Global citizens,
Having learned a great deal about recent history in Afghanistan and, watched parts of No End in Sight, you are charged with creating a blog entry that addresses the 3 directives that you believe would have been the most important to implement upon invading Iraq, aside from capturing Saddam Hussein.
You should consider the different opinions portrayed in No End in Sight, determine what, if any of those decisions were erroneous, and explain your reasoning behind your prioritization. What should have been a priority and why? You should use any information or materials from class to support your decision (think about all of the units to date - curricular materials, lectures, etc.). You are also encouraged to perform your own research to justify your conclusions.
Finally, as it is a blog entry, you are expected to consider the arguments put forth by your fellow classmates.
First off, we should have gone straight to the people. It might not be customary to imperialize a country and ask the people what they want us to do, but we weren’t there to imperialize and take their resources (…or were we?). We were there to make a better country for these people and to make their lives a little better. I think, however, we ended up simply imperializing Iraq. Whatever you want to call it though, what we should have done was to enter Iraq really thinking about the Iraqi people and figuring out what was wrong with Saddam, how we can fix it, and what they want instead. If we were taking out Saddam, he was clearly doing something wrong, so we should do the opposite. And to find out what the “opposite” of his dictatorship rule was, we should have asked the people. We should have asked all the people we could, from the top generals to the military to the people working in local stores. We should have brought in the Iraqi leaders who could have persuaded the people to work with us and to help us plan. They experienced Saddam. Not us.
ReplyDeleteSecond, once we found out what the people wanted, it would have clearly required a significant amount of troops to do so. “Troops”, in my opinion, includes commanding officers who know what they’re doing, not just the right amount of soldiers (though that is equally as important). We should have brought every specialist we had onto Iraqi soil. We should have immediately gone in and set up a functioning base with functioning people who know what they are doing and know what needs to get done. Knowing what needs to get done, however, does require communication with the people, so we should have brought in people who were also intelligent enough to communicate with Iraqi people. With enough soldiers on the ground and enough intelligence controlling them, we would have been able to at least start rebuilding the country.
Lastly, we should have been ready to do all of this during and before the collapse of Saddam. One of our issues was that we got there too late. It would have been impossible to begin an occupation while Saddam was still in power, but we should have been ready to go in as soon as we knew he was about to fall. We should have had detailed plans worked out and ready to go as soon as there was no more government in Iraq. Stepping in should have meant whole-heartedly and with a full effort. We should have provided the means necessary to rebuild the country by preparing for it beforehand.
Molly Collins
I agree completely that lack of communication with the people of Iraq was one of the worst mistakes that we made. It wasn't that they weren't communicating with us, but rather that the majority of the people in charge of the occupation refused to listen. Barbara Bodine was one who made great efforts to communicate aptly with Iraqi citizens - she understood what they wanted and attempted to help set up a system of neighborhood councils, but those that she was collaborating with were not well-protected and the man who was central to the operation was assassinated (it was unclear by whom). During the first month of the occupation, many of our leaders did not listen to the Iraqi people or hold to their plan to protect sites of cultural, historic, and religious importance, a choice that was directly responsible for loss of faith in our ability to protect and rebuild.
ReplyDeleteThe main reason why we had many of the problems that we did is so incredibly simple that it doesn't seem like something that could have been messed up in the first place, but evidently... it got really messed up. There was atrocious communication not only between our people and the citizens of Iraq, but also between our own leaders - most notably the leaders of ORHA and the CPA. The difference in experience, knowledge, and opinions of members of ORHA and military leaders versus those of people like Bremer was incredibly vast, and Bremer's unwillingness to come together and compromise was essentially the downfall of the occupation. This was not only a matter of not having the right people on the job, but also of people not executing their jobs as they should have. If those in charge of the CPA had even done so much as given someone else a phone call and informed them of the actions that they planned to take, crisis may have been able to be averted.
