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Why Wasn't Iraq Colonized?

Why wasn't Iraq colonized?

  • Liberal humanitarians would be shocked too much at home.

    Votes: 5 16.1%
  • Neocons were afraid of losing European geopolitical capital.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • We were afraid of instigating Arabs.

    Votes: 3 9.7%
  • We were afraid of engaging Iran.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Something else.

    Votes: 27 87.1%

  • Total voters
    31
Culturally, Arabs and Americans are too different. They are still locked in to a cycle of petty dictatorships, with no democratic revolutionary movement on the horizon. At best we could have replaced Hussein's brutal dictatorship with a slightly less brutal one. Humanitarians worldwide would have rightly condemned a move like that. Instead, we had close to a decade of pointless "nation building" with a recalcitrant and resentful population.

But who knows? Changing the culture of a billion people isn't going to happen overnight. Maybe with this "Arab spring" the style of dictatorship of the past will morph into something authoritarian but less personality oriented, perhaps setting the stage in decades to come into a hybrid representational monarchy region wide.

That, of course, is dependent on preventing Iran from getting the bomb. If they do, only WWIII will change the region.
 
colonialism is over. not to mention that the last thing we need is another colony. we can't even keep our own infrastructure maintained.
 
You think anybody else in the world would stop the United States from doing so?

Probably not, but is being the modern day equivalent of the Nazi's something we want? (Not to Godwinize the thread. Trying to come up with another example that had the power to flaunt the international system in the past, and were universally hated).

Essentially, our doing so would open up the door for the Russians and the Chinese to go depose a regime they don't like and establish a colony. We'd have restarted a new colonial age along with the resultant conflicts.
 
You think anybody else in the world would stop the United States from doing so?

The locals would have something to say about it, I hear their opinion matters especially because they make their opinion known with AK-47s and IEDs.
 
You think anybody else in the world would stop the United States from doing so?

Other collective organizations that can go above the parameters of the United Nations. Absolutely it would be something they would have to consider.
 
Serious answers only please. This is not a troll thread.

That is not a sarcastic comment (ad infinitum).

Colonists would be killed immediately; that's why.
 
Serious answers only please. This is not a troll thread.

That is not a sarcastic comment (ad infinitum).

I think what he means is why didnt US annex Iraq, make it a territory like Guam or Peurto Rico. The answer is as others have stated. That ended with WW2 as its morally wrong. The people in Iraq already own their land.
 
If we owned the Iraq oil, then gasoline would only cost 12 cents a gallon. Our Big Oil Occupied Government wouldn't allow that, since the oilies make their obscene profit margins off greedy sheiks owning OPEC oil and setting world prices for even our domestic oil.
 
The locals would have something to say about it, I hear their opinion matters especially because they make their opinion known with AK-47s and IEDs.
We need a new form of imperialism where we annex the oilfields, evict the natives, and let them run the rest of the country on their own. Self-determination for countries determined to gouge us on resources we developed for them is typical of the 20th Century's suicide of the West. The 21st should adopt new attitudes and quit thinking that the 19th Century's manifest destiny of exploration and possession was backward. There's nothing wrong with turning back the clock if it is connected to a time bomb. We should have been awakened to the results of multiculturalism on 9/11.
 
Colonize Iraq? We'd need more colonies in the region to justify it. The logistics alone are a nightmare, and protecting colonists would be an indefinite 24/7 detail. The cost is greater than the gain.



That, pretty much.

First of all, Iraq is full of arabs, persians and kurds who wouldn't like us there and aren't shy about making their displeasure known.

Second, the entire region would have a collective hissy-fit. For those of you unfortunate enough not to have been born in the South, a "hissy fit" of this scale is to be most dreaded and avoided.

Third, our allies would also have a hissy-fit, and stomp off in a huff. Rather permanently I figure.

Fourth, I don't know if you could convince too many people even among the trailer-park crowd that settling in Iraq was a good idea. After the second or third suicide-bomber in their settlement, they'd be ready to come home.

It would just be a total nightmare.
 
