By RF Schatten
Political retirement, mellows out that partisanship in favor of a little more objectivity. Reflecting back, you might say; "Why the hell!! did I do that??...oh!! I remember now, oops!!
Take politics out of the equation...and look at events from the Historical perspective...it was a total failure from day one!! The act of coming to the aid of oppression, against a ruthless dictator...may be very cavalier...but simple, common understanding of someone's culture and ways, can get you a lot farther, than trying to win their Hearts and Minds...on your terms. Now you have the Republican Hawks, with John "Maverick" McCain, leading the latest "Charge!!" chants..."bomb the hell out of them!!" You see, the Iraqi Army is useless...we must go back, and help the Iraqis not lose everything, we have brought to them...though McCain, never volunteered to lead that mission...just too embarrassing to get shot down...again!!
We are too quick to judge our State Dept and Foreign Policies. But, they aren't any different than any other administration...for the good or the bad...they are humans, and they fuck up!! In my lifetime, from Harry Truman on up...every Government has had it's share of controversy. McNamara admitted he was wrong...it's very interesting what Condoleeza Rice, who played a major role shaping Iraq to what it is today, had to say. Whether or not, it made any sense to the "Maverick" and his fellow
Buckaroos, doesn't matter...you can't fix stupid. But anybody else, who's tired of all these useless wars, may just understand the truth spoken by Ms.Rice; "Sometimes there are those who say that maybe, there are just those who don't have the DNA for Democracy. Maybe they're just 'not' ready for Democracy"
Is Iraq ready for Democracy?? We can't bring a Governmental System to those, whose culture is 360*
different than ours...they have the right of self-determination. Unfortunately, until they 'do' learn Democracy on their own...we're going to have allow them to go through their own revolution...if that's what they want...and pick their own Democratically elected President, or their new Dictator...it's their course in history, and their choice...not ours.
Ghost of Iraq haunts Condoleezza Rice portrait unveiling
