By all accounts the occupation is displaying incompetence on a grand scale. Primarily incompetence in fully comprehending the situation in Iraq.
Re-building the country to principally line US Corporation’s pockets is an issue not overlooked by the Iraqi populace. Heavily guarded oil pipelines and trigger happy murders perpetrated against innocent civilians are loud actions and speak volumes on the relative significance placed on the ‘key assets’ in Iraq. The highly educated and worldly wise Iraqi’s read the news like you and me and come to their own conclusions, be it Zionist expansionism, neo-conservative Imperialism or misguided philanthropists, it’s for them to decide on a daily basis. I’d wager the average Iraqi is a keener observer of global political machinations than the US troops they are fighting against.
The attacks on the UN or daily attacks wiping out US soldiers are not orchestrated by hard-line Saddam loyalists in my opinion, but by the people of Iraq, who presumably fall into numerous political and religious groupings. Each having their own motives in resisting the occupation, but with a common target.
Recently after the UN compound bombing I’ve been hearing more and more about ‘outside influences’ in Iraq aiding the resistance, of the presence of these fighters I have no doubt, but this in no way discounts the engagement of the total Iraqi people in the fight against occupation. If the US was invaded tomorrow, would most people not take up arms despite the reasons behind the occupation?
It will cost the US billions to re-build Iraq, but very little for the resistance to destroy, ultimately there will be no winners in this war until the occupation has ended and the Iraqi people have been fully compensated for the years of holocaust they’ve been made to suffer.
Let’s experiment with this.. read this article and react. Find me an American that can understand that.
For the average American, the only conceivable reaction is utter astonishment and disgust. Those are both legitimate reactions, but they accomplish little. It is one thing for a citizen back home to react like this but the policy makers and the strategists need to overcome that sentiment and find ways to deal with it. One can condemn such things all day but the sad fact is they are reality.. and they will be until we (or someone) changes the attitude or removes the cause.
As yet, it seems that not enough of the right people have learned to face reality as it exists.
Thap is it the people of Iraq who took out their own water pipes? Is it the people of Iraq who start gunfights with the Americans in the middle of towns where women and children are? You say " ultimately there will be no winners in this war until the occupation has ended" if that is the case then Iraq is destine to fail and be forgotten. Who else is going to take Americas place to help Iraq get on its feet? Europe, the Arab world? It's delusional for anyone to think that Iraq can pick themselves up after 30 years under Saddams rule and multiple wars. The people of Iraq are interested in getting food, water, medical supplies, and jobs. America has made some mistakes, some big ones but pulling out of Iraq now would be the greatest one of all.
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*Originally posted by underthedome: *
America has made some mistakes, some big ones but pulling out of Iraq now would be the greatest one of all.
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Would you trust the Iraqis with the OIL. Best left for Americans to look after it. Isn't that right UTD? :)
With such corridor mentality the destiny of a bloody quagmire was written long before the much vaunted shock and awe campaign.
Do you really believe the occupation is anything more than plundering; I have little doubt that the re-building phase in the Iraq occupation is way beyond the means of the United States.
Too many vested interests and a catalogue of horrors to live down in the country, and a general record of incompetence demonstrated so far, will almost certainly ensure a spiralling of events.
The US is far detached from the Iraqi people and on the whole less literate within the scenario of their own making, this does not make for a successful occupation.
Surely the 'strategists' see this, wonder what their next step will be.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by underthedome: *
....America has made some mistakes, some big ones but pulling out of Iraq now would be the greatest one of all.
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America should pull out all its troops alongwith UK and handover FULL control to UN. Give billions of dollar in aid just as given to Israel for development, I'm sure Iraq will rise back to normal, and perhaps much better than normal.
Thap:
I always enjoy reading your POV. On this issue, I think you fall way too easily into the simple conclusion that the purpose of rebuilding Iraq is “to principally line US Corporation’s pockets.”
When you step back to apply a purely economic analysis to test this hypothesis, you will quickly realize that it is either false or the US is stupidly making one of the worst investments possible. As you know, we are currently spending over $4 billion a month in this effort. The amount of capital investment that will be required to rebuild an Iraqi infrastructure will undoubtedly be absolutely extraordinary. $100s of billions of dollars??? Over a trillion dollars??? Now, consider how many years this effort will take. Even at very strong profit margins, it is highly doubtful the investment that is being made now and will be made in the future will ever yield a direct positive economic return on the amount invested.
There are certainly far more direct and effective ways of lining corporate pockets through the expenditure of hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars if that were the underlying purpose. A simple cut in corporate tax rates would do that.
The economic returns we stand to realize are much less direct than lining the pockets of corporate America. We stand to gain economically if this investment prevents a massive economic disruption caused by a terrorist event that won’t happen because of what we did. We stand to gain economically if we never have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in defense of our friends and allies to repel or thwart an attack by Saddam. We stand to gain economically if a revitalized and thriving Iraq helps bring economic and political stability to the Middle East.
Now you may disagree that the investment we are making will ever produce the outcomes I have suggested. Indeed, that these outcomes may occur is more a product of faith than proof. For instance, I don’t see how you can objectively prove that our current investment in Iraq prevented a terrorist attack from occurring on September 11, 2008.
But, legitimate argument or debate about whether our actions will accomplish our objective is quite different than attributing our actions to a false motive/objective.
I agree I oversimplified the economics in the above.
I disagree on this figure of 4 billion dollars a month, how much of this is real money, what are the costs of keeping this military machine ticking over in home waters what are the overheads of being abroad; 4 billion is probably inclusive of both. However on the other hand the economic expenditure of this foray is hardly a concern to the Iraqi’s, more pertinent to the US tax payers I feel. Even a penny/cent gained in profit or loss from illegal procurement and sale of products is hardly going to go down well in the eyes of the average Iraqi.
It’s more of a question of ownership, what price can you put on strategic real estate and untold undeveloped mineral rites.
It’s naive to even entertain the thought that this action by the US in occupying Iraq will yield some future security from terrorist action, as the link between WTC ‘act’ and the former baathist regime never materialised. Many analysts would openly admit that the US’ military actions post 9/11 have only made the world a more dangerous place for Americans.
Whatever the motives behind the occupation, it is just that, an occupation. I’m sure the people ‘in the know’, the so called strategists, know what the occupying force is currently up against and it’s not a handful of Saudis smuggled in through the western desert.
Iraqi light arms and rocket propelled grenades probably outnumber US supplies by 10 to 1, a lot of people have been wronged and the perceived enemy is all too clear against the bleached desert.
Iraq needs international support and a concerted re-building effort, it needs free elections, and it needs an armistice of weaponry, which was handed out like sweets under the previous regime. This is not Kuwait or Afghanistan; this is a different war where I feel the US will be up against a sophisticated war of attrition, a war in which it will find it increasingly difficult to gain international sympathy.
I would argue that the US is the wrong nation in the wrong place for the wrong reasons at the wrong time.