Maybe Iraqis don’t want our ‘gift’

August 3, 2006

Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) has always supported the president’s approach to the war in Iraq, but after having recently visited Baghdad, he’s starting to waver a bit. (via Holden and a tip from reader J.D.)

While still hopeful that Americans would one day be able to look back on their foray into Iraq as “a courageous decision that made a positive difference,” he also alluded to the possibility of failure in the goal of creating a stable, democratic nation.

“We may look back and say we gave it our best shot and we did everything we could do to make it a success. And at the end of the day we could not make people accept the gift of freedom.”

Yes, that’s it. The war is a nice, big present for Iraq, and unfortunately, the country is checking the box for the receipt. The problem isn’t the Bush administration’s catastrophic mistakes at every possible stage of the conflict; it’s the fact that Iraqis don’t really want to be free.

I’ve seen some fairly outrageous rationalizations for failure, but Rep. Bonner is breaking new ground here.

On the other hand, maybe now we’re starting to understand who the president is lashing out at when he condemns critics of the war.

Just last week, Bush said:

“There’s this kind of almost — kind of a weird kind of elitism that says well maybe — maybe certain people in certain parts of the world shouldn’t be free; maybe it’s best just to let them sit in these tyrannical societies. And our foreign policy rejects that concept. And we don’t accept it. And so we’re working.”

Any chance Jo Bonner is one of the “elites” that Bush is railing against?

Just like when we (in Europe) “offered” them Roman Catholic Christianity through Crusade. Ungrateful camel-plops and fleas of dogs!

  • Helen Thomas said it best, “Democracy does not come from the barrel of a gun.”

    I don’t read much literature, but I read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden some 20 years ago and it has stuck with me. He wrote about the line in the bible “thou shall rule over sin” where he goes on about how each version of the bible was different. The King James version says SHALL and the American version says WILL. According to Steinbeck, the original line was “thou MAYEST rule over sin.” Which states how one lives is up to the individual.

    It is a choice as to how one lives. Same thing applies to the sex lives of individual women to the international stage. It is a choice. It is not dictated or decreed. It is their choice. If they choose poorly then so be it. If they choose wisely then so be it. But it is THEIR CHOICE.

  • Dan. Good point, but I am pretty sure that quote is not Helen Thomas.

    BUSH:
    “A free Iraq will be an ally in the war on terror, and that’s essential. A free Iraq will set a powerful example in the part of the world that is desperate for freedom. A free Iraq will help secure Israel. A free Iraq will enforce the hopes and aspirations of the reformers in places like Iran. A free Iraq is essential for the security of this country.”

    Call me crazy, but if the goal really was/is freedom, wouldn’t one phrase it, “A free Iraq might…” instead of, “A free Iraq will…”.

    Iraq will have freedom the way we demand !!

  • uh-huh, and here silly-ol-me thought that we were invading because of weapons of mass destruction.

  • Damn, all we did was “accidentally” destroy their entire country (except the Kurdish areas), kill dozens, if not hundreds of innocent civilians in cold blood (and tens of thousands “by accident”), subject thousands of them to degradation and torture in Abu Ghraib, and they have the gall to refuse our gift of freedom?

    Ingrates.

  • I tend to think that the Cheney Administration invaded, in order to establish a permanent U.S. military presence, similar to the long-term U.S. presence in post-WWII Germany and Japan. That was what Cheney-Rumsfeld et alia said as Project for a New American Century (PNAC), in the late 1990’s, was their goal.

    WMD, a “free Iraq” etc. were just rhetorical cover.

    The central contradiction has always been that a genuinely strong, “free” Iraq is going to want the U.S. to leave. Only a weak Iraqi government is going to want the U.S. to stay indefinitely.

    The only semi-rational explanation I can come up with, for why the U.S. have so thoroughly screwed up the reconstruction of Iraq with corruption and incompetence, is that Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld have been trying to keep Iraq weak enough to achieve their objective of a permanent American presence.

