Al Gore – my 2 cents.
I just left a comment on a site where there were three short videos by Al Gore. The first one was about “Bring the troops home” and another was about “Universal single payer health care”
They were short and to the point and I left a comment, which was something like this: -
“As an interested ‘Brit’ with an interest in American politics (some articles in opednews) I have observed that should you run for President, there would be a political tsunami of positive energy behind you. Given that the other candidates have squandered their positive capital with bickering and not apologizing for their voting records, you would come out in front in not time at all. And if you are going to run (and I don’t know your plan) have you not left it a bit late? And what are you doing putting up videos about “bringing the troops home” and “single payer health care” if you are not going to run?
Congratulations on the Peace Prize, and you know that you would now be unstoppable don’t you?”
Having read some of the hundreds of comments, almost all universally calling for Al Gore to run, I also came across some that suggested ways of getting out of Iraq and the likely consequences of doing that – most were concentrating on the political consequences, not only for Iraq, i.e. war lords/civil war and such, but American political consequences. None that I read had much to say what the situation is (or would be) for Iraqis.
I have come across quite a few articles and essays and interviews with Iraqis, both in and outside of the country, which seem to indicate that there is no big civil war going on and there would not be a blood bath after the Brits and Americans left. One person said that his wife was a Shia and his uncles were Shia with Sunni wives and so on. That means he would be killing his uncles and nephews and nieces, which as he said, would be crazy. Dividing the country into three parts would be totally impractical because of all the intermarriages.
So much for the politics from America, totally out of touch with the reality on the ground.
Which brings me to the real point about all those suggestions of how we should do this or that.
The real situation for Iraqis is that they have no clean water and very little electricity and millions of those that can are refugees in other countries. The y have an ongoing and rising number of Cholera cases, with no hospitals or doctors and no supplies for those hospitals – and Americans talk about “universal single payer health care as if it were some magic potion to cure all evils. I have to put my hand up and say that Britain has been ok for me at my tender age – my drugs for the few health problems I have at my age are free - after all I paid all those years into the system.
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