September 21, 2003- Not Ready Yet

The Bush administration is going everywhere that they can think of and trumpeting each and every "success" that they say that they have accomplished in Iraq since the war. And every time they tell one and all about these successes, it always comes back to the same thing. It always comes back to America insisting that all of these things that they are doing are paving the way for Iraq to become a free and democratic society with a government made up of of people that the Iraqis freely chose for themselves and so on. Ever since this whole shitty Iraq mess started, the White House has been insisting that the reason that all of this had to go down was that America had taken it upon themselves to help the poor oppressed Iraqi people have a free and democratic society because that was all that they needed to live happily ever after. America says that all anyone needs to live happily ever after is a free and democratic society based on the American model, of course. So The White House and The Pentagon have been telling us that they are doing all that they possibly can to get Iraq to be free and democratic. To further this point, they have found some Iraqis that are willing to go in front of a camera in tell everyone using their best broken English just how much they long to be free like Americans. If you watch American TV, this is all you hear from any ordinary Iraqis about the subject. However, that does not seem to represent the opinions of most of the ordinary Iraqis. They say a different thing altogether. Although most of them, like the vast majority of Iraqis, would very much like to live in democracy for a variety of reasons, they look at the question much differently then the Americans do. What they see is that they are from a society that is and always has been much different from that of the Western man, the Christian, what have you. The society that they come from has a different history is almost every way. The ways of democracy are essentially a product of Western Christian society. That is what America was in 1776 and continues to be today. Iraq, on the other hand, is an Islamic society that has used very different tactics to govern its people. The ways of democracy are virtually unknown here, not just because of Saddam like Bush says, but because they ways of democracy are virtually unknown throughout the Arab and Muslim world. That is a world where kings and emirs and sheiks and other such royalty rules lands by birthright, a world where zealots and terrorists and guerrilla fighters overthrow governments by force, where the people freely electing and choosing their leader is un heard of. Iron fisted rule has always been the way in these countries, and the people have accepted it, as they have never known anything else. This has gone on since time immemorial in Iraq. The people have never even thought about being able to choose their own leaders, let alone actually do it. So, many iraqis are starting to think that perhaps they are not ready yet for a democratic society, despite what America might think otherwise..As they look around them at what has become of Iraqi society ever since the war, they doubt that more and more. They see the killings, the morgues overflowing, the random, senseless violence that is everywhere in Iraq these days. Because they know the real reasons behind most of these killings, they question the democracy thing more everyday, for they know that a lot of these killings going on in iraq now are not about anything current, but rather due to ancient tribal and religious hatreds coming around again. With the great number of different tribes living in such close proximity to one another in that part of the world, it has led to many clashes between them over the years. Some of these tribal/clannish rivalries and hatreds go back thousands of years.They always posed a huge problem for anyone that wanted to start any kind of central government in the region. No matter what they might try, these old hatreds would keep flaring up and getting in the way of everything all of the time. So the only practical way to keep these things under wraps was to have some sort of autocratic rule and stamp them out. It worked very well. Saddam was hardly the only one to use that tactic in the Middle East, every government did and still does. It is the only way that they can keep this type of shit from destroying everything all the time. America does not understand this fact. They come from a land where they annihilated and genocided any tribes that were not them. They never had to worry about inter-tribal hostilities getting in their way because they just killed off all the tribes, that way, there were no hostility problems from them. However, in Iraq, they are not going to be able to just kill off every existing tribe, they don't want to , mainly because they don't have people that could replace these tribes like they had when they came to North America. So they cannot just kill them off, they have to find a way to co-exist with all these different tribes in Iraq. Many Iraqis don't think that America can find a way for everyone to co exist peacefully under a democracy at the present time. So, many of them are starting to say that Iraq is not ready for Democracy yet and that America is going to have to find another way of going about things because the people of Iraq know nothing except for autocratic rule and do not know how to live except under those circumstances. No matter what kind of propaganda that America tries to give the people back home to the contrary, it looks more and more like Iraq is really not ready for democracy as of yet. Far too many people there are seeing democracy as an excuse to act in an anarchistic way. Americans know (or are at least supposed to know) that there are two sides to a democratic society, that you have to use democracy properly for it to work well, otherwise, you can have everything disintegrate into anarchy and chaos. The Iraqis do not see that distinction, they just see democracy as an opportunity to get whatever they can for themselves, and settle any scores that they may have. Day after day in Iraq, we see examples of this. It looks less and less like a land that is anywhere near ready for democracy, and more and more like a land that is totally out of control. Now that America is in control of Iraq, what exactly do they plan on doing about all this is the question of the day.

