In the vast flow of words and images, there is occasionally a paragraph or two that says something really important. This excerpt from Michael Yon is such :
By 2007, the Iraqis were doing most of the fighting. And…this is very important…they see our Army and Marines as serious allies, and in many cases as friends. Please let the potential implications of that sink in.
We now have a large number of American and British officers who can pick up a phone from Washington or London and call an Iraqi officer that he knows well — an Iraqi he has fought along side of — and talk. Same with untold numbers of Sheiks and government officials, most of whom do not deserve the caricatural disdain they get most often from pundits who have never set foot in Iraq. British and American forces have a personal relationship with Iraqi leaders of many stripes. The long-term intangible implications of the betrayal of that trust through the precipitous withdrawal of our troops could be enormous, because they would be the certain first casualties of renewed violence, and selling out the Iraqis who are making an honest-go would make the Bay of Pigs sellout seem inconsequential. The United States and Great Britain would hang their heads in shame for a century.
Alternately, in an equation in which the outcome is a stable Iraq for which they (Iraqi Police and Army officials) are stewards, the potential benefits are equally enormous. Because if Iraq were to settle down, and then a decade passes and we look back and even our most severe critics cannot deny that Iraq is a better place, a generation of Iraq’s most important leaders would have deep personal bonds with their counterparts in America and Great Britain. This could actually happen.
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American Elephants 
This is important indeed. The gravity needs to be understood about the war of Iraq. Alternatively, this seems to be some what withdrawing from the flipside: Why was Iraq occupied in the first place, what consequences has it served so far: what have been the domestic and global repercussions of the occupation, and what will ensue? Will Iraq even be a better place?
Having said that, I have to say these words are like a needle in a haystack.
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Comment by destogate January 12, 2008 @ 10:34 pmIraq was occupied because Saddam Hussein atarted a war, invaded another country, and then violated every single term of the cease fire that enabled him to stay in power, and because he violated every one of the 16 secuirty council resolutions against him, and because he refused to fully cooperate even with the US military poised to invade. These are just a few of the 23 reasons, all of which are part of the Authorization to use Military Force approved overwhelmingly by both houses and both parties of congress, and is readily available for reading on the web, or in the Congressional record.
The consequences it has served is removing a rogue dictator, a threat to his own people, the region, a threat to the American people, and to world peace, a man who had invaded other countries no less than 5 times, and who proclaimed his own determination and “right” to possess WMD against the wishes of the world — and he has been replaced by a democratic government, accountable and representative of the peoples wishes, and a fledgeling ally of the United States and the west.
The Iraqi people already say Iraq is a better place.
Your questions are good ones, but this information is all readily available. It just goes to show what a miserable job the media has done of reporting the war.
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Comment by American Elephant January 13, 2008 @ 12:37 amBut do we in the west really have a right to be part of any other country’s affair? I mean we have nuclear weapons and if you read about our defense systems, we would be able to take care of threats even just a minute before the operation.
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Comment by destogate January 13, 2008 @ 1:07 amWe came to Kuwaiit’s defense (with another coalition) when Saddam invaded them. When we defeated him, we left him in power only because he agreed to a strict set of conditions in the cease fire agreement he signed. He has since broken every condition of that cease fire and every UN resolution imposed on him.
In short, the world has laws and he was breaking all of them. Saddam had no right to be in power. We had every legal right to remove him, and the world is much safer for it.
We now have an ally in Iraq. So does most of the world, so long as we do not abandon them before they are able to protect themselves.
Both Iraq and Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which means they have no right to try to develop nuclear weapons.
And our defensive systems are useless against smallpox or any other number of Biological weapons.
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Comment by American Elephant January 13, 2008 @ 2:22 amI have to agree the world is much much safer without Saddam around. We all condemned him, spanning the oceans and continents. Have you read about Mutually Assured Destruction at Cheyenne Mountain?
Thanks for the conversation, American Elephant 🙂
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Comment by destogate January 13, 2008 @ 4:16 am