn that horrible lesson again: we cannot force ideas on a culture that will not accept them.
I see the worst-case scenario as the formation of three countries. I will call them Iraniac, kurdistan and screwedsunnitan. The Shia religious south already aligned with Iran as a defacto Iranian satellite. The Kurds will take over the Northeast, both grabbing all the oil reserves, and leaving nothing but graveled desert to the Sunnis in the central Iraq. Much like we stole the black hills from the Indians and gave them rocks and gravel east of the Black Hills to scratch out a living.
So, what will happen? I vision that Turkey will attack the Kurds since they feel that this is their first step in taking over the remaining chunks of "Kurdistan" in Turkey and Iran.
Syria will come to the aid of the Sunnis and launch a bloody rebellion against both the Kurds and the Shia. And Iran will come in to aid the Shias. What we will have is a mini-middle east conflagration.
Thank you George Bush.
But just maybe, I'm completely wrong. Maybe a vibrant democracy will develop. And in that case, will George Bush be an international hero. If so, I would grudgingly give him the credit.
But does that mean that Bush was right. Regardless of the successful democratization of the Middle East, does it mean that he is still a "great president"?
Although I will be happy for the Middle East, I still feel that he is a failure.
The reasons are that by achieving democracy in the middle east, he extended presidential powers to the extent of a quasi-dictatorship in our democracy. The reasons are many and I won't mention them here, since they are quite obvious. But we have lost a lot. We lost our national character. We lost our sense of who we are as a people and how we view ourselves as moral leaders in the world today.
One cannot argue that the end justifies his actions. One cannot make a wrong, right, no matter how one try. Bush represents an insane act of a dying class. The world is changing and he and our country are blind to the concept of globalization and cooperation. The new paradign shift has left us alone and isolated from the rest of the world. Outdated and worn out, useless and powerless, to take the moral lead; hence, have rendered this country back to the stone age of nationalism in the age of globalization and cooperation.
Despite this, we can overcome, it will take time, but I'm confident that someday this country will come to our senses and recognize this.
Also, I want to emphasize that one cannot put the entire blame on bush. Our congress has failed equally and are co-conspirators because of their greater interest in their own reelection first and putting the American people and this great country in harms way. Our institutions have also failed to recognize that the "emperor has no clothes".
mark dahl 12.29.5
That would be the best-case scenario.
Will it happen, I don't know. I am a skeptic. I afraid that our hubris will result in monumental failure that will thrust Iraq in a bloody civil war. I'm afraid that our hubris clouds our judgment. And that perhaps the reality is that we must learn that horrible lesson again: we cannot force ideas on a culture that will not accept them.
I see the worst-case scenario as the formation of three countries. I will call them Iraniac, kurdistan and screwedsunnitan. The Shia religious south already aligned with Iran as a defacto Iranian satellite. The Kurds will take over the Northeast, both grabbing all the oil reserves, and leaving nothing but graveled desert to the Sunnis in the central Iraq. Much like we stole the black hills from the Indians and gave them rocks and gravel east of the Black Hills to scratch out a living.
So, what will happen? I vision that Turkey will attack the Kurds since they feel that this is their first step in taking over the remaining chunks of "Kurdistan" in Turkey and Iran.
Syria will come to the aid of the Sunnis and launch a bloody rebellion against both the Kurds and the Shia. And Iran will come in to aid the Shias. What we will have is a mini-middle east conflagration.
Thank you George Bush.
But just maybe, I'm completely wrong. Maybe a vibrant democracy will develop. And in that case, will George Bush be an international hero. If so, I would grudgingly give him the credit.
But does that mean that Bush was right. Regardless of the successful democratization of the Middle East, does it mean that he is still a "great president"?
Although I will be happy for the Middle East, I still feel that he is a failure.
The reasons are that by achieving democracy in the middle east, he extended presidential powers to the extent of a quasi-dictatorship in our democracy. The reasons are many and I won't mention them here, since they are quite obvious. But we have lost a lot. We lost our national character. We lost our sense of who we are as a people and how we view ourselves as moral leaders in the world today.
One cannot argue that the end justifies his actions. One cannot make a wrong, right, no matter how one try. Bush represents an insane act of a dying class. The world is changing and he and our country are blind to the concept of globalization and cooperation. The new paradign shift has left us alone and isolated from the rest of the world. Outdated and worn out, useless and powerless, to take the moral lead; hence, have rendered this country back to the stone age of nationalism in the age of globalization and cooperation.
Despite this, we can overcome, it will take time, but I'm confident that someday this country will come to our senses and recognize this.
Also, I want to emphasize that one cannot put the entire blame on bush. Our congress has failed equally and are co-conspirators because of their greater interest in their own reelection first and putting the American people and this great country in harms way. Our institutions have also failed to recognize that the "emperor has no clothes".
mark dahl 12.29.5
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