Prerequisites for Peace II

[Yihong]

Baghda, Please delete this one too. The whole topic is under Prerequisites I. Thanks.

[Guest Mary]

It is an issue that is bound up not only with the necessity for eliminating extremes of wealth and poverty....

 

Why is it necessary to eliminate extreme wealth? How would you suggest that be done? How much wealth is too much? Who would determine such a thing and how would that be determined?

[Woody1965]

Mary is right. That would be a terrible mistake. The old saying "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer" simply isn't true. The fact is, the rich get richer, the poor get richer. If businessmen know that their profits will not be taken from them, they will expand and hire more people. Everybody benefits.

 

Reducing wealth of a country=Recipe for poverty.

 

Poverty=Recipe for violence.

[Tom Penn]

Bill Gates has great wealth because he is a brilliant, hard-working man. Look at all those he employs around the world, and has enriched by his genius. He has enabled other businesses to be more efficient and successful the world over. Consider the great work accomplished by his charities. Great wealth, lawfully gained, is good and not evil. Bill Gates would not be such a wealthy man, and Microsoft products would not be successful if people did not WANT to buy his product. Good business makes the world a winner.

 

One of the reasons America is such a wealthy, powerful and successful nation is because her people are free to pursue their dreams. I hope Iraqis will be able to do the same, and enrich themselves and their nation, as their abilities will allow. I also hope that wealthy, successful Iraqis will give back to their communities, their country, and the world, as many wealthy successful Americans choose to do.

[Final Historian]

Great, another Utopian dream. There will be peace on Earth when humanity ceases to be a upon it. Violence is inherent in human nature, its encoded into our DNA, and will always exist. State sponsored violence can be reduced, democratic government is perhaps the best means of doing so, but you can't get a rid of it entirely. Its simply not human.

[Woody1965]

Utopianism of different kinds has probably led to more mass murder than any other factor. Care about today's human lives and don't sacrifice people today for some dream of tomorrow--that you will never see no matter how many die. Accept the imperfections and try to make a happy life in spite of them.

[salim]

A wise Iraqi had replied to :what is the difference between Imperialism and communist system?..

 

In worse case, Imperialism makes the rich richer, Communism makes the poor poorer

In best case: Imperialism makes poor richer, Communism makes the rich poorer

In both cases, Communism makes some people poorer, Imperialism makes other people richer!

[Guest Guest_Mutergem]

Translating Salim 's:

 

اجاب احد حكماء العراق عن الفرق بين الشيوعيه والراسماليه :

في اسء الحالات , الراسماليه تغني الغي , الشوعيه تفقر الفقير

في احسن الحالات , الرسماليه تغني الفقير, الشوعيه تفقر الغني.

في كلا الحالتين هناك بعض الناس من تفقرهم الشيوعيه, بينما تغني اللرسماليه البعض الاخر.

[Yihong]

What I was talking about is the "inordinate disparity between rich and poor". Not eliminating wealth and poverty but reducing the gap.

 

Many people are poor, not because they are lazy and stupid, but because of the circumstances of their birth. Iraq is a great example.

[Woody1965]

Yihong, I understand your sentiment (really, I'm poor myself, compared to a lot of people here), but the answer isn't to reduce the "gap," the answer is to make the poor richer--even if the rich also get richer still. Don't measure compared to someone else. If you're making more money, who cares how much someone else has? You still have more, right? Let EVERYONE get richer, and you'll soon have a rich country.

[Guest Tom Grey]

Woody, I agree with letting the rich get richer -- while focusing attention & social programs & aid at helping the poor help themselves get richer.

 

Note my phrasing -- only the poor can end their own poverty, by behaving differently. Usually by getting a better job! Getting a better job requires different behavior -- it also requires somebody to offer that job.

 

The reason economists focus on "economic growth" is that only growing economies see a lot more job offers. But those employers HAVE to be "rich", to have the money to start the business; and they only offer jobs because they want to get "richer". If the system doesn't allow the rich business folk to get richer, they will not offer more jobs.

