Mr. Moto, I knew about the werewolves but didn’t really count them as insurgents, as they were mainly a uniformed military unit that by-and-large surrendered with the rest of the army after the fall of Berlin. The Iraqi insurgency, on the other hand, didn’t even get started till after the fall of Baghdad, and unlike the werewolves, seemed to have gained stength rather then lost it during the intervening period.
Or the media could (to employ the vernacular) grow some. Which would be a happier state of affairs all around.
btw, quite prepared to accept your assurance on the red/blue construct.
The only problem here is that it’s notoriously difficult to give aid to countries ruled by violent dictatorships or engaged in civil war, and those are the countries that need it the most.
If any given country’s leadership is amenable to receiving actual aid to their peoples, chances are the UN is already giving them sufficient aid.
The only other two options are to either implement the aid on a “sanctions” basis, demanding rights to distribute the aid as we see fit or adding conditions to the aid, or invade the country to install a more friendly government or to ease the humanitarian situation ourselves. No matter the outcome, the U.S. gets no respect from the world and is seen either as “stingy” or “imperialistic”.
I’d rather no aid go to countries that can’t get their political acts together than to give just to pat ourselves on the back to try to one-up other countries. That, or only give aid where we will be sure it will not be used to prop up a dictatorship. For instance, directly distribute food or directly build infrastructure (both of which, of course, indirectly help dictatorships by letting them spend money elsewhere, but let’s ignore that for now.)
Would it be useful to compare the situation in Iraq with the communist insurgency in Malaya? That took 9 years to quell.
We have given ludicrous sums to countries ruled by violent dictatorships over and over again. The set of countries with violent dictatorships and brutal civil wars is a mere subset of the set of worthy recipients of US foreign aid.
Chances are? What does that mean? Perhaps you can demonstrate that this distributional assumption is borne out in the real world.
This is a false dilemma. There are many possibilities for foreign aid that are neither “stingy” nor “imperialistic”.
I agree with your conclusion, not with your argument. I would prefer that the US does not pervert incentives for growth and national improvement by subsidizing the worst regimes on the planet. This has nothing to do with one-upmanship. I just dislike the fact that American citizens paid for Mobutu’s Swiss chalets and his death squads.
Naturally, this goes against twenty-five years of received wisdom. Alas.
A student of the Iraqi insurgency at Harvard lists and refutes the key myths about it:
Fuller discussion a click away. You can certainly say that anecdotes aren’t data, but there isn’t any credible data to the contrary, either, just assertions of faith - and Bingham was actually there and actually talked with a number of actual insurgents.
We are generous because we are “nation building” in Iraq?!?! This is almost as ridiculous as the letter-to-editor I read in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago commenting on the Iraqi Olympic athlete who said (in response to Bush’s comments) that if he wasn’t in the Olympics, he’d probably be part of the insurgency. The letter was sort of along the lines of “How dare they be so ungrateful!” The circular logic in this is just so mind-boggling that I am not sure what to say.
I see that jshore has already commented on the above, but I’d like to be a tad more direct than he was.
Perhaps if you hadn’t destroyed the godammed place through an illegal, inmoral and murderous invasion to begin with, you wouldn’t have to be fuckin’ nation-building where you’re clearly despised – and for very good reason.
Must be something to do with that American “moral superiority” I keep hearing about and I’ve yet to see.
And that would be different from Saddam in which way?
They wouldn’t start repressing and killing large sections of the countries population in order to keep the status quo, no matter how deformed it would turn out to be.
This is has to be in comparison to a strengthening Iraqi state though. Compare and then see which side is doing badly.
That´s yet to be seen, besides I´ve seen quite a bit of killing going around there lately.
yes, but no massacres en masse,alot of pinpoint (don’t pun me) action against a protracted insurgency, not killing for the sake of killing or to instill fear into the populace, which is an aim the Insurgents actually want.
Gosh, there are so many who know what the insurgents think, know what their strategy is, their goals, all of that. Its a wonder we have any trouble with them, seeing as we have so many experts.
Go right ahead, then. How strong do *you * think the “Iraqi state” is, and how strong do you think it will be after 1/30/05?
On what do you base that assessment? That they wouldn’t be Saddamists? Got news for ya, kiddo, that’s SOP for just about *any * dictatorship in a diverse country, including (perhaps especially including) the ones we’ve given the weapons to over the years.
That’s just what the US is doing right* now*. What makes so sure a US puppet – which is exactly what Saddam was when he did most of his butchering – would be any different?
Well, here are a couple of them:
This chart shows the US being at the bottom of the top 20 economic donor countries on per capita basis.
This chart not only shows the US being at the bottom, but also shows the US contribution was cut in half from 1992 to year 2000.
With all due, companero…
No question, the US supported him in a lot of ways, as a paricularly loathesome excercise in realpolitik…but “puppet”? He was seen as a useful counterbalance to Iran and as providing the sort of dependable stability that tyrants are good at. He didn’t do the butchering on our behalf, he did it for his own benefit. We made the obligatory “tut-tut” noises, and he ignored them as we knew he would. He didn’t slaughter Kurds and Shia for our interests, we barely knew who they were, much less wanted them dead.
No problem with the distinction you’re making, 'luc. I was simply making the historical point that having a US-backed government in place is not a de facto guarantee of the safety of its citizens. It is, however, a guarantee that the US’s interests will be protected.
No more, no less.
Generosity, Wake was never intended to mean charity alone. Consider the money we lend to other countries that never gets paid back. Consider the military contributions. Consider the naiton-building efforts of Germany, Turkey, et al. When I say we’re generous, I mean in all things.