[lbo-talk] Any comments/links re Iraq elections?

KJ kjinkhoo at gmail.com
Wed Feb 2 07:30:50 PST 2005


At 9:05 am -0500 2/2/05, Charles Brown wrote:
>Dwayne Monroe:
>
>-clip-
>The United States did not invade Iraq to leave it to its own devices sweet
>words to the contrary notwithstanding. At some point (next week? five years
>from now? who can say?) the Iraqi majority who've, to-date, refrained from
>armed rebellion, will demand that their leaders remove this foreign
>irritant.
>
>CB: Worse case scenario might be like Korea. Some 50 years ago the United
>Snakes invaded there and haven't left yet. The Americans have the nerve to
>call those in the North still resisting occupation part of an "Axis of Evil"
>that includes(d ?) Iraq.

This is the kind of reaction that almost certainly ensures you lose. The US is still in S Korea, but it'd be a tough sell to make the S Korean govt out to be a puppet, even more that S Korean society is abjectly subordinate. Heck, it's probably got the toughest labour movement in the whole of SE and E Asia. Sure, we know why S Korea was allowed so much rope and leeway; why, when land reform was being opposed elsewhere, it was allowed/encouraged in S Korea and in Taiwan; why a dirigiste state and industrial planning was allowed; why a closed financial system was allowed; etc., etc. And it's sometimes easy to forget that it's been barely a quarter century since Kwangju.

So, if the worse case scenario is S Korea, hell, it's not a bad scenario. And if that was held out to Iraqis as a worse case scenario, it's probable a majority of Iraqis would go for it!

kj



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