This is what I'm seeing. It started with a comment by BSAMS:
Quote: britneyspearsatemyshorts said: I think if someone is fighting being oppressed they would be a freedom fighter, if they are fighting a democracy being formed in their goverment they would be terrorists.
So Jay responded:
Quote: magicjay38 said: Being occupied by a foreign military power. Can it get a lot more oppressive than that?
Then G-man replied:
Quote: the G-man said: Yes, when the "foreign occupier" would like nothing better than to see you idiots embrace democracy, so we can go home.
And then Jay accused G-man of being a bigot. And G-man responded that Jay was falling back on the "you must be a racist because I have nothing else I can say to prove you wrong" argument. (Just summing it up here.)
Now, as far as I can tell, all G-man was saying is that the "foreign occupier" doesn't want to be there, and the only reason the troops are still there is because there is an insurgancy, which relies heavily on suicide bombers, who are trying to prevent the formation of a democratic government.
I can see where the White Man's Burden argument comes into play. Who are we (the US) to tell the Iraqis how to govern themselves? But I also see the other side. I see a people who have been persecuted in ways I don't want to imagine, by their own government. I see a people who don't know how to fight back, because they don't have the will to fight after being subjugated for so long. I see a people who can be easily manipulated by the good guys or the bad guys (I guess who's who depends on you're point of view).
The other thing I see is a group of terrorists who will stop at nothing to kill American lives and their allies, including those the insurgents consider their own people. How can that be ignored? If the US were to pull out right now, what would happen to the people who aren't Muslim, or aren't of a strict religious observance? Who will protect them from oppression?
What the US is trying to do is guide all of these different groups (because not all Iraqis are the same) into creating one free government that allows everyone to live their lives in peace with one another. Sure, the US has ulterior motives here. A united democractic Iraq is more likely to cut the US a break on oil prices. It is also more likely to help the US by closing it's borders to terrorists. But all that aside, what's important here is a free Iraq.
Can that happen without the US? I'm not foolish enough to think so. Then again, I'm not foolish enough to believe it can be successful at all. But I hope it can.
In any case, I don't think G-man meant for his remark to come off as bigoted. It was poorly worded. Some people in Iraq probably do believe that the insurgants are fighting to free them from an invading force. But that's not why they are fighting at all. If a democratic government is successfully formed in Iraq, then the terrorists lose a resource. That's what they are fighting for. They are fighting against Western influence. And they're war is killing innocent Iraqis along the way.
Like G-man said, the US wants out, but as long as Iraq cannot defend itself, it will stay to defend the innocent people who live there. Would it be right for the US to pull out early and watch as the terrorists establish another Taliban?
"Well, as it happens, I wrote the damned SOP," Illescue half snarled, "and as of now, you can bar those jackals from any part of this facility until Hell's a hockey rink! Is that perfectly clear?!" - Dr. Franz Illescue - Honor Harrington: At All Costs
"I don't know what I'm do, or how I do, I just do." - Alexander Ovechkin</sub>