I agree that we should have been better prepared, but didn't our invasion cause Saddam Hussein's loss of power? One of our major goals from the get-go was to dismember his regime, which we did accomplish. The problem that we had was the fact that we took destructive action but didn't follow up quickly enough with constructive action. Everything you've said about our efforts (or at least those that were followed through with) being halfhearted are entirely correct, though. We desperately needed more readily available resources and more time to plan.
-Molly Rubidge
I'm in agreement with both Mollys that a lack of communication was a serious issue. The movie specifically mentioned the lack of sufficient translators and interpreters, so either we didn't send enough or didn't have enough-- and if the United States doesn't have enough people who can speak Arabic, frankly, we shouldn't be going in there in the first place, and that's a whole other issue.
ReplyDeleteIt all seems astonishingly clear in hindsight, which is why I think that, perhaps more than communication, education was seriously lacking. Ideally, the people in charge of your military occupation of Iraq have some military experience and have been to Iraq, neither of which seemed to be the case with most of our leaders. The people who did have the experience and knowledge needed to plan the occupation effectively were brushed aside and not listened to, which brings up plenty more questions of why these people are in power if they won't listen to the people paid to advise them. Maybe a little longer than two months of planning would have been a good idea, so the people who were going to be making decisions had a chance to become educated about what the situation would require, in terms of policy-making and sheer numbers. The ostensible reason for our haste in entering Iraq was the fear and suspicion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, no? Which brings me to the issue of Saddam.
Yes, taking out Saddam was our stated intent, but the reasons our government gave for doing so were murky at best, completely fabricated at worst. We had specific evidence that he did not, in fact, have WMDs, confirmed by the lack of enriched uranium shipped from Uganda (although yes, Saddam's refusal to let in UN inspectors was a dumb move on his part). We had a fair amount of evidence that he had no real ties to Al Qaeda. But we didn't tell the American people that, and that's what worries me.
If you want to depose Saddam because you oppose his dictatorial regime on a moral level and want to bring democracy to Iraq, fine. That's a completely separate debate about imperialism and nation-building and picking and choosing which dictators to bring down and which countries to leave suffering and miserable. And I'm sure the American people would have been happy to have that debate. So don't go telling us that he has nukes and is going to bomb us all unless we do something immediately. The government used fear-mongering and blatant lies to rally public support for the war. Here's a hint: If you have to lie to the people to get them to support it, it's probably not a good idea. If you want to invade Iraq for oil or for democracy or for any other ethically questionable but TRUTHFUL reason, just be honest about it and let the people decide whether they agree. Lies are never a good idea, and they always come back to haunt you, especially
in government.
ReplyDeleteReally, I guess it all goes back to the idea of transparency, and that for all our "rah-rah democracy" attitude, we don't really have enough of it in our government. We had no one making sure the people in charge were listening to the people with the information, mostly because the people in charge are supposed to be responsible enough to make the right decisions. Too often, though, they make really awful decisions (like disbanding the Iraqi military-- sorry, who gave us the authority to do that in the first place?) and then refuse to own up to it, which is both unhelpful in moving forward and flat-out cowardly.
The fact that no one wants to take blame or admit fault for anything is another problem that hinders progress. When people like Slocombe waffle and evade and pretend they know nothing about what went on (which no one ever believes-- I would hope no one that forgetful and oblivious is ever in that kind of position of power), it turns into a game of bureaucratic he said/she said, and nobody gets to the heart of the issue and figures out what went wrong. Well, clearly disbanding the Iraqi military went wrong, but if everyone is too caught up in pointing fingers at the other guy to figure out why and how it happened, there's a problem.
To summarize, our priorities should have included educating ourselves beforehand, communicating better-- both within our own system and with the Iraqi people-- and, in my opinion, creating efficiency, honesty, and transparency within our own government first. After all, if we're not doing it well over here, how are we supposed to help them?
-Emily Greenberg
...Also uncomfortable I was worried about not writing enough and then it told me my post was too long. Typical.
