[Osx-nutters] Jeb Bush on the Death Penalty in Florida - Google Video

[Chuck Bennett]

On Jan 9, 2007, at 7:29 PM, Chris Gehlker wrote:

>
> On Jan 9, 2007, at 1:16 PM, Chuck Bennett wrote:
>
>>
>> I did see the video.   They are pro Sadar, but that doesn't make  
>> them Madhi Army and it still doesn't make the hanging a militia
>> event.   He was sentenced to death in the court system.   What  
>> happened afterwards indicates a lack of control over the  
>> proceedings but that is all.  I understand that they arrested the  
>> guy that made the video.
>>
>
> Then  I simply want to know what you would accept as evidence that  
> their primary loyalty is to Sadar. And the fact that the Iraqis  
> seemed to think that the problem was  simply that the lynching was  
> filmed rather than that it happened is the  essence of my point.
>
>>>
>>> It's a puppet government. Real governments don't tolerate armies  
>>> of occupation on their soil.
>>
>> They do until they can stand on their own, just ask Japan or  
>> Germany.  (we are still there)
>
> And there is no doubt that after the war we occupied those  
> countries. Over time, though, we turned over the basic duty of   
> maintaining civil order to the indigenous governments. That hasn't  
> happened in Iraq.
>

and I think that over time we will also turn over those duties to  
Iraq.   I know we surly want to.

In Japan's case we occupied it in 1945 and didn't turn it back over  
to them until 1952.   We turned Iraq back over a lot quicker but in  
hind sight, even that might have been a mistake.

It's hard to compare fairly since Japan didn't have the internal  
strife of Iraq and the outside actors like Iran and Syria trying to  
stir things up but my point is that it takes time to stand up a  
country and under the best of circumstances it's hard work.  Iraq  
might very well take longer than Japan because of it's internal  
problems, so we could be looking at 8-10 years before we will really  
know if Iraq will make it.

I'm pretty pessimistic about it at the moment, but I really hope, for  
both our countries sake, that it works.

Chuck