The George W. Bush Thread
- Thread starter MrPresident
- Start date
Benderino
Loyal American Democrat
You mean Iraq? No, there were many others. Some good, others illegitimate. But I know where you're going, and let me just say I support taking out all the dictators of the world.
But France, Russia, and Germany all helped make the mess, but they seem to refuse to help clean it up (or at least veto when we try).
Yes, YOU support taking out all dictators, you are a fine person, no doubt. But your goverment doesn't want to take out all dictators in the world, that's the hypocricy I don't like.
I also want France and Germany and all other countries to help. I'll leave it be with this, I'm in no mood to continue.
I also want France and Germany and all other countries to help. I'll leave it be with this, I'm in no mood to continue.
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
Considering the Iraq story is about cleaning a mess is just like considering an axe is the best tool to cut someone's hair.
The Chosen One
Warlord
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2003
- Messages
- 170
Atleast our government acts, most other governments in the world act like the world is a great place. It is not.
Benderino
Loyal American Democrat
Agreed. I have nothing against Europe, as anyone would know having seen me post here before. France, Germany, and Russia didn't have to help us clean up, but did they have to stop us from doing what we felt we had to do? I also agree my government's full of hypocrisy at the moment, all I'm suggesting is that if I were in charge, there'd be a lot less dictators in the world.
@Marla, why? People have used the argument to not go to war because "we sold Saddam weapons 15 years ago..." so my response is always "so what?" Just because we made the mess, and put him in power, doesn't mean we should leave him there once he starts killing millions of people, that's all.
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
Yeah... Maghreeb is on Mars, it's not in this world.
There are two places in the "Middle East" that are really close to democracy :
- Maghreeb : There's a freedom of press over there. Mohammad VI is making some improvement and we should support him. In Algeria, the fundamentalist influence is decreasing. In Tunisia, the country is experiencing a really fast economic growth and a true modernization of the country.
- Iran : Since the election of Khatami in 1997, the conservatives live a real hard time over there. Just like the old oligarchs they are, they are just fighting for their survive elections after elections. People are exhausted of the Islamic Republic and it's certainly the country of the region where fundamentalism is the less popular. The country is mature to experience <i>real</i> democracy very soon.
Did the US helped in both case ? Well, GWB has put Iran in the axis of Evil just to prove to those conservatives Iran has still a very well alive outside ennemy. In Maghreeb... nope. No help. It's a matter of months or years before the Islamic Parliamentary system falls by itself... but don't expect Iranians to wave little American flags once it will occur. It's not tomorrow that Iran will have any trust in the USA... and certainly not with Bush in command.
That was about the good news, now for the bad news. Three major countries are at the brink of an Islamic the Egyptian dictatorship, the Saudi dictatorship, the Afghani dictatorship. I'm not talking about smaller countries like Jordan. After all, Yemen and Sudan are already fundamentalist dictatorship and obviously the guy in the white house don't give a f**k about it.
We may be able to react if only one of those dictatorships falls. And that will certainly help to avoid the change... however, with the troops the US have sent in Iraq, it won't be so easy. In the case two are falling together, well then there's really no solution to stop it... and then, they will all fall. Today's "stability" is very fragile... the world can have a different face pretty fast, and not in a good way. And sorry to say that invading Iraq didn't clean any mess, it acted as a gasoline to promote fundamentalist propaganda.
Benderino
Loyal American Democrat
I've never heard Iran described like that. That's a very interesting point-of-view. From all the reports I've heard, it's the moderates in Iran that are struggling under the oppressive might of the conservatives like Khomeini. I'm not saying you're wrong, I've just never heard it said like that before.
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
The threat, today, is fundamentalism. Not dying secular dictatorships. That's what you obviously didn't get.
If you think that there's no choice between secular and fundamentalist dictatorships, there's no choice, the only one being Democracy, fine. But Middle East is getting stressed for many reasons since many years, and democracy means in most of those countries* fundamentalist dictatorships.
Instead of saying to the Arab world : "The Era of Secular Dictatorship is over", the good message, IMO, should have been : "Fundamentalism is not a solution".
