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Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I don't like this question because you know there is a politically correct answer and then an actual course of action peop
by charlesdm 7y ago
Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I don't like this question because you know there is a politically correct answer and then an actual course of action people would take.
The proper answer is: introduce democratic government, clean up the country, introduce proper amenities (healthcare, etc) and spread the wealth for the benefit of the people.
Fact of the matter is: absolute power corrupts, and plenty of people would loot the oil money reserves for their own benefit if they had the chance. Just have a look at what happens in Russia.
- throwaway552231 7y agoHas it ever worked in that order? It seems like most current democratic countries first cleaned up the country and then introduced a democratic government. I’m thinking of recent democratic countries in Asia, like South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. Or if they did start with a democratic government, to limit the voting to certain groups, like the US, Canada, and Australia did before universal suffrage. Are there any successful countries that haven’t “cleaned up” first but introduced universal democracy?
- lkbm 7y agoRulers derive power from other people. Your first job is to keep the people keeping you in power happy. Fail that, and you'll be replaced by someone else. Democracy means shifting it from a small number of people keeping you in power to all of the people. It's not easy. CGPGray did a great video on this model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs (Based on The Dictators Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith.
- BurningFrog 7y agoYour "proper answer" is what the US tried to do in Iraq, which is now considered the perhaps biggest mistake in US history.
- max76 7y agoIraq is in the running for the biggest mistake in US history? I have a one word rebuttal to that sentence. Slavery.
- vcanales 7y agoCalling slavery a mistake is very... mild. It should have its own category
- ummonk 7y agoI think mistake implies good intentions.
- max76 7y agoI always think of mistake as simply "to be wrong". Am I mistaken in my assumption?
- nostrademons 7y agoKind of, yes. If you're wrong intentionally, we have all sorts of other words for that, including trolling, propaganda, misdirection, incitement, lying, fraud, perjury, all of which have their own connotations for your intent. We wouldn't really call any of those situations a "mistake".
- max76 7y agoAlso, it's very strange that you can imply The United States started a war with good intentions with a straight face.
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoI'm sure we can find a lot of things more horrible than Iraq. Like slavery as you say, or bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the war in Vietnam... But what I think OP meant, is that the bad things which happened in Iraq were not the intended outcome of what the US did. Those other, more horrible things were intended consequences, not mistakes.
- vijaybritto 7y agoSorry but this is a very poor answer. Lack of understanding of the local culture is very evident. Every country in the world cannot have a system like the United states. Cleaning up the system without understanding it would be terrible. Just like Iraq!
- ohaideredevs 7y agoThe reason Russia loved Putin is because he cleaned up low level violence and corruption. It's hard to have democracy when people are getting shot in the streets. This is something you completely fail to understand. Furthermore, it's hard to have a "democratic government" when everyone is poor. This is so glaringly obvious that it's painful reading your post.