    The obvious political move for the Democrats is to propose a short-term program of additional money and troops to strengthen Iraq, prior to an American withdrawal supported by Iraq.

    If the Democrats chose carefully in devising their program to strengthen Iraq, they could highlight all the shortcomings — incompetence, corruption and waste — of the Bush reconstruction program, and draw the connection between the Bush reconstruction failure and the general failure in Iraq.

    Even better, if the Dems devised a sufficiently appealing carrot, the Iraqi donkey might be induced to indicate that they wanted the Americans to leave.

    If the Democrats would make a credible proposal, which led the Iraqi government to give even an oblique indication that they wanted the U.S. to leave, the game would be over. It’s not “cut and run” if the “free” Iraqis ask us to leave.

    The one obstacle that I see is that the American people do not want to foot the bill for any additional aid to the Iraqis. But, if the Republicans oppose additional aid, they just further highlight the inadequacy of the reconstruction.

  • Well IF there hadn’t been an insurgency then the gift of freedom might have been genuine in spite of the incompetence and corruption of the Bush Admin. And IF the Palestinians hadn’t chosen long-term violence in response to the Israeli misdeeds then they would have had peace and prosperity decades ago. Let’s not take the Arab/Islamic violence out of the equation. Gandhi showed that there is always more than one way to respond to inequities.

  • ScottW, I hope everyone else here gives at least 60 seconds of thought to what you said. It’s nails, bro. That subtle verbage in that quote goes to the heart of Bush’s foreign policy decisions. Bush says a free country ‘will’ do this and ‘will’ do that. That’s classic. Look at our policy towards Lebanon right now. They’re one of the few democracies the middle east has. According to Bush democracy is synonymous w/ American friend and ally. Yet Bush rejects their democratically elected government and supplies neighboring Israel w/ the weapons to attack that gov’t and its people. Apparently Bush was for democracy before he was against it.

  • ScottW, Helen said it, or something close.

    http://newsbusters.org/node/6206

    Stewart: “Why hasn’t this president –.. because his rhetoric is high-minded in that manner. Certainly George Bush talks about democracy, and it being God’s gift to humanity and all those. He has the rhetoric. What’s not connecting with you?”

    Thomas: “You don’t spread democracy with a barrel of a gun. You can do it through ideas, raise awareness. [Loud applause.] Blue jeans, rap music. The [pulp?, it sounds like? She means pulpit, bully pulpit?] The Voice of America. Exchange students. Exchange teachers.”

  • I have to comment on #2 Dan’s last paragraph where he said ( sort of) “the sex lives of individual women on the international stage is their choice.” That may not be an exact quote but that is so untrue! If women live in a culture that gives men all the power…to own them, marry them, kill them, make them bear ( or not bear) their children….what choice does a woman have? I don’t understand why he added that bit as the first part of his comment was right on.

    I find the cultures where women have no rights and are owned by some man, whether it be their father, brother, husband or some other male totaly reprehensible. But on the other hand, I do not think the US should have to change this. Eventually I think this will change but again…it won’t be done by war.

  • Joan,

    That was a typo. It should state: “OR on the international stage.”

    I forgot the conjoining article.

    I’m an idiot.

  • “We may look back and say we gave it our best shot and we did everything we could do to make it a success. And at the end of the day we could not make people accept the gift of freedom.”

    Since the beginning of our war to “liberate Iraq,” I have heard so many quotes that reference how people spoke about the Vietnam conflict (I am 38; I’ve only read about them). Now we have the beginnings of stupid people finally seeing what we all saw before the war started. I shudder and shake my head in complete rage and disbelief. How could BushCo, having lived through Vietnam, totally forget its tragic lessons for the US? They certainly didn’t want to be involved then, why now? Freaking cowardice murderers!

    What a tragic, heart-breaking disaster they now have all created for us.

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