 

Woody, I totally DISAGREE about "utopianism" being the cause of wars. Rather, destructive envy is the main cause: Jew hate due to envy; intellectual hate (in Cambodia, everybody who was educated was murdered) due to envy; Tutsi power hated and envied by Hutus; successful Chinese envied & hated in Malaysia; successful Koreans in black US neighborhoods, envied & hated.

 

See the Angry Left, and their hatred of Bush, almost always including references to his tax cuts (for the rich!) -- the US Angry Left envies & hates the US rich (& powerful).

 

My point is to support low taxes in Iraq; an Alaska-modeled "Iraq oil fund" to pay every Iraq (except not Ba'athists?) a monthly dividend so that few other gov't programs are needed for the poor -- and be as "business friendly" as possible so that all of Iraq can follow the Singapore & Hong Kong models of business growth. And, like many in America, replace destructive envy with admiration and competition -- we can do BETTER.

 

I truly believe that, within 5 years, the Iraq economy will be the admired model of the Arab and Muslim world.

[Woody1965]

Tom Grey, I meant specifically, MASS murder. You're right that the root problem is envy. However, it is extremely dangerous when someone manages to convince people that their envy serves a PURPOSE.

 

That in fact acting on their envy with violence will result in heaven on earth. Communism offers the promise of a paradise where no one has more than anyone else. Nazism promises an orderly society where the "racially pure" rule over a world of happily subjegated "lesser races." Al Qaeda's ideology promises a "global Caliphate" where Islam rules the earth.

 

They start out just being envious, then start thinking they are actually doing something good and "purifying" when they kill the objects of their envy. That organizes envy and gets a lot of people killed. Happens over and over.

 

The Rwanda situation doesn't fit though. You're right about that. That's a case where one group (Tutsis) has exclusive power over another group (Hutus) and then the balance reverses. The group now in power remembers how it was abused by the former ruling group--and resorts to massacre to prevent the power from ever reversing again.

 

That's something I fear in the case of Iraq. Sunnis had preference, but they are now on the outs. Somehow Shia and Sunni (and every other ethnic group) need to be integrated into the government. Otherwise we could have a lot of violence against Sunnis at some point. Also if the Sunnis think they will never have ANY stake in government, they'll never cooperate and will never stop fighting. I don't know how to solve that problem.

 

As for your economic arguments... They sound pretty right on to me.

[salim]

Woody's:

That's something I fear in the case of Iraq. Sunnis had preference, but they are now on the outs. Somehow Shia and Sunni (and every other ethnic group) need to be integrated into the government. Otherwise we could have a lot of violence against Sunnis at some point. Also if the Sunnis think they will never have ANY stake in government, they'll never cooperate and will never stop fighting. I don't know how to solve that problem

 

That is a very interesting question and point of concern.. I don't agree with though:-)

Let me explain by going through the following basic questions

 

1- Are Sunni's today reluctant to participate in the new government?

2- If Not, what is the reasons behind the violence?

3- Is there such comparison between Rwanda and Iraq.

 

My answers to these:

1- Majority of Sunni's are in Musoll and Kurds.. There are no real violence concerns in their areas.. Representative from most powerful Sunni Arab Shimer Mosul tribe is in the GC, there are other 9 Sunni's in GC .. Most of them are the most Islamic/tribal/technocrats sunni's ever I know in Iraq. I would like to know if there is any other one name that deserve better than them to represent Iraq not mentioning Sunni's

2- We need to understand that the regime is not a single person Saddam, it was a complete system ruled Iraq over 30 years. There were Sunni's, Shia, and others even Kurds as part of that criminal regime.. Adding the Alqaeda dimension, I would assume that calling the violence as a sunni phenomena is quite un realistic.