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ReplyDeleteMolly: It is true that the United States did accomplish their goals by removing Saddam Hussein from power, but it was completely unnecessary to do so. The first error that the United States made was deciding to take destructive action without having any reason to. Iraq was a perfectly functioning society with Universities, business, and museums. Before the war the first directive that I would give to the United States would be to think before you invade.
ReplyDeleteI agree that lack communication was a vital mistake to make. Very little of the soldiers and leaders of the United States actually spoke Arabic. If a bunch of foreigners came into Westport carrying guns and speaking a different language, I would be quite scared and probably not trust them. Naturally the reaction to foreigners caring guns is not a positive one. Simply by communicating, the United States could have avoided possible insurgents. Not only did the United States fail to communicate in Iraq but they also failed to communicate on with each other. The upper ranking officials were not in communication at all, and no one spoke their mind against the majority’s opinion. Simply by communicating a lot of the problems in Iraq could be avoided.
I think that the United States biggest mistake was disbanding the Iraqi military, but this largely stemmed from a lack of communication. There was really no reason to take jobs away from these soldiers, and all it did was create feelings of hostility and resentment in the Iraqi people who know how to use weapons. I don’t know why this would seem like a good idea to the United States.
Basically the United States priorities should have been to plan out the goals of their mission, supply enough troops that can speak Arabic, and then not disband the entire Iraqi military.
It is a bit ironic how the United States thinks that they have a requirement to fix other countries when their own is so screwed up.
Sam, I have to disagree that it was unnecessary to remove Saddam from power--yes, Iraq was kind of functional in that it had infrastructure, but we can't forget that Saddam Hussein was a dictator who engaged his people in an 8-year long war that killed a million of his people. He also violated tons of human rights and murdered tens of thousands of his own civilians. So even if it wasn't really our business to interfere, I think it's a good thing that we removed him from power.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone who has posted so far in that communication was something we were sorely lacking. We not only didn't go to the Iraqi people for advice on where to start reforming, but even within our own government there was almost no communication. Experts on Iraq and the Middle East that were interviewed said that they didn't express their observations publicly, and they obviously didn't fight hard enough during private discussions--we had literally no substantial evidence that would have logically led us to enter Iraq (although as Emily mentioned, Saddam was acting a little sketchy). We also had no evidence to suggest that Saddam and Al-Qaeda were linked because they weren't. But there is so little transparency that none of this came out until too late.
Aside from communication, I think that any kind of experience would have been nice for at least some of the people making decisions. Military experience, foreign policy experience, basic knowledge of Arabic and Islamic culture... I don't think it's because there weren't people available with that kind of knowledge, but the people who were already in positions of power, like Bremer, either didn't bother to consult them or just didn't care about what they had to say. Watching the film, I kind of felt like Bremer was deliberately setting Iraq up to fail, and honestly I can't decide if that would be better or worse than the fact that he was just that incompetent. First, he removes the interim government and destroys all hope for maintaining infrastructure, and then he disbands the military for reasons unknown. Did he think soldiers were going to try to push the US out of the way and just run the country themselves? Because that's the only reason I can think of that would result in disbanding the military, and that's probably the worst thing to do in such a situation. Now there are tons of armed and trained soldiers who have no source of income and nothing better to do than hate each other and the US because they're out of work.
Finally, the fact that we sent in a fraction of the troops needed was a big problem. Also that our troops did nothing except protect the oil industry instead of protecting museums with artifacts that are thousands of years old and the library that holds countless valuable books and manuscripts. So many cultural artifacts were destroyed because we didn't care to protect them, and what kind of morale does that provide for the people?
-Kenzie
I agree with everyone saying how communication was key and the lack of it was a big part in the fail of what we did. We should have not only done a better a job at communicating with the people or Iraq to actually realize what they needed as a country but also a better job at communication between the american politicians and leaders involved.
ReplyDeleteAnother essential thing as mentioned by Molly Collins is that we needed far more troops than what we had, and troops and leaders with a legit understanding of what was actually going on and what they needed in the country. One of the guys in No End In Sight said how he got the response "We don't have enough security to cover it" after telling the people in charge that there were thousands of bombs pretty much just laying around being taken by insurgents. That as well as how it was mentioned in the documentary that women couldn't walk the streets without having the fear of being raped or kidnapped shows that there was a desperate need of more soldiers in the country. We came completely unprepared.
