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 li
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.
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 simultaneously being ignored by the people who are leading those groups because they know it's an effectively tool for rallying the footsoldiers whatever you do and don't believe about it. For Saddam's old guard, when you no longer have the country, and know that Iranian funding and militias are moving into your country, there was simply no better option that to rally the Sunnis against Iran's staunch Shia movements.
"Hitler, the PIRA and Pol Pot all carried out atrocities, that doesn't make them ideologically similar."
Right, but Hitler, the PIRA, and Pol Pot weren't active in Iraq in recent history either. The fact that others have carried out atrocities in history is neither here nor there, the point is that Saddam's regime is the player in the region that has the most experience deploying these sorts of atrocities and using them as effective propaganda tools. IS isn't simply carrying out atrocities for the sake of it, the high profile ones are incredibly well planned - if you think it's as simple as "An infidel, lets kill him!" then you need to explain why they've kept John Cantlie alive when others have been beheaded. IS only carry out atrocities where the propaganda value is greater than the value of keeping them alive, that is, they don't carry out high profile atrocities because they're unthinking warped psycopaths, it is entirely planned, and done entirely with a propaganda goal in mind.
This is quite distinct to what Hitler did, because in contrast the worst atrocities such as the Nazi death camps were kept entirely secret.
But the irony is, in parroting popular myth you've highlighted that there is plenty of fodder out there who aren't aware of the fuller picture, highlighting that their methods work. You think they're just a bunch of rag tag terrorists, you think there's no organisation and that they'll go on surprising you by defeating organised forces.
The worst part is, a lot of it is even quite easy to verify. It's not even much of a secret that Adnan al-Sweidawi, one of Saddam's top lieutenants is in charges of IS' military council. It's not a secret that another of Saddam's lieutenants, Fadel al-Hayali is ISIS Iraq deputy. It's not a secret that the now deceased Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, America's King of Clubs from Saddam's regime was leading his own force that was instrumental in taking over Mosul, one Iraq's biggest cities, on behalf of ISIS. There are plenty more examples.
It's really only some elements (albeit some of the most prominent) of Western media that try to condense it all down into a ISIS = Terrorists = Unthinking bad people type simplistic world view, then act surprised when they turn out to be incredibly effective, more so than mere unthinking bad people could ever be. Unthinking bad people terrorists are folks like those who did the Glasgow airport attacks whereby they did more harm to themselves than anyone else, but it's pretty clear that the folks in Iraq/Syria are rather more competent, organised, and effective than that. That's precisely because they're led and run by experienced smart people (though still rather horrible smart people either way), not unthinking wannabe jihadists, no matter how simplistic some of the media want to try and make it.
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 li
Re: (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: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:Substantially correct, but . . . (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 simultaneously being ignored by the people who are leading those groups because they know it's an effectively tool for rallying the footsoldiers whatever you do and don't believe about it. For Saddam's old guard, when you no longer have the country, and know that Iranian funding and militias are moving into your country, there was simply no better option that to rally the Sunnis against Iran's staunch Shia movements.
"Hitler, the PIRA and Pol Pot all carried out atrocities, that doesn't make them ideologically similar."
Right, but Hitler, the PIRA, and Pol Pot weren't active in Iraq in recent history either. The fact that others have carried out atrocities in history is neither here nor there, the point is that Saddam's regime is the player in the region that has the most experience deploying these sorts of atrocities and using them as effective propaganda tools. IS isn't simply carrying out atrocities for the sake of it, the high profile ones are incredibly well planned - if you think it's as simple as "An infidel, lets kill him!" then you need to explain why they've kept John Cantlie alive when others have been beheaded. IS only carry out atrocities where the propaganda value is greater than the value of keeping them alive, that is, they don't carry out high profile atrocities because they're unthinking warped psycopaths, it is entirely planned, and done entirely with a propaganda goal in mind.
This is quite distinct to what Hitler did, because in contrast the worst atrocities such as the Nazi death camps were kept entirely secret.
But the irony is, in parroting popular myth you've highlighted that there is plenty of fodder out there who aren't aware of the fuller picture, highlighting that their methods work. You think they're just a bunch of rag tag terrorists, you think there's no organisation and that they'll go on surprising you by defeating organised forces.
The worst part is, a lot of it is even quite easy to verify. It's not even much of a secret that Adnan al-Sweidawi, one of Saddam's top lieutenants is in charges of IS' military council. It's not a secret that another of Saddam's lieutenants, Fadel al-Hayali is ISIS Iraq deputy. It's not a secret that the now deceased Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, America's King of Clubs from Saddam's regime was leading his own force that was instrumental in taking over Mosul, one Iraq's biggest cities, on behalf of ISIS. There are plenty more examples.
It's really only some elements (albeit some of the most prominent) of Western media that try to condense it all down into a ISIS = Terrorists = Unthinking bad people type simplistic world view, then act surprised when they turn out to be incredibly effective, more so than mere unthinking bad people could ever be. Unthinking bad people terrorists are folks like those who did the Glasgow airport attacks whereby they did more harm to themselves than anyone else, but it's pretty clear that the folks in Iraq/Syria are rather more competent, organised, and effective than that. That's precisely because they're led and run by experienced smart people (though still rather horrible smart people either way), not unthinking wannabe jihadists, no matter how simplistic some of the media want to try and make it.