Re: [OT] Iraq

In article <s8GdnRfyUvDoOWnbnZ2dnUVZ_g-dnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
LX-i <lxi0007@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
docdwarf@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
In article <uJ-dnaJYC-eXqm7bnZ2dnUVZ_uevnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
LX-i <lxi0007@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
SkippyPB wrote:
But the job is done. The stated goal was to bring down Saddam and
bring democracy to Iraq. Both have happened.
But can that democracy remain if they do not have trained military and
police force?

This is, I believe, called 'moving the target'. If the goal was to 'bring
democracy to Iraq' and 'democracy was brought to Iraq' then the job was
done. If the job was 'bring democracy to Iraq and insure that it remains
for (period of time)' then it was not stated as such; re-stating goals
after they've been accomplished is not, in my experience, usually
something done by folks known as 'honorable'.

And exactly what good is democracy that fails ten seconds after we walk
out the door?

That might depends on who was trying to use it for what end.

That's irresponsible - best voiced by then Secretary of
State Colin Powell. He called it the Pottery Barn principle - "you
break it, you buy it."

So... the United States brings it, the Iraqis break it and it then falls
upon the United States to bring in more. Seems more like 'they break it,
*we* buy it.'

Democracy isn't something we can drop from an
airlift - it has to be demonstrated, trained, and nurtured.

It was. 'This is how you form a government, this is how elections are
held and this is how elected representatives respond to the people. Got
that? Good, I have a transport out to catch.'


Of course - when all they hear are the Democrats saying that, after a
while they begin to believe it.

Oh no... are those Pesky Jews back to controlling The Media again? I
thought that in these days of modern time, with stuff like the Internet
and a free market in ideas, that people could hear whatever they looked
for.

Heh - if the Jews were running it, I think we'd be just fine. It's the
terrorist-sympathizers that I have the problem with. :)

Terrorist-sypmathisers or Latter-Day Zoroastrians... the job of the media
is to sell eyeballs and column-inches; rules of the Free Market may be
applied in analysing the reasons for a particular view being presented.


Not today, not tomorrow, not 50 years from now which is
how long we'll be there if current policies prevail. There must be a
political solution and that can't be driven by the US. Only Iraq's
leaders can drive that car.
Tell that to the Democrats (and some liberal Republicans) - *they're*
the ones demanding timetables of the Iraqi government.

Ummmmm... didn't you just, a few paragraphs, ask if democracy can remain
over time? That seems to be demanding a timetable; does that make you a
Democrat or a liberal Republican?

You're "seeming" this wrongly. Establishing a democracy that will last
is a far cry from saying "You will do (x) and (y) and (z) by a certain
date, or we will issue very, very stern warnings to you."

No, it is much simpler than that. 'That will last' begs the question
'last for how long?'; right now there is an Iraqi parliament so avanced
that it takes vacations that are just as long as those of the President of
the United States of America. This seems like a symptom of 'advancement',
no?

I saw a chart
that the Iraqi parliament has accomplished 8 of 17 "benchmarks"
suggested to them, while the Democrat Congress chiding them for missing
benchmarks has accomplished 1 of the 7 things on which its candidates
ran leading up to November 2006. Who's missing the target here?

I've seen charts that show the project I'm working on is on time, on spec
and under budget.


The military is
there to help the process, and give them guidance. But, the legislation
is theirs, the voting is theirs, and the enforcement is theirs.

These seem to have been given to them, as noted above... and some say that
it is the military's job 'to kill people and break things', not to 'help'
and 'give guidance', as you say they are doing.

Training and reproducing is a natural part of maintaining a standing
military - involving those of other nations in this training is
commonplace.

Not according to those whose assertion that the military's job is 'to kill
people and break things'. You want training, hire DeVry Institutes.

In my current job, I've met officers from several
different countries who came to our Safety Center for training. We're
not building their nations, but we share lessons learned and best practices.

Not too many of such folks are involved in shooting wars with the US, it
is hoped.


The State Department folks are the ones giving the guidance.

Fine... then send over the Staties and guy my brothers in khaki... errrr,
olive drab... errrr, digitised whatever *out of the way of bullets*.


Socialists in the Democratic Party? Where do you get this stuff and
how do you know they've always "hated" whose success and other stuff?
Just what are you talking about?
Where in our Constitution does it say that health care is a *right*?
Where does it authorize the Federal government to run something like the
Department of Education? Where is it written that it is the
responsibility of the Federal government to bail out businesses who
don't handle their books correctly, just because they provide a service
that may have values to some Americans? Where are we authorized to pay
farmers *not* to grow things?

All this social engineering legislation, welfare, government health
care, is *all* socialistic.

Might it be asked where you found your definition of 'socialism'? 'Having
been influenced by Federal policy' is not, last I looked, in any
definition with which I am familiar; the ones I was taught used phrases
like 'collective ownership of the means of production' and 'government
administration of the distribution of goods'.

Government has no money of its own.

This seems to be contradicted by the busily-humming presses of the Bureau
of Printing and Engraving and the Mint. Governments say 'this is what
will be accepted as money', make it and insure the circulation of it... or
at least they've seemed to do so over the past few years.

If government has no money then how, pray tell, does a currency
devaluation work?

To have money, it has to take that
money from its citizens; this taking of money, taxation, being done at
the point of a gun. (You don't pay, you go to jail.)

Oooooo... guys with guns, the Libertarians (sometimes referred to as
'Jefferson's Mistakes') can be far away. Guys with guns take stuff that
says 'this is a product of the Mint/BPE... but that's not government
property, right?

When the government takes *my* money to give it to someone else
(not the aforementioned "common" things), *that's* socialism.

Not according to the definitions cited previously about 'collective
ownership of the means of production' and 'goernment administration of the
distribution of goods'. Governments which have functioned on any
decent-sized scale have always, to the best of my knownedge, have had the
power to take a buck from over here and put it over there; if doing so is
'socialism' then all governments, by that criterion, are socialist... and
that appears to be an absurdity.

[snip]

Yet,
last time I checked, both of these organizations received some sort of
subsidy from the Federal government.

Receiving a subsidy from the Federal Government is neither, last I looked,
demonstrating a 'collective ownership of the means of productions' nor
'government administration of the distribution of goods'. Insofar as that
is correct then the situation you've cited is, by definition, *not*
socialism.

DD

.

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