Iraqi Freedom done "right"

Universal translators are a gimmick imagined by people with no real understanding of the subtleties in languages and the layering that exists in them. At best you get some levelling of meanings à la Google Translate that eliminates a large part of the languages' wealth. think you are to claim you have the truth when it comes to ethics?

Fifty or sixty years ago, Alan Turing committed suicide because his country, that wrote the Magna Carta and the Habeus Corpus, chemically castrated him for the crime of being sexually attracted to other males. It was considered normal back then in a civilized country. Most of the Western world practised forms of eugenism, some countries until the Eighties (Sweden or Norway, IIRC). The issue is that you seem to believe that human rights are an absolute and universal value that should be imposed by force, but the reality is that it is a concept that varies strongly both in geography and history, with very strong disagreements between the Great Powers, each of which cannot realistically be opposed lest you want to witness devastation making World War II look like a lovers' spat.

AlphaGo has already won against human players. What makes you think computer science and AI cannot further develop the complexity and beauty of diverse languages?

Why should we consider the current culture and understanding of value be unchangeable? We criticise our past because our ancestors were bad morally and it is highly likely our offspring will criticise us in the same manner. There is a good reason to keep changing and challenging the current norms, including the current Westphalian nation-state based international system.

Force is then last refuge of incompetent. True upheaval relies on constant review of reality.
 
IMO the internal policies of a foreign government are the business of the nation's citizens not the United States. If they don't like the policies or the regime, it's their responsibility to change it not ours. (And this is possible, the events of 1989-91 showed.) No nation, not even the US, can afford the luxury of basing its policy (primarily) on moral or ethical considerations. Look at the Khashoggi affair. Concerned about the lucrative Saudi market, the Trump administration kidded itself about the Crown Prince's responsibility. Sorry but that's realpolitik...

Another thing we got to take into consideration is that circumstances vastly different from those of the US will inevitably give rise to different forms of government. Not every nation can afford the luxury of democracy and human rights; historically authoritarianism has been the norm. One point I tried to make in 2002-3 is that democratizing Iraq would be at best problematic, because it's so much different from the US. Unlike America, Iraq is surrounded by powerful foreign enemies, and faces a threat of internal disintegration. If the country is to remain in one piece, and relatively stable, it needs strong central leadership. It must be prepared to use force to deal with internal enemies as well as external ones (on a continuing basis). These are far from the circumstances which enabled democracy and human rights to arise here.
In recent years there has been more widespread realization that dictators, even some with far from stellar human rights records, can be essential in some countries. Saddam was brutal, no doubt, but eliminating him led to terrible ongoing mayhem (and a strategic gain for Iran btw).

If the USA cannot or not willing to create the circumstances conducive to the development of democracy in Iraq, than the current issues it faced in ME is its own fault.
 
AlphaGo has already won against human players. What makes you think computer science and AI cannot further develop the complexity and beauty of diverse languages?
Because if you believe this is an accurate comparison, you just fail to understand languages. This is just as if you said "I bet we can make a beautiful yellow paint with sound waves". The structures are so fundamentally different.
Why should we consider the current culture and understanding of value be unchangeable? We criticise our past because our ancestors were bad morally and it is highly likely our offspring will criticise us in the same manner. There is a good reason to keep changing and challenging the current norms, including the current Westphalian nation-state based international system.
Too bad for you, the vast, vast majority of humankind disagrees with you.
Force is then last refuge of incompetent. True upheaval relies on constant review of reality.
Pro-tip for you: force wins. That's the whole concept of "government".

"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue-and thoroughly immoral-doctrine that, 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom."
Robert Heinlein​
 
Because if you believe this is an accurate comparison, you just fail to understand languages. This is just as if you said "I bet we can make a beautiful yellow paint with sound waves". The structures are so fundamentally different.

Too bad for you, the vast, vast majority of humankind disagrees with you.

Pro-tip for you: force wins. That's the whole concept of "government".

"Anyone who clings to the historically untrue-and thoroughly immoral-doctrine that, 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom."
Robert Heinlein​

Let us stopping derailing the thread and see 30 years later how geopolitics functions with transhumanism highly likely to be reality.
 
Let us stopping derailing the thread and see 30 years later how geopolitics functions with transhumanism highly likely to be reality.
Ah, the technological promises. Yeah, saw the "nerd rapture" all over the place, usually among PR and non-academic people, believing despite hundreds of years of counter-examples, that technological progress is going to solve social problems. I was invited to huge tech conferences where I saw people talking about how they spent billions on nanotech sensors to improve by half a percent the efficiency of diabetes fight in hospitals worth the GNP of small countries while the hospital's own fast food served 1 L portions of sodas filled with high-fructose corn syrup without anyone asking the obvious questions. I've looked at the most technologically-inclined military force on the planet fail again and again at achieving social and political objectives against much less equipped forces.

