Poll: When will either Afghaistan or Iraq be self sufficient?
- Thread starter Czar
- Start date
Well for Iraq Mr. schyosis (yes I slaughtered his name the usaid guy) he said in 2 years. But he wasn't very direct about it, he just said his contracts to build the iraqi infrastructure ended in 2 years.
Afghanistan.. I would think will take alot longer since they have no oil. Also they have been in chaos for alot longer than Iraq.
Afghanistan.. I would think will take alot longer since they have no oil. Also they have been in chaos for alot longer than Iraq.
Afghaistan shall and will always remain the way it is. Right now warlordism and a under-ground Taliban movement have made their come-back in that area.
CaptnKirk
Lifer
- Jul 25, 2002
- 10,053
- 0
- 71
Self sufficient ? for their way of life they already are Self-Sufficient.
I believe you meant Self Governing, which means we do what we can to
stabilize the country from the damage we have done, then step out of the
way and let them implement their own replacement government - but as of
now our Administration is attempting to control thier destiny by enacting
the government we wish them to have for our purposes.
This may in fact succeed for a while, but there will most likely be an uprising
and they will throw out whatever we implant, and put in what thier biggest
replacement bully can gain backing for. That is the history of the region.
Don't ever forget that we did back Suddams rise to power as a replacement to
the coup that assasinated King Faisal in 1958, and the other regimes in between.
Iraq's Governance
I believe you meant Self Governing, which means we do what we can to
stabilize the country from the damage we have done, then step out of the
way and let them implement their own replacement government - but as of
now our Administration is attempting to control thier destiny by enacting
the government we wish them to have for our purposes.
This may in fact succeed for a while, but there will most likely be an uprising
and they will throw out whatever we implant, and put in what thier biggest
replacement bully can gain backing for. That is the history of the region.
Don't ever forget that we did back Suddams rise to power as a replacement to
the coup that assasinated King Faisal in 1958, and the other regimes in between.
Iraq's Governance
What are you implying by this?
The situation is different due to the year, armed resistance, level of infastructure, technology, cultural differences, religious differences, oil??
5 to 10 years minumum, and only if it is done properly by themselves, with aid from us and Arab allies. As long as we stay,we are regarded as an occupying force, and I believe that was Bush's plan all along. Either that or he just planned to dump the whole problem on another adminstration.
think he just needs A plan to give to the Iraqies and then stick to it, the old plan hasnt worked at all
While the "old plan" in iraq may not have worked as well as it could have, it has accomplished much.
Afganistan will need at least 10 years to get on firm footing since it has been at war for the last 20 years. Much infrastructure has already been rebuilt.
Iraq will need 2-5 years to get back on firm footing. Infrastructure and new goverment is not built overnight.
Afghanistan has a lot of oil - just that since there has been so much chaos no one has been able to drill it.
The major difference is that Iraq alraedy can pump the oil(albiet with freaking old and outdated machinery) while Afghanistan will have to literally build it all.
And I too would think that Iraq would be a much faster process than Afghanistan since geographically the climate isn't as harsh, a lot of infrastructure is built - just more needs to be added the current existing probably needs to be updated, Its oil is ready for pumping (And it is pumping...).
I think the main hurdle for Iraq will be getting a government together because once they do that i think things will move smoother due to the reasons above.
Once Afghanistan has its government completely ready it still has to actually start building everything.
Actually afghanistan has little oil and gas. check the cia fact book. There is a desire to build a pipeline across the afghanistan for oil/gas, but it has never been stable enough to do so.
It will take time. The people living in Afghanistan have been at war for many years.
The people in Iraq, well, read this article.
Building Democracy Out of What?
Of course the pundits on this board will declare complete and utter failure if Iraq is not a thriving democracy in three months or less. They will say there is no plan and other such wonderful pronouncements.
I would expect no less and nothing else from them no matter what the situation is in Iraq. They have their own agenda to advance.
The people in Iraq, well, read this article.
Building Democracy Out of What?
Of course the pundits on this board will declare complete and utter failure if Iraq is not a thriving democracy in three months or less. They will say there is no plan and other such wonderful pronouncements.
I would expect no less and nothing else from them no matter what the situation is in Iraq. They have their own agenda to advance.
