Article about incompetence of cosmic proportions

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by hoyacoug

I was talking about where we have installed a new regime, not necessarily where we have then actively run the government overtly.

Some examples that come to mind:

1. Haiti- we overthrew Aristide and essentially picked his successor. Haiti is a human rights disaster.

2. South Vietnam- we picked the government in Saigon which was never really supported by the people. When it was overthrown 8 years later, we didn't even bother to try and support our own regime. Our regime there never enjoyed popular support.

3. Bolivia- We helped Banzer come to power, he was absolutely brutal.

4. Cuba- We picked Batista (who was despised and then overthrown by Castro).

5. We aided Branco in Brazil (who was also brutal and helped install a brutal regime in Argentina).

6. We overthrew (and probably assassinated) Lumumba in Zaire to install Seko. Seko turned out to be vicious in his leadership.

7. We installed the Shah in Iran. Granted, he held on for over 20 years, but the discontent there led to the fundamentalist revolution which has taken hold ever since.

BTW, we supported Noriega too until he turned on us, then we arrested him.

I did forget one other successful regime change, however- Hawaii (though there is still a lot of discontent with the US in Hawaii and several efforts have been made to secede).

I think looking down the road, you can predict with a high degree of probability that we will tire of our involvement in Iraq and the current regime will be replaced by a vicious, cruel dictator while we do nothing (or that the current regime itself will become vicious and cruel).

Yeah I wondered if that was what you meant. In other words, more or less assisting and backing the wrong horse (to oversimplify it somewhat).

Most of those, IIRC, were attempts to keep a communist regime from coming to power and were deals with the devil so to speak. Not unlike our support of Saddam for a time or Joseph Stalin for that matter (though with Stalin it was opposition to fascism).

I hope you are wrong about a dictator coming back to power in Iraq. Interestingly to me, many on the left have articualted the notion that the dictator Saddam was a preferrable choice to the current chaos because at least then there was stability and some predictablility. This is more or less the exactly rationale used in each of your cases above though for slighly different reasons.

We live in a very difficult time where our power is so unique that we cannot withdraw from our unique roll and yet as we see again and again there are limits to our power. I would still think that Iraq in terms of execution of the plan is far more similar to Japan and Germany so that it was not irrational to think it could be done. I can't agree with you that the result was obvious in advance. That having been aid, I do think we underestimated the bitterness of the sectarian strife and their desire to kill each other rather than share power in some form.

The realist in me has long opposed "peace keeping" missions bcause I have felt that the natural course of things is for someone to prevail and the loser to be absorbed. This is the history of the world. Peace keeping just sets the ultimate fight off to some future date when the peace keeper tires of being there. The same may be true in Iraq where a civil war NEEDS to happen and someone needs to win. I have thought more than once that if there is a civil war going on and we are in the middle that maybe we need to pick a side. The problem is that who ever prevails in the end will suffer endless attacks and suicide bombings until the winner gets motivated enough to brutally put a stop to it. Also I don't think we can pick a side in a religious war because of the far reaching ramifications of it. There just is no good way out. I have thought more than once that the reality may be that the status quo is the least dangerous scenario of all for the US and the Iraquis. That is a depressing thought.

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

Yeah I wondered if that was what you meant. In other words, more or less assisting and backing the wrong horse (to oversimplify it somewhat).

Most of those, IIRC, were attempts to keep a communist regime from coming to power and were deals with the devil so to speak. Not unlike our support of Saddam for a time or Joseph Stalin for that matter (though with Stalin it was opposition to fascism).

I hope you are wrong about a dictator coming back to power in Iraq. Interestingly to me, many on the left have articualted the notion that the dictator Saddam was a preferrable choice to the current chaos because at least then there was stability and some predictablility. This is more or less the exactly rationale used in each of your cases above though for slighly different reasons.