The fantasies of technological solutions to social issues is nothing but silly, in the same vein as the promises of happiness from ads that invite you to buy the latest tech toy.
 
I think someone could generally understand that putting three different ethnic/religious groups in one country is a bad idea.
The UK has English and Welsh who are Anglican as well as Calvinist Scots. Germany had it's Catholic-Protestant divide as well as many Slavs within its interwar borders. Poland was made with Catholic Poles, Jewish Jews, and Orthodox/Greek Catholic Ukrainians.

Actually, let's look at some of the other states made in the aftermath of WWI; Yugoslavia had five primary ethnic groups, 4 notable minority groups, and every Abrahamic faith was present within the country. Czechoslovakia had Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians, and Ukrainians within it. Pluri-national states were par for the course in 1919. So no, I don't think someone in 1919 could assume that putting three different ethnic/religious groups in one country is a bad idea.
 
The UK has English and Welsh who are Anglican as well as Calvinist Scots. Germany had it's Catholic-Protestant divide as well as many Slavs within its interwar borders. Poland was made with Catholic Poles, Jewish Jews, and Orthodox/Greek Catholic Ukrainians.

Actually, let's look at some of the other states made in the aftermath of WWI; Yugoslavia had five primary ethnic groups, 4 notable minority groups, and every Abrahamic faith was present within the country. Czechoslovakia had Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians, and Ukrainians within it. Pluri-national states were par for the course in 1919. So no, I don't think someone in 1919 could assume that putting three different ethnic/religious groups in one country is a bad idea.
And just look at France: Burgundy, Alsace-Lorraine, Britanny, Normandy, Gascogne, Provence, etc., were all different enough in terms of culture not so long ago it could be perceived as a similar situation. Barely a century ago, regional languages were very strong in these regions.
 
The UK has English and Welsh who are Anglican as well as Calvinist Scots. Germany had it's Catholic-Protestant divide as well as many Slavs within its interwar borders. Poland was made with Catholic Poles, Jewish Jews, and Orthodox/Greek Catholic Ukrainians.

Actually, let's look at some of the other states made in the aftermath of WWI; Yugoslavia had five primary ethnic groups, 4 notable minority groups, and every Abrahamic faith was present within the country. had Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians, and Ukrainians within it. Pluri-national states were par for the course in 1919. So no, I don't think someone in 1919 could assume that putting three different ethnic/religious groups in one country is a bad idea.
Still a bad idea. Also bad examples, Czechoslovakia splits into Czechia and Slovakia, Yugoslavia completely implodes once Tito died, and all of those countries deported ethnic Germans after WW2. (Excluding Britain) And Britian only came to be by hundreds of years of war, and even today there is a good chance that it will become just England again.
 
Still a bad idea.
Yes, but one that was entirely within the dominant thinking of the time. Which is my point, the Brits in 1919 didn't have the benefit of the hindsight afforded by living 100 years after the decision had to be made. Rather they had what was precedented (making a country that's large enough to be viable >>>>> making a bunch of ethnically/religiously homogenous micro states) and the facts on the ground at that time (that the various Arabs seemed to get along well enough and that the Kurds were nomadic tribes lacking any sort of united identity).

Also bad examples
Again, that can only be said with hind sight. To anyone in 1919 (ie the only viewpoint which is relevant to the question at hand) such examples would seem to be the way forward.
 
Yes, but one that was entirely within the dominant thinking of the time. Which is my point, the Brits in 1919 didn't have the benefit of the hindsight afforded by living 100 years after the decision had to be made. Rather they had what was precedented (making a country that's large enough to be viable >>>>> making a bunch of ethnically/religiously homogenous micro states) and the facts on the ground at that time (that the various Arabs seemed to get along well enough and that the Kurds were nomadic tribes lacking any sort of united identity).


Again, that can only be said with hind sight. To anyone in 1919 (ie the only viewpoint which is relevant to the question at hand) such examples would seem to be the way forward.
It’s not like Austro-Hungarian Empire had just imploded. Even at that time it was pretty obvious why it was a bad idea.
 

longsword14

Banned
Again, that can only be said with hind sight. To anyone in 1919 (ie the only viewpoint which is relevant to the question at hand) such examples would seem to be the way forward.
And all armchair politicians never give an alternative to that partition either. Ethnic groups are not sitting in pretty lumps to be separated by straight lines on a map.
 
For Iraqi Freedom to be done right something to consider would be to remove Saddam but have a coalition government with the Ba'athist party and the military remain in power to prevent a vacuum and keep the peace in Iraq.
 
Our most effective ambassador to Iraq on this topic. Namely he argued the British Empire suffered and bled significantly more then America in Iraq and they did so because they used the Ottoman Empire’s Sunni Arab security structures to rule over the area causing a Shia revolt rather then trying to create a balanced Iraqi Armed Forces and security apparatus.

