As Lincoln said, "A house divided cannot stand"

This debate has spurred from one of the recent posts, so I decided to move it here where I can clearly explain why I oppose Joe Biden's plan to partition Iraq into three regions.

President Lincoln once said "A house divided can not stand." We need to open lines of diplomacy in Iraq between leaders to unify the country behind a constitution. The Sunni leadership has already opposed the current constitution because the establishment of their self-governoring region would crumble. I agree with Biden that oil revenues need to be equally divided among the three sects, however that does not mean all three must be partitioned. The Shi'ite have such a disproportional majority in Iraq that a Kurdish or Sunni region would never be strong enough to stand without the threat of sectarian violence. Using this sort of de facto segregation fosters not only tension between the three regions, but also economic conflict. I am not comparing Iraq's government to the "Articles of Confederation" when I write this, but there is an underlying similarity. A weak central government did not work in America due to individual economic sanctions relating to import tariffs etc. How are all three regions expected to comply with a national federation’s distribution plan when the population among sects is so disproportional? With crude oil making up 84% of the countries export commodities, what would happen if one region, upset with the deal, decides to place restrictive trading on the other? Not only will the country be thrown into a even more bloody war, but the economy of Iraq would completely collapse.

I also do not understand how HR 1585 would prevent genocide. There is so much violence still taking place in Iraq, I struggle to comprehend how sending peacekeeping troops to enforce a partition would actually be successful. If American troops cannot put a stop to the violence, how can peacekeeping troops “keep” peace where peace does not exist? The situation in Bosnia in the early 1990's is a tough comparison for people to make. What is taking place in Iraq is totally different then any other situation anyone has seen in the 20th century. What we need to do in Iraq is get out. It is time to bring American troops home and allow the Iraqi's to make decisions on their own. A civil war is inevitable, whether the United States pulls out of Iraq now or ten years from now, it will be no difference. There will be a civil war when we leave. If genocide starts then the international community must take action. I do not think that the United States government really cares about preventing genocide though, since everyone is twiddling their thumbs regarding the atrocities in Darfur.

-tg

Debate Rages Onward...

I've been really busy recently with work and have not been posting much, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to touch on a few things I noticed about last nights GOP debate in Florida.

It was nice to see Hume and his cronies actually trying to create a debate between some of the upper-tire candidates - even though it didn't work. Giuliani immediately attacked Fred Thompson on his stance regarding Tort Reform. This was interesting since Giuliani is probably the most liberal of the GOP bunch - thus, it's really odd he is comparing Thompson's conservatism to his own. Thompson's response to these attacks seemed quite odd. His defense against his position on Tort Reform narrowed the question down to specific cases where he went against his "usual" conservatism. He took the same type of approach in responding to Giuliani’s attack on his litigation concerning "Planned Parenthood," in which he responded in saying that his private law practice does not necessitate action in public office. It begs the question of where he really stands on some of these issues on a personal level. Unlike Giuliani, who has publicly admitted his personal beliefs are different then his public stance (regarding abortion), Thompson has made no such admition. If he is a "closet" liberal in his private life regarding some of the issues, it is ungenuine for him to continue to act like his personal convictions are in harmony with his public record. It could be something that the other campaigns could use to their advantage. Whether Republicans are smart enough to figure this out or not is a different question entirely.

Aside from that, Giuliani really didn't say too much regarding his stance - but he did manage to make a complete dumbbell of himself midway through the debate when he thanked Florida for electing Bush in 2000. What ever support I had for him before last night pretty much disintegrate with that statement. How can an intelligent person with all their faculties functioning properly possibly think the country would be worse off with Al Gore as President? Has Giuliani completely lost his mind!? Bush currently has the worst approval rating of any sitting president (somewhere in the low 20's) and will probably go down as, if the not the worst, at least the second or third worst president ever. How can someone assume that Al Gore, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize of all things, would have gone down in this sort of infamy? Plus, the events in Florida that got Bush elected in 2000 where illegal! It went down as one of the worst election debacles of all time...and Giuliani is thanking them!? I'm getting myself too worked up while typing this so I'm gonna move on.

Romney looked really flustered last night for some reason. First, his hair was messed up, his face looked tired, and his appearance was generally disheveled. People shouldn't judge a president on looks, but don't forget about 1960. John McCain seemed to admit he is trying to rebuild his relationship with evangelicals. This is an honest approach because there is no way to alter his rather liberal voting record on certain issues; but I don't think voters will accept this. There is really no reason to believe that as president he will change his ways. Huckabee, Hunter, Tancredo, and Paul didn't really add much of anything new. I don't really care that Brownback dropped out, but I do miss laughing at Tommy Thompson during these debates because the four mentioned above are all pretty boring most of the time (Huckabee can sometimes bring laughs and Paul always seems to excite the crowd but thats about it).

I think the debate can be summed up with one quote from Fox Noise (to quote Olbermann) anchor Brit Hume: "can you tell us what your "beef" is with Rudy?"...Yep, we're dealing with the cream of the crop of news here.

-tg