Just to show the Iraqis and Afghans the right kind of spirit, I think Americans should convert to Islam. We could race them to see who can become the other first. It would also show them we aren't cultural chauvinists too. In fact we're so pure I bet we win by years.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
- 50,879
- 4,268
- 126
True. Of course the majority of pro war people never did think about that. Well, what could anyone expect from them?
the damage we've done ?? like what ? compared to what existed before ? i
didn't know you adored the taliban so . .. but should've guessed.
if we don't steer the karzai regime, then the remaining warlords will gladly
oblige. we do know what happens when unstable pseudo-governments become
host to stateless terrorists ? gulbuddin hekmatyar is still squirming about, and
his hatred for all things western is unbounded. you and he are, more or less,
on the same page.
re-read your own link. king faisal II and saddam never mixed it up. qassem, king faisal's
bloody successor, did get together one afternoon, and after a bief exchange of gunfire
saddam sought refure in syria (and egypt) until political passions cooled a few years later.
when he returned to iraq, he was promptly jailed - and through all this ofcourse was the
silent black hand of the united states of america. it really doesn't get any more stupider,
folks.
its a good thing the the blame-first-last- and-everywhere-in-between america haters
have their basic comprehension skills blinded by their mad prejudices, otherwise these
corrections would be needlessly complicated.
by David Brooks
I hope our soldiers aren't thinking that the people they encounter have been undamaged by their experience, or that they will respond to events in the ways Americans would. (And will they see in themselves the same damage?)
In a totalitarian state, Arendt argued, the leader gets inside people's heads. He constructs a regime that is everywhere, one that seeks to obliterate spontaneity, creativity, and individual initiative, and to dictate thought. The result is not overpoliticization but a perverse depoliticization of life. People come to understand that they cannot think a political thought, because the wrong one could get them executed. They lose the habits of citizenship. Society becomes atomized. Individuals experience psychological isolation and loneliness, because they can't be sure that even their own family members won't betray them. They fall into a passivity induced by the impossibility of freedom. All they have is their perpetually whipped-up nationalism and the omnipresence of their dictator. (Here we look in the mirror and see ourselves. We are exactly the same. The difference is only of degree. How many people vote?)
The Fedayeen Saddam have probably experienced the same sensations that motivated members of the Gestapo and the KGB?the desire to inflict pain, the feeling that one is so powerful in serving one's cause, and so superior to others, that one can maim and kill at will. Earlier this year the U.S. State Department reported that members of the Fedayeen went on a beheading spree, lopping off the heads of more than 200 women in the name of stamping out prostitution. Their zealous cruelty brings to mind an SS guard Arendt described in her book. "Usually I keep on hitting until I ejaculate," the guard told an interviewer. "I used to be perfectly normal. That's what they've made of me." (So easy to see it when it's extreme, while we never dream we're looking also at ourselves. The difference only in degree.)
And what of the subjects of Saddam's regime? What is it like to have one's mind invaded without respite by such a man and his propaganda? What is it like to live a life dominated by fear, by the knowledge that at any moment an official might rape one's daughter or kill one's son? What is it like to live in a society of emotionally wounded people who have lost friends and family to the regime, to the war against Iran, to the first Gulf War? (We have all been through worse than a concentration camp. We, however, have forgotten.)
One simply doesn't recover from experiences like these. (Nor have we from ours) And remember while you are trying to imagine what this person went through, that this is the human raw material that you want to build democracy for.
Every day in the last five weeks of my travels I have come across such damaged and wounded people, people who breathe nationalism, sectarianism, without knowing that they are doing so, and people who are deeply chauvinistic and suspicious toward their fellow Iraqis. (Again we see ourselves only when magnified and externalized) These are the facts of life for the next generation in this poor, unhappy and ravaged land. (Our land too) Don't even think of coming back to it after liberation if you are not prepared to deal with such facts. (Hehe, imagine waking up here with the capacity to see)
Perhaps the most sickening aspect of the Iraqi drama has been Saddam's popularity in various parts of the world. Here is a man responsible for the deaths of more Muslims than any other person in recent history. But Palestinians carrying his photograph marched in his support, and so did large numbers of people in other Arab countries. Majorities in Europe told pollsters that Saddam's threat to peace was equal to or less than that of George Bush. (Do we yet know Bush's final count of the deaths of Muslims?)
Part of this reaction is pure anti-Americanism. But part of it is the strong if secret admiration that many people have for cruel power and unabashed strength. (Anybody reading the forums sees it here in spades) Totalitarianism exists, Arendt said, because it solves certain psychological problems: it eliminates uncertainty and it casts politics in a maximalist, seemingly heroic role. (Notice how many know the truth here too) It will survive, if not in Iraq, then in North Korea, or in a terrorist cell somewhere. And as bizarre as it may seem to us, there will always be people willing to fight and die in order to preserve it. (We fought and died to preserve our version of it in Iraq. We are all the same. The difference is in degree and in the extent to which we can become conscious of who we are. Iraqis are human just like us and suffer from the same disease.)
