# Iraq: Why did We get it wrong? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 27, 2006, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281 "2006-07-27T16:31:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/41 "2006-07-28T11:01:57Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14046789/site/newsweek/](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14046789/site/newsweek/) > > Read this. Now. At once. Tremble and obey. OK if I just obey, but skip the trembling? > [@](#): > > Reading “Fiasco,” Thomas Ricks’s devastating new book about the Iraq war, brought back memories for me. Memories of going on night raids in Samarra in January 2004, in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, with the Fourth Infantry Division units that Ricks describes. During these raids, confused young Americans would burst into Iraqi homes, overturn beds, dump out drawers, and summarily arrest all military-age men—actions that made them unwitting recruits for the insurgency. For American soldiers battling the resistance throughout Iraq, the unspoken rule was that all Iraqis were guilty until proven innocent. Arrests, beatings and sometimes killings were arbitrary, often based on the flimsiest intelligence, and Iraqis had no recourse whatever to justice. **Imagine the sense of helpless rage that emerges from this sort of treatment. Apply three years of it…** I get the impression that this utterly obvious fact of human nature _still_ doesn’t register with the Bushies. They still seem to think we’ll get our way over there by being forceful and demonstrating ‘resolve.’ Their lack of the most elementary insights into how people work has to be one of the defining characteristics of the Bush regime. Just because they can buffalo the Dems and the press (who they genuinely _do_ understand how to play), doesn’t mean it’ll work on people who are very differently situated. > [@](#): > > at cafes and around kitchen tables throughout the Arab world, good-hearted Muslims can no longer defend America against their more hate-filled brethren. They have fallen silent; they have no arguments left. Everything we’ve done since 9/11 should have been geared towards undermining the persuasiveness of the radicals’ arguments. We’ve done that to our would-be friends, instead. We have lost the War on Terror. To ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/42 "2006-07-28T11:27:08Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > I don’t understand this terminology of ‘occupiers’ as if its a negative connontation. “Occupier” is an outsider come to tell you how to run your own life. An invader. I know a lot of people who would rather be beaten by their own than given massages by strangers. Being beaten by strangers will get them to defend themselves where being beaten by their own would not. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/43 "2006-07-28T11:47:56Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > The US didn’t install Saddam. He was the previous leader’s cousin, who made him vice-president, and Saddam eventually squeezed him out and then went on to arrest or kill everyone in the Baath party who he thought might challenge him. ‘In 1959, there was a failed assassination attempt on Qasim. The failed assassin was none other than a young Saddam Hussein. In 1963, a CIA-organized coup did successfully assassinate Qasim and Saddam’s Ba’ath Party came to power for the first time. Saddam returned from exile in Egypt and took up the key post as head of Iraq’s secret service. The CIA then provided the new pliant, Iraqi regime with the names of thousands of communists, and other leftist activists and organizers. Thousands of these supporters of Qasim and his policies were soon dead in a rampage of mass murder carried out by the CIA’s close friends in Iraq.’ > **[Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power](http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html)** > > Regime Change: How the CIA put Saddam's Party in Power ‘Saddam was seen by U.S. intelligence services as a bulwark of anti-communism and they used him as their instrument for more than 40 years, according to former U.S. intelligence diplomats and intelligence officials. … While many have thought that Saddam first became involved with U.S. intelligence agencies at the start of the September 1980 Iran-Iraq war, his first contacts with U.S. officials date back to 1959, when he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al- Karim Qasim.’ [http://www.rise4news.net/Saddam-CIA.html](http://www.rise4news.net/Saddam-CIA.html) 'Last night the Lebanese weekly ‘YA LAL-AJAB’ revealed some startling information about the relationship of governments of President Saddam Hussein and King Hussein with CIA. The paper claimed that few months after Saddam took power in Iraq, CIA took him off direct payroll and instead paid him in lumpsum every now and then. At the same time CIA with the help of Saddam recruited more than three quarters of Tekriti clan and placed them on direct payroll. ’ [http://www.eng.morgan.edu/~salimian/humor/timArestAn/knee-use\_14.html](http://www.eng.morgan.edu/~salimian/humor/timArestAn/knee-use_14.html) “Working with Saddam made sense to the CIA on two important levels. Number one, he was not an Islamic fundamentalist along the lines of the Iranian ayatollahs. Secondly, he was not a communist and perhaps was an anti-communist.” [http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/cia\_iraq.htm](http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/cia_iraq.htm) ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/44 "2006-07-28T11:54:50Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > We managed to set up democracies in Germany and Italy. (Yes, I know, the parallels are not perfect. They never are.) Germany and Italy already had democracy before WW2. This had come about after centuries of gradually combining city-states and independent provinces, with common religion and language. Certainly the system had been abused, but it had existed. People understood their voting rights. There is not a parallel with the artificially created Middle East states, which had been dictatorships all their lives. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/45 "2006-07-28T13:03:18Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Many tactical errors, in my observation as armchair tactician - all driven by one big error - which is the thought: > > “They already hate us; we can’t possibly make it any worse”. The Bush Administration and its supporters have made it abundantly clear that they see the world in starkly Manichean good-v.