all the polls taken show the Iraqis are very glad we took out Saddam
You might like to take care in how much credibility you assign on those "polls" - how sure are you that the "Iraqis" were not all Kurds, for example? How many people were "polled", and since it was an American who asked them the question, are you sure they really said what they thought?
It was Iraqis on TV mutilating US soldiers' bodies, don't forget. And it is Iraqis (both Sunni AND Shiite) currently shooting at US soldiers. Assuming "Iraqis" are happy with the occupation of their country might prove as false as assuming they would welcome US military with flowers and songs, and that there would be no "insurgency" because Iraqis would be so glad to be rid of Saddam. They would of course love the liberators, right?
They havent seemed to grasp yet that security is something we cannot supply alone
You break it, you own it. In words more suitable to the context, you take out the government and all its security infrastructure (police & army), you have to take on their functions. And no, protecting the oil ministry while everything else was being looted is NOT good enough :-)
they must join us in that effort
They "must" do zip. You don't see perhaps that there are a lot of people in Iraq who want Americans to look bad in this - "they failed to restore order", "we were better under Saddam, at least we were safe from rape and murder", etc. It is not as if they will wake up tomorrow and decide they must be good Iraqi kids now and play nice together. There are a lot of unsettled accounts in Iraq, and they will be settled one way or another. There are a lot of unclaimed riches as well, and just as it happened in Russia, the early movers will be the tycoons of the next decade. Given the absence of law and order, it is "anything goes", and when that is the ground rule, anything will "go".
[Have you read "Lord of the Flies"? That's what I mean.]
One more thing - They know that sooner or later Americans will have to go and they will get down to the business of killing each other. So they are arming, and recruiting. Meanwhile, they are causing American casualties on a daily basis so American public turns sour on their military's presence in Iraq.
Pretty soon there will be elections in Iraq. They will, almost certainly, elect a religious nut, or a politician guy who is under the influence of a religious nut. Then the real fun will begin...
So, sorry if this offends you, but it seems to me that your "They are happy we are there but if only they would behave!" ignores some very powerful undercurrents that define the situation in Iraq. |