The 2003 invasion. It seemed that everything that could go wrong went wrong, except for the military operation to remove Saddam and to seize Baghdad. But following on—what do you call them, the Orders, Orders 1 and 2?

Crocker: Yeah. The disbanding of the Iraqi army and the de-Baathification process. Again, you know, the conventional wisdom that we disbanded the Iraqi army and therefore created the insurgency, you know, that’s not true. I’m no great defender of the policy. I argued against the invasion.

But, you know, when asked to go out and try and put things together, there I was. That’s what you do. Well, I’ll say this, but you’re not going to use it. It’s too insider baseball, but it’s important. The Turks denied the 4th Infantry Division request to have two fronts, to move the division into northern Iraq via Turkey. What that did was allow the Iraqi forces north of Baghdad, when they could see what was coming, they just dropped their guns, took off their uniforms, and just a bunch of good old civilians up here. So had we wanted Saddam’s army, we would have had to reconstitute it. We would have had to take a positive action to bring these guys back.

Sure, but [Coalition Provisional Authority head Gen. L. Paul] Bremer’s order, I think, was that the army would be disbanded, was it not?

Crocker: The point I’m making is that the army already was disbanded.

I understand. But still, I mean, in terms of the message delivered to many of those officers and servicemen, the message was coming down from Bremer that the army was to be disbanded.

Crocker: Which they already knew, because again, they were the officers who disbanded the army.

Well, the larger question here is getting at the sectarianism that erupts as a result of these orders.

Crocker: Well, so here’s the point on that. Because I was out there at the time and something of a student of history, when I could bend my bandwidth to it, I was thinking a lot about the post-World War I period, when the British and the French carved up the Middle East into mandates for their respective countries.

The Brits got Iraq. So they wanted occupation on the cheap. They basically preserved the Ottoman structures, both on the civilian side and the military, Sunni-dominated. What they got was a fatwa from the grand ayatollah of the day forbidding all cooperation with the British forces and calling on right-thinking Iraqis to stand against them.

That kicked off a decade-long insurrection. Had we taken the step of calling Saddam’s officers back and dealing with them as a legitimate army, we would have had a Shia rebellion that would have made the rebellion of the ’20s look like a cakewalk.

We almost got it anyway the next year in Najaf, with Sadr’s guys. So it was pretty clear, if you were on the ground, you couldn’t get the three big pieces all to fit together: Arab Sunni, Arab Shia and Kurd.

You could get two out of three. And I think it would have been madness had we bent over backward to accommodate Saddam’s former officers. Then we would have had a much greater insurgency that we faced anyway. I mean, look, this is a world of no black, no white, no good choices, just least-bad alternatives. And to this day, I think that it would have gone worse for us had we made a different decision.

Had you asked for the army to be reconstituted.

Crocker: Yeah. I think that would have sent the Shia to the barricades.

But it’s hard to imagine more violence than what erupted eventually by 2005, ’06, ’07.

Yeah. That’s, again, failure of imagination. Things in the Middle East can always be worse than they are. And give it time, and they’ll get there. Was there much to choose between a Sunni rebellion and a Shia rebellion?

It was possible for us during my time out there, not because I had anything to do with it — a lot of brave Iraqis and brave Americans in uniform did — where we could get the situation under control through the “surge.” And it wasn’t by dominating Anbar or other predominantly Sunni areas; it was by cooperating.

Even [former Iraqi Prime Minister] Nouri al-Maliki got that. And in 2007, Iraq passed its first budgetsupplemental — we taught them a lot of bad things; budget supplementals was one of them — $250million for the province of Anbar. Now, I mean, basically had to sit on Maliki’s head to get him to do it. But he came to realize that this would be a pretty good investment. And indeed, it did bring a number of Sunnis back into cooperation with the government.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-frontline-interview-ryan-crocker/

Generally speaking I agree though there were jobs we could have given former officers quickly and we could have more quickly stood up the new Iraqi Army a number of ways. That said without Washington having a much better understanding of Iraq then they did OTL a lot of things were not going to happen until Washington and the military realized they were actually problems.

The military turn around leading to victory against the post war insurgency was started in the end by Col. Sean MacFarland allying with some tribes and secular Sunni Ba’athists in early ‘06.
 
Last edited:
How secure was Saddam's line of succession? If a US agent put something in his drink could that give the Iraqis their freedom?
Nature abhors a vacuum. If his line of succession is strong, we probably get someone slightly better or worse. If he pulls a Stalin and doesn’t name anyone, then we could have anything from a power struggle in the capital to a full blown civil war. And if one of his sons gets in charge... a much worse version of what happened in Syria. It’s incredibly unlikely that anyone is getting freedom. Probably the more effective thing is to just continue the 1st Gulf War all the way to Baghdad and set up an authoritarian democracy and/or just have an American as a co-head of state with a democratically elected leader.
 
Last edited:
Top