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| Iraq-Jordan |
| The Myths of Iraq |
| 2004-04-24 |
| The country is in flames! Actually, most of the country continues to rebuild and is at peace. The fighting is restricted to a few areas, but this is where the reporters and cameras go. Construction and commerce do not make for dramatic news stories and so are rarely covered. The Iraqis who are causing all the commotion are the same ones who have been using their guns to threaten other Iraqis as well. Coalition attempts to deal with this are being condemned as oppressive to all Iraqis. But unless the warlords (Saddam followers wanting to regain power, or Islamic radical Shias who want the country run by clergy) can be defeated and disarmed, Iraq will never no peace. The coalition hoped this day of reckoning could be put off until the Iraqis held elections, and could do it themselves. The warlords were not willing to wait for that. American are hated in Iraq! Not according to the polls that have been conducted, nor according to the experience of most Americans working in Iraq. But a lot of Iraqis, especially those who used to work for Saddam, or who want to set up an Islamic theocracy, donât like the Americans and their "alien" ideas about democracy and rule of law. If someone hates you, itâs a good idea to find out why. But most Americans get their news from the mass media, which is more interested in âwowâ than âwhy.â U.S. troops are fed up with the war and leaving in droves! New recruits, and people wanting to stay in are at record levels in the armed forces. This applies to reservists as well as active duty troops. The Department of Defense regularly releases data on recruiting and re-enlistments, and they have been up since before September 11, 2001. But since the war on terror began, the numbers have increased still more. The air force and navy are even conducting layoffs. The Iraqi Governing Council is despised by most Iraqis! Any 25 Iraqi leaders would be despised by most of the population. The 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council were selected by the coalition to help run things until elections could be held. Members were selected from all of the ethnic and religious groups in the country. Each member has a large constituency. But Iraq has lots of constituencies, including over a hundred tribes and dozens of religious leaders with large followings. The country has not allowed any party politics for over four decades. You need more than 25 members of a government to even begin to cover the demands of all the constituencies for representation. Even after the elections, Iraq will have more than 25 organized factions competing with each other. The U.S. Army doesnât have enough troops to handle current combat operations! Although combat commanders feel that "too much ainât enough" when it comes to troops, they learn how to go with what they got. The last two weeks of violence in Iraq were suppressed with available combat troops, and more were called for in case the violence returned on a grander scale (an unlikely event, as more became known about who was behind the current attacks on Iraqis, foreign aid workers and coalition troops). For example, three battalions of marines dealing with Fallujah, and available troops were able to suppress the al Sadr militias within two weeks. Sending more troops wonât help with the basic problem; gathering intelligence. That requires people speak Arabic and have police experience. More American troops wonât solve that problem, more trained Iraqi police will. The effort in Iraq detracts from the war on terror! Arab countries are where al Qaeda comes from, they were just using Afghanistan as a base. Invading Iraqi forced al Qaeda to come and defend itâs Arabian heartland. The Iraq operations inflamed al Qaeda members in Saudi Arabia to start attacking Saudis and other Arabs. This cost al Qaeda a lot of support among Arabs, and would not have happened if Iraq were not invaded. The war on terror is mainly a police and intelligence function. The troops that are needed most for counter-terrorism are special operations (Special Forces and commandoes.) Special operations forces were pulled out of Afghanistan for the Iraq campaign, but most of the action in Afghanistan is best handled by regular coalition troops, Afghans and the Pakistanis. After 2001, the war in Afghanistan was mainly political, not military. Special Forces troops specialize in a particular part of the world, and they are all over the planet chasing down terrorists. The war in Iraq gave the Special Forces an opportunity to work intensively, and without restraint, in an Arab country. U.S. Army should be expanded! It takes several years to recruit new troops, train them and organize them into new units. By then, the army leadership feels they wonât be needed. But the army will still have to pay for them. This will mean less money for training and new weapons and equipment. To the army leadership, that strategy will get more soldiers killed in combat in the long run. The basic problem is that you cannot expand the army quickly and still have the same highly effective professional troops. Iraqi army should not have been disbanded after Saddam fell! The Iraqi army has been, for over half a century, the chief source of tyranny and oppression in the country. Army commanders overthrew the government time after time, and used their soldiers to brutalize the population. By keeping all, or part, of the army intact, and armed, coalition risked a quick return of the warlord attitude that gave the Iraqi people dictators like Saddam (and several others who preceded him.) Saddamâs innovation was to establish the Republican Guard as a force to keep the army from overthrowing him. Saddam also freely fired, or executed, army officers who appeared likely