Posted by farid from customer-148-233-78-77.uninet.net.mx (148.233.78.77) on Friday, July 04, 2003 at 1:54PM :
In Reply to: Re: Burger with no pickle... posted by Esarhaddon from adsl-67-115-74-239.dsl.lsan03.pacbell.net (67.115.74.239) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 at 9:25PM :
:
:
: I really don't know about "Iraq was doing very good before the U.S. set its sites on it." but in general I think people were better off. At least there was food on the table, health care, education, and....
Look at it this way...and keep things in perspective...the United States inherited the liberal European Enlightenment complete with a Parliamentary tradition...and look what we´ve come to.
Iraq came out of the declining years of Ottoman rule when corruption, abuse and paranoia increasingly ground minorities especially into mush...with no democratic tradition...no "vote" and not much of anything besides authoritarian one-man rule. After it´s "liberation" it was quickly seized upon by the Brits and had foreign kings imposed on it and then several decades of revolving military juntas...out of which came one guy mean and nasty enough to at least put his house in order...in that kind of atmosphere it would be a long time before Liberalism and pluralism could take root. But I still maintain, given what the people had to work with and what they had recently emerged from and the meddling of Western powers who were only interested in exploitation...Iraq was growing and opening up and expanding outward. That´s the one thing the West fears most about the entire region...with the wealth they have, our dependency on it and the frightening prospect that they´ll use it to secure a stable and viable world class economy...we had to kick the shit out of them.
-- farid
-- signature .
Follow Ups: