So who won the debate?

[bigjon]

Moongoddess256 said:
Germany and Japan stabalized because we gave them a ton of money to rebuild.

They also weren't tribal societies with massive differences.

They aren't societies that put an emphasis on revenge and an eye-for-an-eye kind of mentality.

You can't give anyone freedom. One must earn freedom for their selves. It isn't freedom if someone is holding a gun to your head and telling you that you are "free"

And yes Saddam was an asshole. And yes he was a dictator. And we didn't like him much. Saddam is also long gone, and Saddam is not responsible for all of the instability in the middle east. Actually I'm quite sure the middle east has been unstable for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

 

 You contradicted yourself. You said Japan and Germany stabilized because we gave them money, and then you said that you cannot give someone freedom.

What we are doing by staying in Iraq is giving them a chance to earn there freedom, they recently took control of Al Anbar, and iraqi soldiers are dying for their own freedom.

You are right, there are major cultural differences between my examples and the Middle East. And that is what people are getting upset about. They want results now, and it just won't happen.

You see, these people have been oppressed for thousands of years. The reason the other Theocracy's are fighting this so hard is because they know that freedom once it is let out of the box is an unstopable force. Once people begin to taste it, it become infectous. They are worried this would spread to the rest of the region and threaton their power. That is one of the reason they hate Israel( there are others I know)

look what is happening in China, they are gaining freedoms and they are just booming. Look what happened in the USSR. They were given a taste of freedom from Glasnost and Perestroka and it became a snowball that destroyed the Soviet Empire.

You see, when generations that have never seen oppression come along, they do not grasp the treasure that they have until it is gone. I am afraid we are giving it back to the gov, and this bailout is just another step. Decisions made in panic are usually bad.