Ooh, interesting concept for a website. Appeal to all those Reynoldsian technofascists and smug Objectivists that seem to inhabit certain quarters of the Internet.

I’ll take “Questions best asked in 2002” for $400, Alex.

“we (the US) could make things better by just running the country and letting a sense of law and order take root in the body politic by osmosis over many years.”

I think that roots do indeed operate by way of osmosis – that’s how they absorb and transport water and nutrients (any biologists/botanists please correct me if I’m wrong) – but our boy’s use of the term, and his metaphor, is just wrong.

As for a “sense” of law and order, different from actual law and order – well, I guess that works for people who make their own reality.

Sweet jeebus – what jargon-laden crap. And such attitude.

Ultimately, the Iraqis have to want the rule of law, or it will fall apart even if Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the other extremists are decisively put down. That means the man on the street has to want proper treatment of detainees, quick processing, real tracking from arrest to conviction/acquittal, release where appropriate, punishment where appropriate—instead of an endless cycle of violent retribution and other extra-legal solutions.

What is “Things the surge hasn’t got a chance in hell in resolving.” I’ll take another from the same category—Pony Plans 4 Iraq—say $1600 Alex?

That means the man on the street has to want proper treatment of detainees, quick processing, real tracking from arrest to conviction/acquittal, release where appropriate, punishment where appropriate

Gee, do you think the American people are ready for this kind of rule of law?

That means the man on the street has to want proper treatment of detainees, quick processing, real tracking from arrest to conviction/acquittal, release where appropriate, punishment where appropriate

Gee, do you think the American people are ready for this kind of rule of law?

Perhaps Canada should take over control of our country, so that we might steep in their respect for law and order and thereby absorb it into ourselves.

proper treatment of detainees, quick processing, real tracking from arrest to conviction/acquittal, release where appropriate

Cn i haz extraordinary rendition yet?

1. Is Rule of Law a Western concept unsuitable to Iraq?
Answering in the affirmative explicitly consigns a society to whatever is not the rule of law: arbitrary detention and punishment, state (and non-state) actors behaving with impunity, rule by personal or oligarchic caprice (or by war-lords), and constantly shifting “rules of the game.”

Like the rule of law under the Bush administration you mean? Gitmo, secret prisons, illegal wiretapping, beating confessions out of people, torture for fun, murder, firing prosecutors who don’t agree with you, revealing the identity of your secret agents? In the infamous words of the Decider about the US gov’t: If this were a dictatorship, things would be a lot easier.

“we (the US) could make things better by just running the country and letting a sense of law and order take root in the body politic by osmosis over many years.”

Shorter: “White man’s burden.”

Perhaps the establishment of some functional institutions before simply providing a previously oppressed majority access to the levers of power through a straight majority vote while the gun barrels were still warm would hve been a good idea in hindsight.

But since Plan A was the establishment of a US controlled puppet “benign dictatorship” under Chalabi or similar, and THERE WAS NO PLAN B, when Sistani bought into the game (he was playing poker, bush was playing “Chutes and Ladders”), the Shi’a majority was unleashed, putting them in position not only to enforce the rules, but to make the rules.

The day those folks were running around with purple fingers the die was cast, and any hope of a good outcome was over. It’s not that the Iraqis are incapable of the Rule of Law – it’s just that institutions need time to develop and gain the respect of an entire population who never knew anything but authoritarian control and secret police – and a few months just wasn’t enough time.

Now political power in Iraq is beholden to sect, to tribe, to generational hatred. An honest broker, be he a judge, a mayor or a councilman, cannot speak, dare not act outside these parameters on fear of his life.

In a sense, what America has created in Iraq is the old west. Where there is a lack of rules in a pervasively armed society, there will be a period of lawlessness. The only people who can take Iraq back from the rule of outlaws and frontier “justice” are the people themselves. And at some point there will be a movement among the population to do just that, just as there was in the cow towns and mining camps of the old west.

But it won’t be the militias, invested in their own accumulation of power, it won’t be the Iraqi army, that institution has not had time to develop it’s own loyalties and is merely an extension of the society as a whole, and it most certainly won’t be a foreign christian occupying army.

When the people, as a whole, decide they’ve had enough, the rules will change quite quickly. Until then the discussion, from a practical standpoint, is meaningless….

mikey

Yes, can the people living in the place where civilization was fucking invented possibly understand the concept of rule of law?

We are officially the new British Empire.

From Shapiro’s “Is Rule of Law Possible in Iraq?” (8/14/07):

We are assisting the “development” (as in advancement) of their legal system. In doing so, we must be aware that the system must be perceived as locally run and not an extension of American “imperialism.”

