Cleaning up Saddam's mess

New York Daily News ^ | 5/18/03 | Charles Krauthammer

[kattracks]

There is a large and overlooked truth about the American occupation of Iraq: Whereas in postwar Germany and Japan we were rebuilding countries that had been largely destroyed by us, in Iraq we are rebuilding a country destroyed by its own regime.

In World War II, we leveled entire cities (Tokyo, Dresden, Hiroshima, many more), targeted and razed the enemy's industrial infrastructure, killed and displaced countless civilians. We turned the countries to rubble, then we rebuilt them.

[RightOnline]

Krauthammer has written a superb......if sobering........piece here. One wonders what sort of 'credit' the US will get from the rest of the Arab world for such a tremendous.....and expensive.......rebuilding effort. Where are the oil-rich Arab brethren now? Why aren't they dumping their billions into their brothers and sisters under Allah?

The Arab world, once again, shows itself to be made up of a bunch of lying, thieving, dishonest wusses with absolutely zero credibility.

[alloysteel]

We have taken a logical first step - Iraq is a commonwealth with the United States, using US currency as the medium of exchange. This makes Iraq into a de facto part of the US empire, though as of now, without the right of conferred citizenship. Imperialism is, in and of itself, neither good nor bad. The resources of the relatively undeveloped country are used to bring modernization and the trappings of civilized behavior to the subject nation, and if the leaders of the empire have enlightened views on the matter, eventually win their independence, much like the Phillipines (after being invaded by the Japanese and again liberated). Countries like Japan, France and the former Soviet Union only looked upon their imperial possessions as sites to be exploited, and left no serious path to future independence available, until their forces were expelled by revolution. With these countries as models, no wonder imperialism got such a bad name.

[Lessismore]

Saddam didn't destroy Iraq. That was done by ordinary Iraqis. Once the Baathist tyranny was broken, they proceeded to steal everything they could move.

This apparently surprised the adminstration, who seem to have expected town-meeting democracy to break out instead.

[Congressman Billybob]

The comparison should be made between the UN, which has spent 50 years running "refuge camps" where Palestinians were taught to hate, murder, and be self-destructive, to what the US is now doing in Iraq. The contrast demonstrates exactly why the UN should have only a secondary, "fig leaf" function in any peace-keeping or nation-building.

As an institution, the UN understands neither process. It considers "peace" to be maintaining a low level of killing, but doing nothing to solve the underlying problems. It considers "nation-building" to be applying money (most of it ours) and bureaucrats to any piece of land which has a flag and a ruler -- regardless of how dishonest and blood-thirsty that ruler may be.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, now up FR, "News Unfit to Print."

[Congressman Billybob]

Looting is not "a surprise" as a result of war. It has occurred at some point during every war in the history of mankind, including the American Revolution and the Civil War. It is a pathetic but "normal" concommitant of war. Going back to Ghengis Khan and such, it was the reason for war, since the wages of the soldiers was whatever they could steal.

The breakdown of civil society -- which war at some point always entails -- ALWAYS allows the intent to steal to break out wholesale. Have you forgotten the riots in assorted American cities? Think Los Angeles, etc.

Congressman Billybob

[Lessismore]

As you point out, historically looting has been something done by the soldiers, either for profit or as part of foraging as the army moved through the area. Usually, the civil order, such as it was, survived the passage of the army and the peasantry resumed their lives, only somewhat more miserable than before.

Iraq presents a different case, where a highly centralized, urban state has been decapitated. In such a Stalinist regime, the military, political and civil sectors were overseen in detail by the police. The removal of the leadership of the police state removes the top of the civil administration as well as the day-to-day law enforcement apparatus.

If the police state is not reconstitued with enough teeth to enforce order, Iraq will become a breeding ground for Islamic terrorism.

[WOSG]

You miss his larger point: saddam has looted and destroyed far more than what was destroyed in the war or in the post-war looting. far far more.

It was a great column.