Attack on UN in Iraq

Will help who, sorry?
I personally think that it will help the UN restore peace in Iraq. The Iraqis have a lot of built up anger for the Americans, which is the reason, IMO, behind the attacks on the UN. If the UN peace keeping in Iraq were seen as... UN peace keeping, not the UN giving USA a helping hand, then maybe the attacks might stop?

It wont, how ever, help the USA's reputation. They go in there, saying that they are going to remove the WoMD, which they can't find, and bring peace and democracy to the people of Iraq. If they withdraw then they would have achieved none of their goals.

I've never thought about the possibility that they could be thinking ahead of us, before. Interesting. But that I don't think any of us will ever have any way of telling, until we catch up those five paces.

 

This is really a hard question, because even though Saddam is no longer in power (which is a good thing) the US was never invited to do the job by the Iraqi people. No country would want to be occupied by a foreign power. There is bound to be resentment as a result of the US policy of self-appointed "liberators."

However, terrorists will only prove all the more that the US should be there. The people of Iraq will be the ones to suffer the most in the long run from this kind of senseless killing and the result will be that the average person in Iraq will want stability (as DMC says). They may see the US as a source of keeping order, despite having been the cause of chaos in the first place. While those who are most hardened against the US will seek the devil as the alternative.

Nothing can change what the US has caused in Iraq. The advantage is that Saddam and his gang are gone and the people there have a better chance. But if the US becomes the new "tyrant" of Iraq (like staying five years) then the situation there for the average Iraqi will be worse than if Saddam had stayed.

Many of us knew that the peace would be the hard part after all the flag-waving and mindless platitudes from aircraft carrier decks were gone. The people of Iraq are left with the hard cold reality that they have a country on the brink of the abyss.

[ August 20, 2003, 16:41: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

I don't think it will help any.

The recent bombings and attacks in Iraq are aimed at both the Peace-Keepers as well as the infrastructure - water, gas, electricity, etc...

The goals of such actions are quite obvious - some Iraqis do not want a new "Westernized" government - especially one that values the concepts of democracy and liberty.

This is not at all surprising. Most Westerners find it almost hard to believe that a simple concept like "democracy" is feared and disliked in the Middle East. The only nation that is making progress is Qatar, and they are hated and despised by other Middle Eastern nations.

All in all, if the U.S. leaves Iraq, the attacks will not stop and may even increase. If we abandon Iraq now, they will fall into chaos and another tyrant will return.

 

Maybe they targeted the UN-envoy Vieira de Mello . He seems to have been an astonishing, very gifted person and very important for the future of Iraq. And he seems to have been urging support for the Iraqi-council, which should govern the country. Which may have been the thorn in another one's side.

Or maybe they just targeted the UN, because the UN wanted to keep the security low, to establish a connection to the local people. Or maybe they targeted them, because they see the UN as arm of the US. Or they want to make sure, that the UN and with it possible reinforcments from other countries, stay out.

Or it's like Blackhawk said, just another blow to keep the infrastructure out of order, to secure growing resentment versus the occupying forces.

Or it's all of the above.

Some become engineers to buld, others to destroy. The leadership of terroristic organisations usally seem to be a meeting of phd's, so it's likely that the plan and think ahead.

 

This is a natural consequence IMHO since the Iraqies see with everyday that passes that they were liberated from one tyrant in order to become citizens of a democratic state that will be a pawn or better yet a lackey to a nation that is the front line for (in their point of view) almost everything they see as immoral and corrupt. And the fact that there is an Iraqie council means nothing to them since this council is a puppy of the US administration (the USA citizen governor has the right of veto to the decisions of the council). Furthermore they thought that the coallition force would be gone sooner than they are now saying and this makes them feel like they are under occuppation, something that is true after all.

I'm sorry Blackhawk but there is no goverment in the whole world with the shiny exception of Switzerland that really values these concepts and this is known to everyone.

I don't think that democracy is a simple concept in fact i think it is the hardest of all political systems to be adapted by a country and this is proved by the failure to be correctly applied in every western nation.

 

Anyone who is willing to damage the infrastructure of their OWN people for the goal of saving them is not someone I'd trust, PhD or not. Especially in the sense that at it's base, democracy means shared power -- these people do not want to share power with the common man -- or woman. The US may have a great deal of power in Iraq right now, but they are not nearly as bad regarding issues like human rights as these right-wing Muslim fanatics (like the Taliban)

 

With PhD I didn't intend to say that their trustworthy or have noble goals. I just wanted to stress, that most of their leadership have usually good education and propably thought about what their doing. Planning didn't make Dr. Moriarty a better being, but a dangerous one.

As for the attack, it seems that the responsible groups is still completly in the dark. Might be that their foreigners or any other group with it's very own goals. Therefore there are no boundaries on speculation.

 

The UN more or less recognised the coalition as the authority in Iraq. I could understand the locals being pissed at them.
Someone could be planning a takeover by religious leaders, although said leaders have already gained much power since Saddam's fall.
I don't even rule out the possibility that it was a US move to discredit Iraqis and justifying the occupation somehow.
Or perhaps something else, I don't know.

 

Another thread of the problem is this

This is from video news at Yahoo