DaVinci, I live in Washington DC, and from here it does feel like the place is imploding. As a result, I've pretty much decided to get out of here and clear my head and get a broader perspective....
If you are right, it is a pretty sad ending to a country that began with such optimism....
And that is not a stupid question at all: our system is a bit complicated....
We have an institution called the Electoral College, and it sits in between the electorate -- the citizens who are entitled to vote -- and the actual selection of the president.
So: 1) the political parties, reflecting the voting of their state delegations, nomiates the candidates for the presidentcy. That nominee then chooses his/her vice-Presidential candidate. They go off and campaign prior to the scheduled election.
2) A portion of the electorate votes for their preferred presidential nominee.
3) Each state adds up the vote. Each state has a number of votes in the Elecctral College, based upon the State's population. The Electoral College meets sometime after the election and each state casts their votes as a block for a presidential candidate. Whichever candidate ends up with the most electoral college votes wins the presidency.
So you can see that the American democracy has major vulnerabilities when it comes to selecting its presidents. To sum these problems up:
a. Only a minority of the electorate is now actually voting, so it is difficult to assert that the will of the ciizenry is being carried out.
b. The votes of the voters are clumped together, and this is what controls the voting of the Electoral College. But it also means that a preidential candiate can be elected who has received fewer votes than his opponent. This is what happened in 2000, when Gore actually won the majority of the votes. But because of the 'interference' of the Electoral College procedure, Bush was given the victory. (It is sometimes said that the US Supreme Court gave the election to Bush, but this is an entirely separate issue, having to do with how the state of Florida counted its votes.)
So, how effectively does the American form of democracy work? It is a model that was created by the founders of Am,erica at a time when the importance of the citizens was subordinated to the importance of large land-owners who controlled the State governments, so they chose to keep control of who was elected President through the creation of this Electoral College. However, everyone now agrees that it is an obsolete conept, and a detriment to our having a true democracy.
You see, the picture can be worse than I have described it, because the members of the Electoral College are not legally bound to honor the vote of the electorate. That is, though a state's electorate might vote for one candidate, the state's members in the Electoral College could legally vote for a different candidate. Though rare, this HAS happened, but never in such a way that the outcome of an election was swtiched to another candidate. But it could happen, and as inter-party poltiics become more and more vicious in the US, the fear is growing that this flaw in the democratic architecture of the US may someday cause a real problem, a crisis of legitimacy for the newly elected government.
I hope this clarifies this aspect of the American democracy. In my opinion, it is not a model that we should advocate for others...
About the US military's aid to Indonesia after the tsunami: you are right, many other countries jumped in to help. My point was simply that the US military DOES know how to help in humanitarian situations, and that this might be useful when considering what may mow happen in Iraq. And, like others who have posted to this thread, I agree wholly that the desires of the Iraqi people should control what now happens. Not that anyone believes that they ver wanted the US to invade in the first place, or to conduct the occupation since then!
Couldn't agree more, Starr. My sense is that our government still thinks it can control what happens. They talk as if it is up to Washington to decide when to withdraw. In fact, we may be lucky to be allowed to leave cleanly, or on anything remotely resembling our terms.
The ones I feel most sorry for, besides the Iraqi people themselves, are our own troops. What a crock they have been handed....
Agreed, if it came to no-holds-barred combat. But here's the situation, as I see it. The locals, the Iraqis are there forever, and we are there until we are drivien out. We don't want to kill all the Iraqis, and don't want to come across as oppressors, so it seems to me inevitable that we will be kicked out -- you are right, by political means. Our very presence there is now the problem, not just what we do day-to-day. So no matter how hard we try to put things right, it is too late. I see Petreaus asa good guy: maybe if he had been in charge from day one we wouldn't be in such a mess. Maybe. But now it is too late. Every day we are there digs the hole a bit deeper for us.
Perhaps that is one of the failings of the Bush administration, to not understand that there is a smooth contiuum between warfare and politics, and that each contains within itself the seeds of the other. What do you think???
Yeah, I think there is zero chance of a nuclear war in Iran or Iraq in the forseeable future. For that matter, I can't see any country using their nukes against another; it would be suicide and the offending country would find itself banned from international society. I think.
Good points. I wish a vote would be organized in Iraq, but the couple of times I've heard the idea brought up here in Washington it has been pretty quickly dimissed as too embarrassing to the US. Remember that neocons like Paul Wolfowitz and William Kristol were saying before we invaded that the Iraqi people would welcome us with open arms. So it would be a pretty severe repudiation of that myth to find that 82% of the Iraqi people now want us out of there right away, and another 4 % within 12 months.
