Should Iraq be divided like the former Yugoslavia?

[theHandpuppet]

Tito kept the Balkan nations under one banner by using an iron fist, as Saddam did with Iraq. I question why we are now trying to do the same thing. Is this what the Iraqi people really want? Or is this what the U.S. wants? Hmmm...

Question: Would it be better, if the Iraqis wished it so (and I understand there are many who support the idea) to encourage the development of several smaller, autonomous nations to be governed by, say, Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds?

I'm asking this because this seems to be a really basic question regarding our presence and motives in Iraq and what the Iraqi people truly want for their future. Are we allowing them any room for self-determination here?

I concede the floor to those more knowledgable about these things than moi -- I admit I'm probably quite naive about these issues.

[sweetheart]

1. Should the USA be divided like the former Yugoslavia

The burdensome federal has been ruling with an iron fist, but as it
goes bankrupt, perhaps we should let the states decide based on
what the people want.

Would it be better to encourage the development of several smaller
autonomous nations to be governed by their people's choices?

I asking this because this seems to be a really basic question
regarding our precence and motives in the US, and what the American
people truly want for their future. Are we allowing any room for
self-determination here?

:-) I agree, the US should break up offering states the
opportunity to opt-out of the defense budget and offer their citizens
a free choice in their own future.

[theHandpuppet]

7. Ha-ha!

I liked your reply, and yes, I did see the irony in my question when I wrote the post. Just didn't know quite how to frame the question.

[KittyWampus]

10. The United States Has A Constitution

and pre-existing framework which was created and agreed upon.

Edit: Iraq had a monarchy... unless I'm wrong ? :dunce:

[sweetheart]

13. we agreed, huh?

How about we are allowed to test that agreement.... the constitution
is just a torn-up bit of paper. The only agreement is tacit.

[jfxgillis]

2. Um. Yes. Now let me reiterate:

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

YES.

Does that answer your question?

[tabasco]

3. I think this is a very interesting question.

I don't believe these different factions will ever be able to live together in harmony. It may be better to have separate states for each of these groups. IMO, in the long run, separate states give a better chance for peace. I am just as ignorant about the cultures and history as anyone else. This is just my opinion from what I do know.

[Goldmund]

4. No comparison between Tito and Saddam.

Tito kept the Balkan nations under one banner by using an iron fist, as Saddam did with Iraq.

I was born in Yugoslavia while Tito was still alive -- though near the end of his life. In my estimation, there was more freedom in Tito's Yugoslavia than there was in McCarthy's US, around that time; and closer to the end of his life, it wasn't much different than it is here in Bush's US. This isn't to say that Yugoslavia was an oasis of blossoming freedom -- I went to elementary school soon after Tito's death, and I remember political propagandizing inextricably entangled with education. But there was no "iron fist" -- not after, say, 1960. I don't know of anyone who went to jail or got into legal trouble for any kind of a political offense -- that came later, with Milosevic. But you could travel (my father did his PhD at CUNY in 1980-1981, for example; people went to vacations all over Europe and the world, and Yugoslavian coast was a favorite summer destination for Europeans), there was no banned books, movies and books in Yugoslavia widely criticized the socialist system, etc. Now, it WAS a one-party system, that's true -- but we have a 2-party system here, and for a politician to be succesful, he/she has to adhere to a very narrow span of the political spectrum. Yeah, it's great that Dennis Kucinich can call himself a candidate -- except that in practical terms, his candidacy is as good as nonexistent. The difference is mainly on paper -- people in Yugoslavia didn't feel any more oppressed than people here do.

It's not the disappearance of Tito that made some inherent hatreds surface. It is that those hatreds are always flammable on the Balkans and it isn't hard to resurrect them -- which is exactly what the new governments, post-Berlin wall, did, for their own political gain. And a lot of their methods were very analogous to Bush's handling of "War on Terror".

I know this doesn't have much to do with your post, but I just thought I'd talk about this myth that Tito's Yugoslavia was some kind of a Stalinist dungeon. It wasn't.

[theHandpuppet]

8. Thank you!

I really appreciate getting a different perspective from someone who was there, rather than just accepting what we've been spoon-fed.

[Goldmund]

11. You're welcome.

You know, it just makes me think about how many things we accept as truths without thinking -- we have no choice, really, since most of what we know about the world doesn't come from first-hand sources.

