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PrankishSmart
Rear Admiral
Joined: 29 Apr 2002
Posts: 4779
Location: Hobart, Australia.
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 Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:03 am Iraq: It didn't work |
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| Quote: | Francis Fukuyama has left the building. And now Bill Buckley has burned the building down. The house that Bush built - the "liberation" and "rebuilding" of Iraq into a stable, secular, pro-American, Western-style democracy - has been reduced to little more than charred embers. Whatever it was we were trying to accomplish in Iraq has failed.
The massive stockpiles of WMDs never materialized. The pro-Western secularists who were supposed to become the new leaders of a "new" Iraq never had a very large base of indigenous public support. And the terrorist insurgency was never crushed.
It didn't work.
Of course, those on the extreme left who called Bush "the new Hitler" and claimed the war was all about oil and American empire are just as wrong as they always were. This foreign adventure was never about stealing oil from the Iraqis or conquering the world through endless unilateral military strikes.
What it was about, instead, was taking the public's post-9/11 rage, massaging it a bit, and then channeling it into support for the invasion and occupation of a weak, isolated anti-American regime in the heart of the Middle East. It was an idealistic Wilsonian attempt to re-make the entire world as safe for liberal democracy, while destroying Islamic terrorism in the process.
And it didn't work.
Bush, and his supporters (myself included), had the best of intentions. We were going to topple a cruel dictator and bring democracy and freedom to a land and a people that had been brutalized and oppressed for decades. We were going to help the Iraqi people, by golly, and all we asked for in terms of repayment was their gratitude.
And for a week or two after the fall of Baghdad, we got that gratitude. Iraqis danced in the streets, handed flowers and candy to American GIs, and slapped their shoes onto torn-down pictures of Saddam while chanting "Bush! Bush! Bush!" as if he was the second-coming of Allah. If a poll had been taken during this euphoric time, I have little doubt that the Iraqi people would have overwhelmingly voted in Dubya as Iraqi-President-For-Life.
But things fell apart shortly thereafter. There was widespread looting. The vanguard of the insurgency was already making trouble for the US military and Iraqi civilians. And the power was out, just about everywhere.
Things did not get appreciably better as time went on. Four American civilian contractors were killed, and their bodies defiled, by a mob in Fallujah. But the re-taking of that city from insurgents would be costly in terms of American lives, and it was an election year, so therefore Fallujah was allowed to fester for months.
There was also the PR nightmare of Abu Ghraib. I, personally, am still unable to get too worked-up over what basically amounted to a harsh fraternity hazing for terrorists. But, nevertheless, this scandal inflicted severe damage on our image in the Arab world, particularly among Iraqis, where it mattered most.
Of course, during this time there have been several elections, all of them relatively successful in process, but largely failures in result. Pro-Iran Shiites have won every round of voting, and they are anything but secular. In fact, Sharia - Islamic Law - has even made its way into the new Iraqi Constitution. This is hardly a good sign for us, but it's great news for the fundamentalist kooks in Tehran.
And now, as I type this, Iraq seems poised on the brink of a full-scale sectarian civil war, pitting Shiites against Sunnis, with American GIs in the middle. And if you ask the average Iraqi on the street who is to blame for it all, they are likely to say: America. So much for the expected gratitude.
It didn't work.
We have now lost almost ten-fold the number of American lives "rebuilding" Iraq as it cost to "liberate" it. Not to mention the hundreds of billions of American tax-dollars spent, much of it unaccounted for. The people there hate us. The terrorism has not abated. The fledgling Iraqi military is still largely inept, while Shiite militia death-squads roam the cities as the primary form of protection for civilians.
Sorry, folks. It pains me as much as anyone to admit it, but it's about time we admit it. It didn't work.
It's been almost three years since the start of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and things are arguably getting worse, not better. If we leave now, civil war is a given, and al-Qaeda is guaranteed to have a safe-haven in the western part of Iraq from which to attack our allies and possibly even our homeland. But if we stay, we will continue to bleed young lives and throw billions of dollars into an endeavor that has failed to meet any of its major stated goals.
What to do from here? I don't know. All I know is this: It Didn't Work.
Sorry... |
http://www.shoutwire.com/viewstory/5589/Iraq_It_Didn_t_Work
I would have to agree with this article. I also think our pm of OZ made a great tatical error to join the states in the first place to go to iraq.
Was it worth it? No.
Why the hell are our troops (OZ) still there??? I found out that more troops are going over?
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charlie
American Soldier
Joined: 26 Feb 2004
Posts: 598
Location: In The United States
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| Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:18 am |
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I disagree with it cause I am a soldier and been to Iraq twice. We are helping just the media don't show the good. They show only the bad which is like the media to do. We are there to help free Iraq and not to harm. I think I would want someone to help us out if it was us. I just wish I had more time to post on this. I will after church.
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PrankishSmart
Rear Admiral
Joined: 29 Apr 2002
Posts: 4779
Location: Hobart, Australia.
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| Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:23 am |
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Thats intresting. I think you should write a blog for us to review so we can all embed that into our views and help us intergrate our knowledge on the subject.
Not that I would ever go to iraq as a soldier, but if I ever did I would fight for what I believe in; my country... not the iraq war and the motivations of the leaders (your president, our pm, etc).
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charlie
American Soldier
Joined: 26 Feb 2004
Posts: 598
Location: In The United States
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| Sun Feb 26, 2006 7:24 am |
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That is my plan later on to tell more. :win
We went over there to free the Iraqi people. If anyone had seen what I seen their eyes would be filled with tears. I have seen mass graves on how Saddam killed other familes.
The Iraqi people would welcome us to each town we would go in and they would stand beside the roads and cell coke cola or pepsi to us soldiers in appreciation. We had children come up to us hugging us and thanking us. I had one Iraqi child come to me and he only spoke a few words in English. He said '' Thank you American soldier .'' that is all I could understand from him.
The Some iraqi people want us there, so that they can be free and go on with their lives. Some just tolerate us there. They want to be free but they want us out. But they know we are doing good to stop terrorism.
By going over there, we help set free Iraqi people, be good nation to help out a country that needs help, and standing what we believe in. Some soldiers died fighting for what they believe in. I seen it happen. It is not a prerry war but war is sometimes needed to get rid of the evil.
We just couldn't stand around and let Saddam be in power. He was a threat to us and to other countries rather people chose to believe it or not.
There will be more on it later on. I am not through. This is just the beginning.
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WeAz
Commodore
Joined: 03 Apr 2004
Posts: 1519
Location: Where you aren't
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| Sun Feb 26, 2006 2:21 pm |
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The media's never shows good, ever. My cousin, newly returned from Iraq refuses to watch the news, because it only shows the bad stuff going on their. He says that all the good deeds his unit did go unnoticed. The motto of the media is "If it bleeds, it leads"
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Leo Wyatt
Sweetest Angel
Joined: 25 Feb 2004
Posts: 19045
Location: Investigating A Crime Scene. What did Quark do this time?
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| Sun Feb 26, 2006 2:24 pm |
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Tell him thank you for serving our country..
i know the media does tend to not show good . My cousin is still over there. He is not due back home til May. Glad my sweety Charlie is back though.
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