I like your idea of an international agency adminsitaring the reconstruction funds. This makes a lot of sense. There is the UN Development Program, WHO, World Bank, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (do I have that right?), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and they could all help. Of course, the Iraqis themselves have tons of engineers and other professionals and could do it themselves, too.
I'd love to see the US military genuinely helping with humanitarian relief -- now THAT would begin to salvage the US's credibility. Remember that great job we did after that tsunami hit Indonesia a couple of years ago?
Hey, Paul.... Good to see your posting, man. Haven't seen you around CS. Welcome to the Forums and to this thread.
I'm just guessing and I know High Fidelity can speak for herself... My sense is that she was thinking of the context of the fighting in Iraq. I think she sees our invasion and occupation there as part of a longer US history of interventions elsewhere, going back to the roots of our own country when 'we' took it from the Indians.
You are right: we can all get into pissing matches and everyone has bad stuff in our national histories. And yeah, it IS sickening....
Anyway, I'd like to hear more about what your thoughts are...we're trying to puzzle something through here that is pretty difficult. I hope you'll join in.
The polls that I have seen are from the US gov't itself and from the Pew Center. The Pew Center has no ax to grind. The US polls are for internal use -- they come from the folks who are involved in what they call "Public Diplomacy -- a fancy name for public relations. If anything, they would like to find that the Iraqis love us! But that is not what their polls are showing.
I'd be real interested in hearing more about what your son is doing and his experiences, if you feel like sharing a bit with us.
Hey, guy, welcome to the thread! I really wish you well and with a swift return. How long do you have in country? I hope you can tell us how things are going.
The neocons are still in power, no doubt about it. But the credibility of their ideas is pretty much shot, at least here in Washington. So we may become more willing to acknowledge that we are but one nation among many, and give up the neocon myth that we can dominate the world.
Hi, Boyscout! Good to have your voice here. To me, learning is more important than being right, and this damn situation is complicated enough that no one can possibly understand it all. So, welcome!
Scout, I share a lot of your anger about how our troops have been mistreated, but I don't think it is fair to 'blame the liberals.' Or to say that it is the American people who demanded the invasion of Iraq.
When we did first invade, Bush was given everything he asked for by Congress, including MORE money that he asked for. The military leadership DID say they wanted more troops than they got (like I think the first estimate was that it would take about 450,000 troops to invade and occupy Iraq). But it was their boss, Donald Rumsfeld who turned them down, insisting that about 150,000 would be entirely sufficient. Rumsfeld -- not the liberals!
Yeah, now Congress is trying to force Bush to get out, but they don't have the votes to pass legistlation that says that, so they are tryting to waffle in the backdoor and put limits on spending. But this is a problem of Congress, and not just the liberals in Congress. Republicans are in the same boat. Of course, if Bush just did the right thing the issue of funding would be moot....
About the American people, you have to remember that the Bush administration flat out lied to the American people about Iraq. He lied about September 11 and Saddam Hussein/Iraq (there was zero connection). He lied about WMD (there were none). He lied about an Iraqi nuclear program (there was none). He lied about Iraq's threat to the US (there was none). But these lies were believed by the people and so most of us reasonably supported Bush argument that we should invade Iraq. (I didn't, but that is only because I already knew a lot about the Middle East, could assess the situation for myself, and knew that the Bush statements were unreliable.) Now, years after the invasion, we know about these lies: dozens of reports including some from the government itself, and a half-dozen reliable writers have put out books that explain how we got manipulated into invading Iraq.
In Bush's defense, I will say that it also seems clear to me that Bush himself was manipulated by some of the key people around him, but I also think that had we had a president more capable of thinking for himself and studying situations for himself that he would have seen right through the deceptions of these folks, the people who call themselves the neocons.
I gotta say, and I hate saying so, but you may be right in saying that our guys are dying in vain. Doesn't it stink?
It seems that we are all one way or another saying that the wishes of the Iraqi people must be respected, and that if they so wish we have an obligation to help them recover from the war and occupation.
Well, I agree with this too....
But it raises some difficult questions, no?
1. There is no provision in the works for giving the Iraqi people the chance to vote on whether they want the US out or not. Public opinion polls all agree that the vast majority of Iraqis do want us out. If there is no provision for a formal vote, should these polls not be sufficient to get the message to us?
2. I also agree that we should help the Iraqis recover from the harm of invasion and occupation.
This, I suppose, primarily means money and goods or services in kind, right? Assuming that the Iraqis want this help -- safe bet, no? -- a key question is, do we do this while we are still occupying the place? Or do we get down to it after we are out of there? If we do it after we are out, do we just make periodic payments to the Iraqis and let them decide what to spend it on and how to monitor it (as we do with the billions we give Israel each year), or do we have the US Agency for International Development handle the funding and supervise the program (the way we do with Egypt)? USAID is very good at this work, but given that it is part of the US government, can they still be effective in Iraq?
