Iraq pullout - plan B

This is another blog post on Iraq. Several points.

First, Iraq is a country that belongs to its citizens. It is not American territory, is one implication of that.

Second, Iraquis are people, like us. All of them. And they seem to be having a very hard time of it.

Are they just frothy-mouthed bezerkos bent on mangling each other, blinded by the use of "sectarian religious" slogans preventing rational mental processes, that if united would then turn frothy-mouthed bent on destroying something else, like maybe us? Is this an excuse for keeping things like they are now? Or, again, are they all people, much as we are, but are enduring life in the trenches so long they know little else, and would start from there even if peace reigned over the land?

Third, we Americans are responsible for the chaotic situation in Iraq right now. How, who and why we did it is in the past. Incriminations and grief may be in order, but are unproductive in terms of getting on with life from right now onward. We can remain stuck in the same path, of course, is a choice. With its consequences. Problems need to be solved, and to do that they need to be correctly defined.

It would seem that the desert desolation of Iraq has no value for its people other that the oil safely locked beneath its lands. That is a different kind of situation from, say, Japan, which has its people as its greatest resource. How can Iraq become a nation where its people are its greatest resource?

It is a long way from here to there, true. But note how Japan, with the support of America, its conquerer of the time, came back quickly from the defeat of WWII into the great independent nation it is today, including industrial advantages of newer kinds of machinery and technologies to start with. Iraq could start afresh. Theoretically.

Can "business opportunism", the banner of American politics today, lead the Iraquis out of their mire? The Iranians are incredible business people, perhaps the Iraquis have some of that nature too. If so, they probably could bilk America from the shirt off our back, as it is said.

A middle ground seems to me far better for all concerned.

Recovery in Iraq could start, say, with a date and time set where all debts of all people, including gripes, are erased. Any grouch debt claim from that moment on becomes a new kind of thing, a debt to the nation of Iraq instead of to their neighbor; not necessarily to be paid right away, just tallied up to be paid back through say public service later. This would not be a mere cease-fire. Their prosperity would thereafter be determined by their mutually cooperative efforts.

It seems likely to me that many of the Iraquis are unknowingly suffering from effects of toxicity and mental-influencing parasite infestation, of which much of American conventional medicine cares little about and has little to deal with it except possibly drugs that only treat symptoms. There are "alternative" wellbeing process already widely known, but are not mainstream business and generally forced "underground" even in America at this time. But they hold the potential of being able to help the Iraquis cope with heavy metal toxicity and parasites such as Ascaris. So there is a way to deal with that aspect, too, I believe.

Iraquis need to determine their own future. They need to "pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again" as the old saying goes. (I have done that a lot of times too so I speak from experience.) If there are others around helping them up so as to later make a fast buck off of them ... people better play fair or later the tables will be turned on them, seems likely.

And no, the option of keeping them in their mess they are in right now, is not an acceptable solution, attractive as it may seem to some now. There can be much more gentle ways of paying karmic debts. We too need to shape up and pay attention.

Perhaps America can retreat to a seaport area where a large business complex would be built, from where we could do business with Iraquis, providing resources, technologies, educational systems, industrial equipment. The Iraquis would pay with money from sale of their oil, as well in American debt payment for the mess we made there, our part of it, that is, less the debt we have paid by helping the Iraquis in various ways. The focus would be to grow Iraq into a country where their people is their greatest resource, a land that is productive for them, and in productive peace with all the rest of the world, including us.

Was that not our basic aim from the start of the conflict?