Suggestions, please
Help me refute the "we have to clean up our mess" argument
So I got into an argument the other day with a friend who was excusing that Marine who executed an unarmed man in the head by saying "well, he was really stressed out from being shot at, we don't know what it's like to be under that kind of pressure, I think putting him in jail was an overreaction." I tried to make an argument about the importance of human rights, the Geneva Convention, and so on, how we can't exactly claim the moral high ground when we're killing innocent civilians, torturing people and shooting unarmed men, but I didn't make a dent. We reached an impasse, but I felt I had made a good, strong case.
But where he really stumped me was, I was talking about civilian casualties, how the Iraq war was illegal and unjustified, based on a lie, and so on, and his response was "Yeah, but it's too late for that--we're already there, and we have to finish the job, clean up our mess, etc. We can't just leave the country in chaos." And then he asked "Do you have a better plan?" And I got a bit flustered. I think the U.S. needs to leave Iraq as soon as possible, and that the U.S. occupation is only making things worse, no matter how many schools they paint or cities they "secure." But I also think that after bombing Iraq and killing thousands of people for a lie, the U.S. has a certain responsibility.
Granted, with Bush elected there's no real chance that we'll ever do anything sane regarding Iraq in the foreseeable future. But I'm curious--does anyone have any really solid and persuasive arguments or articles about actual PRACTICAL (if theoretical) ways to pull out of this mess without leaving Iraq in total chaos? (And I don't mean appointing U.S. puppet governors.) Kerry had made arguments about enlisting the U.N., but it doesn't seem like many other countries are really that enthusiastic, to say the least.
3 Comments:
This is a severe problem akin to leaving land mines for children to stumble upon. The most likely solution seems to be to stop giving the reconstruction contracts to outsiders and start giving them to Iraqis while having our military only serve as security for reconstruction. This should elevate the economic and social conditions of the war-torn populace as well as instill a sense of efficacy such that they will become more active in seeing to their own country’s well being and less active in chasing out the war profiteers and the military that protects them (what was supposed to be the point of handing over sovereignty if not for this?).
True free elections and a slightly less obviously puppet interim government would help as well. Generally speaking, if we feed them rather than kill their families we will see a great deal more progress and much fewer attacks on our troops.
I somehow cropped a bit of my comment. You should examine the methods and effects of the Marshall plan as provided by the United States and used by the European countries following World War II for a specific model of unobtrusive reconstruction. Of course the U.S. military would have to maintain basic security in the region during the course of reconstruction but it need not be quite so offensive and disruptive a force as it has been to this point. There may also be some need of executive oversight but that would best be served by the international community through the U.N. than by the United States. It is far more likely that the resistant European powers would come on board for this if we weren't so obviously continuing our hawkish profiteering.
Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.
- Albert Einstein
On the one hand, it is not that you or anyone else doesn't have a better plan, its that no one in the administration thinks there is a problem with the current plan in effect that has created this mess in the first place and still feels nothing has gone especially wrong. A responsible government needs to know when to draft new plans and do so aggressively, the fact you don't have a cure for cancer doesn't mean that we should give up as a nation and embrace euthanasia as a solution to the disease.
As for where to start, the Bush administration started this war for the wrong reasons and now that it is attempting to nation build with the wrong priorities and is continuing the disaster.
The original logic in thinking was we would line up contractors that the administration liked and frankly loot and pillage, and the little issues such as a democracy and control would fall into place while the other factors were taken care of.
This has lead to profits winning over progress every time the two goals are at odds, profits are never curbed to help progress, and it is transparent to the Iraqis and the world.
At this point we should forbid any closed bid processes, setup the mechanics to allow Iraq contractors to have first priority, followed by the entire international community.
We need to be as aggressive with ensuring a rebuilt infrastructure as if it was US citizens enduring those conditions.
As for our military operations, we had no moral superiority going into that nation. Each soldier should be as careful as if the operations were taking place is his/her own home state, with neither insurgents nor innocent civilians standing out any more than anyone else would in their hometown.
If we did most of these things, (granted, some are very abstract) it would change the problem enough for the better we could work on the rest of the solution from a better vantage point.
I think the details of the Marshall plan, as mentioned by Robbie would be a good practical start as well.
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