And then, back to Fidelity's key point: the way the US is experienced by others outside this country. If we did these things, would the reputation and role of the US start back on the long road to being viewed positively by the rest of the world? What more should the US do to accelerate our reintegration into the community of nations?
I do believe that the US is actually doing quite a bit of good here and there in the world. We tend not to hear about what is going well because it is natural for both the press and the public to focus on what is not going well.
The more I think about what is happening in Iraq, the more questions it raises in my mind -- not so much about whether it was right or wrong for us to invade, but about what we should do now....
Well, I'm one of those who feel that non-Americans have a perfect right to comment on what the US is doing. After all, what we do overseas affects other people, no? And if people feel that the US is doing something wrong, well it would be silly to resent people saying so....
Of course, it would be nice to hear people also acknoweldge the times we do things right....
Yeah, every single opinion poll of Iraqis indiactes that the US occupation is wildly unpopular, and becomes more so the longer we stay.
Iraq has known demorcracy before Saddam Hussein came to power, so it is not a strange concept to the Iraqi people at all. And you make a good point, I think. Whatever good we do do in Iraq is badly tainted by the fact that we are associated with it.
I wonder what is going to happen to the Maliki government. He is showing signs of working against the US presence there, so maybe he will survive?
What do you al think? Should we care about Maliki, and other Iraqis who we have favored, and what may happen to them if they are viewed as traitors to their country?
The formal monetary cost of the war on Iraq has cost the US taxpayer nearly 1 trillion dollars, and climbing. This not include the hidden costs, such as re-prioritizing the budget of other government departments, like the US Agency for International Development, where money has been stripped away from other countries to be spent in Iraq.
The human cost has been enormous: Johns Hopkins university epideminiologists calculated some months ago that some 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion and occupation.
US casualties include over 3,000 dead troops, and a large number of maimed and wounded.
Not many people will argue that it was 'worth it.'
But what now???
Will the American people accept the idea that the whole thing was ill-conceived? Or will they insist that we stay 'until victory', as Pres. Bush and the neocons insist?
Over the last weeks sveral CSers have suggested starting a 'serious' thread on the Middle East. So, here it is!
For the US, the lid is about to come off in Iraq.
Our chosen 'ally' in Iraq, the factions associated with Moqtada Sadr, will not continue their stand-down for much longer and when it comes to an end the slim hope that the US has retained to justify its occupation will evaporate with a speed that will catch the American people and our leaders by surprise.
Of course, we now know that President Bush's reasons for invading were profoundly wrong and based upon deception. The only remaining question is how bloody and costly the inevitable US retreat will be. If we carry it out well, we can minimize that cost.
What do you think? What should the US do now? How can we minimize the costs of our withdrawal from Iraq?
There are quite a few people here on CS who have given these questions quite a bit of thought, and who have different points of view. Whether expert or simply wondering, I look forward with you to an invigorating and thoughtful dicussion.
Is it true that Zakho is primarily a Jewish town? 1,500 Jews, 100 Christians, and the rest, I assume, Muslim. And that it is located on an island? And involved in the Armenian genocide? All this from a couple of quick on-line sites. It sounds very interesting.
But my guess is still that you know little about Islam and the social practices of Muslims. or perhaps in this msall village the practices of Muslims are abnormal? You see, what you describe regarding women is completely abnormal for the Muslim world.
So that you know: I do know a lot about the Middle East and about Islam. I invite you to go back to earlier postings in this thread to see a larger discussion, and then return here in the context of this discussion. No sense in my haviong to type duplicative material here again.
Thanks for the sutra: but of course is doesn't say anything about the treatment of women, and does in no way support your comments about the treatment of women in Islam.
Sorry to hear about your cousin. I am interested in hearing more about this incident. When did it happen? Where? What actually happeend? I am sure there is more to the story! It might make sense for you to reply directly to my CS mailbox on this.
You may say you are from the Middle East, but it seems to me that you know very little about Islam and the way it is practised. Would you care to tell us a bit more about how you are 'from the Middle East', and what genuine experience you have had with Muslims?
As you can imagine, we are not fond of pretenders here on CS.
oceans5555 Forum Posts (803)
1. Iraq, the Middle East, and the US
DaVinci, I live in Washington DC, and from here it does feel like the place is imploding. As a result, I've pretty much decided to get out of here and clear my head and get a broader perspective....If you are right, it is a pretty sad ending to a country that began with such optimism....
Oceans