A third thing I think is a lack of research, we had no idea what we were going in to and after taking down Saddam everything turned in to madness. We decided to let go of all the soldiers leaving them jobless and starving, almost forcing them to become insurgents. We invaded without trying to make jobs for the people. We went in to their country without a significant amount of people who could actually communicate with the people by speaking Arabic. and we didn't have a way to stop the looting. We were unprepared in pretty much every way we could be unprepared.
Annika Skjoldborg
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ReplyDeleteAnnika, I agree what you said about communication and how not communicating with the people of Iraq caused for the leaders of American involvement in Iraq to make poor choices. With communication, the military would have known the needs for Iraqi’s, which starts with jobs.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Molly Collins; a larger amount of troops was necessary to enter Iraq and handle the situation in an organized and successful fashion. The lack of troops and the multiple number of things that Iraq needed our military for stretched our troops to thin, lot allowing for them to provide ample help to the civilians. Even with the small amount of troops that were there, little was done by these troops because military leaders did not know what to do next, as shown by the directors of No End In Sight. Lack of preparation was highly evident throughout the entire invasion in Iraq, which was probably the result of only 60 days of preparation. Military officials had a very apparent lack of knowledge of the Middle East, the history behind it, and the pride that the civilians take in their heritage.
Finally, I think the United States went into Iraq with the wrong initiative for invading. The United States went in with a selfish mentality. What is claimed to be the main reason for invading is that the Bush Administration had “reason” to believe that Saddam had nuclear weapons, and that was a threat to us. Which is a reasonable thought, by the United States completely disregarded the fact that he has been treating his people like scum for the past thirty years, and we have let that happen. So, when we first invaded and killed Saddam, the Iraqi was on our side for the most part. But, soon after, they realized that the United States wanted nothing to do with them, and had no interest in reestablishing a working government or helping the people in general. This caused the loss of support from Iraqi’s and an insurgence to follow. Soon, we were the enemy, and they began fighting us. The United States went into Iraq, disbanded its military, eliminated its leader, and then sat there, waiting for Iraq to fix itself. Well, instead of that happening, chaos broke out, and looting, rioting, murder, and rape became the norm, with no offenders facing repercussions. Within the first couple months of the United States military being involved inside Iraq, they managed to cause organized chaos, then completely lost control of the situation, which is why we are still struggling to end that war today.
Ryan Petersen
First off, the United States made the a huge error of being unprepared. After multiple terrorism attacks on the U.S., the United States seemed to only have one goal in mind and that goal was to take down the people who attacked us. The United States blindly came up with ideas of how to attack Iraq. We greatly lacked a proper reason of why we should attack because at the time, Iraq was a fully functioning country.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I agree with Molly on the idea that a lack of communication with the Iraqi people was a huge mistake. There was a great lack of communication whether it be because of insufficient translators or interpreters or that the United States did not send enough people that spoke Arabic. It was stated in the beginning of the movie that the United States just sat and watched while Iraq was being looted. The United States also did not listen to the Iraqi's about protecting their historical and religious sites. So instead during riots and looting, many artifacts and ancient books were burned or stolen because the U.S. did not protect them. To add to the lack of communication U.S. leaders in charge of sending in military aid to Iraq, were lost and confused. U.S. leaders could not think of solid ideas, nor agree with the person standing next to them. Whether it be the lying or constant disagreeing among our leaders, the U.S. greatly showed a weak spot in communication.
Lastly, I agree with Kenzie on the idea that we did not nearly have enough troops to fulfill the goals we had in mind. Troops did not try to protect the people and their culture, but instead protected what would be valuable towards the United States, such as oil. In the end, we did not promote a positive impression towards the Iraqi people.
Overall, the United States should have first started with a strong plan of action, then have affective communication with Iraq, and lastly, have enough troops and leaders to fulfill their plans.
