What is meant by the U.S. government made the same mistakes in Iraq as it did in Iran.? The U.S. has not invaded Iran any time recently.
Just how the weapons became ubiquitous is also not touched on in this summary: Saddam Hussein had an armory. The U.S. forces took that armory. Then they carried on towards Baghdad, towards the major prize and *glory* (cue exciting music). One undefended armory.
One thing that totally stank is that the whole thing was then lost in U.S. party politics. The Republicans lied about having lied and all their supporters started claiming black was white and that the weapons of mass destruction had really existed. We are getting the same kind of crud now from the St Petersburg Propagandazentral with respect to the Ukraine.
Another thing that stank was the sacking of pretty much all Baath party members. Being a party member was a requirement for many kinds of job, sacking all these people created a large pool of disaffected people. This was known at the time but the idiots in charge "knew better". I found it difficult to believe that so much stupidity was not malicious.
I assume this should be Vietnam, rather than Iran. This is from the earlier point that "the US ignored history and didn't learn the lessons of the Iraqi revolt against the British in 1920 or the events of the Vietnam War".
Certainly "Underreporting U.S. casualties, over reporting enemy losses, and obfuscating how terrible the situation on the ground was." sounds like a good summary of what was done in Vietnam.
Another thing that stank was the sacking of pretty much all Baath party members. Being a party member was a requirement for many kinds of job
The Baath Party was made up of people that believed in a secular society, a strong unified Iraq, and preventing Iranian domination of the Persian Gulf. Since these were also the goals of the United States, the Baath Party ban had the effect of banning from government all the people that agreed with us on the future direction of Iraq... and now we are disappointed that somehow Iraq has become a fragmented Islamic state controlled by the Shiites in Iran.
and after WW2 we allowed the Nazis to remain in power under a different name where in Iraq we kicked out anyone in the Baath party and made them unemployable and then wondered why people began to shoot back at us
and after WW2 we allowed the Nazis to remain in power under a different name where in Iraq we kicked out anyone in the Baath party and made them unemployable and then wondered why people began to shoot back at us
It should be pointed out that the people who decided to let the Nazis remain in power after WW2 were thoroughly castigated by pretty much everyone.
So perhaps the lesson learned from that episode was that letting the former government workers continue to work after we'd ousted the government was a
According to Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine [naomiklein.org] part of the reason to exclude Baath party members from the Government was to simply sack nearly everyone in the Iraqi Government. The US had an agenda of privatising Iraq and freeing its markets and it didn't need a local Government to slow them down.
That's the common Americanised view of how you could've made Iraq go better, but this is precisely the sort of ill conceived view that I suspect this book is trying to deal with.
The problem is that the Baath party was brutal. Like, really brutal. We're talking about the people who gassed the Kurds, who had no qualms with using human shields, and took no issue with putting power drills through the eyes of captured PoWs as a form of torture.
Given that, it'd be naive to think that that country wouldn't have co
"Except that IS has a religious rather than secular ideology."
Right, in the same way that the Taliban preach strong anti-homosexual views and cite that as a reason to fight the west because it dares to offer them equality all whilst having sex with boys?
If you haven't figured out that religion is commonly used as a tool of recruitment and control then you're probably out of your depth here. Throughout pretty much the entirety of human history religion has been claimed as the ideology and purpose, whilst sim
You should review your history a bit- from wikipedia:
In 1951 Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected prime minister. He became enormously popular in Iran after he nationalized Iran's petroleum industry and oil reserves. He was deposed in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, an Anglo-American covert operation that marked the first time the US had overthrown a foreign government during the Cold War.[92]
Substantially correct, but . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
What is meant by the U.S. government made the same mistakes in Iraq as it did in Iran.? The U.S. has not invaded Iran any time recently.
Just how the weapons became ubiquitous is also not touched on in this summary: Saddam Hussein had an armory. The U.S. forces took that armory. Then they carried on towards Baghdad, towards the major prize and *glory* (cue exciting music). One undefended armory.