to try and stage a coup. And there were several coup attempts by army officers, even in the face of Saddamâs secret police and Republican Guard. Keeping the old Iraqi army in business was just asking for more trouble. Iraqi security and army troops, and police cannot be relied on! About half the police and security troops have worked well with coalition troops when put under pressure (attacked by al Sadr militia or Sunni gangs). Another 40 percent simply fled and about ten percent went over to the rebels. This was because the screening and training process for Iraqi police and security troops is still a work in progress. The sad truth is that Iraq never had a real police force. What was called police took care of traffic control and low level crime. There was little training for the police. The population was controlled via secret police terror and a huge system of informers. All this was backed up by the Republican Guard. The army and police were never trusted and were terrorized as well. So it was realized, even before the invasion, that the police force and army would have to rebuilt from scratch. And thatâs been going on for a year. It will take years to create a professional police force and army. The old Iraqi police and army were accustomed to corrupt practices (bribes and personal influence) rather than evenhanded application of the law. Eliminating the bad habits takes time. Meanwhile, the only way law and order will return to Iraq is via a professional police and security force. Foreign troops cannot do this. Keeping all Baath Party members out of the new government was a mistake! All Baath Party members were barred from government jobs after Saddam was topped for the simple reason that the vast majority of the Iraqi people hated the Baath Party. The Baath Party, like the Communist and Nazi party earlier in the century, was a political movement that controlled the nation by demanding that all key positions (management, government, academic, judicial) be held by members of the party. You had to prove to local party members that you would be a loyal Baathist before you were admitted to the party. After that, you could pursue your career. But the party had the right to call on you to do whatever the party needed done. That could include being an informer, or murder of âan enemy of the party.â Many people who joined the Baath Party just for career reasons, later fled the country when the party asked them to do something vile (from being an informer to participating in some bit of terrorism to control the population.) But most stayed, cultivated their career and just hoped the party never called on them to be a bastard. When the Baath party was thrown out, Iraqis knew which Baathists were bastards and which were just opportunists. The former were often war criminals, but the latter were also hated for their opportunism and lack of scruples. Many Iraqis refused to join the Baath party, and accepted career damage in doing so. As a result, all Baath Party members were seen as tainted. Unfortunately, many of them are skilled administrators and professionals. From the beginning, some key professionals were allowed back on the job even though they had been in the Baath Party. This was always done at some cost, for there were always other Iraqis who were quite bitter about any Baath Party member being back in a position of authority. This situation will continue for a generation. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #9 Picking on my typing skills instead of addressing the facts. How droll. Whats the matter sonny, Victor far too skilled for you to counter? Is that why you spew so much venom (and what little brainpower you have) to engage in calling him names instead of addressing his reasoning? First off, let this impact your tightly closed mind: the Shia are not in rebellion. Get the facts, not what you imagine to be the case. Become informed before you speak. Talk to someone over there. I have. It is only in a few cities and concentrated in a few neighborhoods. Around the Mosque in Al Kut, the NW part of Fallujah (mainly Syrians there from what I hear), and a few spots throughout the *SUNNI* triangle area. The trouble is coming mainly from a few funded and trained Iranian groups, and some Syrians and the remnants of the Fedahyeen Saddam Baathists. Secondly, why are you attacking "faith"? You sound like one of those bigoted anti-religious folk who sneer down their noses at anyone of any faith, but especially so at Christians. Thirdly, your continued use of pejoratives toward President Bush and others brands you not only as a fool, but a rather cowardly one. Stooping to namecalling ("jackass", "doormat") shows your lack of ability to counter the rhetoric flowing from the other side of the argument - basically it shows that you are intellectually bankrupt. Hows it feel to have revealed that you have nothing in your core position other than grammar school namecalling? Fourth - I notice you didnt address any of the arguments and facts that I raised - whats wrong, you don't want to address them for fear that you will have to admit that you are wrong? Too bad - you are wrong whetehr you admit it or not - the only difference is whether you continue to delude yoruself into believing what you post is anywhere near reality. Try addressing the facts. Try finding fault in the reasoning. Try proposing a solution that will work. (none of which you have done at all). Cite and link to the Fatwha that you claim, from a credible source. The best I can find on that quote given is that it was a political comment, not a fatwha. (And FYI, fatwha is not a verb). Post facts and proper inferences to support your supposition that peopel assume President Bush to be a "dead duck". Post a "fisking" refutation of Victor David Hanson's scholarly essays. I bet you do not - mainly