Maybe some people are fated to live under the heel of a boot.

[JohnnyRingo]

I of course was against the Iraq invasion from day one.

Articles I'd read indicated that their religious differences were kept in check through strict rule that banned many rites and intolerance. Saddam used an iron fist to force his people to live together, and wouldn't allow them to do things like parading through the street wearing white while whipping themselves bloody because it caused certain problems from one radical faction. Hussein forced religious harmony to the point that when we entered the country over 100,000 Catholics lived in Baghdad. They and many others have since fled the country.

The constantly repeated mantra at the time was that they deserved democracy and the right to form their own government. For nine long years we've been teaching them how to swim on their own by basically working on shore with lessons on arm strokes. Throughout, they found themselves unable to coordinate their left arm with their right. All the while, we watched these "helpless" people who were powerless to defend themselves from a brutal dictator, ring up mounting kills against our military and foil our every attempt to bring them all under the same tent politically.

I think, after nine years of watching these democracy challenged idiots refuse to unify on religious differences and join the rest of the world in prosperity and independence, it's time to push them off the dock and walk away without looking back. If they face drowning because they insist on using one arm to lash out at their fellow countryman as they gulp mouthfulls of water, then maybe they'll need a new dictator to fish them out of the deep end and sever those limbs they so childishly seem unable to control.

Maybe some people are unable to govern themselves.

[leftstreet]

1. 'join the rest of the world in prosperity and independence' Wtf does that mean?

[JohnnyRingo]

5. It means the opposite of what they have now.

It seems without our billion dollars a week they won't survive, and they have one of the biggest oil reserves in the world.

It's like a spoiled child who gets a huge allowance from daddy and still can't make ends meet because they keep wrecking their car and spending the rest on violent video games. With determination and self disipline they can at least make as much of themselves as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and any other prosperous country in the Middle East. "Independence" may not be the role model of many of their neighbors, but at least they're able to move in one direction for the benefit of the country's infrastructure, education, and social balance.

I didn't expect I'd have to clarify that, but there you go.

[sabrina 1]

16. That money did not go to the Iraqis. It went to our mercenaries

or contractors, as we like to call them. Where are you getting your information? This sounds like Fox News/CNN today on this forum.

They are a wealthy country, or were until we stole their oil revenues. What happened to the nine billion missing dollars stolen from them in the beginning of the war? They never wanted OUR money, and we never gave them OUR money, we took THEIRS.

Turn off the MSM. Our country is filled with poor people, one in five children living under the poverty line here. The same criminals who have stolen from Iraq, have also stolen from us. Get some sources other than Fox and CNN because those people work for those who created all of this mess and they are not going to tell you the truth.

[JohnnyRingo]

17. I wouldn't shed too many tears for Iraq

I strongly opposed the invasion, and was frankly perfectly satisfied with how Saddam was running their country, but Bush did what he did. From then on, it was in their better interests to reorganize their government, but Shiites and Sunnis spent nine years busting heads over control and religious differences. We should have walked out at least immediately after Hussein's death. If Iran was stupid enough to stick their necks in that bear trap, so be it. I could live with that as well.

As it is, now that we're leaving I harbor serious doubts that they will form anything resembling a free and functional democracy. That's the original gist of my post. If you're telling me flowers will now sprout in the desert and the country will experience a renaissance of religious and social harmony now that the evil western forces won't be "stealing from them", then we'll soon see.

I predict the boot heel we held on their throats since 2003 will quickly be replaced by another, but it won't be our fault anymore. If you want to boo hoo over a people who allowed themselves to live a hundred generations of oppression, then don't expect me to hand you a kleenex.

It's more than a little insulting that you refer to me as common gutter snake Freep who gets anything other than comic relief from Fox News, and I fail to see how you read that into my post.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. I guess you mean Americans?

[JohnnyRingo]

8. How about Canada?

If you surprisingly don't think the United States is an independent or wealthy enough role model, perhaps we can hope they develop the good sense of governance like our neighbors to the North. Maybe they can succeed along the lines of another oil producing country like Brazil or Saudi Arabia.

We've held their hand long enough. If they can't walk on their own by now, they deserve to live on their knees.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. I don't think Americans can govern themselves. Iraqis and others in the Middle East are not stupid

people nor inferior to anyone.

[JohnnyRingo]

10. I disagree.

For better or worse I think our system of democracy rivals any in the world. Unless we disqualify fanatics from voting we're going to see the ups and downs of partisan ignorance, but that wouldn't be a democracy, would it. Sure, campaign finance has been corrupted, but I see it as a mere speed bump on the way to a more perfect union. it's only been 230 years, but Mesopotamia has had thousands of years to get where they are now. I don't think they're very good at self governance.

