Nualam,
My God, man. It has been less than two years in one place and less than one in the other. Besides, both countries have not had nothing resembling free thought for 1-2 generations? My goodness. You must be part of the new generation of instant gratification.
These things take time. There will ALWAYS be opposition from those who held power before. Why is that so difficult to understand. While looters run roughshod in Haiti, 95% of the population is deathly poor and desperate for a single chance to build a life for themselves and their families.
Cut the crap with WMD and Bush. WHoever the President is, he/she will always work in the best interest of the US. Period. End of Story. Get over any vestiges of utopianism. The issue not not whether Bush lied (good grief, man!) but whether the people from country X can emerge in better stead.
I personally don't want to make the world safe for democracy. The track record for democracy is spotty at best. However, when people are repressed so intensely as they were in these three countries, I am behind efforts to change things. Is for the oil? Who cares? Do you think the US or any other sane government will spend billions (i.e. my tax dollars) if they got nothing out of it? Of COURSE NOT. Anybody who thinks otherwise had best wake up.
In order to govern a country wracked by 30 years of brutal war, the last thing I would want is to hand over controls for a free election...What planet do you live on, friend? An interim council is the smartest way to run things. Precisely the transitional governing bodies in place in Western Europe and Japan after the war.
I don't want the US to build a democratic system in any country. That's their responsibility. But if we can plant the seeds folks might be able to live their lives.
But before I leave you, please refrain from being so flippant or indignant with certain words and catch phrases. Look, the U S is not colonizing these countries. I'll be more blunt, YOU are WRONG if you think so. Are US firms their to make a profit? Of course they are. Is US there to serve its self-interest? Of course it is. Give me a break if you think firms on the outside looking in are not thinking the same way. Please...so frustrating. There are NO colonies being established. You do a terrible injustice to those countries that were colonized in the past.
Because the US gets the lion share of contracts, you are all aghast. Please. Last time I checked, Bechtel was not sending over 300,000 American engineers to do the job of rebulding. Most likely, the work and pay that Iraqi and Afghani engineers will see in the next few years will be among the most lucrative jobs in their lives. Don't be so shocked that the US firms are in it for the profit. Good grief, of course they are!!!
To me, it is clear. You are part of generation N, the naive generation, the generation that thinks that present day creature comforts just...are, that they just appeared and that is how things have always been.
Pick up your pencil. Note the yellow paint. That paint came from a long string of chemical discoveries. The production of that paint came from chemical companies which at some point polluted the hell out of some wonderful fly fishing river in Anytown USA or in wouthern Taiwan or on the West Coast of SIngapore. See that rubber. It may have come from Malaysian rubber forests run by REAL ex-colonists who most likely employed some degree of indentured servents or even SLAVES. And what about that wonderful wood? Could have easily come from the chopping down of Brazlian rain forest, the very trees whose decimation is likely causing Greenhouse effects.
Try this excercise with everything you own. What will you learn? That you, my friend, are directly involved in the corporate and capitalist forces that are creating the incentives for competition and war. Unless you till the ground yourself, butcher your own meat, make your own clothes from the hides and sinews of your herd, please, please stop with all the anti-globalization rhetoric and finger pointing at the US. Instead, do something about it in real terms.
You speak of coropratism as if its an American phenomenon...Are you kidding me? For whom do you work for? The mickey Mouse Club? Geez. Open your eyes. Share in the guilt. You my friend are directly responsible for all that goes on, as I am and everyone else on this board.
Your heart is in the right place, but you need a couple more years of education on how the business world has always worked. Ugly and nasty, yes. But the world has not seen any other way?
Chance are if you revealed your country and your family's past, you are likely as guilty as sin, perhaps even more than joe blow Bechtel engineer risking life and limb to help build a bridge in a hostile area of Afghanistan. So please work on solutions and not finger pointing. It just gets so old so quickly!! Post after post from people who some from countries with as many evils in their past. Please ofer solutions and not tit-for-tat finger pointing.