3- In Rwanda, the minority were ruling in their name with a clear message. In Iraq Baathist were ruling no Sunni / no Shia.. When the regime collapsed, there were vacuum of power and there were hundreds of thousands of victim's families living in one neighborhood with Baathists.. There was no any reported revenge accident registered.. Not mentioning any minor one between Sunni's and Shia..

 

 

We need to be careful dealing with this issue. While it might be reasonable to have such concern in mind, yet we don't need to comply with fascist Sadamee's goals. All what they are trying to do is to stop the democratic new system.. Two nights ago I heard one of the speakers on CSPAN cover for Future of Iraq session, he was repeating some concerns that democracy might mean the rule of Shia.. Then he suggested Federalism as a solution.. He failed to answer the very important question though,: If this is the solution, and I agree that it is, then why are these fascist against it? .. If is really to protect minorities like the Sunni Arab.

 

To my understanding, they are not afraid of democracy because it might bring Shia majority in, indeed they want to keep control of all "Shia/sunna/others"..

Let them do that, means that all the scarifies of our blood would go for nothing

[Guest Tom Grey]

I totally support more local power at the city level, and the province level. And also support for minority rights; but especially LIMITS on gov't power. The real economic issue is for the current rulers to use the power of gov't, either through taxes or corrupt purchase agreements or special econ laws, to help their (usually rich) friends get richer, unfairly. This is a problem in America, in every democracy; see the EU's most recent scandals.

 

The best solution so far is to keep the gov't away from economic control--have the gov't control the police, to make the laws that everybody should obey, to choose the judges to enforce the laws with the police. Not the results of the game, the rules of the game.

 

I'd also like as much Cantonization/ subsidiarity, as possible.

[FreeArab]

I have to agree with what all of you are saying for the most part:

 

We need to have a system where it does not MATTER what ethnicity someone coming to political office belongs too. We have to do some research into the concept of "checks and balances" which the early Americans seemed to have pioneered. The whole concept basically said that no matter what type of government you had, there was always that risk that it would get a hold of more and more power, until dictatorship. For emperical evidence, I point to the timeless history of man.

 

Even if someone espouses a "nice" dictatorship where torture for saying the wrong thing involves the muscular undertaker tickling your left foot for hours on end instead of forcing you to eat sulpuric acid ala Saddam, that would still not be the solution - because of the fact that you are being "punished" for saying something "wrong".

 

We have to figure out a way of making this system of checks and balances for our government in Iraq. In fact, we can look at the Americans, and improve where they have failed at. The Americans did "Generation I" of checks and balances, and now us Iraqis can pioneer "Generation II". The Americans clearly fucked up some things like now there is federally MANDATED "affirmative action" or something like this where you HAVE to hire the minority of the week. They dont look at his CV, qualifications and crimial record, just at his skin. What a quick job interview! It seems everytime the Americans get scared, they pass a law! Florida banned smoking in restaurants recently. Not to be outdone, I wonder if California will ban eating in restaurants any time soon. Those silly Americans. Makes you want to pinch their cheeks.

 

But really, the basic question is, "How do you keep the COERCIVE power of government check?" Remember, all a government can do is "make" laws, and push people around. We can utilise this fire to keep us warm and safe....but if this fire gets out of its cage, we have Uday coming into night clubs with his two pet white tigers and mauling the next hot Iraqi girl in a G-string who wont dance with him.

 

In my humble opinion, one way I think is to make it really hard for laws to pass. Laws are nothing but restrictions, and the rule of thumb I think is that the only thing they can restrict is your freedom. Perhaps for a federal law to pass throughout Iraq, it would have to first go through the federal parliament, and then through each parliement of each province, (or at least gain 2/3 rds of provicial agreement). Something along those lines. But they best part of this check and balance system, is that it stops anyone from gaining power - Sunni, Shia, or Kurd, so this way we dotn have to worry about their ethnicity.

 

Checks and balances. Checks and balances. Checks and balances.

 

And for the love of Mohammed, dont involve our deen (religion) in this! Keep it separate from the workings of the country.