Iraq

[Brazil]

true, im dumb even by a 4th grader's standard and congrats to u for finally finding someone on this site who has less schooling years than you tbh

really ?
ignorant
dumb

[Brazil]

lol trillions in debt just to "liberate" some foreign country. i think those trillions would have been better spent on the betterment of america in millions of different ways.

we are NOT the world police.

you really think US spent trillions just to "liberate" some foreign country ?

[boutons_deux]

Here's one for Yoni and other suckers who believed Iraq wasn't invaded for oil, but for Peace, Love, Democracy and The American Way.

Whatever Happened to Iraqi Oil?

By the September deadline, a majority of the parliament was against the law and -- a remarkable victory for the trade unions -- it was not passed. It’s still not passed today.

Given the political capital the Bush administration had invested in the passage of the oil law, its failure offered Iraqis a glimpse of the limits of U.S. power, and from that moment on, Washington’s influence began to wane.

Things changed again in 2009 when the Maliki government, eager for oil revenues, began awarding contracts to them even without an oil law in place. As a result, however, the victory of Big Oil is likely to be a temporary one: the present contracts are illegal, and so they will last only as long as there’s a government in Baghdad that supports them.

This helps explain why the government's repression of trade unions increased once the contracts were signed. Now, Iraq is showing signs of a more general return to authoritarianism (as well as internecine violence and possibly renewed sectarian conflict).

But there is another possibility for Iraq. Years before the Arab Spring, I saw what Iraqi civil society can achieve by organizing: it stopped the world’s superpower from reaching its main objective and steered Iraq onto a more positive course.

Many times since 2003 Iraqis have moved their country in a more democratic direction: establishing trade unions in that year, building Shi'a-Sunni connections in 2004, promoting anti-sectarian politicians in 2007 and 2008, and voting for them in 2009. Sadly, each of these times Washington has pushed it back toward sectarianism, the atmosphere in which its allies thrive. While mainstream commentators now regularly blame the recent escalation of violence on the departure of U.S. troops, it would be more accurate to say that the real reason is they didn’t leave far sooner.

Now, without its troops and bases, much of Washington’s political heft has vanished. Whether Iraq heads in the direction of dictatorship, sectarianism, or democracy remains to be seen, but if Iraqis again start to build a more democratic future, the U.S. will no longer be there to obstruct it. Meanwhile, if a new politics does emerge, Big Oil may discover that, in the end, it was mission unaccomplished.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/dialogs/print/?id=175586

[Winehole23]

If you say so.

How are the Iraqi people today?

Are they afraid of a benevolent leader like Saddam Hussein today?

maybe so:

Following the arrests in December of the bodyguards of Finance Minister Rafi Issawi, Sunnis took to the streets, revealing their widespread sense of alienation in the new Iraq and demanding the end of what they consider a government policy to marginalize them. As with other protests in the Arab world, they were initially driven by legitimate grievances. But against the backdrop of provincial elections, little was done to address the concerns of the protestors — despite calls to do so from the top Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sistani. …

Last week, the Iraqi Army entered Hawija, near Kirkuk, to arrest people accused of attacking Iraqi Security Forces. In the ensuing violence, 200 people were killed. There are reports of desertions from the Iraqi Army. Kurds have moved peshmerga into positions in the disputed territories. Tribes are forming militias to protect themselves from the Iraqi Army. Five Iraqi soldiers were killed in Anbar — and the province has been put under curfew. Ten satellite channels, including al-Jazeera, have been banned, accused of spreading sectarianism. Bombs exploded in Shia towns. The speaker of parliament called for the government to resign and for early elections.

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts...dGV_4w.twitter