Their biggest problem seems to be religious difference. While we have similar problems here, I believe our constitution has safety guards that keep us from descending into the political abyss that challenges current day Iraq.

[GSLevel9]

3. well said... I will buy that. nt

[Autumn]

4. I agree with you

we can't give people freedom and democracy. Some things one has to do on their own.

[Amonester]

6. Oh, they will govern themselves, but probably not like we want.

Letting them govern themselves as they will collectively decide is none of our bidne$$.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. At least it won't be our boot anymore. At least not directly.

[tabatha]

11. These people are completely able to govern themselves.

Broad-brushing.

If your country had been as devastated as Iraq was, I wonder whether it would have been any different.

After the first Iraq war, when Iraq was left to its own devices, they managed to get damaged facilities up and running in no time.

The people who are supposed to be able to govern themselves, come from one of the most sophisticated countries in the world, the US, totally screwed up the Iraq reconstruction, lost billions of dollars and wasted billions of dollars. They have NO excuse AT ALL.

Take the moat out of your own eye, buddy!

[JohnnyRingo]

13. The US nvasion represents less than 1% of their history.

We've been a democracy in the works for a couple hundred years, Mesopotamia has had thousands.
If by now, they haven't figured out how to govern themselves without a central disiplinarian figure, they never will.

Even today, they risk takeover from any one of a half dozen neighbors because they concern themselves with religious differences over democracy.

Screw 'em, they've had their chance. Over & over.

on edit:
I remember seeing Saddam, the leader who "fed enemies to the wood chipper", standing on a balcony firing a rifle with one hand as his countrymen unloaded the Kalishnikovs into the air from below. I was screaming at the "oppressed" people on the TV screen to "aim lower, assholes!". Yeah... These are the disadvantaged people who have no control over their future because of outside influence. After nine years, we've found that these Iraqis are unwilling to make their own beds unless their mom tells them they have to, .....and how did you know my name was "Buddy"?

[Book Lover]

12. And here I was, pining for a small taste of good, old-fashioned Orientalism

Thanks, buddy!

[Safetykitten]

14. I was thinking along somewhat the same lines today.

Why is it that we insert ourselves in every situation around the world. Maybe it's time to be more of an introspective country and work on our own house than constantly trying to build a society we would like somewhere else?

We are in what I think is a final stage of decay in our country when we are so weakened that we ourselves will be a victim of other countries that have not extended themselves. We can't be the planet's only go to guy. We can't anymore. We have to rebuild our house, then we might have a chance.

[sabrina 1]

15. Is this a joke?

If not, what a load of garbage and ignorance of history. 'these people' you so denigrate, live in the cradle of civilization. They were governing themselves and teaching Western nations things they might never have discovered, before our 'democracy', if you still call it that, ever existed.

WE imposed Saddam Hussein on them. He was OUR creation, not THEIRS. And every time they rose up against him, WE interfered. WE killed their democratically elected President and replaced him with Saddam Hussein, to do exactly what you say he did, keep them under control, for US.

He would still be there, controlling them brutally, if he had not gotten the crazy idea that he could start doing a few things WE did not want him to do. All of our dictator friends need to learn that. We only love them so long as they keep their people under control so they will not fight us taking their resources or installing our military bases on their soil.

Have you ever traveled outside the US? I hate to break it to you, but there ARE better democracies than ours. Some countries have actually done a better job than we have, and we did not invent democracy, just FYI.

My Iraqi friend, with whom I have lost contact because of the war, was one of the most educated, kind, decent human beings I have ever known. My cousin visited Iraq about a year ago and when he returned he could not believe the devastation he saw. A country that once had, even under Saddam Hussein, a first class educational system, a first class healthcare system all free, where women had the same rights as men, and equal pay, which we still do not have, was destroyed.

Your OP is offensive to say the least. I suggest you go visit some of the countries we think we are superior to. With an open mind. I think you will be shocked at how much propaganda we are exposed to here in our isolation from the rest of the world.

We are good at destroying, as we did Iraq, and Christians lived in harmony with Iraqis for generations, until WE invaded them and brought in Negroponte's death squads and our brutal mercenaries and released all the murderers and criminals from Iraq's jails.

[JohnnyRingo]

19. I'm sorry, what I meant to say

....is that I fiercly hate the United States and spit on the flag every chance I get. I wish we were more like Iraq so I could fire my Kalishnakov in the air to celebrate our advanced multimillenium peace loving culture.

Feel better?

[Starry Messenger]

20. +1000

[sendero]

18. The fact that Iraqis are unable to come together..

... makes them no less stupid than the fools who thought they could make them do so.