Below you will find two videos of from the Daily Show where Jon Stewart is interviewing Ali Allawi. Ali Allawi has worked closely with the interim governement in Iraq under various titles and positions. He is a very intelligent and well spoken individual with a lot of inside knowledge of Iraq and the government there.
His new book out “The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War”, seems to be an excellent look, not only on the history of Iraq, and what America has done wrong, but also about what we can do to fix the problems that have been created.
If you watch the videos you will notice that Jon Stewart does an excellent job of interviewing Mr. Allawi and we find that again, an understanding of the history and culture of Iraq may have saved us from an unnecessary war…
I have a little more written after the Videos. And a question for the readers.
Part 1:
Part 2:
The problem with the Iraq war doesn’t appear to me to be necessarily with how it was managed. Although I would say Bush certainly botched that one. But actually due to the fact that we never took the time to understand the culture or history of Iraq. As stated from video Part 2, Iraq is an incredibly difficult country to rule due to the three different factions that reside and the differing of opinions of those 3 factions. But also that it was never really run as a nation state.
Meaning that it might be a bad idea to try to create a nation state in the matter of a couple years (What Bush and Co © attempted to do). Instead what is needed is a gradual shift, not only of the government but of the culture as well. And changing a culture is one thing that is harder to change than a True Believer’s ™ ideas on religion. Why? Imagine trying to change something you do and have been doing for thousands of years. “People love progress but hate change.”
Unfortunately this leads me to think maybe we should not pull out of Iraq. If we do we would leave the country in complete disarray. It is a hard choice one way or the other, but if I was commander in chief, I think I would have a phased withdrawal. And instead of spending money on the war militarily, I think it would be more worthwhile to give political and economic support to those who not only wish to stop the terrorists, but want a free and independent nation. You cannot help those that do not wish to be helped, which is part of the reason we are having so much trouble over there in the first place.
But enough about me, what would you do if you were in charge?
We should pull our military out and let the 125-140,000 Halliburton and Blackwater “support” “contractors” do what we’re paying them roughly $30 billion per year to do: secure strategic sectors and rebuild the country we blew up. They’re getting paid the big bucks to be there—let’s see ‘em earn it. Bet if Blackwater’s contractual payments were contingent on getting the electricity, sewers, and schools running again and getting the oil industry functional once more we’d see some fast progress. But first, let’s make them accountable to SOME oversight so they don’t engage in wholesale slaughter in order to get paid.
Let’s get the hell out now. We don’t belong there, we’re not wanted there. Send them money, supplies, help to get things fixed again. Let’s see, we liberated 650,000 Iraquis by death, 2.4 million by emigration and displacement—we’ve done such a swell job of shoving democracy down their throats, haven’t we?