- Emily Troelstra
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ReplyDeletejust spent a solid half hour writing an awesome post and went to edit it but hit deleted so
ReplyDeleteBasically I agree with most people especially Emily and that "our priorities should have included educating ourselves beforehand". Although, it does bother me that education is even being questioned as a priority. Calling it a priority is an understatement; knowing exactly what you plan on doing when invading a county is an absolute necessity.
And then I went on to saying something about the title "No End in Sight" being a comment on how the US did such a horrible job planning an exit strategy that ending the war is becoming a bigger problem that we had before it. I forget the rest
kyle
With what most of you have said before communication seems to be one of the most important reasons why the United States invasion in Iraq failed. Communication with the Iraqi people and communication within our own government seemed to be extremely flawed. This is quite apparent when government officials state in the documentary that they do not remember saying or doing something. Emily, I agree with you completely the United States was not prepared at all for this attack especially because we did not have a real reason to attack Iraq. When a country looks back on a war and does not understand the real fundamental reason for entering that seems horrific and depressing. Also I agree with Molly when she discusses how our invasion caused Saddam Hussan’s loss of power. This was a major victory for the United States. However I believe we should also look into the reasons why we believe we entered this war, because it seems that no one really knows the true reasons, besides the fabricated ones.
ReplyDelete-Lesley Matson
To start I would like to agree that the most glaringly obvious problems were the United States invasion of Iraq were such as not having an adequate reason to invade, not being prepared (troops and otherwise), and now knowing exactly what we hoped to achieve at the end of the war.
ReplyDeleteWhile watching No End in Sight, the part that made me react the most violently was when Bremer disbanded the Iraqi military. I just cannot see any way that he thought any good would come of that decision. When he fired and effectively belittled hundreds of Iraqi troops, many of who once held positions of military prestige and power, he invited the devastating backlash that followed.
Ryan Peterson brought up a great observation that after the U.S. invasion and overthrow of Saddam, the people expected us to reestablish a functioning government. They expected us to keep their cities running as they were before we came. They expected us to keep them safe. They expected us to do….something. Instead, thousands of American soldiers without orders sat idly by in their tanks as all evidence of a civilized Iraq/Baghdad crumbled. I can only imagine the anger of the people at our lack of action. Beyond that, the people probably started to believe that the U.S. military did not care about them. Personnel from ORHA had been in contact with many Iraqi military leaders who all had opinions on how to keep Iraq a functioning society. These suggestions were largely disregarded at the level that has the most influence: the level in Washington.
The discussion of Washington brings me to my next point. Many bloggers tonight have written about the lack of communication among federal officials, the Iraqi people, the Iraqi military, ORHA members and so on. It is clear that there was a lack of communication, but how about a lack of respect from Washington to the members of ORHA? They were the ones talking to Iraqi families and citizens, soldiers and local leaders about how to improve the country. Paul Hughes spends half of his interview time in No End in Sight saying how he went to his superiors and informed them about the progress he was making in his relationships with the military and the Iraqi people in Baghdad. Unfortunately, he spends the other half of his interview time talking about how his superiors thanked him for his work and then did nothing with his information. If the federal officials are not going to consider direct advice from Baghdad, in Iraq, where most of the fighting was taking place, what is the point of having ORHA? Their time is wasted and their pleas seem to have repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. It is evident that there should have been a reevaluation of who was in power versus who was qualified to be.
Caroline Smith
I agree with Sam that it was unnecessary to remove Saddam Hussein from power. True, he was a dictator who killed people. But there are hundreds of dictators. What gives the US the right to suddenly decide to play the hero and remove dictators. Removing a government, and then establishing our own form of government is no different that conquering. If we claim to be a nation that values freedom, we cannot simultaneously justify what we did in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteWhether or not we should have killed Saddam aside, the way we chose to carry out the occupation was completely wrong. First and foremost, I think our priority should have been to establish order and preserve Iraq as it was. There was nothing wrong with Iraq besides the fact that it was a dictatorship. We should have kept the search for Saddam as peaceful and quiet as possible. Because we pretended to be great heroes by removing Saddam, we created chaos throughout the country. People who have been repressed for a very long time will obviously go crazy once they are freed. We apparently thought that it was our responsibility to remove the nation's leader, but not our responsibility to establish a government. This brings me back to the fact that removing Saddam was unnecessary. I do not remember any human rights interest groups or Iraq diplomats requesting his removal. In truth, he was a competent leader.
