mosque bombing

[sethad]

where is your god now? if there was such thing as god the bombing wouldnt have happened and we would all be perfect christians.. bull

Whether there's a god or not people will be people. Nothing in Christianity says that there being a god makes life perfect and stupid-people free.

 

[Glaz]

Because it would be completely selfish for us to just leave now, and to think that we should just leave without helping them recover is to ignore the Iraqi people. Were there car bombs and mosque bombings and whatnot going on before we invaded? If at all, certainly not close to the extent as it is now. We started this, and we must fix it, to leave now and leave them to kill eachother would be a terrible mistake.

And what if the way to fix it is for the US to leave? The solution does not have to involve a Marine on every street corner and a 500 lb smart bomb for anyone who says something bad about the US.

 

[EnBelgique]

No . We are not helping at all at this point. The best thing we can do is get out, let them get out their bad blood until they're sick of it. quote=TerabyTe]Because it would be completely selfish for us to just leave now, and to think that we should just leave without helping them recover is to ignore the Iraqi people. Were there car bombs and mosque bombings and whatnot going on before we invaded? If at all, certainly not close to the extent as it is now. We started this, and we must fix it, to leave now and leave them to kill eachother would be a terrible mistake.[/quote]

 

[TerabyTe]

At this point, it seems like a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis is about to happen, if not already happening. Surely, now that we're already there, we can somehow help solve that problem somehow?

I never agreed with us being there in the first place, but now that we already are, and the country's screwed up, we have to do all that we can to stabilize it. Exactly how I don't know, but since we made the mess, we should clean it up.

 

[trunks2k]

Were there car bombs and mosque bombings and whatnot going on before we invaded?

No, there wasn't. As bad a person as Sadaam was, he was good at keeping order. I knew we were going to have a very tough time keeping order amongst Iraqis when we invaded.

 

[Machjo]

We should get out of there quick. Let them kill eachother if that's what they want. Im tired of it.

... Had the US not gone there in the first place, we Iraq wouldn't be in such a mess right now.

So let's see if I get this right. The US goes in, bombs Iraq into the dark ages until the Iraqis are so angry that they move to the verge of civil war, and then pull out and them them kill each otehr. The American way!

 

[Machjo]

And what if the way to fix it is for the US to leave? The solution does not have to involve a Marine on every street corner and a 500 lb smart bomb for anyone who says something bad about the US.

There is a point here. US presence could potentially fuel the anger, with a US withdrawal possibly calming things down a bit.

 

[sethad]

No, there wasn't. As bad a person as Sadaam was, he was good at keeping order. I knew we were going to have a very tough time keeping order amongst Iraqis when we invaded.

It isnt the Iraqi civilians that are the problem its the militants.

And saying that Saddam was a bad person but could at keeping order would be like saying Hitler was bad but good at keeping order...does that mean people shouldnt have stopped Hitler?

I think its good Saddam is out...but its bad that the militants arent under control so now the entire country is going insane.

 

[littleteacher]

Yes very bad indeed. If only the world was a prayerful place, just think how things would be. We just have to keep praying for Iraq and the rest of the world.

 

[Machjo]

Well, if you go onto some Muslim forums, I think they've found a solution...

... they're blaming it on either Mossad, MI6 or the CIA. Oops.

 

[mallowpuff]

People really should think before they act.

I agree, did you notice that Iraqi 'woman' in the picture looked like an American man? Hmmmm. Conspiracy theory here again.

 

[hernyaccent]

I am lost by the last statement.

 

[BobbieDog]

At this point, it seems like a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis is about to happen, if not already happening. Surely, now that we're already there, we can somehow help solve that problem somehow?

I never agreed with us being there in the first place, but now that we already are, and the country's screwed up, we have to do all that we can to stabilize it. Exactly how I don't know, but since we made the mess, we should clean it up.

US/UK are unwilling to invest what would see us able to stabilise Iraq.
What we sent in, by way of military and reconstruction resources, was never more than an attack and control resource.
Yes we could take out Iraqi power; but that was the end of things. We did not have a conception which could realistically guide us. We did not put in the resources which would have seen us in control.
Having taken out Iraq control of Iraq, we triggered a social dynamic we could neither map or control. Which was what all the experts would have told us, before we went in.
Were we to up our investment in Iraq, by a factor of three or four: then maybe we could make some difference in Iraq; but it is unlikely that we could politically or economically pay up.

The reasons for the necessity for going into Iraq legally, is that sorting out Iraq had to be a genuinely global affair.
We didn't go in via such a legal doorway. We simply did not do the difficult work of mapping our way through what we intended. We did not rally an alliance globally.
The only possible outcome, given how we intervened, was degradation and suffering for Iraq and Iraqis: and in no way has that downward spiral ended; it will get worse and worse for those who live in this war zone.

