Chmee wrote:
And since that oligarchy will face a well-trained, well-financed and politically motivated insurgency, we will have succeeded in creating not a new Japan or Germany .... but a new Colombia.
That's always been something that annoyed me about comparing Iraq to Germany and Japan as far as nation building goes. Both nations HAD functional economies before we helped them rebuild, which meant we knew exactly what worked and could build upon that. It also helped that their industry models were close to ours.
Iraq is a totally different animal. In such a country, you NEED to dump an enormous amount of your oil profits into social programs (schools, health care) as well as subsidies for other industries you want to foster, at least until they can become competative. Using the money to drive huge tax incentives for foreign investment wouldn't be a bad idea either. Of course the US won't do any of this because it's "communism" and "stifiling the free market system", but it's the only way to see any sort of improvement in Iraq and it worked well enough in pre-Gulf War I Iraq, as well as in Iran.
Chmee wrote:
And since that oligarchy will face a well-trained, well-financed and politically motivated insurgency, we will have succeeded in creating not a new Japan or Germany .... but a new Colombia.
That's always been something that annoyed me about comparing Iraq to Germany and Japan as far as nation building goes. Both nations HAD functional economies before we helped them rebuild, which meant we knew exactly what worked and could build upon that. It also helped that their industry models were close to ours.
Iraq is a totally different animal. In such a country, you NEED to dump an enormous amount of your oil profits into social programs (schools, health care) as well as subsidies for other industries you want to foster, at least until they can become competative. Using the money to drive huge tax incentives for foreign investment wouldn't be a bad idea either. Of course the US won't do any of this because it's "communism" and "stifiling the free market system", but it's the only way to see any sort of improvement in Iraq and it worked well enough in pre-Gulf War I Iraq, as well as in Iran.
People are forever trying to apply the Japan & Germany model to countries where it's useless. Those countries also had pre-war democratic institutions ... modern economies ... and most importantly, the people who lived there actually considered themselves Japanese and German, they had a strong unifying national identity. Iraqis are still divided by tribal, ethnic, and religious differences ... we're trying to remake a country with institutions that didn't exist there, on a cultural model for a different culture, in a country that isn't even populated by people who can agree on whether it should be one country!
Germany and Japan were putting back together the pieces of a puzzle while extracting a couple of bad pieces. Iraq is putting together a puzzle that was never held together by anything but the strong metal staples that we just pulled out ... the pieces never fit in the first place, and now we have to find a way to force them together.
[img=right]http://www.tallguyz.com/imagelib/chmeesig.jpg[/img]My guess might be excellent or it might be crummy, but
Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to
make guesses in front of a district attorney,
an assistant district attorney, and a stenographer.
Sam Spade, "The Maltese Falcon" Operation Freedom Fry
But after watching Sunday's election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?
It's hard to swallow, isn't it?
No, what´s harder to swallow is the cum from the Ayatollahs after getting the God-fearing Shiite followers to vote what they tell them to vote.
You´re not living in a democracy when your priests tell you that "Allah watches you vote, so do as we say".
Actually, the Shia populace were pretty enthusiastic about elections. For one, they could get their candidates in quite easily, the Shia make up 60% of the population, and had been oppressed by the Sunni, who have been running the show since we installed them when we first invaded, and under Saddam.
(the 'Shia list' that is leading the poll isn't a single party, it's a coalition of religious and secular Shia parties and candidates. There are similar Sunni and Kurdish coalitions, and the seats in the new institution will be disbursed by Proportional Representation, which ensures a closer model of who actually got voted for in each area, not winner take all)
One main message of the Ayatollah, however, was that installing a stable democratic government would be the quickest way to end US occupation.
Its telling that people are reconsidering their options based on WH spin-doctoring. They *are* liars, Iraq *is* in chaos, *1500* of your young men and women are *dead*. They had an election... wow. Makes it all better, right? Because the US building nations has such a great track recor- oh wait. No it doesn't.
