(December 1, 2018 at 3:03 pm)Cherub786 Wrote:

(December 1, 2018 at 2:51 pm)Amarok Wrote: Hardly as all he gave them in return is a decades of war and chaos .

I disagree. The Iraqis gave themselves this war and chaos. They could have taken advantage of the golden opportunity that was presented to them, the first Arab country to have the gift of democracy. Instead they chose to launch an insurgency, start a sectarian civil war, ethnically cleanse each other, bomb each other's shrines and mosques, and elect corrupt politicians (Nouri al-Maliki) to loot their coffers.

Of course a lot of the blame lies on external actors. The Saudis, Syrians and Iranians did not want Iraq to succeed from day 1. They infiltrated the country with their proxies to destabilize it. Why? They knew if Iraq becomes a successful democracy, their own people will want the same thing and their autocratic and corrupt rule will be in jeopardy.

You still don’t understand you can not give democracy as a gift.

The best you can do is try to give the facade and the institutions of democracy as a gift.

Facade and Instititution of democracy does not equal democracy.

For many societies, the fact that the facade and institution of democracy is a terrible curse that will wreck the society without giving birth to actual democracy is something they understand because of their on-the-ground experience of their societal world view and deeper societal power structure, but we in our airy conceit can not see from 80,000 feet nor fathom or imagine in our doctrinarian mind.

Democractic facade or institution has either failed or is on life support everywhere in the Middle East.  It has never ever midwifed any democracy in that part of the world.

(December 1, 2018 at 3:03 pm)Cherub786 Wrote:

(December 1, 2018 at 2:51 pm)Amarok Wrote: Hardly as all he gave them in return is a decades of war and chaos .

I disagree. The Iraqis gave themselves this war and chaos. They could have taken advantage of the golden opportunity that was presented to them, the first Arab country to have the gift of democracy. Instead they chose to launch an insurgency, start a sectarian civil war, ethnically cleanse each other, bomb each other's shrines and mosques, and elect corrupt politicians (Nouri al-Maliki) to loot their coffers.

Of course a lot of the blame lies on external actors. The Saudis, Syrians and Iranians did not want Iraq to succeed from day 1. They infiltrated the country with their proxies to destabilize it. Why? They knew if Iraq becomes a successful democracy, their own people will want the same thing and their autocratic and corrupt rule will be in jeopardy.

 The Iraqi's didn't want to be occupied by a foreign military . Nor wanted to be run by American puppets and it was all done under Bush's impotence and blaming other counties for Bush's failure is weak sauce . The Iraqi people owe Bush and America nothing .

(December 1, 2018 at 3:07 pm)Cherub786 Wrote:

(December 1, 2018 at 2:42 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Hardly, Iraq hardly would have undergone the travails of the last 17 years under Saddam.  Most of Syria and the rest of the middle east will eternally despise him for lunching the invasion that is the ultimate cause of ISIS.  Europeans will eternally loath him for the ISIS triggering the refugee crisis that put the European Union experiment in jeopardy.

The US is not responsible for ISIS. I know the history of ISIS going back to Zarqawi. They were encouraged by the Syrian Baathist regime of Assad to destabilize Iraq for the reasons I mentioned already. This extreme faction of Qaeda then declared themselves ISIS, terrorized the Sunnis of Anbar and Mosul, committing acts of terrorism on the Shiites too. Why would the US create ISIS to destabilize its own project of nation building in Iraq?

If Bush or a neocon was president, they would have bombed Syria to smithereens allowing the FSA to take control and oust the Baathists and you would have no refugee problem.

Obama and now Trump are weak and incompetent on Syria. And that maniac Assad turned his own country into rubble, pushing it centuries back and now it is an economic catastrophe, all for the purpose of remaining in power as president. I tell you, these people deserve what happens to them for their unlimited stupidity

If you send a gorilla into a china shop, you are responsible for all the broken crockery in there even if the gorilla did it and not you.

We sent a gorilla into Iraq, ISIS is one of the shards of broken crockery that resulted in the region. We are fucking responsible.

