Moderator: coldharvest
RYP wrote:...and one more thing. The fundos won't "win", they will make us lose.
It only takes one car bomb or attack a week to make Iraq "dangerous" when our goal was to make it "safe". Look a Saudi Arabia as an example. Expats are spooked, negative press, higher insurance and less interest in working there.
Prodigal Son wrote:Well Land, that depends on whether Saddam's torture and brutality were random or not. If the regime played by a consistent set of rules -- i.e. require folks to pay lip service to ideology and do what Saddam and Co. say, then folks could determine the consequences of their actions. Were they good options? No, obviously not, but the degree of consistency in Saddam's dictatorship is important. Play by the rules, don't get your genitals electrocuted.
Now, however, take the current sitution, with US/Coalition forces duking it out with various extremists. What consequences can an Iraqi predict will come from his or her actions? Will X lead to Y? Or to Z? Or some other outcome? If I cooperate with the US, will my head get cut off or will a car bomb get me? If I cooperate with the jihadist insurgents, will I get sent to Abu Ghraib? If I go to the market today will a car bomb get me? The sheer chaos of the situation and the inability of individual Iraqis to reasonably determine what the consequences of their actions will be is why many can reasonably say post-Saddam Iraq is quite possibly worse than Iraq under Saddam for many Iraqis. Iraqis have more options with Saddam gone, but no degree of certainty what will come from adopting one option over another.
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