Quotes That Catch My Fancy
The "No Kidding" Edition
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Featured Stories | Foreign Affairs — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Finally, despite everything, despite the violence and anarchy and sectarian conflict, majority opinion says by decisive margins (61%) that removing Saddam Hussein from power was worth all the strife that came after it.
What life under Saddam was like is unimaginable.
--Patrick Porter, commenting on recent polls conducted amongst the Iraqi people.
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Quotes That Catch My Fancy 5 Comments (0 topical, 5 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
What's so interesting about the quote is that it underscores just how clueless mainstream journalists are...
"I could explain, but that would be very long, very convoluted, and make you look very stupid. Nobody wants that... except maybe me."
What am I missing here? The main conclusion of the article is that the vast majority of Iraqis want the US out post haste. This is not groundbreaking "news." Furthermore, the article states that a lot of Iraqis didn't like Saddam. This is not "news" either. Obviously the Kurds and Shias didn't like Saddam. The Kurds want independence and the Shias seem to favor a theocratic state tied to Iran, both an anathema to Saddam. Finally, the article concludes that a lot of Sunnis don't like al Qaeda. Baathist Sunnis regarded al Qaeda as a threat to their secular regime (this has been confirmed by internal Iraqi documents obtained by US forces after the invasion).
The Sunnis want their dominance restored, the Kurds want independence, and the Shias want a Shia-dominated theocracy aligned with Iran. A continuing US presence impedes all of these goals. The question is whether any of the these competing Iraqi aspirations is in the US national interest. If not, then maybe the US shoud not "cut and run" as most Iraqis favor.
First, you don't know how the questions were asked, so be careful generalizing.
Second, the linked OxBlog article says 70% or so want the US out in a year. They don't like having a foreign power there.
I'll bet the "vast majority" of Redstaters want us out of Iraq inside a year, too. I, for instance, would like us out tomorrow. What I want, and what the situation requires, are different things.
--
Evil men hide from the truth, but good men stand upon it.
70%+ of the Democrats (can you say 'cut and run'?) say we should never have gone into Iraq, which implies leaving Sadam in power. And even in the location where 70% of the people want us to leave in a year, they are 61% in favor of us having gone in to remove the Butcher of Baghdad. So while they want us out, they also think us going in was a good thing.
The only ones that disagree that Saddam shouldn't have been removed are only doing so to advance their own agenda. They refuse to look at this from the perspective that the man was killing people for sport.
"I'm just beginning...The pen's in my hand...Ending unplanned"