May 27, 2004
"are we going to be OK if the coalition forces left the country..."
Is there hope for Iraq? My friend Andrew thinks the Iraqis will tear themselves apart once we leave. But oddly, none of the Iraqi bloggers I read seem worried about the question...
Firas writes:
For a Monday it shouldn’t be so traffic jam in Baghdad, but it is today, with a very hot weather and imagine how it is to drive long distances…….. Any way what I noticed for the few passed days that we have many many check points by IPs [Iraqi Police] in all over Baghdad and they are started new procedures that we even forgot about for about a year now. They are stopping cars without license plates and stopping imported cars with license plates from UAE or Jordan if its being drove not during ministries working hours. I even saw an IP car modified for arresting criminals or any street disturbance which wasn’t seen before because what was left of the IPs and what we started with after April 2003 wasn’t ready to arrest anyone actually they were ready to be killed or beaten by the armed gangs in all over Baghdad who are starting to disappear or being arrested and send to Abo Ghraib jail……….I even was invited to a friend wedding last Friday with my family and we went out the party at 10.00 PM and they weren’t finished yet and the streets were secured all our way home………And there is a very important thing to tell here, all that is with out the coalition forces help anymore, I mean the IPs started to depend on their own resources and doing there job by them selves.I think the "Iraqis (or Afghans, or former Soviet Republics) will slaughter each other if the strong leader is removed" line has always been mostly a comfort to those who hate risk and love stability. And who have lost the belief in Liberty as something worth taking risks for. You always hear it from comfortable Western outsiders. Never from the people actually affected.Few weeks ago I was thinking about a very important matter which is, are we going to be OK if the coalition forces left the country or we will face the kayos again……..Until a month ago I used to feel that we need the coalition forces to stay in streets, but now I can say and for sure that if the coalition forces left or stayed inside bases then we can depend on the IPs and the ICDCs and later on the Iraqi army to secure those who are working hard to rebuild the country. But we will need the coalition forces or what ever it’s turning to after the beginning of next July to help rebuilding new methods of working and procedures for our new establishments and ministries. That’s something is really needed after the corruption we had before April 2003 when the ext regime used to pay its employees less than two US Dollars a month and expect them to keep going to work spending about five US Dollars a month for transportation only. You can imagine how was it difficult to live those days....
No Iraqis (except the Ba'athist elite) ever said, "Please leave Saddam in power. We are terrified of the possibility of civil unrest."
No Iraqis (except the Ba'athist elite) ever said, "Please leave Saddam in power. We are terrified of the possibility of civil unrest."
Try here.
Key 'grah:
"I have to admit that until now I have never longed for the days of Saddam, but now I'm not so sure. If we need a person like Saddam to keep those rabid dogs at bay then be it. Put Saddam back in power and after he fills a couple hundred more mass graves with those criminals they can start wailing and crying again for liberation. What a laugh we will have then. Then they can shove their filthy Hawza and marji'iya up somewhere else. I am so dissapointed in Iraqis and I hate myself for thinking this way. We are not worth your trouble, take back your billions of dollars and give us Saddam again. We truly 'deserve' leaders like Saddam."
That was posted on April 5th. That's nearly _two months ago_. Things may have changed for the better since then -- and scrolling up to read later posts shows that Zeyad's mood (and the situation in his country) improved a great deal. And he wasn't saying "please leave Saddam in power" -- we can READ you know. And some of us have been reading Zeyad's blog since its inception.
Try bullshitting someone on your own side.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at May 27, 2004 05:42 PMJohn did say "ever".
BTW, I think we are all on the same side.
Posted by: Duncan Young at May 27, 2004 06:25 PMBTW, I think we are all on the same side.
Actually, I don't think we are. That's the problem.
Yes, Joe, the fact that you don't think we all want what is best for this country is _precisely_ the problem...
On another note: When the soviet union Collapsed, there was (is still) a lot of bloodshed. If American troops could have been rushed in to prevent it, I would have been in favor. Of course, doing that would have made things a lot worse, so there we are...
When Tito died, Yugoslavia... It hardly bears thinking about. But it was a bloodbath...
Pretty much ever since the Brits left India, (which used to contain Pakistan and Bangladesh), things have been scary over there with intermittent wars. India is probably the absolute best that we can hope for in Iraq...
And Iraq will be a mess, no doubt about it. The Iraqis are a people accustomed to the rule of power, not the rule of Law. They don’t have the experience with doing politics any other way. Us being in place there for a decade or so would give them the time they need to learn new ways of doing business. To learn new attitudes toward power. Alas, we are committed to pulling out after only a year. This will be a problem...
