Saturday, October 6, 2007

Someone else's Civil war

I just watched a video of presidential hopeful Bill Richardson delineating his strategy for exiting the conflict in Iraq and reinvigorating the US military.
I was impressed. Besides the fact that he actually looks and moves like an actual human being,
his ideas echoed thoughts I've been having for a long time.

Mr. Richardson believes that the American presence in Iraq is now exacerbating violence as opposed to curbing it. He says that 90% of Sunnis and 50% of Shia feel that it is acceptable to shoot at an American soldier. Just the sight of an American brings issues of violence to the forefront of the Iraqi mind.

Bill Richardson believes that all US military presence should be removed from Iraq immediately.
Only then can the world try to figure out what really must be done: starting from scratch as opposed to cleaning up a self-regenerating mess.
He suggests that any outside force in Iraq should be comprised of a UN peacekeeping group of Arab troops.
The people of Iraq may look at a soldier who looks and thinks like them in a different way.
They may actually feel like someone is trying to help them.
After over 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths, they could use some familiar policing as opposed to alien invasion.
I will be watching Bill Richardsons campaign closely and eagerly from now on.

1 comment:

Peter said...

Thaks to Annie for her help. Keep it up! I'm somewhere in the Mediterranean between Sicily and Patmos. Can't leave a post because Google here only seems to understand Japanese. Back in a week or so with stories of Sicilian "business meetings" and donkey rides. Ciao!