Welcome to the party. People have been saying this about the Palestinian territories for years. But I think the reason this hasn't happened is not because nobody has suggested it yet; nor is it (as I have heard espoused) evidence that the Arabs aren't interested in peace.
Believe it or not, I think the reason there has been no mass civilian uprising against the U.S. army presence is that the U.S. is not powerful enough in Iraq. In India, you had a well-defined, strong, foreign central authority. The average non-insurgent Iraqi, on the other hand, is not beholden to the United States in the same way: he is controlled by a variety of warlord-ish factions, by an ineffectual central government, and by an effective but certainly not omnipresent foreign army. In such a situation, it's hard to argue that staging protests outside the Green Zone would be effective; and it would certainly be hard for even a motivated group of Iraqis to convince a few million of their compatriots to join in that sort of action.
As for the occupied territories in Israel, I think you could make the case that nonviolent resistance would have some effect. I think having a few million people hold parades at checkpoints every day would cause the glacier that is the peace process to start thawing out.
ryantm
· 1 year ago
Interesting, I never considered that the Iraqis might not be effected enough by the US army on a daily basis to care enough. I definitely believe that it is a probable situation though.
iprefermuffins
· 1 year ago
more like goody-two-shoes-THROWN-IN-YOUR-FACE amirite?
(by the way, i think it's Gandhi, not Ghandi)
ryantm
· 1 year ago
You are rite!
Thanks for the spelling correction. I fixed it above.
All Comments
Believe it or not, I think the reason there has been no mass civilian uprising against the U.S. army presence is that the U.S. is not powerful enough in Iraq. In India, you had a well-defined, strong, foreign central authority. The average non-insurgent Iraqi, on the other hand, is not beholden to the United States in the same way: he is controlled by a variety of warlord-ish factions, by an ineffectual central government, and by an effective but certainly not omnipresent foreign army. In such a situation, it's hard to argue that staging protests outside the Green Zone would be effective; and it would certainly be hard for even a motivated group of Iraqis to convince a few million of their compatriots to join in that sort of action.
As for the occupied territories in Israel, I think you could make the case that nonviolent resistance would have some effect. I think having a few million people hold parades at checkpoints every day would cause the glacier that is the peace process to start thawing out.
(by the way, i think it's Gandhi, not Ghandi)
Thanks for the spelling correction. I fixed it above.