Why would Iraq have been populated with Americans? Is that what you mean by colonized?

Who would want to pick up and move to Iraq?
Nick Berg?

Why would Iraq be colonized?
 
If we owned the Iraq oil, then gasoline would only cost 12 cents a gallon. Our Big Oil Occupied Government wouldn't allow that, since the oilies make their obscene profit margins off greedy sheiks owning OPEC oil and setting world prices for even our domestic oil.

Because it couldnt be the simplest explanation, that its wrong to seize others property. It has to be a complex conspiracy where Big Oil invades Iraq and then leaves it alone to keep prices high.
 
We need a new form of imperialism where we annex the oilfields, evict the natives, and let them run the rest of the country on their own. Self-determination for countries determined to gouge us on resources we developed for them is typical of the 20th Century's suicide of the West. The 21st should adopt new attitudes and quit thinking that the 19th Century's manifest destiny of exploration and possession was backward. There's nothing wrong with turning back the clock if it is connected to a time bomb. We should have been awakened to the results of multiculturalism on 9/11.

That right there tells me you have no clue what you are talking about. 9/11 had nothing to do with multiculuralism
 
That right there tells me you have no clue what you are talking about. 9/11 had nothing to do with multiculuralism

Many would disagree with that. Islamists would argue that consumerism was cultural imperialism through neoliberalism, and that the attacks were necessary to preserve their culture.

Multiculturalism also drives up the labor supply such that wages go down and it's easier to liquidate other cultures from distributing cheap goods.
 
Serious answers only please. This is not a troll thread.

That is not a sarcastic comment (ad infinitum).
We are not conquerors, or colonists; we are liberators. Watch “a world without US” it’s the best explanation I have ever seen.
 
Because it couldnt be the simplest explanation, that its wrong to seize others property. It has to be a complex conspiracy where Big Oil invades Iraq and then leaves it alone to keep prices high.
The OPECkers are seizing our money, which is our property, by charging us $90 for oil worth less than $10. Besides, we discovered and developed those wells and pipelines, so why is it the natives' property? They didn't live there. In fact, most of them were nomads who never stayed in one spot.

The Big Oil conspiracy is easy when they control people's minds about what is really happening. Everybody here gives the answers required by Big Oil. And don't think the oily greedheads are hurt by all this wishful thinking about alternatives. It keeps people's minds away from the oilies' price-gouging, collaboration with jihadists, and hoarding of our supply of oil.
 
Colonize Iraq? We'd need more colonies in the region to justify it. The logistics alone are a nightmare, and protecting colonists would be an indefinite 24/7 detail. The cost is greater than the gain.

Colinization is why we have problems over there to begin with.
 
The mission was liberation, so humanitarianism is kind of important.

The mission was to capture oils fields. The "altruism" of GW Bush et al was shown to be a lie.
 
Imperialism...really would give ammo to the whole American empire thing
 
Antisemites may say things like that, but rational people who are not so obviously prejudiced realize that affording self determination to a persecuted ethnic group in their homeland is a far cry from colonization.

How is that anti-Semitic? And why is it that every time someone mentions something that goes against Israeli interests it's anti-Semitic or racist?
 
Serious answers only please. This is not a troll thread.

That is not a sarcastic comment (ad infinitum).

Most of the poll answers are really over the top. We did not colonize because it would have been exactly the wrong thing to do. It would have justified those against the war as well as the terrorists we fought against. The US is also not in the colony business when it comes to nations and nation building. The American people would not stand for anything like that. Bush would not have gotten a second term if he had tried anything that lame brained.
 
The mission was to capture oils fields. The "altruism" of GW Bush et al was shown to be a lie.

Please post some proof of this? Oh wait, you can't because that was not the reason. Unless of course you are into conspiracy theories. :doh
 
Serious answers only please. This is not a troll thread.

That is not a sarcastic comment (ad infinitum).

have you ever been to Iraq? most of the Iraqis don't even want to live there. you might as well have asked "why wasn't a toilet bowl colonized?" why haven't we colonized the south pole? why haven't we colonized the surface of the sun?
 
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