because you are incapable of doing so. The only self delusion here is yours - believeing that you can win an argument when you are comitting fallacy after fallacy, and imparting as much reasoning and information as a chimp. Your level of intellectual discourse is about equivalent to that of a small simian flinging feces at those superior to it. Your posts are typical of feebleminded people like you MBD. You've shown a stunning lack of intellectual ability and rational capacity. And you compounded it with your replies. Thanks for revealing that not only do you lack the fundamental knowledge that woudl indicate intelligence, you also lack the ability reason with what few poor assumptions you do hold dear. In sum, as I have pointed out, you've done a marvelous job of demonstrating the behavior of a vacuous worthless shell of a human. I truly pity you if you really believe the bilge you post. Say it MDB - you just got gobsmacked again, and YOU blew it, you are the fellatial gasbag you claim others to be. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-04-24 8:56:42 PM |
| #8 Old Spook: Learn to spell, moron. It will help you think. Those who matter: You need to ask yourselves if GWB's nation-building plan can work, in context of his suicidal indulgence of Iranian intervention in Iraq, which has now turned into open subversion. On April 9, Iranian Executive Council power-man, Rafsanjani, fatwahed an order to al-Sadr (who he met in June 2003) to "punish the wounded American animal." He could only do that because he knew that the "faith based" jackass in the White House, will continue to indulge Shiite beligerence. The "axis of evil" should be re-named "axis of hollow-rhetoric." Cut the self-denial crap. The Democratic Presidential campaign is still in the Meet-Kerry stage. And they are already neck-and-neck with GWBs "faith based" squanderers. No matter what human doormats like VDH spew, the $150,000,000,000 spent on Iraq is a bill-of-goods unless Iran is kept away from the 90% of the Mideast oil fields that are in Shiite majority areas. Congress members saw GWB's inept Press Conference last week, and they know a dead duck when they see one. They will force the oil-patch rich brat's hand. Let this fact impact on your brains: American taxpayers are not going to shell out a trillion dollars for a Shiite-Iraq, controlled by Iran. GWB/VDH can shove this CPA plan up their crappers: http://www.cpa-iraq.org/regulations/index.html#Orders Say it: Bush Blew It! |
| Posted by: Man Bites Dog 2004-04-24 3:49:46 PM |
| #7 MDG - dead wrong. Most baathists weere NOT members of convienience. THe loyalty tests, vetting and repressive security measures for anyone as low as local leadership positions was pretty thorough. And very harsh if there was even a percieved slight defect in loyalty to the Party and Saddam. GWB is not an "intoxicated" anything - nice slur there, cannot defeat the logic so you slime the person - shows the lack of reasoning ability in your position. Overachiever? Probably. He got where he is by effective management, delegation and then making decisions under risk with analysis. Just the sort of things they teach when you get an MBA. No "Gentleman's C" exist in the graduate schools. THe "Power Vacuum" was not created. It was set up prior to the war by the Iranian IRG who set Sadr up with the Mahdi Army, and by Hezbollah, and Saddam himself with the Feydayeen Saddam and their pipelining of Hamas and Hezbolla foreign fighers since BEFORE the war started. As for the Shia negotiating - its the LOCAL leadership in the town that are attempting to negotiate the surrender of the heavy weapons of the mostly FOREIGN fighers in their city - the locals are trying to save their city from being crushed between the Marines and the Syrians/Iranias/Paleos/etc that are there. Isnt liberation supposed to be about giving these peopel a chance to determine their future? Seems we shoudl give them a chance to save thier own town from the terrorist who threaten local police and families with death, and who also are trying to bait the Marines into destructive combat in the city. Seems the one who blew it is you, and the fellatial gas-bag here is you MBD. Now go prattle elsewhere before I beat the dog sh*t out out you again (verbally). Your lies will not stand here. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-04-24 10:38:27 AM |
| #6 MBD's head is a vacuum. |
| Posted by: B 2004-04-24 9:35:59 AM |
| #5 The 'power vacuum' has already been filled? Wow - great analysis! |
| Posted by: Rawsnacks 2004-04-24 9:10:23 AM |
| #4 Whoa! Most Baathists were members of convenience. What G.W. Bush, and his near-sighted ersatz-prophet - Victor Davis Hanson - implemented and support in Iraq, is the effective abolishment of secularism. GWB, an impulsive, rhetoric intoxicated over-achiever, created a power vacuum that Islamofascists filled. Do not mistake one-time elections for democracy. Yeah, I know most posters here oppose scrutiny of GWB. However, it is a fact that last week he allowed Iranian Shiites to attempt to broker a status quo peace with al-Sadr's animals. And he did that after Ayatollah Rafsanjani fatwahed at a Friday pray meeting, ordering al-Sadr to attack the "wounded American animal." Say it: Bush blew it; VDH is a fellatial gas-bag. |
| Posted by: Man Bites Dog 2004-04-24 5:52:46 AM |
| #3 ..This is by the inimitable Jim Dunnigan, who almost gave Tom Brokaw apoplexy during Desert Storm - there are a lot of people online who pretend to understand the military, he does. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2004-04-24 1:54:41 AM |
| #2 Rerun? Maybe. But still worth a repost as a day-starter. As would be articles about Pat Tillman. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-04-24 12:43:01 AM |
| #1 Rerun. |
| Posted by: someone 2004-04-24 12:24:16 AM |