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Originally Posted by smooth
I find it interesting because he uses the "fact" that Saddam "gassed his own people" as if to create a higher level of moral indignation against a dictator killing people within the boundaries of his state. As if we should be more angry at someone killing "his own" than those not his own. But the simple fact remains that Saddam in no way thought of the Kurds as "his own." and they weren't
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I actually think that the Iraqi people, Arabs, Muslims had a greater responsibility to address Saddam than the US. My greater concern was his open threats to the lives and property of me and the ones I love. I do not profess any special moral indignation, my feeling are very primal on this issue.
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and his refusal to agree to this point, ignore it, misunderstand it, whathaveyou, leads him to think that a people ought to unite against the dictator for committing such a heinous act. but he doesn't seem to catch the notion that a people, comprised of various ethnic groups and in no way seeing themselves as ethnically united, would ever conceive or even desire to "unite" to overthrow such a dictator.
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I know there are differences. I accept the history of war and conflict in the middle east. I would bet there have been alliances of "ethnic" groups in the past who have come together in the middle east for the purpose of overthrowing dictators. Given the long history of the area I think that would be a safe bet, don't you agree?
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for to many, he (saddam) did no such wrong. and to others, he was representative of their wishes, but all of this within the context of foreign powers enabling him to exert control over the entire region held together by nothing other than brute (military) force--not some notion of nationhood. it simply doesn't make any sense to wonder whether the nation is fracturing into groups and bubbling into civil war, well primarily because of your first comment that there is no glue there. it's more profitable to wonder when iraq was not currently or under threat of civil war...
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This is a point I tend to agree with.
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but now it appears extremely rational to lean on the point that we have personal responsibility to the iraqis (as if there were a homogenous group in existence for us to cater to or ponder about), to a concept of liberty, to a way of life, to do anyting BUT up and leave, because we have been skillfully managed into a box.
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Perhaps part of the problem is that there are Iraqis who believe that we have been "skillfully managed into a box", to them I say that I am willing to leave. I am willing to let them fight each other until the dust settles. I say it is time for them to step up and get their own house in order however they want to do it, and then follow the rules.