SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI): STUPID OR IGNORANT…? YOU TELL ME…
August 21st, 2007
The difference being that ignorance is curable through education; stupidity is forever. And why do I ask the question? Because the senator seems to have forgotten that Iraq is a sovereign nation with a democratically elected government put in place by elections that the United States sanctioned.
We planned, organized and implemented the election of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. We do not get to take a do-over just because we don’t like the result.
From this morning’s Washington Post:
Declaring the government of Iraq “non-functional,” the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said yesterday that Iraq’s parliament should oust Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his cabinet if they are unable to forge a political compromise with rival factions in a matter of days.
“I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government,” Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said after a three-day trip to Iraq and Jordan.
I’ll say up-front that I don’t disagree with Sen. Levin. We’ve made a right cock-up of Democracy in Iraq through our ignorant blunderings, but now we have to dance with the one we brought. This isn’t 1963. This isn’t Vietnam. We’re not dealing with Ngô Dinh Diêm. There is no Nguyen Van Thieu waiting in the wing.
The comment strikes me as quite a giveaway — obviously we don’t really think Iraq has a sovereign government. We really think it has a puppet government and we’re in control. Right.
Shalom Sherry,
Right. But we want all the credit and none of the responsibility.
This is what we get when we let frat boys run the country.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Should Bush not second the call for Al-Maliki’s ouster by parliamentary means?
Shalom KYJurisDoctor,
First, thank you for stopping in, for reading and, most importantly, for taking the time to write a comment. It’s all about the conversation.
I have to say no. Removing Maliki won’t make a difference because there is no unifying internal political entity.
The parallel here is Marshal Tito. Like Saddam Hussein, Tito held his country together through a mixture of fear and intimidation. Remove that unifying force and the country falls apart.
We can put all the puppets we want in office, but unless we become that which our service personnel have died to end, Iraq will cease to be a nation.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Give it up, all of you, please. Iraq was a sovereign country when we illegally invaded it. Take all your reactionary energy (coffee buzzes?) and take it back to the source: Impeach all of the war-mongers, including all of the Congress still serving who gave the Bushies such extreme despotic powers! You prosecute criminals, not wars . . . Peace.
Shalom Franz,
First, thank you for stopping in, for reading and, most importantly, for taking the time to comment. It’s all about the conversation.
I don’t disagree with you, Franz. But it’s like eating an elephant. We need to take it one bite at a time.
B’shalom,
Jeff