Slamlander wrote:
The protocol usually starts off with some sort of act of contrition. I don't see Bush Jr. acting contrite any time soon. Do you?
The question posed in this thread was what SHOULD be done. Saying that something is not likely to be done is a non-sequitur in a debate about what ought to be done.
I agree, it's highly unlikely that Bush, or any other American leader, will be turning to the U.N. or any other international body and saying "Sorry, we fucked up, but we want to fix it, and we're willing to do what you think is best to do so." Nevertheless, that is what ought to happen.
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Then there is the other part of the issue, there are no good answers. This is why nobody wanted to join the US in that tar-baby in the first place.
There's a difference between "good answers" in the sense of a miracle cure that will make everything better, and "good answers" in the sense of "of all the things that could be done here, which one is the best, or least bad?"
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That whole issue was taken off the table.
Are you confusing normative and descriptive again? Maybe nobody is WILLING to allow the Iraqi Kurds to mind their own business, and so it won't happen; but the question, again, is not one of what will or is likely to happen, but what ought to happen.
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Radical Kurds have their own set of problems, even if the Iraqi Kurds are relatively well-behaved. Making a new Kurdistan is neither easy, simple, or without huge risk.
I just want to be clear that I'm talking about Iraqi Kurdistan in particular here, not the entire "Kurdistan region", most of which is in Turkey. Yes, I would also argue that if some big chunk of what is presently Turkey doesn't want to be a part of Turkey, they ought to be allowed to secede; but that's orthagonal to the issue of whether or not to allow Iraq to break up into small parts if they so choose, and defend those peaceful parts from those who would like to violently conquer them. Allowing Iraqi Kurdistan to be free from the rest of what is presently Iraq has no *direct* implications on anything in Turkey.
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I understand the sentiment but this is too simplistic and it'll never work. Some of these guys are seriously not nice. They also lie, cheat, and steal for a living.
If for some reason we can't afford to do the right thing (because it will involve us in other wars or whatnot that we can't handle) then we should just back the fuck off and stay out of it. But if you want to say that we're already in it, and can't back out now, and you want to know what the right thing to do is... I've already given you my opinion there. It's not likely that people will do the right thing because it's rarely an easy thing to do; nevertheless it's the right thing to do. And just saying "well it's not gonna happen" doesn't negate that; it just means that people are, sadly, going to do the wrong thing instead - either [A] pull out entirely and let the whole place go to hell until either the Iraqi people sort it out themselves, which may be never, or someone eles conquers them; or [B] conquer the whole fucking place and institute full martial law with 24/7 global surveillance, tight border control, and massive prisons and/or many executions; or [C] dick around like we presently are until people get sick of it all and resort to A or B.
If I had to wager on what's the most *likely* outcome, I'd bet on C-then-A, because it postpones the hard decision until someone else is in term and then goes with the outcome that's cheapest for the U.S. But that's not what I think the *right* outcome should be.
The dilemma seems to be between "do nothing" and "do too much". The present solution we're doing is "half-ass it" (no offense to the soldiers in Iraq, only to the people giving them orders). We can't dick around and try to sort-of police the whole place indefinitely; but what it would take to bring the whole place forcibly under control would make us evil bad guys, and pulling out entirely would make us quitters and thus also in the wrong.
I'm just saying that we should try a different compromise: pull our full, concentrated efforts in wherever they will actually do some good (in places that are trying to maintain peace and want U.S. help in doing so), and ignore those places where they do no good (where people don't want our forces there, or where the locals aren't even trying to establish peace). And if that results in a fragmented Iraq, that's not a problem, so long as it results in a *peaceful* Iraq.