When I first heard the news, I took a deep breath: Bush had just fired the Iraqi Army. Their salaries would go to Halliburton instead. In a moment, over a hundred thousand Iraqis were unemployed; they could no longer support themselves, much less their families. What would they do now?
I could not see how this was a good way to communicate that America was very concerned for the welfare of the Iraqi people.
Starting at the time the war was going “better than expected”, when was it clear to you that the Mission was Accomplished…NOT?
Peace through Liberty
rwj
“No sweat, George, we’re sure you’ll get the hang of it pretty soon. A lifetime of privileged mediocrity is just the thing to forge a Leader of Men! Got any more really, really Big Ideas? We’re just dying to hear…well, not all of us. Some of us.”
Maybe we should have gone ahead and installed Chalabi. Then offered to guarantee the payment of the Army, so long as they were loyal to the federal state of Iraq. They might have kept the peace long enough for us to get the Hell out of Baghdodge. At any rate, we had the chance to buy the loyalty of armed and trained men at below market value.
How odd for Republicans to miss a bargain like that.
Like I said, my original intention was a poll. I didn’t realize that the answer was so clear cut. Evidently great minds think alike.
If my memory is correct: In the debates, when G. Dub was asked whether any mistakes were made, he did not name even one. It is a shame G. Dub will never be in our group Sam.
As it is, any ideas how we turn it around?
Do you think the Muslim world will ever return to the days it followed tolerance, even for peaceful Jews? Are the fundies correct? Is this destined to wipe out civilization?
rwj
I would argue the majority of the Muslim world is tolerant, its the fundies that are, ahem, ruining the fun for everyone else. Extremist reaction will, however, continue, as long as the American government is blind to the complaints of the world at large.
I don’t anticipate a peaceful resolution to this problem any time soon.
How much loyalty could we really have bought? The insurgents don’t seem to lack for funds. Is it all coming from Iran or Syria? Surely some significant amount is home grown (or at least home plundered). How many of these armed and trained men were devote baathists? How would we tell the difference.
I’m not saying that firing all of the army was the correct thing to do. I happen to think it was a mistake. I’m just trying to set the record straight that there were viable arguments for that action.
Most of the troops in the army were poor Shittes, very few of which were probably loyal baathists. The officers were probably all baathists, at least some of whom whom would’ve remained loyal to Saddam before he was captured. But then, a sizable chunk of the worst of these probably could’ve been plausibly accused of war crimes and removed. Of those that remained, it’s probably still better having them serving in the army then at home plotting to overthrow us.
I think the reason the army was disbanded is because it would’ve been the strongest political competitor to the Americans in the post-war period. The other strong social institutions that remained in Iraq have either been pro-American (the Kurdish political parties) or largly apolitical (the Shitte clerical establishment, which Sadr aside, has remained fairly aloof). The army, on the other hand, was both a source of nationalism and pride for the people of Iraq, and a large political player. It would’ve been a focus for nationalist Iraqis who didn’t want to support the americans. Even if we removed the top leadership, I imagine it would’ve been hard to dominate the new officers. For the Bush Admin, who dreamed of building Iraq from the ground up on western political and economic principles, this could’ve been a strong impediment to implimenting thier ideas.
And as always, the people complaining that people are complaining about Bush-bashing are coming out of the work. Honestly, can’t we have just one of these threads without people complaining about people complaining about people complaining about Bush?
Wait…(counts on fingers)…nevermind.
The whole enterprise is to deflect the deserved criticism of Bush to pointless and distracting criticism of the critics. If it keeps bouncing back and forth, then the lying bastards win – it’s a mess of name-calling and finger-pointing and we’re not talking about the Bush administration anymore.
The crises of our nation are not due to the criticis, they’re due to the administration. If you want to complain about Bush-bashing, you’re just ignoring the giant elephant sitting on your head.
Not as long as governments are controlled by the Fundies. It makes me realize just how much more enlightened our ancestors were about separating church from state.
So Rebekkah, what can we enlightened individuals do to keep the Religious Right from bringing us to the Armageddon they Seek?
Peace through Liberty
rwjefferson
Gotta say “Dunno”. Compared to the initial blunder of invading in the first place, everything else looks kinda pale. And of late I’m leaning more to a position I wouldn’t have accepted a year ago, which is to say that a disaster is virtually certain, our presence is only an irritant, and that we are postponing the inevitable at great cost.
If we could have installed a strong man, a Saddam Lite, with the backing of sufficient force, we might have been able to get our people out of The Shit long since, and Iraq no worse off than it is now. A year ago, I inclined more to “we broke it, we gotta fix it”, but now I’m not at all sure we can fix it. If so, we are squandering our best and brightest needlessly, to no good end. At least with us gone, they could have gone about the business of slaughtering each other, rather than uniting in their hatred of us.
I try to be a humanist, and hold all human life equally dear, but I don’t, and I can’t. I want our people out. And most emphaticly want our people out if they are not accomplishing anything. And I very much doubt that they are, or even can.
The only thing I am certain about is that I will never, ever forgive the men who made such ghastly decisions necessary. Not ever.
Loose quote by Captain Kirk ~It is easier for an Civilized person to act as a Barbarian than the other way around.
In worse case, we would still have much better weapons and know what they were doing. I would rather have the armed and dangerous check into work every day than to disappear into the population. The tyrants would have quickly shown themselves.
I think the Iraqi Army and people would have preferred peace. They would have policed themselves if we had allowed it.
It’s worse than this. Not only were they not allowed to police themselves, but dismantling the military sent hundreds of thousands of young men back to their homes in humiliation, without incomes, and with a grudge.
The U.S. took potential allies and turned them into enemies. And the allies they alienated are the very ones that could have protected the people from other insurgents. Very bad move.
On the other hand, the worry was probably that the army was irrevocably intertwined with the Baathists, and could not be trusted in any capacity. To my way of thinking, that’s just as good a reason to keep them employed. Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies even closer.