We live in a very difficult time where our power is so unique that we cannot withdraw from our unique roll and yet as we see again and again there are limits to our power. I would still think that Iraq in terms of execution of the plan is far more similar to Japan and Germany so that it was not irrational to think it could be done. I can't agree with you that the result was obvious in advance. That having been aid, I do think we underestimated the bitterness of the sectarian strife and their desire to kill each other rather than share power in some form.

The realist in me has long opposed "peace keeping" missions bcause I have felt that the natural course of things is for someone to prevail and the loser to be absorbed. This is the history of the world. Peace keeping just sets the ultimate fight off to some future date when the peace keeper tires of being there. The same may be true in Iraq where a civil war NEEDS to happen and someone needs to win. I have thought more than once that if there is a civil war going on and we are in the middle that maybe we need to pick a side. The problem is that who ever prevails in the end will suffer endless attacks and suicide bombings until the winner gets motivated enough to brutally put a stop to it. Also I don't think we can pick a side in a religious war because of the far reaching ramifications of it. There just is no good way out. I have thought more than once that the reality may be that the status quo is the least dangerous scenario of all for the US and the Iraquis. That is a depressing thought.

I can accept your belief that this could have turned out like Germany or Japan (though I disagree), but I wonder how you reach that conclusion when looking at the planning for post war German and Japan and compare it to the planning for post war Iraq. I also wonder why you would think a nation with deep religious and racial divides could be transformed rapidly (or were you thinking it would be long term?) into a stable democracy.

Another stark difference, I think, is that we sealed the border of Germany (and didn't need to with Japan, being an island), thereby minimizing foreign influence. Why did we think we could leave Iraq's borders open with hostile nations surrounding Iraq?

I guess I am just wondering what piece of evidence you saw that would indicate this was going to be successful. I know you have mentioned Japan and Germany, but tell me why you think the similarities of their situation to Iraqq outweighed the differences.

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by hoyacoug

I can accept your belief that this could have turned out like Germany or Japan (though I disagree), but I wonder how you reach that conclusion when looking at the planning for post war German and Japan and compare it to the planning for post war Iraq. I also wonder why you would think a nation with deep religious and racial divides could be transformed rapidly (or were you thinking it would be long term?) into a stable democracy.

Another stark difference, I think, is that we sealed the border of Germany (and didn't need to with Japan, being an island), thereby minimizing foreign influence. Why did we think we could leave Iraq's borders open with hostile nations surrounding Iraq?

I guess I am just wondering what piece of evidence you saw that would indicate this was going to be successful. I know you have mentioned Japan and Germany, but tell me why you think the similarities of their situation to Iraqq outweighed the differences.

No I think we are on the same page. I think that if we had done what you are suggesting in terms of sealing the border the outcome could have been different. The other major piece of the puzzle where we failed that you didn't mention is the fact that as we rolled in we didn't in fact occupy each area and sucure the arms there. The result of this is that a huge portion of the conventional weapons formerly consistuting the tools of one of the largest armed forces in the world were lost and those who would use them against us have an almost inexhaustible supply of them. That could have made a big difference.

I think the issue of the competing sects is a more troubling one. Since the peace had been kept under Saddam I don't think we ever could have done better than hope they would resolve their differences through democratic process rather than violence. I don't think it was a forgone conclusion that they would chose violence, but it was a very real possibility that I agree we did not adequately anticipate or plan for.

The similarities to Japan and Germany are in the commitment of forces on a long term basis rather than limited intervention. The idea being that with a significant enough presence you can bring anything under control. I still think that might be true, but we'll never know since we didn't attempt it the way we did in those other two examples. I would agree that you have a religious strife compenent here that you don't in the other two but I'm not convicned that is insurmountable if you do things right from the beginning. You also have neighbors who are party to that religious stuggle who have a vested interest in the outcome which is why, as you say, border security is such a huge issue. I have said else where that I think another huge impact of our failure to secure the border is that WMD may well have made it out. I will not be the least surprised to see them re-emerge at some point. The irony of course was that they are what we went there to secure and we have probably guaranteed that they are not secure.