Well, rest assured that America is fully aware that Iraq is a land that cannot handle democracy anytime soon. Since the Americans find themselves in the middle of way too much of the shooting and fighting in Iraq, they know exactly what the situation is. All the talk about Iraq becoming a democratic society is purely propaganda talk for the media. After all, America said that democratizing Iraq was one of the primary reasons that we had to go to war there ever since the beginning. If they were to reverse that position now, it would not look at all good to the American people, and now that we are in campaign season, the White House does not want anything that makes them look bad to happen at all, so they will stick to their story that they are trying to get Iraq to transition to democracy when they are doing no such thing. If you look closely at the situation in Iraq, you see that the "government" that they have there now is not any sort of democratic thing at all. It is merely a puppet council put in place to look good to the media. They have no powers, they have no say in what is going to happen in iraq, that is left up to the Americans. Notice that the Americans are ruling Iraq now not through the ballot box or any peaceful means, but through the AK-47 and other such military weapons. All we hear about is how those that break the law in Iraq these days get shot at and killed by the American troops. There are no stories of any accused criminals going on trial before any kind of a judge or jury, just stories of lawbreakers being shot and killed by American troops. These "seeds of democracy" that America is saying they are planting must be deep under the ground because they sure are not sprouting anywhere that can be seen. America knows full well that they could not actually plant these seeds anywhere anyhow. They do not want to anyway. For America has no intentions of turning Iraq into any democratic society, for that would be too risky for the Americans. For if Iraq became a truly free and democratic society, then they could get America out of their country peaceably, and America never wants to leave their country, at least not as long as there is still oil there and the resulting oil money. America does not want a situation where the duly elected and democratic government of Iraq asks them to leave or anything like that, no sir, not at all. America plans on staying in Iraq until all the oil is dried up and gone,and that will not happen anytime soon. So, if America is serious about staying in Iraq for that long,they are going to have to do in exactly the same way that every ruler has done it in that part of the world, through autocratic rule. They know that is the only way to rule over there. Except that America is not going to want to rush right in and put an autocratic authority in place, that would not look good, instead, they will phase it in gradually. Starting with having your military rule by the law of the gun is a good way to begin. All these American casualties that are happening are not as bad for America as one might think. The images of lawlessness and anarchy that are coming out if Iraq are actually doing the American position far more good than harm,. Even though they are losing some American lives because of it, remember that in war, lives are expendable, you just try not to lose too many. The more American lives that are lost, the more that the Pentagon can make a case that only heavy handed tactics are going to work and restore law and order in Iraq and have the American people agree. If the American public sees enough imagery of their soldiers being maimed and killed in Iraq, they will be willing to accept America acting in an authoritarian way that has nothing to do with democracy. Most Americans realize that America has gotten itself stuck into Iraq for a long time to come. They know that they have to govern that land now, simply because there is just no one else able to do it since America ran the Ba'athists out. If America was to leave Iraq now, it would look like quitting,and the American public would not stand for that shit at all. So the people know that their country has to find some way to restore law and order to and govern Iraq. The public would like to see it be through the democratic means that they have at home, to make the American Way look superior to the rest of the world. However, if they see that it either comes down to autocracy or the killing of American soldiers, then the public will always side on the cause of autocracy. They love that their country is democratic and free, and they want to export that worldwide, but they do not want to see their soldiers being killed by those that would take advantage of that. So they will accept America enacting some type of authoritarian rule in Iraq if it will save American soldiers lives. So they will not protest when America enacts exactly that type of government in Iraq and keeps it in place for years and years. Because if America can keep al the inter-tribal and anti-Western violence down, and can make Iraq into a peaceful society, the American public will forget all about Iraq, for there will be new problems and crises erupting. They will forget that America is still ruling Iraq with an iron fist, that there is no democracy like they promised to bring. That will be fine by Mr. Businessman, because he will still be getting all the oil money, and getting rich. The American government will always lie to the American public, and tell them that Iraq is much freer than it ever really is, like they lie about the way that Iraq is now. As long as it is relatively peaceful, then nobody will ever question it, and the oil money can flow to Mr. Businessman. The only way that America will ever be able to keep even a modicum of peace in Iraq is through autocratic rule, and they will do just that, for America worked hard to get control of Iraq's oil money for Mr. American Businessman, and they are not about to relinquish it. Iraq is indeed not ready yet for democracy, and probably never will be, America will see to that, because it is profitable to them, and that is all they care about, not the Iraqi people, not democracy, not anything else except profiting off of this all in whatever ways that they can.