-evil terms, where you’re either for or against us. (I’ve seen plenty of instances of it on this message board, during the past five years.) And if your world is truly divided into good-guy supporters and evil adversaries who hate freedom, then this Administration’s behavior makes complete sense: you need to stomp on the freedom-haters, and your supporters will see it as good. Unfortunately, as you point out, reality isn’t quite that dualistic: people tend to be arrayed along a spectrum in their attitude towards many things, and our acts potentially push and pull them in different directions along the spectrum. > [@](#): > > If you convert formerly sympathetic people to antipathetic, you simultaneously convert formerly antipathetic people into supporters of violence, supporters into insurgents, insurgents into terrorists. And unfortunatly, practically everything the U.S. has done beginning with the “Axis of Evil” speech has pushed Arabs and Muslims away from us and towards the terrorists. > [@](#): > > The other huge error is misinterpreting human nature. Amongst myriad other factors, [humiliation](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=113769) (GD thread I started in 2002) is a huge driving force to tip people over this edge. And US military behaviour has imposed humiliation on the country and its people, countless times. We all but simulposted with this thought. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/46 "2006-07-28T14:03:54Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > I would argue with you **David** (and the arguement would point out you are dancing very close to the ‘Arabs can’t make democracy work’ line) if not but for the fact that your line of reasoning has been proven by events. I don’t think that necessarily, but I’ll step a little closer to that line. I am far from an expert in either Islam or Christianity but I do think that Islam is about where Christianity was 800 years ago. That is, barely able to tolerate any other religion in its midst. Maybe after a few hundred years of being forced to live as only one among many religions Muslims will come to accept the others. This idea is on somewhat shaky ground because there do seem to be Muslims who only want to practice there religion and don’t want to convert others. However they seem to be in a definite minority among Arabic muslims. It seems to me we made two fundamental mistakes. The first is that we accepted GW’s premise that the Iraqis were among the “huddled masses yearning to be free” to be like us. And that we could win a war and easily impose the form of government we favor. The second was that if that worked the result would be a nation that would be an ally of ours through gratitude. I doubt that any tinkering with the details of how the plan was implemented would have turned it into a good plan. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/47 "2006-07-28T14:12:16Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > We all but simulposted with this thought. Yes, and I’m glad you also said “human nature”, not “Arab culture”. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/48 "2006-07-28T14:15:25Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager And not enough troops to start policing when we needed to. Though enough to protect the oil ministry. [/QUOTE] Yet, strangely enough, not enough to protect the oil industry. What good is the former without the latter? -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/49 "2006-07-28T16:41:26Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > “Occupier” is an outsider come to tell you how to run your own life. An invader. > > I know a lot of people who would rather be beaten by their own than given massages by strangers. Being beaten by strangers will get them to defend themselves where being beaten by their own would not. Wow, so that by that analogy, the Occupiers of Germany and Japan were invaders who ultimately became liberators due to the processes they put in place, same thing happening in Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/50 "2006-07-28T16:45:21Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > Wow, so that by that analogy, the Occupiers of Germany and Japan were invaders who ultimately became liberators due to the processes they put in place, same thing happening in Iraq. Absolutely! Who can ever forget Berlin, with mobs of fanatical Lutherans attacking Catholics… Why, the parallels are _uncanny_! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/51 "2006-07-28T16:45:23Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > Wow, so that by that analogy, the Occupiers of Germany and Japan were invaders who ultimately became liberators due to the processes they put in place, same thing happening in Iraq. Ermm . . . No, **Ryan,** that was the **idea,** \* but . . . \*That is, of the three main and conflicting ideas behind the invasion (see posts #32 and 34), that was the one they were willing to talk about publicly. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/52 "2006-07-28T17:42:22Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Yes, and I’m glad you also said “human nature”, not “Arab culture”. Can’t see anything peculiarly Arabic about rage and hatred as a response to humiliation. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/53 "2006-07-28T17:57:07Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > Wow, so that by that analogy, the Occupiers of Germany and Japan were invaders who ultimately became liberators due to the processes they put in place, same thing happening in Iraq. No, Germany and Japan started the fight and they knew it; one by declaring war on us and the other by bombing. They knew that they were to blame. The Iraqis, however, know we are pure predators; we invaded for no honest reason, and have laid waste to their country out of pure selfishness and malice. They know that _they_ are in the right, and we aren’t. They know that we are _evil_, and surrendering to or cooperating with evil is both immoral and stupid. