Let's avoid the passive voice. Make clear the agent who is to create the police and social services "before withdrawal is complete." Don't tell me "the United Nations," which conjures up in the mind of the reader a soothing image of the General Assembly of equal sovereign states. Within the existing structure of the UN, only the UN Security Council -- more specifically, the five permanent members with veto powers -- can make decisions like this. The US can veto any proposal that it dislikes in the US SC (and it has wielded most vetoes since the end of the Cold War).
BTW, the demand #3 above cannot but evoke nightmares of "orderly withdrawal" and "peace with honor."
At 1:05 PM -0700 7/23/03, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>The US not going to withdraw and it is not going to allow an honest
>interim govt to be set up. It is as naiuve to think the fortmer as
>the latter.
Why bother calling for "an interim, more neutral administration," if you think it naive to imagine it to be possible anyways?
At 2:45 PM -0700 7/23/03, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>OK, fine, the obvious conclusion is that we should demand that the
>occupation continue until the Iraqis get their shit together and
>throw the US out. jks
Wed, 23 Jul 2003 16:47:51 -0700 (PDT), andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>Though Yoshie's objective position is the the US should remain until
>the Iraqis are strong and organized enough to throw them oute.
Try not to confuse "will" with "should." Prediction is one thing; preference is another. US leftists should organize a movement to Bring the Troops Home Now and End the Occupation, because if the movement gets strong enough, it will at least prevent the USG from escalating its counter-insurgency warfare as much as it might like to.
Max says:
>The only demand that really counts -- has an operational dimension
>-- is troops home. To me, doing good at the point of a bayonet is
>just so Vietnam.
***** U.S. Troops Fix Bayonets Against Iraqi Crowd Sun July 20, 2003 04:07 PM ET By Miral Fahmy
NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. Marines fixed bayonets on Sunday to disperse an angry crowd of 10,000 Iraqi Shi'ites in the holy city of Najaf after tempers flared over rumors of U.S. harassment of a radical cleric.
Marchers dispersed after two hours but some of the Shi'ite cleric's supporters warned of an "uprising" in the city if the Americans failed to pull out within three days.
"If they don't leave, they will face a popular uprising," said Sayed Razak al-Moussawi, an aide to the anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Protesters presented the U.S. forces with a list of demands.
Under a fierce sun, aides to Sadr struggled to restrain his supporters and the show of force by the Marines halted the march on the U.S. administration office in the dusty and impoverished city, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad.
In heated negotiations, nose-to-nose with one of Sadr's aides, the U.S. commander in Najaf, Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Conlin, denied reports his men had surrounded Sadr's house on Saturday and warned his men would respond if threatened....
<http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=3122122> ***** -- Yoshie
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