It behooves me to say something about what is going on in Iraq. I've been biting my tongue for some time now because I really didn't want to sound like I'm saying "I told you so" when people are dying out there. Of course they've been dying ever since day one when Bush pressed the big red button labeled "Blood for Spoil" (yes, I did mean to say spoil and not oil). Even after Bush announced major combat operations were over I have been at pains to point out that an Iraq that enjoys even average American levels of criminal activity would see a massive increase in crime compared to its pre-war levels. That was based on the assumption that Iraqis are no less lawless than the rest of us freedom loving westerners.
What has really pushed me to say something was the experience of watching the video from Fallujah where young kids and men gleefully look on, cheering and shouting as burned remains are dragged through the streets, mutilated and then strung up in some gory spectacle reminicent of a medieval torture session. This was clearly not some small faction of insurgents, this was a ugly outpouring of hate, anger, resentment and fear from ordinary people in the streets. Indeed it looked to me exactly like what you'd see if some other country had rolled its forces into the heartland of America and tried to suppress and control the entire country. Think about inner city riots that have occured across the rest of the world and how quickly they can drag in a huge section of the population to engage in opportunistic looting, violence and a rampage of mindless destruction. Under such extreme duress of a year of occupation why should Iraqis act any differently?
Using the same ratio of troops per capita as exists in Iraq think about 1.5 million armed troops trying to control the USA... If only 10% of Americans were unhappy and reached under their bed and pulled out a hand gun, shotgun, rifle or something more devastating, that would be 30 million people with an axe to grind and the invaders would be outnumbered 20 to 1. Now think about Iraq, a heavily armed country that post-invasion was left with unguarded stock piles of arms and ammunition. Just think about how much havoc 10% or even 1% of the population can cause if they so desire.
So given that Iraq consists of three factions with very long histories of not getting along together, just why did anyone at the Whitehouse ever think that they, of all people could unite this country in anything other than opposition of enforced "freedom" American style? I really don't know and clearly Bush didn't know what the hell he was doing either. He wont admit he made a huge mistake in not only starting this war, but also his execution of the "post-war"* operations, and even if he did it may be way too late to correct it**.
Most people who suggest a strategy (other than going on vacation and forgetting about it) seem to believe that the correct thing to do is a massive intensification of the number of troops on the ground combined with preparing the American public for many, many times the number of casualties that have occurred so far. Just looking at simple numbers it seems clear that you'll need two, five even ten times the number of troops to really "hammer home" the freedom message. That would require commitment, money and forces from all over the world to pull off - something that seems unlikely to happen at this stage.
If it doesn't then my prediction is that Bush will go ahead with his hand off of power to Iraqis. After that resistance to the invading troops will rapidly spread to include into faction against faction fighting. Before we know it US casualties will be dozens per day, every day. America will eventually pull out blaming the Iraqi insurgents, terrorists, and freedom-haters for their failure. Iraq will enter a phase of bloody civil war with massive civilian casualties and possibly genocide. They'll end up with either "war lords" in control of various regions like in Afghanistan, or the entire country yet again under control of another dictator like Saddam. Hopefully by then America will once again be free of people who want to meddle in the internal affairs of foreign countries, at least for another thirty years or however long it takes for people to forget and for history to repeat itself (again).
* In quotes because as far as I'm concerned the war never ended, this is just the delayed street-to-street fighting phase that the military never wanted to fight
** As if one can correct the thousands of deaths and countless billions of dollars expended on mass destruction of Iraqi infrastructure
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