Allowing looting was absolutely inexcusable. True, we got rid of Saddam. Good job. But we also allowed the entire country to be destroyed. Like the ambassador said, by the time people arrived to help build a new government and reestablish a system of education, nothing was left. The reason that the country is in its current state is that we allowed extreme looting to occur. The sadness of such destruction is overwhelming. Iraqi people may or may not have blamed the Americans for the destruction. Either way, it was our fault and they should have blamed us. This ruined any chance for peaceful relations with the Iraqi people.
Finally, one of our top priorities should have been cooperation. As Paul Hughes said, the Iraqi military understood that establishing order was important. The US did not have enough troops or equipment to do so, but the Iraqi army was willing to cooperate and help us. They were even willing to do as we said. If we had taken advantage of their help, we could have established order relatively easily.
In conclusion, the problem with the Iraqi invasion was that the wrong people were in power. The top authorities were completely unaware of what they were doing or the effect it was having. The people who truly knew how to handle the situation were powerless.
I agree with what Priyanka said that cooperation should have our top priority. If cooperation was a concern of ours the results would have been extremely different. Cooperation would have solved all aspects of the problems that arose. If we would have thought of this, we would have been able to actually help the people of Iraq instead of being tyrannical rulers.
ReplyDeleteIn the middle of the movie, Schager stopped the film to ask the question: "Should international leaders have military experience?" I think that this was extremely important to consider, especially when going into Iraq. People were unprepared for what the reality was. The top authorities were unable to deal with the situation. This almost ignorance is what fueled most of the problem. The leaders were making wrong decisions at the wrong time. Instead of the leaders saying "It is hard to imagine" they should be able to imagine and take control of the situation that they are meant to.
One major mistake of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, in my opinion, was the failure to deploy an adequate amount of troops. In 'No End in Sight,' we saw a military strategist explaining that the number of troops per citizen in Iraq was far under the amount necessary for insuring security. The problem of too few troops was also seen with the failure of troops to guard ammunition dumps following the disbandment of the Iraqi military, allowing virtually anyone to aquire arms who desired them. The disbanding of the Iraqi military by U.S. troops was another major mistake in my opinion, because it was done so without consulting any Iraqi miltary officials, Congress members, or even the President of the United States. This measure created numerous problems, including the crippling of the Iraqi economy from the inability of former soldiers to support their families. I think that the refusal of U.S. troops to interfere with the looting by the Iraqi people following the fall os Saddam Hussein's regime was a mistake, because it left many areas in shambles, and led to further problems. This includes the diminishing of trust between the Iraqi people and U.S. troops, such as when the film showed the owner of a museum explaining that troops had failed to provide promised protection against looting of the museum when requested. But I think the core issue of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, was the reasons for going in in the first place. It has already been demonstrated that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction found in Iraq, as well as no link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, so our motives for going in were flawed from the start.
ReplyDeleteHunter I completely agree with you. It was extremely necessary that an adequate amount of US troops were deployed and that was not the case. Only 160,000 troops were send in and that was after persuasion.. it was believed that putting in just 60,000 more troops (after the 100,000 original) would do the deeds.. not at all. We needed serval thousands for us to be successful.
ReplyDeleteAlso I agree with you Shelby and others who have stated that the highest administrators needs to have military experience. This should be required due to the fact that the administrators who were dealing with the amount of troops that were needed to be deployed stated "it is hard to imagine that we would need that many troops." In reality it is hard to imagine for them because they do not have the military experience to know that we DID need several thousands of troops to be deployed not 160,000.