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/54 "2006-07-28T18:36:52Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > No, Germany and Japan started the fight and they knew it; one by declaring war on us and the other by bombing. They knew that they were to blame. The Iraqis, however, know we are pure predators; we invaded for no honest reason, and have laid waste to their country out of pure selfishness and malice. They know that they are in the right, and we aren’t. They know that we are evil, and surrendering to or cooperating with evil is both immoral and stupid. Dude…don’t you ever get tired of this hyperbolic bullshit you are constantly spewing out in this forum? Even your characterization of Germany and Japan is simplistic at best wrt WHY they attacked us or declared war (though I give you points for what it must have cost you to not say the US was evil there too). These are complex issues and you attempt to put them into comic book like stories of good vs evil…especially wrt the whole Iraqi mess. It, you know, gets a bit tiring after a while. Could you at least TRY and tone down the (stupid) rhetoric and hyperbole? Just as an experiment for a few days? -XT ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/55 "2006-07-28T19:38:55Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > Wow, so that by that analogy, the Occupiers of Germany and Japan were invaders who ultimately became liberators due to the processes they put in place, same thing happening in Iraq. A few minor differences. We occupied them in force. There were no civilian or military officials so fucking stupid that they thought we’d be greeted with flowers. We rebuilt the infrastructure (which was even in worse shape than Iraq’s) with a fair degree of competence. So a question - so you think the postwar Iraqi occupation, and prewar planning, was done competently? ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/56 "2006-07-28T22:36:55Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > And when your commander-in-chief indicates humiliation and torture is acceptable, you can hardly be blamed for taking him at his word. Not that I’m defending _that_ policy, but the President’s position hardly condones wanton rape and murder of civilian non-combatants. If you think it does, please provide me the relevant quotes that led you to that conclusion, and I’ll consider revising my position. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/57 "2006-07-28T23:18:26Z")
> [@ExTank](#): > > Not that I’m defending _that_ policy, but the President’s position hardly condones wanton rape and murder of civilian non-combatants. If you think it does, please provide me the relevant quotes that led you to that conclusion, and I’ll consider revising my position. Gee, I thought **Askance** was talking about torture. The scandal about the crimes is not that they were committed (crime happens all over) but that they were covered up by the chain of command. Now perhaps the president’s claim of never making a mistake contributed to that. Certainly the lack of punishment for the chain of command that either knew or should have known about the torture, and the greater anger at the publication of the pictures as opposed to the acts themselves, might have contributed to some in the chain of command not wanting to make waves by exposing murder by their men. The lack of concern about civilian casualties might give that impression also. When your boss gets away with something (and I mean lack of consequences, not rape or murder) you tend to think you can get away with stuff also. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/58 "2006-07-28T23:37:58Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > A few minor differences. We occupied them in force. There were no civilian or military officials so fucking stupid that they thought we’d be greeted with flowers. We rebuilt the infrastructure (which was even in worse shape than Iraq’s) with a fair degree of competence. > > So a question - so you think the postwar Iraqi occupation, and prewar planning, was done competently? Personally I didn’t think so, however, I do think that if without the violence, it would of been far more successful. > [@](#): > > Absolutely! Who can ever forget Berlin, with mobs of fanatical Lutherans attacking Catholics… Why, the parallels are uncanny! No but plenty of Slavs and Jews were executed. > [@](#): > > Ermm . . . No, Ryan, that was the idea,\* but . . . > > \*That is, of the three main and conflicting ideas behind the invasion (see posts #32 and 34), that was the one they were willing to talk about publicly. Yes I read the usual _Haliburton ™_ tirade you again posted. Now I know energy supplies had a factor to play in it, however in my analysis, it seems to have played a very small role, overshadowed by the strategic and propaganda value it has which is The USA invades Iraq thus; It is situated right smack in the middle of the most strategically valuable real estate in the Middle East, which gives the US the ability to exert enormous influence within the Area than it currently does. US helps bring about a Democratic government, which would undoubtebly require US protection in order to defend itself from Iran and Syria. New Iraqi State establishes itself multiparty democratic state within the most strategically vital area of ME, influencing the states around it and their subject populations. Well, that was the plan anyway, I hope it works out. However, even if the country splits apart and then all the seperate entities have democratic governments, then we’ve still attained most of the objectives and since most of the political parties are Islamist in nature, thats an added bonus and shows how a Western invasion brought about political parties they wanted to elect into office. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/59 "2006-07-28T23:43:09Z")
Why didn´t the US use Afghanistan as a sample of how good democracy can be in the ME? I, mean, it was already invaded and stuff, if the goal of the US would be to plant a shining beacon of democracy smack in the middle of the ME why start a new war for that? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2006, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281/60 "2006-07-28T23:54:49Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > These are complex issues and you attempt to put them into comic book like stories of good vs evil…especially wrt the whole Iraqi mess. It’s not complex; the people in charge are too stupid/narrow minded/malignant to make them complex. We invaded a country that was no threat to us; we’ve killed, raped, and tortured tortured it’s people, and done a great deal of property damage in the process. We are the bad guys. I call America evil because that’s what evil people _do_. Am I not allowed to call our side the evil side until our troops eat the Iraqis after raping and torturing them ? Calling my attitude a “comic book” one ignores the fact that we are rather more a clear cut villain than quite a few comic book supervillains; no moral ambiguity here. > [@Ale](#): > > Why didn´t the US use Afghanistan as a sample of how good democracy can be in the ME? > I, mean, it was already invaded and stuff, if the goal of the US would be to plant a shining beacon of democracy smack in the middle of the ME why start a new war for that? Because neither Afghanistan nor democracy was the goal. America has always been the enemy of democracy outside it’s own borders, and Afghanistan was simply an inconvenient stepping stone to the conquest of Iraq. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iraq-why-did-we-get-it-wrong/366281.md?page=4)