Ironic, since, if I recall correctly, Sadr's relations with Tehran at the beginning of the occupation varied from suspicious to outright antagonistic.

I am curious how you think that the Mahdi acquired those businesses. I don't know either but I am betting that they did not buy them from the previous owners. I am betting that they got them by killing the owner or just walking in and forcing them to find another place to run a business out of.

You are right it is a precarious position that we are in over there, but saying that all the infrastructure was destroyed is just complete idiocy. We didn't destroy near as much as you think, despite what the reporters tell you. And business as usual goes on every day.

Yes there are small parts of the country that have very serious fighting still going on but it is a small part of the country. It could become a lot more if we don't control it and if we don't break up the Mahdi it will become a much bigger problem. What we need to do is to get them to work with the new government and stop killing each other. And yes it is a societal thing but over tiime it can change. It is just a matter of getting people used to living without violence. And they must also learn to rule themselves, and it is not impossible, it has happened in other countries.

The thing is - even if the Pentagon had ordered the troops to prevent looting, it's not at all clear that it would have helped much. The fact remains that the US military is neither trained nor equipped to be a police force. To just drop them in the middle of a foreign country they are not familiar with (with most not even speaking the language) and expect them to effectively police it is absurd.

Hezbollah was created in response to Israeli aggression in Lebanon (I'm waiting for Wendy to jump in here and accuse me of something) and the illegal seizure of the Golan Heights. To that end, they remain more or less a single issue group - if Israel were to unilaterally withdraw from the Golan Heights, Hezbollah would presumably lose much of its political leverage and power. Unfortunately the situation in Iraq is more complicated. If the US unilaterally withdraws from Iraq there isn't much of a functioning government to fill whatever power vacuum would be left - in essence we would be helping to install al-Sadr because his group is better organized that everyone else there. Of course, if we don't withdraw then our continued bungling of the occupation would still strengthen his group. So we're sort of stuck in a bind.

Too bad no one in the Bush administration knows a damned thing about nation building, since this is exactly the kind of scenario that would have been prevented by a well planned postwar reconstruction effort.

When did anybody say the "infrastructure was destroyed" in this article? It was certainly heavily damaged, in fact so, for example, that post-invasion electricity generation was less than pre-war levels, and continues to get worse. Unfortunately for you, twisting words and using political straw men (reporters hide the truth because they are anti-American) makes you sound like a partisan idiot.

What I can take from this paragraph is that FTR is right when he asserts that we don't really understand their culture. "...getting people used to living without violence" and "...learn to rule themselves..."? You should be a sociologist!

Clearly, Americans would be completely civil and non-violent if somebody invaded our countries with false pretenses.

Nicely done, I appreciate you saying this, and I agree.

It couldn't hurt to also try to show the Iraqis what they'll get if they do follow Iran's path. The average Iranian likely hates her government as much as the average SG member, though they probably love their country a bit more. After all the chaos they've experienced, though, the Iraqi people may settle for totalitarianism rather than continue to wait for both liberty and order.

This is the direct quote from the article... I hope you aren't going to say destroyed and demolished aren't synonymous

Or win the owners over by providing security and resources at cheaper prices if they are overtly supportive of them. Basically not enough ionformation to exclude any posibility

Not with the help the the US it hasn't. Somalia was given to the UK to administer and Afghanistan to NATO because the US is totally incompetent to assist an impoverished country in a meaningful, positive way.

So the US didn't do anything to help in the Phillipines during their revolution, and how about the American revolution. Granted our revolution did not have the looting and outside influence, but we did have to change our thinking of how we should be ruled. And Somalia was UN Mission with only a small part run exclusively by the US.

Given the US turned into a buch of war monging retards, that was hardlly a success The Philipines is hardly model of a stable society unless you count the right wing fasist dictatorship that ran it once the US pulled out as a good thing. Or are you pretending that the 1989 invasion wasn't an invasion?

KUNGFOO said:
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What I can take from this paragraph is that FTR is right when he asserts that we don't really understand their culture. "...getting people used to living without violence" and "...learn to rule themselves..."? You should be a sociologist!


Ok so apparently you forget that as Americans we lived under the rule of a king for how many years. And our ancestors lived under the rule of Kings, and feudal lords for how many years. And that we paid huge taxes and lived as endentured servants. We learned to change.

I didn't say we understand their culture, but it has been proven that democratic or parliamentary states can work in the Middle East. There is a goverment in place there that with a little bit of peace, and a lot less interference by Iran, could very well work. Oh, ya I forgot you people don't think that Iran is running money, men, guns and munitions into the country to destabilize it. It is all the fault of the current administration and the Army, isn't that right?

Don't argue if you don't know the facts to back it up.

Actually, no. The United States didn't. Perhaps you should brush up on your history, but we actually hunted down and arrested their most prominent revolutionary leader, Emilio Aguinaldo, in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish-American war, when the Philippine conflict was relegated to simple colonialism. The only reason the US got involved in the revolution in the first place was for strategic military purposes, as sea power was quickly gaining ground as an eminent military philosophy. The entire purpose of the US involvement in the Philippines was to establish one or two military bases, thus allowing in the future for both our involvement in the Pacific in WW2 as well as a classic musical, and had absolutely nothing to do with the support of the revolutionary cause. In fact, it started an entire war on its own.

Does it suck being ignorant? Oh wait, I know the answer, nevermind.

Except for that whole thing about how French aid is the only reason we won.

So it'll be like when the Soviets invaded the U.S. after finding out that all the pussy liberals wouldn't fight back, only with turbans. Gotcha.

Wolverines!

I'm pretty sure conservative could do that just by reading a grocery list.

I'll bet you $10 he's masturbated to that movie at least once.