As Emily and Molly stated there was a huge lack of communication. There were not nearly enough people who were able to communicate through Arabic. That was a huge problem because it caused us to have problems communicating with locals all around Iraq. We needed to create a successful occupation and to succeed we needed to help the locals. For that to be achieved it was necessary to have MULTIPLE translators there to communicate with the locals, however, that was the not the case. That clearly caused huge problems.
Ryan Kirshner
I agree with what many of my peers have already stated, which is that the lack of communication between the Iraqis and the United States citizens created a major problem. I think we should have addressed this issue firsthand as well as made it a main priority to overcome. The video infers that this lack of communication lead to multiple conflicts between the Americans and the Iraqis. Since the Americans didn’t speak Arabic, they sometimes couldn’t understand what was going on or what the Iraqis were trying to say. Therefore, a good number of U.S. troops would just be sitting in the streets without doing anything. In addition to the U.S. doing nothing to fix the terrible communication between them and the Iraqis, it was also a bad move to not stabilize the country after Saddam was put out of power. Iraq was left with no true form of government and the United States took no immediate action to help the country after they removed their leader from power. Lastly, the United States should have made sure that people of authority were educated on military, foreign policy, and whatever fields they were working in. However, according to the video, there were people in power who had no previous work in the military. Furthermore, George W. Bush before he was President did no work in foreign policy. It’s scary to think that the people who were making crucial decisions for an entire country may not have been suited to do so. Overall, there were many things that the United States could have done differently in order to be more prepared for Iraq.
ReplyDeleteI really like Priyanka's point about how removing Saddam or any government and establishing our preferred system is the same as conquering, but that is an argument for a different time.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that a main priority should been to not tear down the whole system. We killed Saddam very quickly and could have then maintained the governmental structure beneath him as we executed the transition. Doing so would have maintained order and kept people employed. With the exception of being a dictatorship, Iraq's government was fairly functional. The citizens had electricity and running water and they had a strong military, but that was swiftly disbanded and the lack of structure directly led to the looting and chaos.
Although not destroying the government was one of the most important points, the first thing to do chronologically should have been to plan. Many of you have mentioned this but I think it's really important for an occupying power to have a well-researched plan for how to change the government. We spent years planning how to occupy Germany after WWII and we spent next to no time planning the occupation of Iraq.
Had we spent time developing a fleshed out strategy, one of the top priorities should have been communication with the Iraqi people. One of the pillars of the democracy America tries to spread is (supposedly) to be a government with the people’s voice. And ignoring Iraqi cultural leaders to the point where they weren’t even asked for their opinions doesn’t really sound like “by the people, for the people” to me. It mostly sounds like “by our egos, for the Haliburton.”
Throughout American History we have always tried to help out other countries in need. but what i have really noticed is that we will not help out this other country unless we get some sort of benefit coming from it.
ReplyDeleteThis whole Iraq situation proves that completely. If we (government and US army) really cared about the people of Iraq and their country, we would have composed a much more well thought out plan as to what we were going to do once we over threw the government.
Yes, it was good to get Sadam out of there because he was just a god awful man, however who did we expect to just replace him? Did we even consider the infostructure of the country? They were running properly with water, electricity, food and they even had a well functioning nice city. Once the Americans got involved it was all downhill and we destroyed A LOT.
The was not all of Americans decisions to do this though. It was the people in power without experience making these huge decisions for the future of a country. Based on the frontline video watched in class, Mr. Hugues had no idea that they were planning on not putting in a new person in power to help the country after removing Sadam. Decisions were made behind his back and that is extremely uncool. In fact, he is the one with more military experience than most, and he actually cares about the people off Iraq.
Responding to others comments: there is a HUGE lack in communication between two important areas, the Iraq military and the US government. Then another huge lack of communication between people of high ranking in the us government and Lower ranking in the US government. Every person that was part of the process was for a reason, so listen to what they have to say. They may have learned from it, and could have prevented the situation we are in now with this country.