Just read an interesting poll result in Iraq from Yahoo News.
“Leaders of Iraq religious parties have emerged as the country’s most popular politicians and would win the largest share of votes if an election were held today, while the U.S.-backed government of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is losing serious ground, according to a U.S.-financed poll by the International Republican Institute.
“More than 45 percent of Iraqis also believe that their country is heading in the wrong direction, and 41 percent say it is moving in the right direction.
“Within the Bush administration, a victory by Iraq’s religious parties is viewed as the worst-case scenario. Washington has hoped that Allawi and the current team, which was selected by U.S. and U.N. envoys, would win or do well in Iraq’s first democratic election, in January. U.S. officials believe a secular government led by moderates is critical, in part because the new government will oversee writing a new Iraqi constitution.”
What happens if a religious zealot wins the election? Does Bush attack him too? And keep capturing Iraqi leaders until the guy he wants in power wins an election?
So Denis, are you saying it’s okay to have someone from a group like the Taliban to be in rule? So the people can be oppressed all over again?
If the Iraqi people ELECT a theocratic leader, then that’s who will be their leader. President Bush will honor that, as he should. Doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.
Obviously the fear of a theocractic government in Iraq is that it will devolve into something similar to Iran’s government, which wouldn’t be great for the Middle East. Being a theocratic democracy means that there might be hope for a change to a more wholly democratic government in the future.
Ultimately it’s up to the Iraqi people – the voters.
Having the Taliban in power seemed to be good enough for the Bush administration, since they gave them millions just a few months before 9/11/01. They didn’t give a crap about oppressed people then, and they still don’t-unless those oppressed people just happen to live above the worlds second largest oil reserve.
Rob – I didn’t realize that the Vietnamese were living over an oil reserve during the Vietnam War, or that the Jews were living over an oil reserve in WWII (just to name two of the more recent instances in our illustrious past where we helped oppressed people in other countries).
Nice point, Jaynee.
And…if we’re fighting this war for oil, then how come the price of oil is rising and our gas prices have increased? You’d think that now that we’ve “taken over” two oil rich nations that the oil would be plentiful here in the US and prices would decrease, right?
OH good point Jaynee (LOL)
The BUSH administration was not in power when the US actually gave a crap about oppressed people.
All this silly banter on these dumb web sites let us all speak for ourselves on 11/2.
I was going to say, to quote a great president, “There you go again.” It’s called history. Bush had nothing to do with Vietnam or WW II, as much as he’d like to take credit for victory in the latter. *lol*
As Tara says, November 2nd will end all these dicussions. Then we can start new ones. *lol* Just imagine how many lawyers are going to be employed when the vote is close. Let’s hope for a Kerry landslide. Tara, start mobilizing the female vote.
I was speaking about the current administration and their “compassionate” leader.
Everytime I goto the pump I wonder why the prices keep going up. You’d think that the prices would start to come down. But with the country as unstable as it is, they probably cannot get the industry up and running yet.
It truely sickens me to think that we’d start a war for oil, but when we find out that there are no WMD, and there is no connection between Saddam and Bin Laden, it leads me to think other things. Either this is all to avenge Daddy, or, we want control of the oil, but probably both. “Freeing an oppressed people” was like third excuse they came up with. When we went into the country one of the first things we did was secure the oil fields…later, we forgot to stop the looting and secure the peace. As Rummy said, “In a free society, people are free to do what they want.” I thought THAT was fascinating, didn’t know that!
I realize the current administration wasn’t in power during those two particular wars, but those wars also had great disapproval in this country. FDR wasn’t “permitted” to join in WWII until our country was attacked in Pearl Harbor. The U.S. population up until that point refused to get involved and help the Jews out from their plight. FDR had to do all his work to help England and the Allies in secret and only when we were attacked was he able to get the nation’s support to participate. And in that regard “freeing oppressed people” was not our first reason either, but it became the most important one in the long run, wouldn’t you agree? So I don’t see how this is any different…whatever you think the main reason we went there was, the talk now is of creating a democracy so that people there have rights and freedom – including the basic freedom of speech that you get to enjoy on this website.
My point in my comment is that the world would be a MUCH different place if the U.S. remained isolationist and didn’t come to the aid of other countries.
I can’t wait until this election is over either – so that we can stop talking politics on this website. This isn’t a political blog and I have no desire to become one.
Wait a second, doesn’t that whole bit about the U.S. not entering WWII until Pearl Harbor kill your theory? The U.S. /was/ isolationist, until their people got killed. If it weren’t for Pearl Harbor, America would have stayed out of the war – hence the isolationism: “If it doesn’t affect me directly…”
Jae – no, it only enforces my position on the War in Iraq. We went after Saddam Hussein because of our global war on terror, started after the attack on 9/11. We went from isolationism to intervention in WWII, and we did it when we went into Iraq. No, Hussein didn’t run planes into our buildings, but I bet if he had come up with the idea first he would have. He certainly threatened to do things to our country.