The Flat Earth Society -- a joke website that claims to represent a society of people who believe the Earth is flat -- makes a good, if inadvertent, point of this, by claiming that Idaho is a made-up place ("Have you ever met anyone from Idaho?").

Goes to show that one should never rely on any preconceived knowledge, espeically if that knowledge is in any way related to anybody's political interest.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. No no no! The neoconservatives want Iraq split, and so

they're fanning the flames of civil war in order to manufature a crisis to which they can impose the solution.

I posted this yesterday in another thread (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1327585):

The neocons are doing much more than merely hoping for civil war.

Because having conquered Iraq, they want an excuse to divide it, so it will never again be an independent economic and military power. That's good to remember, when the bombs blow up mosques and pilgrims, and neither Sunnis nor Shiites take credit nor appear keen to fan the sectarian flames. And think of the constitution the US has tried to impose, institutionalizing sectarian division. Iraqis do not want this!

The neoconservatives WANT Iraq to dissolve into chaos, so it can be carved into tribal vassal states. It's also a strategic goal of the Israeli right. Read Israeli journalist Oded Yinon, writing in 1982:

"The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.... Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria.... Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north."
http://www.xymphora.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_xymphora_archive.html#1078

What looks to us like a disaster is, to the neo-conservative ideologue, a transitional stage to the redrawing of the map of the Middle East.

So when the bombs explode, seemingly without reason, be assured: there's one huge, bloody reason.

Robert Fisk, March 3: "All This Talk Of Civil War, And Now This.... Coincidence?"

Odd, isn't it? There never has been a civil war in Iraq. I have never heard a single word of animosity between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq.

Al-Qa'ida has never uttered a threat against Shias - even though al-Qa'ida is a Sunni-only organisation. Yet for weeks, the American occupation authorities have been warning us about civil war, have even produced a letter said to have been written by an al-Qa'ida operative, advocating a Sunni-Shia conflict. Normally sane journalists have enthusiastically taken up this theme. Civil war.

...

I think of the French OAS in Algeria in 1962, setting off bombs among France's Muslim Algerian community. I recall the desperate efforts of the French authorities to set Algerian Muslim against Algerian Muslim which led to half a million dead souls.

...

We are entering a dark and sinister period of Iraqi history. But an occupation authority which should regard civil war as the last prospect it ever wants to contemplate, keeps shouting "civil war" in our ears and I worry about that. Especially when the bombs make it real.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5805.htm

[theHandpuppet]

9. Wow...

Okay, that puts a whole new light on things. I'll admit I thought BushCorp would have wanted the opposite, just to centralize their control over the region.

Much to contemplate.

[Minstrel Boy]

14. This is what BushCorp fear:

Iraqi Muslim Sunni and Shia marched hand in hand:


Iraqis unite to condemn interim constitution
March 20, 2004

Thousands of Muslim Sunni and Shia gathered after Friday prayers in al-Adhamya and al-Kadhimya districts in Baghdad to demonstrate against the interim Iraqi constitution.

...

Demonstrators chanted "Yes to Iraq, no to sectarianism, no to US occupation", in an attempt to show the commitment to national unity among Iraq's various religions, sects, and ethnicities.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B90497BA-C408-4E65-8ED7-5301CBBF841A.htm

[Fuzz]

6. Personally . . . .

I think this whole movement toward creating countries based on ethnic, tribal or religious groupings to be disturbing. It gives in to this whole notion that we as humans are just too idiotic (which we may be, not ready to give up yet though) to see beyond this stupid, primordial shit and become civilized. Seems like a huge step backward to me.

With the world supposedly getting smaller and borders breaking down, putting up borders based on these arbitrary, divisive and naturally inflammatory criterion isn't going to help anything in the long run.

But then, I'm way left of center and libertarian with a small 'l'.

[Bridget Burke]

12. Let the Iraqis do it if they wish....

The history of the last century is full of white men drawing lines on maps--in London or Washington or Paris. Perhaps a few "native" representatives were allowed, but most of the decisions were made for the benefit of the departing colonial powers.

Partition is generally a bad idea. Especially when imposed by departing colonial powers.

[skeptic9]

15. Yes, into 3 regions: Regular, Unleaded, and Premium