One thing that totally stank is that the whole thing was then lost in U.S. party politics. The Republicans lied about having lied and all their supporters started claiming black was white and that the weapons of mass destruction had really existed. We are getting the same kind of crud now from the St Petersburg Propagandazentral with respect to the Ukraine.
Another thing that stank was the sacking of pretty much all Baath party members. Being a party member was a requirement for many kinds of job, sacking all these people created a large pool of disaffected people. This was known at the time but the idiots in charge "knew better". I found it difficult to believe that so much stupidity was not malicious.
Re: (Score:2)
I assume this should be Vietnam, rather than Iran. This is from the earlier point that "the US ignored history and didn't learn the lessons of the Iraqi revolt against the British in 1920 or the events of the Vietnam War".
Certainly "Underreporting U.S. casualties, over reporting enemy losses, and obfuscating how terrible the situation on the ground was." sounds like a good summary of what was done in Vietnam.
Re: (Score:2)
That Iran bit threw me, too, but I suspect he meant Vietnam.
Re:Substantially correct, but . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Another thing that stank was the sacking of pretty much all Baath party members. Being a party member was a requirement for many kinds of job
The Baath Party was made up of people that believed in a secular society, a strong unified Iraq, and preventing Iranian domination of the Persian Gulf. Since these were also the goals of the United States, the Baath Party ban had the effect of banning from government all the people that agreed with us on the future direction of Iraq ... and now we are disappointed that somehow Iraq has become a fragmented Islamic state controlled by the Shiites in Iran.
Re: (Score:2)
and after WW2 we allowed the Nazis to remain in power under a different name where in Iraq we kicked out anyone in the Baath party and made them unemployable and then wondered why people began to shoot back at us
Re: (Score:2)
It should be pointed out that the people who decided to let the Nazis remain in power after WW2 were thoroughly castigated by pretty much everyone.
So perhaps the lesson learned from that episode was that letting the former government workers continue to work after we'd ousted the government was a
Re: (Score:2)
and after WW2 we allowed the Nazis to remain in power under a different name
Well, apart from the ones we tried and hanged.
Re: (Score:2)
According to Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine [naomiklein.org] part of the reason to exclude Baath party members from the Government was to simply sack nearly everyone in the Iraqi Government. The US had an agenda of privatising Iraq and freeing its markets and it didn't need a local Government to slow them down.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the common Americanised view of how you could've made Iraq go better, but this is precisely the sort of ill conceived view that I suspect this book is trying to deal with.
The problem is that the Baath party was brutal. Like, really brutal. We're talking about the people who gassed the Kurds, who had no qualms with using human shields, and took no issue with putting power drills through the eyes of captured PoWs as a form of torture.
Given that, it'd be naive to think that that country wouldn't have co
Re: (Score:2)
IS is in large part the modern incarnation of the Baath party
Except that IS has a religious rather than secular ideology.
Those atrocities they carry out? they're straight out of the Baath party's playbook from the last 40 years
Hitler, the PIRA and Pol Pot all carried out atrocities, that doesn't make them ideologically similar.
Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief system in its own right.
Re: (Score:1)
"Except that IS has a religious rather than secular ideology."
Right, in the same way that the Taliban preach strong anti-homosexual views and cite that as a reason to fight the west because it dares to offer them equality all whilst having sex with boys?
If you haven't figured out that religion is commonly used as a tool of recruitment and control then you're probably out of your depth here. Throughout pretty much the entirety of human history religion has been claimed as the ideology and purpose, whilst sim
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks. You are correct, that should have been Vietnam, not Iran.
Re: (Score:2)
You should review your history a bit- from wikipedia:
In 1951 Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected prime minister. He became enormously popular in Iran after he nationalized Iran's petroleum industry and oil reserves. He was deposed in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, an Anglo-American covert operation that marked the first time the US had overthrown a foreign government during the Cold War.[92]