That’s precisely the point. Why is it my country’s responsibility to solve for all of these questions?
Saddam is gone. Great. Without the presence of a huge army to maintain order, the country would descend into chaos. Fine.
If George Bush, out of the goodness of his heart, decided to fund this war from his own personal reserves, then God bless him. But that was not the case.
This war happened at a price and someone had to foot the bill, with dollars and with lives. I can’t make a convincing enough argument to present to the American people that it should have been them (or the citizens of any other countries that made up the "Coalition of the Willing").
Well, I wouldn't burden any specific country with the responsibility here, though I would say that the United States didn't do any Iraqi a favor when Bush senior encouraged a revolt against Saddam Hussein in the early 90's, just so he could retreat when only Kuwait was secured. Leaving hundreds of thousands of Shiites in the South and Kurds in the North completely bare to the anger of Saddam Hussein, once the riots caught fire. The consequence of which were absolutely hideous. I would say, that the United States at least owed Iraq some correction of that piece of cowardness (at best) and deceit (at worst).
But generally speaking, who should stand up for a helpless people subjected to the compulsions of a megalomaniac psychopath?
Generally speaking, not the United States, because that would suggest a moral superiority on their part, but the international community. The issue is that Saddam Hussein fulfilled all the requirements in the genocide convention which requires that military actions should be taken. This was a part of the judicial argumentation in the trial of Milosevic and the military intervention against Serbia. So here we have it, the international community had for almost two decades, a moral
and legal responsibility to emancipate Iraq. There lies the responsibility. If the United States volunteers to spearhead the Iraq-war out of self-interest (be it oil monopoly), I think it is completely justifiable.
Who should fund such an extremely costly operation? Well that is one of those questions I would have difficulties answering, because this would (as you say) involve the regular tax-payer. An alternative is, to borrow substantial sums of money from private corporations under the agreement that they would have shares in the Iraqi oil. This way, the expenses would end up on the Iraqi lap and they would end up paying for the removal of their own dictator, which is no more than what is fair. I think this has been tried, with the likes of Hunt Oil Co. and other oil corporations, but I don't know how much of the war was privately funded, so I can't comment on the success (or lack of success) of this alternative.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, Minimow, as well as who should fund it and why, and what sales pitch you would give to the tax payers of that nation if you support war.
Well I think I've given you my best answer here. North Korea sits on the most unadulterated masses of mineral resources and metals strongly demanded by high tech-industries. Give the relevant corporations a carrot they very much would like to chew on, the guarantee to access these resources, given that they take part in the funding of this war.
Again, this is highly theoretical, I don't know how efficient this would be, nor do I know if there will be a war at all (although I hope we're entering times when we're about to see the back of that ghastly dynasty).
Btw, this funding strategy came to me when reading through the track record of the war criminal Henry Kissinger. He had connections with the bureaucracy at Coca Cola and when communist Salvatore Allende came to power in Chile, this highly threatened Coca Cola's foothold in the country. So very roughly put, Henry Kissinger arranged the assassination of the Chilean general, Rene Schneider and the coup d'état against Allende. So here we had, state and corporations in a marriage of evil. Turn this strategy on its head and we have a something to fund the future emancipation of our fellow human beings, having to endure the misfortune of being born into the wrong country.
Topic: America's Toxic Legacy in Iraq