I suspect that in a horrendous circumstance, if we are genuinely interested in the long-term welfare of Iraq and its peoples: then we pull out now; where Iraqi order of some kind, can be established on the other side of some struggle.
Perhaps we could force a federal structure.
But, it does look as if any pretence or hope of reconstruction of Iraq in our own image, is now forlorn and perverse.
Whatever now emerges, it does now seem, will be Iraqi. One question becomes, will the Iraqi authority we have established and backed, be an enduring and primary part in that Iraqi outcome.

We can break any power which stands up to us in a conventional fight. We can force protect our own.
We may have litte power to do much beyond that.

 

[trunks2k]

And saying that Saddam was a bad person but could at keeping order would be like saying Hitler was bad but good at keeping order...does that mean people shouldnt have stopped Hitler?

Umm.. that wasn't my point at all. My point was simply that Saddam was good at keeping order in a country where order is hard to keep, and that trying to keep the country stable after his removal would be an incredibly hard thing to do. This is in contrast to the rosy picture that the admin was trying to create in the run up to the war. They tried to paint it as that once we took over the country, it would be easy and relatively inexpensive to set up a new government.

I was not making any statements on whether or not we should have invaded.

 

[BobbieDog]

It isnt the Iraqi civilians that are the problem its the militants.

And saying that Saddam was a bad person but could at keeping order would be like saying Hitler was bad but good at keeping order...does that mean people shouldnt have stopped Hitler?

I think its good Saddam is out...but its bad that the militants arent under control so now the entire country is going insane.

With respect.
There was order in Iraq. Dictatorial order under Saddam Hussein.
Our actions degraded that order. We failed to substitute alternative mechanisms and processes of order. We have created an Iraq without means of sustaining indigenous order.

So, we have emotions which have emerged from dictatorship: and the emotions erupting from having your society invaded, and its infrastructure degraded; and the emotions to do with Islam versus the great satan.
But, we do not have the social process and mechanism capable of safely running even some part of this emotion.

Those who carry this emotion, and much more; simply cannot be put down as "militants".

Iraqis face much more suffering.
We face a major problem. We are moving towards creating Iraq as a "failing state".
Only Iraqi processes and mechanisms of social order, can begin to rescue Iraq, Iraqis and us, from this hellish pit.

 

[sethad]

With respect.
There was order in Iraq. Dictatorial order under Saddam Hussein.
Our actions degraded that order. We failed to substitute alternative mechanisms and processes of order. We have created an Iraq without means of sustaining indigenous order.

Exactly my point. Its good we got rid of Saddam but its bad that we sucked at setting up an alternative to stop the militants and get their country back in order.

So, we have emotions which have emerged from dictatorship: and the emotions erupting from having your society invaded, and its infrastructure degraded; and the emotions to do with Islam versus the great satan.
But, we do not have the social process and mechanism capable of safely running even some part of this emotion.

Those who carry this emotion, and much more; simply cannot be put down as "militants".

Iraqis face much more suffering.
We face a major problem. We are moving towards creating Iraq as a "failing state".
Only Iraqi processes and mechanisms of social order, can begin to rescue Iraq, Iraqis and us, from this hellish pit.

I realize that.

But the militants blowing up car bombs and themselves isnt helping matters.

 

[BobbieDog]

But the militants blowing up car bombs and themselves isnt helping matters.

I agree, as regards terrorist violence not taking anything forward.
But, such violence was an inevitable consequence of our intervention.

We in the UK have had decades of this in Ireland.
As long as a circumstance of injustice and military control existed, then the men of violence could thrive.

Such "militants" have too much cause and justification, for them ever to simply dissapear.
What we have control over, always, is just how we shape a circumstance, primarily through how we intervene.
For many, many decades, UK governments got it wrong in Ireland: and the result was militant violence, and social dislocation.
We cannot control such militants, generally, when once we create the circumstance in which they appear and thrive. Our condemnation does nothing to reduce militancy and its violence.

We had to intervene in such manner that the outcome we wished for would come about.
We have failed to so intervene.
Our manner of intervention is simply something we cannot recover from.
Militant violence is not something we can take as an independent variable: rather, its volume and intensity we have to treat as a dependent variable.
What else we say about such violence, say as condemnation, is almost irrelevant to the question of how such violence might be ended.

Intrinsically, such miltant violence helps no-one: but, the scale of our own mistakes, in how we intervened, and in how we have governed subsequently; is of such an order that the extrinsics of that dwarfs all else.