=============
It's amazing that what applied to us is psychobabble is deep truth when applied to others. We cannot see ourselves and so we wander lost. Ask yourself if you would rather believe what I have written or die. It will give you some notion of the depth of our dilemma, our catch 22.
I hope our soldiers aren't thinking that the people they encounter have been undamaged by their experience, or that they will respond to events in the ways Americans would. (And will they see in themselves the same damage?)
In a totalitarian state, Arendt argued, the leader gets inside people's heads. He constructs a regime that is everywhere, one that seeks to obliterate spontaneity, creativity, and individual initiative, and to dictate thought. The result is not overpoliticization but a perverse depoliticization of life. People come to understand that they cannot think a political thought, because the wrong one could get them executed. They lose the habits of citizenship. Society becomes atomized. Individuals experience psychological isolation and loneliness, because they can't be sure that even their own family members won't betray them. They fall into a passivity induced by the impossibility of freedom. All they have is their perpetually whipped-up nationalism and the omnipresence of their dictator. (Here we look in the mirror and see ourselves. We are exactly the same. The difference is only of degree. How many people vote?)
The Fedayeen Saddam have probably experienced the same sensations that motivated members of the Gestapo and the KGB?the desire to inflict pain, the feeling that one is so powerful in serving one's cause, and so superior to others, that one can maim and kill at will. Earlier this year the U.S. State Department reported that members of the Fedayeen went on a beheading spree, lopping off the heads of more than 200 women in the name of stamping out prostitution. Their zealous cruelty brings to mind an SS guard Arendt described in her book. "Usually I keep on hitting until I ejaculate," the guard told an interviewer. "I used to be perfectly normal. That's what they've made of me." (So easy to see it when it's extreme, while we never dream we're looking also at ourselves. The difference only in degree.)
And what of the subjects of Saddam's regime? What is it like to have one's mind invaded without respite by such a man and his propaganda? What is it like to live a life dominated by fear, by the knowledge that at any moment an official might rape one's daughter or kill one's son? What is it like to live in a society of emotionally wounded people who have lost friends and family to the regime, to the war against Iran, to the first Gulf War? (We have all been through worse than a concentration camp. We, however, have forgotten.)
One simply doesn't recover from experiences like these. (Nor have we from ours) And remember while you are trying to imagine what this person went through, that this is the human raw material that you want to build democracy for.
Every day in the last five weeks of my travels I have come across such damaged and wounded people, people who breathe nationalism, sectarianism, without knowing that they are doing so, and people who are deeply chauvinistic and suspicious toward their fellow Iraqis. (Again we see ourselves only when magnified and externalized) These are the facts of life for the next generation in this poor, unhappy and ravaged land. (Our land too) Don't even think of coming back to it after liberation if you are not prepared to deal with such facts. (Hehe, imagine waking up here with the capacity to see)
Perhaps the most sickening aspect of the Iraqi drama has been Saddam's popularity in various parts of the world. Here is a man responsible for the deaths of more Muslims than any other person in recent history. But Palestinians carrying his photograph marched in his support, and so did large numbers of people in other Arab countries. Majorities in Europe told pollsters that Saddam's threat to peace was equal to or less than that of George Bush. (Do we yet know Bush's final count of the deaths of Muslims?)
Part of this reaction is pure anti-Americanism. But part of it is the strong if secret admiration that many people have for cruel power and unabashed strength. (Anybody reading the forums sees it here in spades) Totalitarianism exists, Arendt said, because it solves certain psychological problems: it eliminates uncertainty and it casts politics in a maximalist, seemingly heroic role. (Notice how many know the truth here too) It will survive, if not in Iraq, then in North Korea, or in a terrorist cell somewhere. And as bizarre as it may seem to us, there will always be people willing to fight and die in order to preserve it. (We fought and died to preserve our version of it in Iraq. We are all the same. The difference is in degree and in the extent to which we can become conscious of who we are. Iraqis are human just like us and suffer from the same disease.)
=============
It's amazing that what applied to us is psychobabble is deep truth when applied to others. We cannot see ourselves and so we wander lost. Ask yourself if you would rather believe what I have written or die. It will give you some notion of the depth of our dilemma, our catch 22.
thing is, we are allowing lots of those warlords in. one of the reasons the taliban got into power was because they kicked the worst warlords out of the country. but we let them right back in. the u.n. was trying to prosecute some of them, but we blocked it
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