(December 30, 2015 at 6:38 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Were we handed freedom when Bush was offered, or when we elected him? The iraqis voted against their own interests. It happens here as well. Is there some point of the Maliki administration when you feel that Maliki was more powerful than US forces? Where it was him, and not us, calling and enforcing the shots? Where the iraqi peoples interests were better represented, by him..than our own corporate interests were represented, by us?
"Hey look, they voted" was (and remains) a part of the propaganda. OFC it was a bad choice, but had they made a better one I don't know if it would have yielded a substantially better result. We've been fucking with that place pretty hard.
Oh. Probably best to remember that Bush the Dumber was "elected" with less than half of the popular vote and only after the Supreme Court ended recounts which were being stage-managed in Florida by his own fucking brother. That was clearly not our finest moment... in fact, our slide towards banana republic status begins then.
But the Iraqi election was a clear cut win for the Shi'a parties which any fool - except Dubya apparently - could have seen just based on the demographic status of the nation. As noted above, this is not a country it is an amalgamation of 3 separate populations who pretty much hate each other.
And yes, I think that Maliki insisted on the ability to try American soldiers in Iraqi courts exactly for the reason that there would then be no extension of the deal and he could move on with his primary policy mission: cracking down on the Sunnis.
