I have only inserted a few HTML tags to keep the paragraphs separate.

Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2003 6:31 pm Post subject: Democracy in Iraq I can understand people who are in favor of the war, genuinely motivated by the idea of bringing freedom to the Irakian, and also by the idea it's not possible to let such a monster, such as Saddam Hussein, terrorize and kill his people. But democracy can't be "installed". Democracy can only be "grown". And what has happened in the last 10 years didn't prepare the ground for "democracy plantations". The Baas party, 30 years ago, was closer to provoke the birth of democracy in Iraq than Georges W. Bush will ever be, nowadays. Democracy comes from erudition of the People. Democracy comes when people get a real knowledge of their history, emancipate themselve from superstitions and the superstitious aspects of religion, when they realize they are in control of their own destiny, and that they have a role to play in their society. When a subject turns into a citizen by his/her implication in the building of the society. Starving people, living on a day to day basis, grow superstitions, hatred, the search of scapegoats, violence. In an already divised country, where there are so many antagonist ethnic groups and religions, hatred can be multiply. The only thing that has kept this country from breaking out in a civil war, was the brutality of Saddam Hussein's government. Many irakians, though they hate Saddam Hussein, are even more afraid of what may happen with a cooler government, knowing that some groups are just waiting the opportunity to get their revenge, based on stupid ancestral hatred. In the 70s, Iraqis were rich; they had free hospitals, free and mandatory schools. Because Saddam Hussein was megalomaniac, he wanted his people to be the best of middle east. He wanted his country to be the reference in the area, and surely, he wanted to conquer every nations, that would not suit his principles, about religion and politic. In Saddam Hussein's mind, Religion should not interfere with the constitution. Saddam Hussein has given a lot to his people, while terrorizing and killing in cold blood anyone trying to raise different opinions. Iraqis were becoming a more and more educated people. Saddam Hussein had a prize from the Unesco as a reward for the way he manages to quickly teach his population into reading and writing. Then he made a foolish move. The move of a mad man, willing to show his power and the righteousness of his ideas ; he attacked Iran. Western countries, so afraid of the shiit fundamentalism, gave their massive support to Saddam Hussein : USA, France, Germany, Turkey, USSR, etc. Everyone seemed to be a friend of Saddam Hussein. Where were the saviors of the iraqis at the time ? They were just glad to finance their misery in this useless war. Saddam Hussein may have lost quickly against Iran. But the war lasted for many years. Rumsfeld said at the time "The longer this war will last, the better it is for the american domination in the area". At this time Saddam Hussein was considered as a friend of the american people. Why ? You tell me. The war ended, Iraq was almost ruined. For many reasons, Iraq decided to seize Koweit. One of the reasons was economical, but also because Koweit provoked Iraq. Then the coalition decided to punish this move. At the time, it all seemed just normal, despite (or because) the propaganda and manipulation used to convince everyone of the utility of this war, that the army of the coalition, lead by the US, would get Saddam Hussein out of Iraq, and install a "democracy". And this may have been possible then. But... What happened ? The army of the coalition stopped right before Bagdad. Then began 10 years of messing up with the people and the money of Iraq. What the UN did then is unforgivable. I'm not talking of the resolution asking for Iraq to disarm, which succeeded pretty much, with the efficient efforts of the UN inspectors, according to Scott Ritter, and even Richard Butler, before he suddenly changed his mind without any sensible reasons. I'm talking of the embargo on Iraq. It has been one of the cruelest act of war iraqis had to suffer. From this point, Iraqis became poor, sick, striving to survive. All the good things that could have made them ready for a democracy, has been slowly and surely torn apart by the settled misery of the embargo. The tactical idea behind the embargo was maybe to have the people turn against his leader, but of course, it failed. Nevertheless, he still wanted to show how good the state is to his people, and manage to organize a pretty efficient distribution of humanitary food to the people. Of course, he also uses this new situation to explain everyone how the western countries want to make iraqis suffer, how they want to steal their wealth. And he wasn't totally wrong. The UN has been way too negligent with how Iraq's money has been spent. Worst of all, Saddam Hussein is now reading the Coran to his people. This, of course, doesn't mean he's suddenly in favor of fundamentalism, as George W. Bush would like everyone to believe (Saddam Hussein was one of the target of Ben Laden since Saddam Husseim was a fierce ennemy of wahabism, the religion of the Talibans, and Saoudi Arabia). No, this means, that, to maintain control over starving people, therefore slowly falling into ignorance and obscurantism, you use religion speeches to make the unbearable acceptable ; you need to have them believe Hallah is going to support them because they suffer. And this is one of the very worrying signs that no democracy won't be installed easily now. When you look to the recent history of Iraq, the last 30 years, you can't really believe any western countries, and especially not USA, ever cared about the Iraqis. From the support to Irak in his war against Iran, to the Gulf War and its bombing on civilians and and the so called "4th army in the world", to the endless bombings of the last 10 years, hitting civilians, to the embargo and the poverty it brought, and now the "Liberty in Iraq" war, you have a feeling that the exact opposite objective is pursued here. Iraq is about to become a second Yougoslavia : ethnic and religious war will surely arise once the steel hand of Saddam Hussein has been crushed. This is most definitely what one can call playing with fire. Especially when you realize there's no plan for Iraq reconstruction, only vague notions of financing roads and buildings ; in other words, a very bad joke. _________________ Regards Slone slone@ifrance.com http://slone.chez.tiscali.fr/

Unfortunately the above while interesting does not provide a solution. I made Slone's URL above a link incase you want to click on it.

I can't remember how I ever found his writing, I have no idea who he is, or who might have sent me the link. I just discovered it when cleaning out some old files on my hard drive. When I read it, I thought it interesting in light of what is happening 9 months after he wrote it.