Reply #64: There I'd disagree

[markses]

What's required is decisive action by the United States with the unconditional backing of the United Nations, NATO and the Arab League. Its my belief that a federal state is the only "free" society possible for Iraq that preserves its territorial integrity.

Given that the current leadership of the United States has shown little else than bad faith throughout this entire process (a euphemism here, for the massacre and chaos it actuated), under no circumstances should support by other bodies be "unconditional." Just the opposite. Heavy conditions must be placed on US action precisely in order to effect a "free" society in Iraq, and not simply a state form that is de facto autocratic, with the dictates of the US political and economic apparatus standing in for local dictatorship. The US must not be permitted to effect the ideological construction whereby GENOCIDE and ETHNIC CLEANSING is the one term, and FREEDOM is the other, if that freedom is merely formal, and actually stands in for foreign control and neo-colonialism. This is, of course, the current situation, as if we have no options but an unethical indifference on the one hand, and tyrannical foreign (i.e., US)control on the other. It is precisely between these false choices that the UN, NATO, and the Arab League must mediate, and must set conditions that enable a third option (that is, authentic self-determination) to emerge. Otherwise, we are practicing nothing but the mission civilisatrice of the old colonialism.