I’m not too keen on cultures that keep bulldozers in their backyards to mow down peace activists. So there you go, we can both play this imbecilic game of righteous outrage. Although, with your experience at it, no doubt you’ll ultimately “win.”
BTW, Avalonian, great post. One that december would greatly benefit from by having it tattooed on his forehead.
Cite, please. Because all the evidence I’ve seen says the whole “Saddam Hussein’s government loved to toss people into plastic shredders and kill them” is all nonexistent conservative masturbatory bullstuff. It’s like the whole “them evil Iraqis are tossing babies out of incubators” garbage from the first Persian Gulf war – great for demonizing Hussein and rally the pro-war hawks, but 100% fabricated junk.
So december, either put up with the plastic shredder cites, or stop spreading the FUD.
Well, it is a bit of a stretch from " yes, there were plastic shredders there and they were dismantled just before the military got there" to “people were put in them alive.”
Leaving that stretch aside, however, and even granting that it might possibly be true, how does that “data” help in deciding what to do about Iraq now?
In the city of Basrah, residents are shooting the British because there is not enough power.
Basrah is allegedly one of the greatest success stories of the occupation.
The progress noted on that list is either impossible to quantify (“The countryside is a lot safer, really! No, I swear; yesterday we were shot at twenty-two times instead of twenty-one!”) or pathetically insignificant. I think it’s a really bad sign when the fact that a single Iraqi city might have a reliable power supply more than one-hundred days after the “end” of the war is cause for celebration.
I don’t doubt that progress is being made, but so far it has been coming far too little and far too late. Baghdad fell on 9 April. It is now 10 August. We ought to have more to show for our efforts than one operating rail line and a few vague reassurances that, trust us, things will get better real soon.
For a start, we ought to be able to prevent our soldiers from dying in a sick once-a-day lottery.
It may be unfair to say that restoring basic security and services to a nation like Iraq should be easy, but it’s a hell of a lot easier than the Bush Administration’s stated aim of installing federalist, Western-style democracy. It should not be taking us months of fruitless effort to accomplish the former if we expect to have a reasonable hope of achieving the latter.
In the end the sad thing is that it became obvious that there was no post war plan. That Rummy thought the liberated Iraqi was collaborate fully and somehow things would work.
Soldiers were not trained or given specific instructions on how to deal with civil discontent… or how to avoid confrontation.
This “learn on the job” method that costs the lives of US soldiers and Iraqi is absurd and sad.
( Mind you that many people are actually happy about this 1 a day casualty rate… its humiliating the US and especially Bush. Every dead GI is a few thousand less votes for Bush. I think its sad that soldiers should die for political reasons… or lack of a plan.)
In WWII specialy trained Military Government units followed the assault groups quite closely. The regular military units were there to organize communications and transportation for the purpose of supplying and coordinating the actions of the assault forces.
The Military Government units’ job was to find leaders among the populace in the occupied territories and get civilian services restored as rapidly as possible.
Of course the WWII leaders were experienced people with a modicum of foresight.
WWII Leaders were less worried about economic reasons for the war. The US army did protect the Oil Wells thou... we must give credit there... it was a well planned aspect of the Iraqi invasion.
But once the war was underway, my belief was that we owed it to the Iraqi people to stay and clean up our messes: to stay long enough to put some sort of stable, non-psychotic government on its feet with a good chance of lasting awhile.
Now I wonder. I really think we need Bush to level with us about how long that’ll take, and what the cost will be, and decide based on that. If it’s going to cost more than we’d like to pay, maybe we’d better work toward what I consider a ‘quick exit’ - gradually work our way out as we do what we can to stabilize things in the next eighteen months to two years.
Condi’s talk of a “generational commitment” is kinda scary - while I know she doesn’t mean that long of a military presence, I’m certain we’re not ready to be there for 8-10 years, and I can’t see that we can do the job right in much less than that, if ever.
This reminds me of another GD thread I started concerning (What I consider excessive) airline security measures.
It is going to be so sad when the bills come due, and we start realizing all the other things we could have done with that huge amount of money.
Even if you felt our action in Iraq was appropriate/desireable/defensible, when confronted with the true cost in dollars and lives, and the alternative expenditures we will need to forego to pay for it, it will be interesting to hear how and why it was necessary and worthwhile.
I expect the U.S. to be there much longer than that. Heck, the U.S. was in Saudi Arabia for 11 years after the Gulf war.
If the U.S. maintained 50,000 troops there for the next 50 years, that would be a commitment on a scale equivalent to the commitment to South Korea. That seems to me to be about right. It also seems to me to be long overdue. In an area as volatile as the middle east, and as critical to the world’s economic and security health, I think maintaining a presence of that size there is perfectly appropriate. Even a permanent presence.
What’s the absolute best-case scenario? Well, it seems to me that the U.S. can’t leave Iraq en masse until two major things have happened - one, Iraq has its own government that functions well, and two, Iraq has its own military capable of defending itself from aggressive neighbors. It’s a pretty bad neighborhood, after all.
I don’t think anyone expects Iraq to have a mature functioning government in less than five years. First elections may be a year or two away, but it’s a far cry from that to having a complete governmental infrastructure.
And how long will it take to rebuild a military? Years, certainly. New equipment has to be purchased, new doctrines approved, soldiers trained, logistical support built, infrastructure like airports and roads improved, etc. That takes money - money Iraq won’t have until full oil production ramps up. So I wouldn’t even expect that process to begin in earnest for a couple of years at least.
I predict at least 75,000 - 100,000 troops in Iraq for five years, and then a semi-permanent presence of maybe half that size indefinitely thereafter.
And that wouldn’t bother me a bit if I were an American. How many troops were in Europe throughout the cold war? How many in Okinawa? Many of those commitments can be scaled back dramatically. The new hotspot is the Middle East, so that’s where they’ll go.
The issue should be not IF but HOW this was done. If the UN had been properly brought in there would be way less bloodshed and destruction and certainly things would be running way more smoothly and the overall cost smaller and shared.
If the US retreats and caos ensues... then the $ and Blood was all in vain.
One has to wonder if you actually needed so many billions of dollars to go and orphan that kid and tear off both of his arms.
The lack of planning of the aftermath of this invasion is astounding. It seems as if they are just making things up along the way. They only figured out the “fun” killing part and forgot to plan all the boring “reconstruction” bit. (The oil wells were secured and made to start pumping right away mind you).
The US has all but explicitly redefined itself as an empire. As such, the question of “What should WE do about Iraq?” loses meaning. Who is WE?
The empire is persuing “strategic” interests in the region. Period.
“Collateral” damage is not an issue. Human life is worth nothing, unless, perhaps, maybe, if it is the life of a citizen of the empire.
The empire will not “pull out” of Iraq unless:
a) No more money can be made out of the “reconstruction”
b) So many soldiers of the empire start to die that even Caesar gets squeamish. And that ain’t gonna happen.
In the fairy tale universe where the US abandons it’s callous Empire building aspirations (fat chance) and returned to the international community, then what should be done, in my opinion, is to put out an explicit date for free elections in Iraq. Maybe in 1 year. And schedule a complete pull-out in another year.
But that is NOT going to happen. Half of the US is bloody comfortable with their “citizen of the empire” status. They reason that Caesar must be doing what is best to protect their world. No questions asked, as long as the money flows. “It’s the economy, stupid”
:dubious: