Posted on 03/02/2005 7:14:03 AM PST by pissant
Those Unintended Consequences
Like nothing else so far, the weekend polling in Iraq validated George W. Bush's repetitive claim about why he went to Iraq.
Well, actually, bringing democracy to the Iraqi people was not one of the 27 different reasons the President and the Congress put forth. But never mind.
The American president might have presented his fervent desire for Iraqi self-determination as the primary reason for the invasion before he spent $200 billion dollars, killed 1500 Americans, 100,000 Iraqis and sacrificed 20 thousand American military arms, legs and eyes to the altar of democracy.
Instead, he insisted it was the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, a nonexistent association with Osama bin Laden and Saddam's nonexistent responsibility for 911.
But it's all OK now. Even with martial law, incidents of mayhem and murder of both Iraqis and Americans, secret polling places and power outages that still plague much of the country, Iraqis voted.
They didn't vote for men or women, they didn't vote on the "issues" and they didn't vote for the form the new government will take. The United States government had already taken care of organizing and approving those details.
Like all rituals, the Iraqi election reassures and comforts. It suggests that Iraqis have a legitimate way to focus their dissatisfaction, and an alternative to violence. It whispers to them that they are civilized, empowered, a nation. It claims to all the world that Iraqi opinions matter.
This election in Iraq is no model for future elections. Martial law, massive non-participation zones, disrespect for any rule not mandated at the point of an American gun, or as needed, Prime Minister Allawi's pistol, the persistent presence of a foreign occupier in the Iraqi halls of finance and industry, and defense and intelligence – all this must change.
Overwhelmingly, Iraqis want the American forces to depart, and they want to benefit fully from their country's potential – they want to be liberated from American interference, economic control and meddling. Some want a kind of decentralization that a federated Iraq would provide. Others want an Islamic country that lives its principles. Still others want independence, or a centralized state.
By virtue of a single national exercise, awkwardly and painfully, Iraq has been changed. Sure, its government will be roughly the same for some time forward. It will remain occupied by Americans, with American bases and American ownership of many national industries and resources. Iraq will continue to sell its oil on the dollar.
But Iraq is a nation that – whether forced or willingly – has put on the muscle shirt of democracy. Last week, Iraq was a 98-pound weakling. Today, Iraq is a 98-pound weakling with a sense that it can assert itself. This Iraq "democracy" will – perhaps with the emergence of a new Sunni or Shia Robispierre or an Iraqi Napoleon – demand that the Americans leave. A counrty with the second largest oil reserves in the world can afford its own army.
Last weekend, Iraq performed a ritual, under fire, that tells the world it has grown up. Even if botched terribly, this painful scarification earns Iraq a new seat at the table of nations.
The Iraqis will get what they want. An end to American domination, an end to the base building, an end to occupation and cancellation of long-term leases illegally authorized by the American proxy government.
Unlike most of the Middle East under decades of colonial resource extraction, 21st century Iraq will take back their oil. Democracies have an intense sense of what justice looks like. Democracies are not always serene and merciful, in love with peace. As America's own history in the 20th century illustrates, democracies are often quick to take offense, tend to revel in violence, and will adopt exclusionary rhetoric in an instant.
America leads the way, as democracies go. The American president waves a banner of "with us or against us," serves freedom fries on the side, and shuffles towards Gomorrah with "boot in your ass" lyrics playing on the jukebox. American's founding fathers feared such democracy, but never mind that.
The Bush administration delayed the Iraqi elections delayed for over a year. Bush is now making a new war with Iran, to ensure the creation of a brand new military threat to justify America's continued military presence in the newly "democratic" Iraq.
Now you know why. While many soldiers and marines would like to come home, and stay home, well-dressed war pimps in America insist that they must not.
What's done is done. The unintended consequences of the controlled panic that passes for foreign policy in Washington will be its own corrective. Long live the Iraqi democrats!
I guess for people like Karen, freedom really is free.
The mindless masses strike again. THEY JUST CANNOT ACCEPT THAT 9/11 HAPPENED, or even who did it and why. Total self-serving ignorance. This hog-swill of an article just continues to prove it. Too bad she was not made to clean up the bodies of 9/11...these sickening arm-chair selfish whiners should be relegated to Cuba, or some fitting environment where fighting for freedom gets you the firing squad..that might serve to provide some attitude and perspective adjustment.
I took the opportunity to read some of her other columns as well. What a sad, sorry woman this is.
She makes Pat Buchanan look like Karl Rove.
It's nice when someone's age finally catch up with their IQ . . . there's a certain symmetry in that and Mizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Kwiatowski has joined a long line of petulant morons who have joined this un-exclusive club.
KK is lying. The official war resolution did not refer to democracy because that was not one of the reasons - in terms of international law - which justified the invasion. Those legal reasons had to do with Iraq's flouting of numerous UN resolutions. But Bush made it clear before the invasion that creating a free and democratic Iraq was indeed one of the ultimate objectives of the war. So these are not "unintended consequences."
Sounds like she's been dating Michael Douglas.
You would think that after a long career as an insider that this chick would have a clue. Read the article linked below to see the tripe she spewed in the summer of '03. I wonder how being this damned wrong does not cause her to reassess her positions.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0805-08.htm
She must have gotten seriously jilted or used by someone in this administration. I truly wonder if this is a woman scorned.
As a retired military officer, she is of the opinion she knows better, than her past superiors, how to run the United States and kneeling before the Europians (you know, those folks from Europa?) is her style.
As they said in the Navy ... " A bitching man is a happy man". Kwiatkowski's a happy camper and an Arianna want to be.
I can take people who reject the appropriateness, Constitutionality, and feasibility of "Democratic Realism." The way I see it, when any Coalition goes in and changes a dangerous regime, it must instate a peaceful regime in its place. The pre-knowledge that the replacement will greatly enhance security is an appropriate factor in the decision to go in. At the same time, important criteria must be met to justify the invasion, and these were plentifully met in the case of Iraq. End of story.
I can take people who reject that doctrine, but KK goes way over the line into tin-foil-hat territory in her assertion that saber-rattling versus Iran is about justifying the ongoing military presence in Iraq. The most important overall goal of the policy is to reduce threats. So far, nothing in the US policy toward Iran could reasonably be seen as having any other intent.
Does not matter what she calls herself - she is NO Conservative and I doubt she is a Republican either.
Perhaps in her next 'sharing'. . .cretin Karen will tell us what 'form of government works better than Democracy' ; her underlying contempt for the very word. . .seems to imply she might know something better.
Incredible. . .
Just linking your thread to mine.
Faulty Sources Isikoff & MSM previously used: Karen Kwiatkowski & Patrick Lang
NRO and Iraq News ^ | 5-17-05 | Michael Rubin
Posted on 05/19/2005 8:55:33 AM EDT by Matchett-PI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1406272/posts
[snip]
"...I hear from my military readers that access to websites like LewRockwell.com and the LewRockwell blog is now blocked by military Internet systems. Big Internet providers, like AOL and Earthlink, have long been amenable to governmental electronic data drift nets. Yet these same companies seem curiously less tolerant of customer freedoms, as AOL’s and Earthlink’s recent blocking of subscriptions to Lew’s daily email may illustrate. " ~ Karen Kwiatkowski
"Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy, describes people like me who have closely observed the politicization of intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq – and said something about it – as having divided loyalties. ...." ~ Karen Kwiatkowski
August 13, 2003 http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski33.html
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