Proof of my revisionist politics...

Just a a few fridays ago, I wrote passionately about how, in the wake of the current war, my political stance had changed to one that sided with our current presence in Iraq. I have often shifted sides, which is evidence of my constant political revision. But, a weekend with my politically minded father changed my views, seemingly for the good.

IN THE SHORT RUN, Iraq will only be stable if we provide stability with our presence. As comedian and political mind Bill Maher said, it's like the husband who stopped beating on his wife while the police are on the porch. Once, they leave, the that woman better run.

IN THE LONG RUN, Iraq will be stable if: (a) they figure out their our political identity, and as such, the means by to run the country, or (b) we're still there providing that stability through military force.

We are trying to fit the Iraqi people and similarly their political structure into our American mold. We wonder, it works with us, why can't they do it? We forget the 231 years of constant change and revision to get to where we are now. Hell, thats like asking those people to, in an instant, create the US constitution with all of the Amendments already in place. In 1789, if they had written all that stuff in the constitution, we would have failed as a country. It's been a process of acculturation and constant miscegenation that has allowed our country to be the relatively liberal place it is today.

Joe Enrique Rodo's essay, Ariel, written in 1900, speaks of how Latin America does not fit the shoes of the American Industrialism, Capitalism and Democracy. In his introduction to Rodo's Ariel, scholar Carlos Fuentes says about Latin American countries, "we must pass from nationalism to interdependence, but interdependence is senseless without a basis in independence. Only independent nations can become independent partners. It not, they become protectorates, neocolonies, subject states."

This speaks of the economic dependence of the Latin American states on the US in their export based economies. This dependence is what had crippled them throughout the late 19th century and well into the 20th.

If this economic dependence crippled and delayed the growth of so many Latin American states, what leads us to believe an all-encompassing dependence on the US by Iraq will yield any better results? They have become a protectorate of the US.

The US' birth was that of denying our being a protectorate of England. Since then, we have developed a culture that is, though varying throughout, distinctly American. And that culture and the politics of this country has grown with other and changed each other simultaneously.

Now, we propose to impose our mode of politics on a completely juxtaposing culture.

We need to get out and let them figure it out on their own.