Nation building is a job for who?

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Nation building is a job for who? - 7/7/2008 4:45:47 PM

Alumbrado

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Another point of view from thinking that all power flows from the barrel of a gun...

quote:

The Army made public today the almost 700-page second volume of its study of the Iraq conflict, “On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign.” The study could also be subtitled, "Closing the Barn Door After the Horse is Out."

It reveals top American commander General Tommy R. Franks made several tactical errors following the fall of Baghdad. These issued from belief in the fiction that Iraq would fall into line and be a faithful ally to the U.S. In truth, the Iraq war will never bring any long-term strategic benefit to America.

There is something surreal about the Army's retrospective study of failures while in the midst of the failure. It is like watching a slo-mo replay of the crash, while the race is still on

http://rangeragainstwar.blogspot.com/2008/07/instant-replay.html

quote:

It was written by Donald P. Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese of the Contemporary Operations Study Team at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., who said that planners who requested more troops were ignored and that commanders in Baghdad were replaced without enough of a transition and lacked enough staff.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080630/ap_on_re_us/army_iraq_report_3

So where was the State Department during all this again?

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RE: Nation building is a job for who? - 7/7/2008 4:56:30 PM

Slavehandsome

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This is classic Americana here. We can pinpoint so many details where negligence, collusion, treason, teamwork or conspiracy, corruption, conflict of interest, breaches of the U.S. Constitution, murder, extortion, direct misrepresentation a.k.a. lies, abandonment, kidnapping, torture, armed robbery, burglary, assault & battery, vehicular homicide, and just about any other crime listed in any U.S. court, have occured by way of deploying the U.S. military. The problem is that no one is holding any of these criminals accountable for giving these orders and operating procedures. Don't expect any of these politicians to straighten any of their acts up unless they absolutely have to. I'm really glad you posted this though, it gives hope for America.

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RE: Nation building is a job for who? - 7/7/2008 5:15:31 PM

MasterKalif

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Alumbrado,

I have to say its impressive and it probably only happens in this country where the military or government reflect and admit their errors...for that I can say good for them. I can't picture the Russian FSB admitting "tactical errors" in Chechnya.

The other point is that I am surprised people are shocked by this or surprised on hearing this. As a mere casual observer I can say I felt tactical errors were made a few hours or days after the take over of Iraq, in particular Baghdad. The tactical error was to allow the country to degenerate into chaos and anarchy, to allow looting not only of Saddam's palaces but also of the Iraqi National Museum, which is a great loss in regards to Mesopotamian history. This was made worse by a defiant momo known as Rumsfeld supporting the lootings as a reaction of "free people" and an act of "free will" to express their freedoms. Now this is laughable, because I doubt Rumsfeld would have felt the same way if American citizens looted the Smithsonian or the National Archives in Washington D.C.

To sum it up, the tactical mistake was to allow too much freedom too quickly to a nation that has never experienced such freedom and to allow a power vacuum which has led to the creation of militias, particularly religiously based or ethnically based which is going against "nation building". The US Military should have gone in there, created a de-facto dictatorship with radio and newspaper warnings of any atempted lootings, uprisings and thievery to be dealt with swiftly by US Military courts. This would have stopped the "bs" at its roots and prevented to a large degree the creation of these religious/ethnic militias. Giving the kurds too much autonomy and power has also weakened the Iraqi central government as well as by trying to give too much voice to everyone so soon. Hence once this "de-facto" US military dictatorship had been in place, with security as its number one concern, then once the country had been pacified by force, then and only then can re-building begin, nation building specifically with institutions being created to eventually dissolve this temporary dictatorship. This process with oil money and allowing free business enterprise could have been done succesfully in about 10 yrs at the very least. As an example look at Japan after WWII with American "assistance"...do you think they allowed the local populace to do whatever? No. They created new Japanese instutions, political parties, etc under their watchful eyes and once the Americans left Japan, the country had a solid base from which to grow from.

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RE: Nation building is a job for who? - 7/7/2008 6:09:31 PM

cjan

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Ummm, the State Department is being "run" by C. Rice. What do you expect ? She seems to have had more influence in her role as the former NSA than the former Secretary did at that time. It's a case of the blind ( and incompetent ) leading the blind.

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RE: Nation building is a job for who? - 7/7/2008 9:15:35 PM

cloudboy

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A friend of mine has said that the USA is very good when it has to be dragged into a conflict (WWII) but is lousy when it meddles: Vietnam-IRAQ.

I'm reading a book on the HISTORY of THE CIA. I'm not done with it yet, but the history that I've read about so far goes a long way to explaining what we see today:

(a) the politicization of intelligence

(b) the nationalistic-narcissism of American policymakers

(c) the exaggeration of threats

(d) the covering up of incompetence

(e) using methods at odds with our principles as a nation: torture, coups, fascist alliances, etc.

(f) transferring-firing-demoting American officers who dissent from the "right policy."

(g) not learning from mistakes

(h) setting up an opaque system of policy making - implementation.

(i) A lack of common sense from the people in charge.

Some critics of the book say its bad history -- but I have found its material pretty resonant.

< Message edited by cloudboy -- 7/7/2008 9:24:24 PM >

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RE: Nation building is a job for who? - 7/7/2008 9:25:05 PM

Alumbrado

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It is classic organizational behavior.. it would be remarkable if those things didn't happen.

What does he say about the Dulles brothers and RFK's role?

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RE: Nation building is a job for who? - 7/8/2008 6:29:55 AM

cloudboy

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I have not gotten to the Bay of Pigs, but he paints Dulles very unflatteringly. Basically, the best people get pushed out for being too realistic and too honest. The people who rise are the ones who promise to deliver the results everyone wants.

This is a big problem with the CIA because it is so secret and unaccountable --- making it somewhat "un-monitor-able."

Its like sports franchise playing in a secret league where the standings and statistics are unpublished -- and when published -- they are self generated.

Losing ways simply go uncorrected and unreported while management remains unaccountable.

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RE: Nation building is a job for who? - 7/8/2008 7:29:48 AM

meatcleaver

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The best bit of common sense I heard about Iraq before the war was from a British General who said when asked if he's expected the Iraqis to be cheering the liberators, "If someone kicked my door down I'd fight the bastards".

The chaos in Iraq was so predictable. The fact that a report is needed to explain where everything went wrong, is for someone to find a scapegoat, instead of pointing at the real problem, the Whitehouse.

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