This sketch, from Monty Python's Life of Brian, might help American leaders think clearly about how people in a foreign country would react if we went into that country, removed a bad leader, and set up an occupation. It doesn't matter how much good you do, it's their country and they want to rule it themselves.
Reg: They bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had. And not just from us! From our fathers, and from our father's fathers.
Loretta: And from our father's father's fathers.
Reg: Yeah.
Loretta: And from our father's father's father's fathers.
Reg: Yeah, all right Stan, don't delay with the point. And what have they ever given us in return?
Revolutionary I: The aqueduct?
Reg: What?
Revolutionary I: The aqueduct.Reg: Oh. Yeah, yeah, they did give us that, ah, that's true, yeah.
Revolutionary II: And the sanitation.
Loretta: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like.
Reg: Yeah, all right, I'll grant you the aqueduct and sanitation, the two things the Romans have done.
Matthias: And the roads.
Reg: Oh, yeah, obviously the roads. I mean the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads...
Revolutionary III: Irrigation.
Revolutionary I: Medicine.
Revolutionary IV: Education.
Reg: Yeah, yeah, all right, fair enough.
Revolutionary V: And the wine.
All revolutionaries except Reg: Oh, yeah! Right!
Rogers: Yeah! Yeah, that's something we'd really miss Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
Revolutionary VI: Public bathes.
Loretta: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
Rogers: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it; they're the only ones who could in a place like this.
All revolutionaries except
Reg: Hahaha...all right...
Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Revolutionary I: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, peace! Shut up!
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Christians of Iraq
Sadly, these Christians are suffering more since our invasion than they were under Saddam.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
My argument against the war in Iraq
My argument against the Iraq war
Shiites believe that the true successors of Muhammad were murdered and the succession went to the wrong people. Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Muslim who ruled a country with a 2-1 Shiite majority with the power of the sword. The US invaded Iraq, and ejected Saddam from power. Apparently the argument from weapons of mass destruction fell apart upon close inspection, but the most laudable of the motivations that the Bush Administration might have had for going in there was the idea that if we could set up a democracy in Iraq, we could set up a model for other Middle Eastern Islamic countries to follow. The idea was that other countries in the Islamic would be able to see what democracy can do and would want to have democracies in their own countries. So the Islamic world would gratefully see the advantages of American democratic political institutions and anti-American terrorism would be de-motivated.
Unfortunately, this plan had a snowball’s chance in Baghdad of working. Democracy doesn’t work unless the religious majority is prepared to allow the religious minority religious freedom. Will Shiites give that to the Sunnis, whom they consider to be usurpers of the true Islam and assassins of its true leaders? So long as religious minorities don’t get religious freedom, all you’re ever going to get is a tyranny of the majority. Hence the Sunnis are fighting against us, and many of the Shiites don’t want us around either.
Islam, unlike Christianity, is from its very founding a religion that seeks rulership. Whatever its merits may be, it seems constitutionally incapable of accepting the idea of church-state separation. At least, those who might be willing to accept a de-politicized conception of Islam are not likely to be found in Iraq. I have always thought that had we understood Buddhism better, we might have avoided the colossal blunder we committed in Vietnam. Had we understood Islam, we perhaps might also have avoided the even more colossal blunder in Iraq.
Shiites believe that the true successors of Muhammad were murdered and the succession went to the wrong people. Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Muslim who ruled a country with a 2-1 Shiite majority with the power of the sword. The US invaded Iraq, and ejected Saddam from power. Apparently the argument from weapons of mass destruction fell apart upon close inspection, but the most laudable of the motivations that the Bush Administration might have had for going in there was the idea that if we could set up a democracy in Iraq, we could set up a model for other Middle Eastern Islamic countries to follow. The idea was that other countries in the Islamic would be able to see what democracy can do and would want to have democracies in their own countries. So the Islamic world would gratefully see the advantages of American democratic political institutions and anti-American terrorism would be de-motivated.
Unfortunately, this plan had a snowball’s chance in Baghdad of working. Democracy doesn’t work unless the religious majority is prepared to allow the religious minority religious freedom. Will Shiites give that to the Sunnis, whom they consider to be usurpers of the true Islam and assassins of its true leaders? So long as religious minorities don’t get religious freedom, all you’re ever going to get is a tyranny of the majority. Hence the Sunnis are fighting against us, and many of the Shiites don’t want us around either.
Islam, unlike Christianity, is from its very founding a religion that seeks rulership. Whatever its merits may be, it seems constitutionally incapable of accepting the idea of church-state separation. At least, those who might be willing to accept a de-politicized conception of Islam are not likely to be found in Iraq. I have always thought that had we understood Buddhism better, we might have avoided the colossal blunder we committed in Vietnam. Had we understood Islam, we perhaps might also have avoided the even more colossal blunder in Iraq.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)