Assistance for Iraq Act (Tabled)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Dear Edward, ain't ye heard of paying it forward.


We relied very much on various illegal scams (in more ways then one) that essentially amounted to gun running, during the Revolutionary War.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The last I checked the legimacy of a government was determined by self-determination and a democratic process by which it selects its leaders? Do you not believe in such as the determinations of a legitimate government, TNF? Was the US illegitimate because it was assisted in its Revolution by Dutch Oligarchs seeking financial advantage over the British, the French Ancien Regime's dwindling treasury and that also of the Spanish Empire, which still officially had the Inquisition as state policy at the time?

Saddam Hussein was a dictator who subverted the laws of his own country to seize power and used force, repression and genocide to maintain a minority Sunni Gov't in a majority Shia country. On what planet is that legimate and how on earth does the means by which it is removed from power, do anything absolve it of its inherent illegitimacy?

However bad a decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was, and it was don't get me wrong, nothing neither the mistake to go in, nor the poor planning and organization afterwards, nor the mistakes by the interim and early stages of the Iraqi government have any render it illegimate.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The last I checked the legimacy of a government was determined by self-determination and a democratic process by which it selects its leaders?

You're a Republican in North Carolina. (I'm a Democrat in Pennsylvania). In any event, that is a very Jeffersonian observation!

But if the last hundred years of history with this region has demonstrated anything, it is that we cannot pump money, guns, or anything into this region and force them to adopt democracy as we know it. That's because it evolved here and not there. Maybe in time it will evolve there, but for now it's a total waste of time and money to try to get them to evolve into what we are. It's presumptuous and wasteful. They don't want it - they're isolated and tribal. That's why it is "imperialism." If the Middle East fixes 75% of their problems and then comes to us for some help, it's a different story.

If we give money to one faction to fight another faction, we just create another generation of enemies and extremists.

I'll reiterate that 1.1 of the above bill has to go before I consider supporting this at all.

It is one thing to oppose giving such support on that grounds, but surely it is quite another to claim that the current gov't of Iraq is illegitimate?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The last I checked the legimacy of a government was determined by self-determination and a democratic process by which it selects its leaders?

You're a Republican in North Carolina. (I'm a Democrat in Pennsylvania). In any event, that is a very Jeffersonian observation!

If my plans had gone as I had made them back in 2010, I would be back in Pennsylvania by now.

I prefer to consider it Lockean as opposed to Jefferson, Jefferson was too favorable to arbitrary gov't in my view as exemplified by his shilling for Reign of Terror France. Anyway, it is not 2004 anymore Dear Edward, my taste for divine right Absolute Monarchy has waned considerably in these last ten years. So self-detrrmination and gov't by consent, guided by a firm adherence to equality before the law and avoidance of arbitrary gov't is where its at.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So what are we doing here?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Since the sponsor has given up, AYE

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Tabling votes are 48 hours so this is over. Windjammer?