
State of emergency declared in Baghdad as protesters take Iraqi parliament - dismal2
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/protesters-storm-iraqi-parliament-in-baghdad/2016/04/30/0862fd3a-0ec1-11e6-8ab8-9ad050f76d7d_story.html
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SCAQTony
General Colin Powell warned George Bush before the Iraq war, "You break it,
you buy it..."

Two months before the invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
warned President Bush about the potential negative consequences of a war,
citing what Mr. Powell privately called the ''you break it, you own it'' rule
of military action, according to a new book.

''You're sure?'' Mr. Powell is quoted as asking Mr. Bush in the Oval Office on
Jan. 13, 2003, as the president told him he had made the decision to go
forward. ''You understand the consequences,'' he is said to have stated in a
half-question. ''You know you're going to be owning this place?...''

[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/17/world/the-struggle-for-
ira...](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/17/world/the-struggle-for-iraq-policy-
wary-powell-said-to-have-warned-bush-on-war.html?pagewanted=1)

~~~
gkya
Well the West bought it way before the US invasion of Iraq. After the WWI the
Ottoman Empire didn't _exit gracefully_ , but it was _kill -9ed_. Now people
are in a quest for identity and peace, and they have to deal with vultures who
want their petrol and gas and whatnot.

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Inthenameofmine
I think there is one extremely important takeaway from all of this:

> At the heart of the protesters demands is an end to the political quota
> system, which was put in place after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and sees
> positions shared out between sects.

I am unfamiliar with the situation in Iraq, but the same shit was done onto
Bosnia and Kosovo. Both quasi-countries with quasi-governments, dysfunctional
to the core, their corrupt elites kept in power by central powers in the US
and EU to perpetuate the geopolitical status quo. By doing so they
artificially keep the population from progressing, economically as well as
socially. Parliaments are turned into dysfunctional chessboards for every
power but the local people.

It's pretty obvious that this 21st century type of state building isn't much
different from classic colonialism. Some people involved might want only the
best for the locals, but then again so did the colonialists in their perverse
ways.

Countries simply cannot be build without self determination and democracy.
Quotas and veto powers are inherently anti-democratic.

~~~
nxzero
Countries can't be built.

------
nxzero
If the US Embassy staff is still there, makes you wonder what's really going
on.

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ganitayu
I thought they were going to greet us with flowers?

~~~
GunboatDiplomat
Well, the Kurds more or less did. If we had done EVERYTHING perfectly, we
might have been able to get one of either the Sunnis or Shiites to de facto
support our presence. But we didn't.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
So, this is something I don't get when I hear American people (I assume you
are?) discussing the invasion and then occupation of Iraq: why do you think
there's any way that any Iraqi people would ever "support" it?

If some foreign power (er, the Martians?) invaded and occupied the USA, would
any American ever truly support it? Would it make any difference if someone
was Republican or Democratic, or whatever? Wouldn't patriotic duty demand that
you oppose the occupation?

I'm Greek, we were occupied by the Germans in WWII. As in the rest of Europe,
some people collaborated with the Axis forces, and we even had a puppet
government put in place and all, but there was never one group of people who
"supported" the Axis as a whole. We had home-grown fascists and communists who
slaughtered each other once the Germans were gone, but they both fought the
Germans (and each other) ferociously while we were occupied. Ordinary people
resented and resisted the occupation, with all they had [1].

I can't understand how anyone may think any other people would do anything
different, ever, no matter who was the occupying force and whatever the
justification. Things can't get worse for a sovereign country and its people
than having a foreign power occupying your territory [2].

____________________

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Resistance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Resistance)
(please ignore the weaselly-worded bit at the start)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_occupation_of_Greece](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_occupation_of_Greece)

~~~
GunboatDiplomat
It's not unreasonable to think that the invasion could have been managed in
such a way that most Iraqis (2 of the 3 primary groups) would see us as
liberators. As it is, we only managed that with the Kurds.

The reason I think that is because the Saddam regime was based on oppressing
the Kurds and Shiites, and elevating the Sunnis at their expense. In that kind
of situation, you can pull the liberator thing off if done carefully.