From Shapiro’s “America’s Empire Deficit” (8/15/07), a review of Niall Ferguson’s Colossus:

The point is that when America gets involved in overseas adventures — for whatever reason, from the most realist to the most humanitarian — it inevitably acts like an empire. The sooner it admits this and takes on the role unapologetically, the greater its success can be.

The question, then, is how to organize the “nation-building” — or, to avoid using the somewhat loaded word “nation,” the reconstruction/development work.

[…]

The British India Civil Service (ICS) is a good model for what we need, I think — a civilian body ready to be mobilized as needed, a Peace Corps with teeth that would work in conjunction with the military.

Finally, from Shapiro’s Patton Boggs bio page:

He also worked on the policy staff of the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, where he focused on homeland security, legal affairs, and foreign policy.

“We are officially the new British Empire.”

Actually looking more and more like the Roman Empire to me…

could make things better by just running the country and letting a sense of law and order take root in the body politic by osmosis over many years
It was working so well, too, until the Houses of Common turned down my 1775 “Surge” plan.

Unless you’re staying for dinner, watching an idiot attempting to make chicken salad out of chicken shit can be …interesting? Excuse me, I’ve got to find some mouthwash.

Is Rule of Law a Martian concept unsuitable to America?

Answering in the affirmative explicitly consigns a society to whatever is not the rule of law: arbitrary detention and punishment, state (and non-state) actors behaving with impunity, rule by personal or oligarchic caprice (or by war-lords), and constantly shifting “rules of the game.”

When people write this sort of stuff does it just plain not occur to them to apply those same standards to ourselves?

Hey, wankstain, let me introduce you to the Code of Hammurabi, the earliest written set of laws, committed to stone about 3800 years ago.

Where? Mesopotamia.

“We are officially the new British Empire.”
Actually looking more and more like the Roman Empire to me…

Didn’t those empires turn a profit from their invasions? At least for a while?

Perhaps the establishment of some functional institutions before simply providing a previously oppressed majority access to the levers of power through a straight majority vote while the gun barrels were still warm would hve been a good idea in hindsight.

Well, many of the functional institutions were present in Iraq before Sadaam and before our invasion. We dismantled all of them as part of the “de-Baathification” required by the neo-con puppet masters and not recommended by anyone with a fucking clue.

But since Plan A was the establishment of a US controlled puppet “benign dictatorship” under Chalabi or similar, and THERE WAS NO PLAN B,

I guess “Plan B” could be “treat Iraq like a sym game where we can totally try out all the rad things we learned at Neocon U last year”. I don’t know if they would have loosed the Inexperienced Horde of Yes-folk on Iraq if their good buddy Chalabi had taken over.

Iraq is unstable because the Iraqi government has no legitimacy which is because it has no sovereignty (can’t order its own troops without US approval, no control over the economy as the oil industry has been given away to US corporations and so on). This means that even Iraqis that do not support the resistance have no reason to support the government, because it’s a puppet (if a crappy one) in the hands of the occupying power (the United States of Jerkfaces). If it came down to a Shia government alone that wasn’t caught in the US chokehold, things would be very different. There’d be no Al Queda in Iraq for starters, since they’d no US troops to rally against. There’ll never be such a government in Iraq as long as the US controls things, because such a government would deny the US establishment the things they want – control of the oil fields (hand on the spiggot), military bases from which to terrorize the region and so on.

As for empires benefiting from their conquests, the oil companies are raking in record profits last I heard; empires tend to benefit those at the top not the industrial workers at the bottom croaking from hideous working conditions as in 19th century Britain.

I Haaave a Fantasy that someday the Iraqi people will see my halo and start behaving!

Can you all see my comment at 1:02? I see it when I’m logged in but it disappears once I log out. I’m wondering if the amount of code in it (two links, three blockquotes) has put it into some kind of moderation limbo. I’m asking not because I think my comment is a must read but because this has happened before and I’m wondering how to remedy it. Thanks.

I see no other comments by “J” in this thread.

Thanks, RandomObserver. How about now?

Jon Stewart just charcoal broiled Stephen Hayes’s nuts (author of Cheney) by citing the Lord of Darkness’s 1994 words.

No J– at 1:02.

Charcoal broiled wingnuts.

Yummy.

Thanks, Righteous Bubba. This means no J— at 1:02 for you regardless of whether or not I’m logged on (in case you were interested).

Hey:

I wrote
No J– at 1:02.

You wrote
no J— at 1:02

That’s no em-dash, it’s an mmmm-dash.

Thanks, RandomObserver. How about now?

It looks like your comment was so lame that the internet itself rejected it – that’s really the most likely explanation.

Also blogwhore blah blah blah click my name blogwhore etc etc

I can see J’s comment at 1:02 perfectly fine. WTF?