I say lets negotiate peace with the sunnis - who's with me?

[no_to_war_economy]

we talk directly to the sunnis who have back channels discussions with "The Base"

we agree to a cease fire, return to bases only, allow in an international committee to help with the new Iraqi elections that will have FULL Sunni participation

we agree to no control over oil, no military bases and no neo-capitalist free market policies over the Iraq economy

we basically get the fuck out of Dodge and tell Franken to shut the fuck up

who is with me?

[phantom power]

1. What if we skip the first three, and just bug the hell out?

That would pretty much speak for itself. Let the Sunnis negotiate with the Kurds and Shiites, as they see fit.

[ironman202]

2. I'm with you but fat chance

[sui generis]

3. religious oligarchies are doomed to fail

no matter which one you prop up, there will be atrocities.

Saddam, all other evil aside, realized that religious neutrality was paramount to having a stable government.

Musharraf in Pakistan knows this lesson too and walks a tightrope to avoid civil war.

Everywhere that there are religious extremists, including right here in the American "Homeland", stable nonreligious government is an obstacle to their goals of dominion and domination.

The fact is, we as westerners don't "get" tribal culture. We most profoundly don't understand it or else misinterpret it to our own bias. We don't understand cultural grudges held between ethnic groups and nurtured and ritualized for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. It is not in our cultural capacity as westerners to address it, imposing instead our own western values of what "should be" on what "is".

We need to leave, but we need to do it responsibly and humbly, not with ridiculous fanfare about accomplishing missions and bringing the light of democracy and all that other horseshit. We need to walk out with a standard for human decency that says we will not tolerate human rights atrocities, but other than that they are on their own.

What we fear in walking out is that Iraq will sell their oil to whomever they feel like to do whatever they wish, including not selling their oil to us.

We fear their true sovereignty over themselves, and so we will never truly let go.

[TahitiNut]

4. I think I know who'd be willing to lead a delegation.

:eyes: