IRAQ
Re: If you were an Iraqi, how would you view America?
  • Currently 2.0
  • 0
  • 1
  • 2

(9)
Dennis Kucinich
Uploaded on 12/14/2007

Description: How would we view a country that killed 12 million Americans?

Transcript: How would you view America if a country invaded yours and killed your family; wrecked your home; destroyed your water systems, and electric systems, and schools and mosques?  How would you . . .  What would you think of that country that did that?  I mean we have to get real about the impact of what this administration’s decisions as licensed by a Democratic Senate in 2002 – the impact these decisions have had on the people of Iraq.  The people of Iraq have lost at least a million innocent civilians who perished in this war, a war that’s been based on lies.  Now since Iraq is one-twelfth the population of the United States, let’s take that million and let’s extrapolate it to the United States.  It would be as if we lost 12 million people.  How would we feel if a foreign power invaded our country, blew it up, killed 12 million people?  Would we like them?  Would we ask them to come in and have tea? If we saw Saddam Hussein executed for “killing his own people” – if it was wrong for him to kill his own people, is it right for us to kill his people?  I mean we have to regain our moral compass here.  So how . . . how should Iraq look at us?  Well they sure shouldn’t look at us as liberators because we stayed.  And we stayed and went and fought door-to- (48:37) door.  And why did we go there from the beginning?  Did we go there for liberty?  Did we go there for the American flag?  Did we go there because we were trying to bring American values to Iraq?  Or did we go there for oil?  Let’s think about it. How should the people of Iraq look at us?  They should look at us from 10,000 miles away.

Recorded on: 10/19/07

 

7
1
1
Response
SORT BY
Re: Re: If you were an Iraqi, how would you view America?

Is it the US that is responsible for the deaths of all those Iraqis?  Yes.  But firstly, deaths of Iraqi civilians appears to be more in the range of 85,000 right now, not 1 million.  I'm no gov't expert but that sounds a lot like the number quoted so often by the gov't in WWII about how many Americans would be saved by this single terrible act of destruction (and possibly more terribly, mutiliation).  So I would doubt his credibility to begin with.  But even ignoring that, the more important question remains, do the Iraqis want us to leave?  The answer is complicated.  They don't like the deaths and they view us as responsible for that but they also recognize that while our intentions may or may not have been pure (does it really matter at this point?) we are currently the only nation with a stake in their future.  We are the only people pouring cash and troops into the country to provide stability.  We have to be willing to take responsibility for our actions as a nation and clean up after ourselves.  In Vietnam, no one wanted us there, but in Iraq people are split.  As a marine friend of mine once put it, "you break it, you buy it."

 as a side note, i opposed the war even before it happened but as soon as those first troops landed there was no choice.  you can't just pull out and pretend it never happened.

1
0
PAGE
1