Reply #65: Well that backing isn't going to happen

[mobuto]

with the present leadership in place, so that's a non-issue.

I think we both agree that the top priority is getting new leadership.

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.

Foreign control is a fact of life at present. But of course you're right - I'm talking about working to setup a legitimate Iraqi-run federal Republic. In the long run, foreign control is not an option.

Otherwise, we are practicing nothing but the mission civilisatrice of the old colonialism.

Call it what you like, but we need to create Iraqi institutions for self-government where none exist. That isn't what happened in most colonial societies, where no matter what one did, one was always subservient to a foreign viceroy. We need to build up not just the governing council, but inferior democratic bodies throughout the country.