(December 1, 2018 at 3:11 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(December 1, 2018 at 3:03 pm)Cherub786 Wrote: I disagree. The Iraqis gave themselves this war and chaos. They could have taken advantage of the golden opportunity that was presented to them, the first Arab country to have the gift of democracy. Instead they chose to launch an insurgency, start a sectarian civil war, ethnically cleanse each other, bomb each other's shrines and mosques, and elect corrupt politicians (Nouri al-Maliki) to loot their coffers.

Of course a lot of the blame lies on external actors. The Saudis, Syrians and Iranians did not want Iraq to succeed from day 1. They infiltrated the country with their proxies to destabilize it. Why? They knew if Iraq becomes a successful democracy, their own people will want the same thing and their autocratic and corrupt rule will be in jeopardy.

You still don’t understand you can not give democracy as a gift.

The best you can do is try to give the facade and the institutions of democracy as a gift.

Facade and Instititution of democracy does not equal democracy.

For many societies, the fact that the facade and institution of democracy is a terrible curse that will wreck the society without giving birth to actual democracy is something they understand because of their on-the-ground experience of their societal world view and deeper societal power structure, but we in our airy conceit can not see from 80,000 feet nor fathom or imagine in our doctrinarian mind.

Democractic facade or institution has either failed or is on life support everywhere in the Middle East.  It has never ever midwifed any democracy in that part of the world.

Indeed you can't give people a Democracy nor was that the goal . The goal was a puppet regime .Just like countless other times America has "spread Democracy "

(December 1, 2018 at 2:19 pm)Cherub786 Wrote: The Iraqis will eternally be grateful to Bush Jr. for liberating them from Saddam. Can't argue with that.

Funny.....I remember them differently than "eternally grateful".............

Yes i'm sure average Joe Iraqi loved being under occupation or having his house bombed

Yeah, they were fucking thrilled.  It was all confetti and pretty girls rushing up to kiss groundpounders everywhere they went. 

(December 1, 2018 at 3:11 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(December 1, 2018 at 3:03 pm)Cherub786 Wrote: I disagree. The Iraqis gave themselves this war and chaos. They could have taken advantage of the golden opportunity that was presented to them, the first Arab country to have the gift of democracy. Instead they chose to launch an insurgency, start a sectarian civil war, ethnically cleanse each other, bomb each other's shrines and mosques, and elect corrupt politicians (Nouri al-Maliki) to loot their coffers.

Of course a lot of the blame lies on external actors. The Saudis, Syrians and Iranians did not want Iraq to succeed from day 1. They infiltrated the country with their proxies to destabilize it. Why? They knew if Iraq becomes a successful democracy, their own people will want the same thing and their autocratic and corrupt rule will be in jeopardy.

You still don’t understand you can not give democracy as a gift.

The best you can do is try to give the facade and the institutions of democracy as a gift.

Facade and Instititution of democracy does not equal democracy.

For many societies, the fact that the facade and institution of democracy is a terrible curse that will wreck the society without giving birth to actual democracy is something they understand because of their on-the-ground experience of their societal world view and deeper societal power structure, but we in our airy conceit can not see from 80,000 feet nor fathom or imagine in our doctrinarian mind.

Democractic facade or institution has either failed or is on life support everywhere in the Middle East.  It has never ever midwifed any democracy in that part of the world.

Again I disagree. The basic foundation of democracy is free and fair elections. Those are held regularly in Iraq. Just recently a government was formed. Say what you want about Iraq's domestic problems, it is a functioning democracy no matter how little confidence the people have in the state.
The point is, would Iraq have these free and fair elections and these peaceful transitions of power if Saddam was not removed? I suspect not.
It is to be expected that the road to becoming a functioning democracy will be turbulent. With all the obstacles in the way of Iraq, the fact that it is still a functioning democracy - there is much to say for that. It is a young state, just 15 years old.
And once the rest of the Arabs saw Iraq given the gift of democracy, they launched their own revolutions (Arab Spring). But since they didn't have the advantage of American troops on their soil to guarantee the process went forward, the Arab Spring quickly became the Arab Winter when the dictators strike back. Tunisia was the only relative success - while the Arab Spring failed in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria.
America's invasion of Iraq and removal of a dictator in 2003 was what triggered the ordinary Arab's imagination that yes we too can have democracy and we too have the right to it.

Did you do any research on the state of iraqi elections before you posted that?

Indeed free and fair was not what i would have called them