ISIS will fail.

freediver wrote on Jan 28^th, 2016 at 12:05pm:


Peaceful protests started from the very beginning of the occupation - eg:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2003-05-20/news/0305190365_1_shiites-protest-oc...

And as well as being the majority of the population, the shiites had the additional advantage of being very united behind their Ayatollah, giving them a hierarchical organisation that is absent in the sunni world. Thus once the Ayatollah got on board the democracy bandwagon, most shiites united in the cause - peacefully. There was a fairly minor spanner in the works in the name of Moqtadr Al Sadr, a firebrand exile who set up the militant Al Sadr brigade from the slums of Baghdad. This group represented the only violent resistance of the Iraqi shiites - and naturally the US's primary strategy was to deliberately inflame the conflict with Al Sadr in an attempt to make the shiite violent resistance more 'mainstream', and marginalise the peaceful movement. Much like Assad did during the Arab spring. This included making Al Sadr a target for assassination even before he had much national prominence - in an effort to make a martyr of him.

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Pretty much as soon as Saddam was toppled, local provinces started organising to elect local councils as a first step to (democratically) selecting candidates for the much anticipated general election. Not surprisingly, the Bremer regime moved swiftly to ban any such meetings and elections, and laid down laws that the provincial councils must instead be handpicked by the US occupiers. Interestingly this clampdown was widely reported at the time, but not many people seemed to appreciate the significance of it - probably because it was the same time as the sunni insurgency was just starting to fire up.

Naive people such as yourself assume that the mere existence of an election - or as you once famously said, the mere existence of a list of candidates put forward for election - is all the proof we need for there being democracy. In the real world though, elections are more often than not a cynical tool used to subvert democracy. And in fact in occupations, its the oldest trick in the book - consolidate and legitimise your control over the country by handpicking a whole bunch of reliable puppets and presenting them for a free and fair vote - amidst much fanfair about bringing democracy to the nation of course. That was the plan in Iraq - present Chalibi and all his US lapdog mates as the only candidates, and get the Iraqi people to "vote for the occupation" as it were. Didn't quite go to plan though, as the shiites refused to play ball, and eventually managed to derail the US plan.

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How exactly did they derail this plan?

freediver wrote on Jan 30^th, 2016 at 9:26am:


How exactly did Uncle establish democracy?

We keep asking you this, FD. You refuse to say.

Do you think it's polite to keep asking questions while you avoid answering them?

I'm curious.

polite_gandalf wrote on Feb 1^st, 2016 at 10:18am:


Ah yes, but that couldn't possibly be Uncle's work. Democracy is a voluntary process. FD has now taken to saying he didn't support the invasion, but he did support Uncle establishing democracy. The obvious question then, is how Uncle could do this without deposing Saddam and occupying Iraq. FD, of course, refuses to state how this advances Iraqi democracy.

But it also raises other questions. If Uncle was so keen to support democracy in Iraq, why did he keep Saddam in place after the first Gulf War? Why did he assist Saddam's suppression of the Shi'ite revolt after promising to support them? Why did he suppress the Shi'ite democratic campaign during Brenner's occupation? And as you've said, why did he hold off on council elections and take all the lucrative contracts for his Amerikan friends?

But most damaging of all, why did he ban all Ba'athists from administrative and elected positions? They were he only people with government experience. The Ba'athists, their Shi'ite opponents and a minority of Kurds were the only people with their hats in the ring. The only candidates originally supported by Uncle were the Kurds. Uncle only changed his mind when the Sunnis and Shi'ites took up arms and Uncle wanted to get out.

FD has refused to answer all these questions, so the question remains: how did Uncle establish democracy in Iraq?

I'm pretty sure FD was at one point attempting to lure me into "making" the argument that because the US was forced (against their will) in some degree to eventually discard their ruse of a democracy - they therefore "created" democracy for Iraq.

FD is right in a sense - without deposing Saddam, there was no prospect of democracy in Iraq.

But you need only to apply the same argument that the Nazis "created" Germany's prosperity today to see how silly it is: for without them the allies wouldn't have declared war on Germany, wouldn't have invaded and reduced the country to rubble, and wouldn't have rebuilt the country virtually from scratch, along with billions and billions in aid.

You also need to be honest and acknowledge that if the US "created" democracy by deposing Saddam, then they necessarily must also have "created" the devastating sectarian conflict that killed hundreds of thousands, the millions of displaced, the refugees and ISIS. For without the invasion, none of that would have happened either.

Yes G, and they necessarily must have also "created" ISIS, who's leadership comprises of all those disgruntled Ba'athists Uncle sacked.

And yes, they must also have invited Al Qaida into Iraq in a new front line in the war on terror.

FD's logic requires us to acknowledge this, if indeed it is his logic at all. FD won't say.

But given FD's expressed logic, this means we're free to say what he thinks - the same way you believe in executing all gays who do it "Mardis Gras style" because you're a Muslim. You have to believe this because ISIS do it. Ipso facto, FD has to believe in US atrocities and crimes against humanity because he says he supports democracy in Iraq.