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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (206631)	10/20/2006 7:24:09 PM
From: neolib	Respond to of 281500

And analysing US fp over the years, it seems to me that the rest of the world realizes things take time while the US is infected with the instant gratification thing which now includes spreading democracy to places where the pre-reqs are just not in place. Very well put! However, there is another fundamental American problem: We toot our own horn WAY too much. I still maintain that the most significant screw up in Iraq is that we failed to understand the human aspects of the invasion from the Iraqi's POV. They faced a vastly superior enemy, who's religious and cultural differences exasperated the problem. We should have acknowledged very publicly that many Iraqi troops would like, for the sake of honor, to stand and fight against our invasion, while at the same time, many of them would be quite happy to see Saddam go. We should have taken extreme measures to devise methods and communicate to the Iraqi troops that independent of their individual actions (surrender without a fight, or fight us until overwhelmed) we would do all within our considerable technological capabilities to minimizing their losses, and we would accept and respect all former Iraqi troops into a new Iraqi armed forces. We should also have included immediate payment of Saddam’s unpaid back pay, as well as compensation for injury during the war and provision for pensions and long-term treatment of those injured. Once we finished the invasion, we should have had our news media highlight the Iraqi side of these issues. Readers Digest should have published stories telling how Iraqi families were torn apart by some members who chose to surrender or assist the Americans while other members chose to resist and die. Where the Iraqi’s did fight bravely, or anywhere we killed a bunch in one spot, we should have had the decency to erect or pay for a small memorial. Instead, we purposefully failed to even count their dead, preferring to gloat about Shock and Awe, and make fake movies of Saving Private Lynch. I also think we should have very clearly decoupled oil and any other economic self-interest from the invasion by legally restricting American control of such during the occupation, then making sure that American interests were only on an equal footing with other foreign interests once a new Iraqi government was functional. What we chose to do accomplished two things AFAIK: 1) It made it really cool for 18 year old guys in the USA to dress in a uniform, any uniform really, fireman, police, armed forces, and 2) It caused the insurgency. At least 1) is useful if you have 2), as it supplies a necessary steady stream of fodder. FWIW, I suspect 2) will not go away until 1) does. This is not all hindsight either, I posted such rants when I first got on SI in 2004. They were generally not well received. I noted with some satisfaction this last week that this language of respect for an enemy is finally making it into the military dialog we hear now. I think it was Sun who posted such a link, some General analyzing the current Iraqi situation and referring to “legitimate Sunni insurgents” who are resisting an occupation. Dah!