Again today, Juan Cole has argued that US forces should remain in Iraq. Not widely known is that Juan Cole initially did not oppose the invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Sadaam Hussein. He is simply opposed to the methods and manner in which the war has been conducted.
He has since come up with one of many interesting ideas to solve the problem. One is to train and hire African mercenaries to do the fighting that American Troops are now doing.
He cites one of the reasons for staying in Iraq today as follows
“Moreover, if an Iraqi civil war pulled in Iran, Saudi Arabia and other regional powers, it could destabilize the entire Middle East and could lead to $20 a gallon gasoline.”
So he is stating that one reason to allow American and Iraqis to die is to keep the price of gas down for gas guzzling industrialized nations. I find that shallow and selfish. Isn’t the American presence in Iraq a destabilizing force in the Mid-East? Would not a withdrawal lessen the rage of the insurgents and of all those Muslims who are now enraged?
His other reason is that a civil war “would be devastating to Iraq”. He says that
The terrorist violence might or might not subside if the US were to leave, but the conventional violence could well escalate enormously. Again, it is not the US presence that increases the likelihood of civil war but rather the inability of Shiites and Sunnis to compromise in the new situation. A US withdrawal would not cause the Sunnis suddenly to want to give up their major demands; indeed, they might well be emboldened to hit the Shiites harder.
From my viewpoint, I think Cole is to saying America must stay in Iraq because the Shiites and Sunnis are culturally inferior. They don’t know how to get along and they will end up killing each other. The much smarter Americans must stay and show the Iraqi people the American way of making and being peaceful. This seems utterly perverse. It makes no sense. It would be nice if American’s stationed thier could at least communicate beyond hand gestures. The language gap alone has doomed this invasion from the start.
All this reveals the horrible prejudices of this man Juan Cole. He wants to send dark skinned mercenaries to do what many white Americans are doing in Iraq so that the Iraqi people (who don’t know how to get along) will not kill themselves. He is saying in effect that the Iraqi people are inferior and that a Superior American presence or one funded by Americans is necessary to keep these “primitives” from killing each other.
What business is it of America what the Iraqi people do to each other? Should Cuba invade the United States to keep the American government from abusing Hurricane victims through neglect because they feel they are better equipped at Hurricane relief?
According to Juan Cole it is America’s business to dispose of Sadaam Hussein. Sadaam Hussein’s crimes and even his capture have been grossly exaggerated and distorted and are part and parcel of the conspiracy by the US government to deceive the American people about the conditions in Iraq concerning WMD, Nuclear weapons, Al Queda, drones and on and on. Sadaam Hussein’s “crimes” were part of that false picture. Of course all the crimes he was accused of took place in the 80’s and early 90’s, not any time around the invasion in 2001.
The sanctions against Iraq could be considered a crime in that they are believed to have resulted in the deaths of 500.000 children. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!asked potential candidate and governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson if the sanctions were worth it if they killed 500.000 children. Richadson gave a direct answer: YES! He said it was worth it. The sanctions did not work. An invasion of Iraq took place. If the sanctions worked there would have been no invasion. I mention this to demonstrate how clueless our own liberal democrats are to what is happening in Iraq. And I believe Juan Cole for all his much daunted language skills and scholarly ornamentation is essentially a dumb, naïve, prejudice war mongering fool.
By the way, there is no terrorist threat to the United States. There are no terrorist cells of any consequence in the US. It’s all a lie and fantasy. The twin Hurricanes would have provided a perfect cover for these cells to emerge and do their terrorist business. There has been none because 911 was a one-time deal. Terrorists are ma and pop organizations and very rarely as in the case of 911 have the support of a clique within a world governmental agency.
I find Juan Cole to be a very prejudice person, incredibly condescending to the Iraqi people. His concern for the welfare of Iraqi’s seems false since he did not oppose the war in the first place. His lack of opposition to the invasion of Iraq usually comes as a surprise to many people who read his blog and assume he is against the war now and was against it before it occurred.
He reminds me of an early Christian missionary who backed up with an invading army destroys the culture of a “lesser people” for their own good. He seems to feel he knows what’s best for Iraq, not the Iraqi people who almost unanimously want the foreign forces occupying their country to leave. This is one thing that unites the Sunnis and the Shiites. They want America out. I say their wishes ought to be respected and we should leave. What happens afterward is largely the fault of America but America is not competent enough to take responsibility for the consequences of the initial invasion. The only moral, the only sensible thing to do is to leave and let what mayhem results occur. If the invading forces made a mistake invading Iraq, they cannot correct it by staying in Iraq because that is just a continuation of the initial mistake.
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