[CLUE-Talk] Iraq Stuph

[Dennis J Perkins]

> * Dennis J Perkins (djperkins at americanisp.net) wrote:
> > The war was the easy part.  The hard part will be setting a government 
> > that does what we want.  The politicians talk about setting up a 
> > democracy but
> > when the people don't know what one is, how long will we stay to teach 
> > them?  Will the Iraqis still be so happy to see there in two years? 
> > Will we be asking ourselves why we are there?  Bush's wanting to keep 
> > the UN out won't look good either.
> 
> This sentiment, while seemingly innocent, is what scares the rest of the
> world.
> 
> "The hard part will be setting a government that does what we
> want."
> 
> While I understand your sentiment, and even agree with it somewhat
> (we do want at least mostly friendly government there, don't we?), it
> could be terrifying to nations that have no ability to oppose us (which
> is just about everybody, it seems these days.) We invaded a sovereign
> nation (albeit a really nasty one) to put a new nation in its place
> that "will do what we want." That is what most foreign nations see,
> particularly Arabs. Add to this that our case for war was not strongly
> made, in most non-Americans eyes, and that we invaded without any
> blessing of the UN, NATO, etc., and we start to look like an 'empire'
> to others, even if we don't rule our 'colonies' directly. If enough
> people *think* we are an empire, it becomes irrelevant whether or not we
> actually are. Our neighbors will treat us as one.
> 
> And in the long term, I think this may cause more trouble than good.
> Hopefully I am wrong.
> 
> Tim
> --
> ==============================================
> ==  Timothy Klein || teece at silverklein.net  ==
> ==  http://i148.denver.dsl.forethought.net  ==
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> == "Hello, World" 17 Errors, 31 Warnings... ==
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I'm not a fan of this administration and I was being sarcastic.  We are 
following in Britain's footsteps in its old imperial policy of replacing 
troublesome, local leaders with friendlier ones.  I suspect that this was 
standard policy for any empire.

I do have foreign friends who say that at times our govt seems to bully their 
govts.  (For that matter, it sometimes bullies our states as well.)  I think 
it's hard for most Americans to accept that other countries don't necessarily 
view the world the way we do.