Posted on 06/26/2006 4:15:36 PM PDT by Mister Ghost
On the Proposed Amnesty
First of all, I don't think it makes any sense. IED makers and planters kill more Iraqis than Americans, just like the rest of the "resistance". They kill children. They kill motorists. They lack fire discipline and a certain degree of conscience. It is a fallacious belief that there exist Iraqis who make bombs destined only American stryker vehicles and none for Shi'a mosques; and that those making bombs don't collaborate with those recruiting human bombs for Iraqi neighborhoods.
Secondly, I don't think it will have the desired effect: ending the insurgency. Because the amnesty is general, there is no reason to believe a large percentage of (or even most of) those amnestied will not go back to their former behavior. None of the Iraqi politicians suggesting this plan are suggesting that maybe they ought to ask the killers they are releasing whether they will go out and continue their work. That would be a good question because the framework of this amnesty (releasing those who murdered and maimed non-Iraqis) carries the implication that killing "foreigners" might not be such a bad thing anyway. So why would they stop? Yet without those "foreigners" the New Iraq cannot hope to succeed. This plan is not a plan. It is a hope. It is a hope against hope.
Unfortunately, I believe releasing these monsters onto Iraq will have the same beneficial effect that Saddam's general amnesty before the war did: cutting loose the worst elements on Iraqi society...only this time, with an implied justification of their criminal behavior.
This is a politician's solution. Frequently, politicians have to come up with solutions even when there is no political consensus for how to do it. In this case, the Sunni Arab parties want people released who have participated in the insurgency. But the Shi'a Arab parties are against releasing people who have targeted them and deliberately spoiled the country over the last 3 years. So what do you do? A politician splits the difference:
They will release Iraqis who have only killed non-Iraqis. Non-Iraqis don't vote in Iraq, so there is no political problem in releasing their killers. So the politicians can pretend to release "benign" insurgents (in effect, only releasing those with powerful enough connections to "prove" they haven't harmed Iraqis), while keeping in prison those who have harmed Iraqis with the political voice of the vote.
Sometimes splitting the difference can lead to a solution that does more good than harm. Usually, it either makes no change or makes things worse. I believe this plan to be the latter. To Read More
Pretty obvious this clown did not even bother to read the plan. This is the same thing we do everytime we allow one of these people to surrender. What is this Democrats and their mouthpieces don't want the US Military to accept surrenders any more?
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