*list of countries were fundamentalists are close to take power in the Middle East : Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Afghanistan.
Benderino
Loyal American Democrat
Weren't we also sending the message that merciless, blood-loving dictatorships aren't the way to go?
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
The moderates have a massive support in the population. Khatami, who rules the country, is a moderate by the way. The thing is that the old conservatives are keeping the power in the Parliamentary House. And, as they're scared to lose it, they're using their power to ban moderate candidates from elections. However, this is highly impopular and the "street" pressures are against the conservatives (i.e. the fundamentalists). It's the only country in the region that is experiencing pressures in this way.
By the way, it would be great if those silly old oligarchs will fall soon. The sooner the better. Iran could become the expected model of Democracy Paul Kagan and Paul Wolfowitz were obviously hoping for. If the Iranian regimes fall because of the pressure of the street, it will give a fantastic example to the region : "We've experienced fundamentalism, it may be shiite and not sunni, but still. As a result, it's been a failure so don't go this way"
Iran is actually the only hope I get in the region. All Middle East countries have really weak regimes right now. If another will fall before Iran. It won't be any good news since, at the opposite of the Iranian case, it will have as message : "Hey look up ! In here we finally did the fundamentalist revolution ! Follow us everyone !"
If there are guys to financially help in the Middle East right now, it's definitly the Iranians moderates or even atheists (there are LOTS of them). However, invading Iran isn't a better solution. It's not France which had freed the US from Britain in 1776, it's americans themselves. We may support them, but that must be their revolution (Here, 1989 Eastern Europe would be a good analogy).
SeleucusNicator
Diadoch
Shockingly enough, I agree with all of that, hence my original opposition to the Iraq war.
However, I think you, like most Europeans and leftists, are far too optimistic about Iran. Iranian moderates have not been capable of doing anything truely fatal to the old regime yet, and the old regime grows closer and closer to having nuclear weapons. In the end, there is going to have to be a choice between a slim chance of timely collapse or the terrifying prospect of a nuclear-armed regime on the brink of being overthrown.
Benderino
Loyal American Democrat
I know Khatami is the moderate leader.
Anyway, I like your post. In the case of Iran, I too have always preached letting them be, and was outraged when Bush put it on the "Axis of Evil" list. It would be nice to see in the nest ten or twenty years a more modern, moderate, democratic, and dare I say "Westernized" Iran. I definetly think that we need to support the moderates using financial backings of some sort.
Maybe that's the inevitable jump the Muslim states must make. First there is a modern monarchical state. The people must then make a fundamentalist revolution, and soon there will be a reaction against that, which will be more moderate and West-loving. Iran may be the new model for such an act, as many of the Arab states are currently led by a monarch (much like the Shah).
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
Cause you consider me as a leftist ??? There's no more moderate than me Seleucus. 
Obviously, you're putting the center where I would put the far right.The Iranian oligarch regime is almost dead. I can bet you 1,000 that it will be destroyed before 2010. Oh sorry... uro is a leftist currency. A moderate currency is the dollar. So I bet you $ 1,000 then.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
An Iranian moderate is one that has run out of ammunition.
Free Enterprise
The return stroke.
The ACLU (very often considering leaning towards American liberalism) and probably most Democrats would definitely team up with the Republicans against such a ban were it to be proposed in the United States.
It is abstract to most people, few care what country has a law if they don't like the law.
To say Iran is close to democracy is a *bit* of an exaggeration. Khatami has no real power, the ayatollahs can have him killed anytime they want to(seriously). They even decided to veto his brother, who was running for a political office which I can't remember.
The real power is in the hands of the hardline, demented islamic clerics.
Yago
came undone
I don't think that a situation which will last long. How it all ends, that is obviously in the future. But the mullahs in Iran have huge, growing trouble to keep the people under their thump.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
Don't get your feathers so ruffled, it's just an old Kissinger quote.
luiz is right though, any "moderate" (though I'm sure any real moderate would be immediately jailed by the secret police) has his hands tied by the clerics.
