...I suspect that for most Iraqis, the single most astounding aspect of the American occupation (besides the fact that it finally happened, at long last) has been that we have not been arresting those in Iraq who have publicly criticized us. When mullahs returning from exile in Iran made speeches demanding we withdraw and that Iraq become a Khomeneiite theocracy, we left them alone.USS Clueless - Decompressing Iraq Stardate 20030929.1414
Some here feared that tolerating that would cause more and more Iraqis to flock to support such movements, and that the majority Shiites might coalesce around such a political position.
But the exact opposite has occurred: those early opposition speakers were seen by most Iraqis as being noteworthy because of their public opposition, not because their message was attractive. Many watched attentively to see how we'd respond. When the proto-theocrats were not persecuted, other Iraqis with other opinions began voicing them, too. Some were critical of the Americans, some were supportive, some were mixed. A lot of what they talked about didn't have anything to do with us at all. But the one thing most of them came to agree on was that free expression itself was a pretty neat thing, even if they didn't agree about much else. Since the would-be Iraqi theocrats wanted to take that away from them again, support for the theocrats has not materialized, and most of them have ceased advocating establishment of an Islamic Republic in Iraq...
...We humans are designed to think and make decisions, but we have to be taught, and usually we have to be forced, to blindly follow orders. Our fundamental independence can be suppressed but never eliminated. It's still in there, waiting, in everyone. And now that oppression has lifted, it's starting to bloom in Iraq. As time goes on, it become more wide spread, in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. And it will accelerate.
And that means we're beginning to win the war. This was the real reason for conquering Iraq. This is our best strategic weapon against the extremists who attacked us. Their power is in their ideas, their beliefs, and basic to them is a dedication to uniformity and central control, of submission of the masses to the will of the few. We counter that with our idea about individual liberty, and our idea is better. I believe that it's better ethically and esthetically. Societies based on our idea are more productive in nearly every way. And our idea is more competitive memetically. Our idea is more seductive, more attractive. Against it they have little defense.
Diversity and freedom are anathema to them, and it is our dedication to those things which have made us more powerful than they are. If our idea continues to spread, their ideas will be marginalized and will wither away. And then the war will be over.
We will eliminate our enemies not by killing them in hordes, but by infecting them with ideas which will convert most of them to friends. That process has now begun.
look up 1962 cuban missile crisis, will you? ... like i said, ignorant of history
...As Pogo, the cartoon opossum, once famously said, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” Yes, that’s right: We, the American people—not the Bush administration, nor the hapless Iraqis, nor the meddlesome Iranians (the new scapegoat)—are the root of the problem.What Iraq Tells Us About Ourselves
It’s woven into our cultural DNA. Most Americans mistakenly believe that when we say that “all men are created equal,” it means that all people are the same. Behind the “cute” and “charming” native clothing, the “weird” marriage customs, and the “odd” food of other cultures, all humans are yearning for lifestyles and futures that will be increasingly unified as time and globalization progress. That is what Tom Friedman seems to have meant when he wrote that “the world is flat”—that technological and economic change are driving humankind toward a future of cultural sameness...
To be blunt, our foreign policy tends to be predicated on the notion that everyone wants to be an American...
Americans invaded an imaginary Iraq that fit into our vision of the world. We invaded Iraq in the sure belief that inside every Iraqi there was an American trying to get out...
Unfortunately for us and for them, that was not the real Iraq. In the real Iraq, cultural distinction from the West is still treasured, a manifestation of participation in the Islamic cultural “continent.” Tribe, sect, and community remain far more important than individual rights. One does not vote for candidates outside one’s community unless one is a Baathist, Nasserist, or Communist (or, perhaps, a believer in world “flatness” like Tom Friedman and the neocons). But Iraqis know what Americans want to hear about “identity,” and be they Shiite, Kurd, or Sunni Arab, they tell us that they are all Iraqis.
Finding ourselves in the wrong Iraq, Americans have stubbornly insisted that the real Iraqis should behave as our dream Iraqis would surely do. The result has been frustration, disappointment, and finally rage against the “craziness” of the Iraqis. We are still acting out our dream, insisting that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shiite sectarian government “unify” the state, imagining that Maliki is a sort of Iraqi George Washington seeking the greater good for all. He is not that. His chief task is to consolidate Shiite Arab power while using the United States to accomplish the deed. To that end, he will tell us whatever we want to be told. He will sacrifice however many of his brethren are necessary to maintain the illusion, so long as the loss is not crippling to his effort. He will treat us as the naifs that we are.
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posted by kirkaracha at 9:57 AM on March 14, 2007 [2 favorites]