Dealing with Iraq

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According to the Associated Press Paul Bremer said that the insurgents in Iraq should be dealt with and no doubt that is true. The problem is that Bremer doesn’t know how to deal with people. If there should be a handbook on what not to do, or say as a foreign diplomat, Bremer could write it. This man has squandered more US good will in the Middle East and Iraq than anyone except his Israeli counterpart in Palestine, Ariel Sharon, and it’s time that the people in Washington take note, especially since everyone else in the world already has, particularly Arab and Muslim people. Never before have we witnessed as a nation the type of arrogant and blood letting “authority” that Bremer has sought to impose upon the Iraqi people in the name of US taxpayers who must be increasingly weary of the power being wielded in Washington by appointees, and career people who are no doubt hired into, or placed into key positions for reasons, and who pose perhaps the greatest t! hreat to democracy that has ever existed in our nation, or anywhere in the world.

That no one seems to have the authority, or whatever else it takes to either control, or reel Bremer in, is a sign that our system in Washington is terribly broken, and it might be time for the citizens of this country to take our destinies back into our own hands. No one should ignore the opportunity to vote in November, but most importantly we need real government reform. Since the Congress refused to give the President the power to hire and fire without first having to appease the unions, we, the people must establish a mechanism by which such appointees and career people can be held accountable to taxpayers and citizens. The price that we, and those foreign countries who our actions impact, pay for one person’s rebellion against reason is too high of a price to ignore, and someone should be at work devising a plan to get the US government out of the hands of such men and women who feel that their loyalties and oaths are to ideas, rather than to a nation ! who is forbidden by its Constitution from establishing a controlling, or dictating ideology from which agendas are derived.

Bremer seems to deliberately provoke violence, yet it never fails that after provoking incidents that cost both US and Iraqi lives, he finds his way back to the United States for meetings, another similarity shared with Sharon. The people, US soldiers and Iraqi civilians, are left to die, since they have no where to run, and once Bremer returns he begins almost immediately to re-set the stage for future violence. The cause of the insurgents in Iraq is not as simplistic as many portray it. The Iraqi people have suffered loss of life, destruction of property etc., and have borne their hardships with greater grace than anyone has the right to expect. What did they do to cause their country to be the target of an invasion and occupation? Survive sanctions? Even if we all despise Saddam Hussein and what he did to his people in Iraq, and Muslims in other places, was that cause to invade and occupy his country? Perhaps, and perhaps not. Yet what is certain, is that! all of the mercy that was demonstrated by General Tommy Franks, and the relative good will that it wrought, has been squandered. A people who once might have appreciated to some extent, the fact that they had been spared the pro-Israel neo conservatives desired shock and awe are now angry that Bremer is causing the very type of guerilla warfare that Franks had so carefully avoided. This goodwill was to be the foundation for US/Iraqi cooperation, and prosperity, not the types of perpetual and endless war and low grade war and destruction that is Israel’s forte. Look at Lebanon, and Palestine and Iraq, and be warned.

The insurgency in Iraqi should be dealt with as what it is, a sign that things have gone terribly wrong. The remedy is not aggression, and more violence, and arrogant and provocative bantering, but rather it is a return to the diplomacy of the United States of the past. The United States that once bid to lead the world in moral governance, attached affectionately to the oppressed and downtrodden and, and seeking the betterment of mankind. Not the US that follows Israel’s covetous, and envying example of violence and destruction throughout the Middle East.

There is time to save the project in Iraq and regain the trust and affection of the people there. Unfortunately, Paul Bremer does not appear to be the person to lead that rapprochement, and no more time should be wasted to appease his supporters. The United States must succeed in Iraq, and to do so we must understand what success means. Are we pursuing another Lebanon or Palestine? If not, some substantial changes in the governing authority must be made even before June 30th. Perhaps General Tommy Franks would be the right man for that job.