U.S. troops did not expect postwar role, Blair aide says

[sabra]

Source: AP

LONDON - American troops did not expect to play a role in stabilizing Iraq after overthrowing Saddam Hussein, a key adviser to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday.

David Manning, who served as a Blair's top foreign-policy aide before being appointed ambassador to Washington in 2003, told a British inquiry into the Iraq war that the American military did not believe peacekeeping was their responsibility.

"The American military thought that they were fighting a war and when the war was over they were expecting to go home," he said.

...

"I was very struck . . . by the reluctance of U.S. soldiers to get out of their tanks, to take off their helmets, and to try to build up links with local communities," he said. "They looked still much more in fighting mode than in peacekeeping mode."

He also said he believed Paul Bremer - the U.S. diplomat charged with overseeing the reconstruction of Iraq - made the situation worse by purging the army and police of members of Hussein's Baath party.



Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/78202122.html

[TwilightGardener]

1. US troops kill people and break things. That's what they're trained to do.

They should not be used for peacekeeping and nation building.

[LakeSamish706]

2. Yeah, just shovel the rest of that low level shit onto other nations to do.... Fuck.. n/t

[TwilightGardener]

3. What?

[Kelvin Mace]

4. Sorry, but no...

The US stayed in Germany, Italy and Japan and helped rebuild the countries. Yeah, many folks went home, but a large number remained.

The obligation to stay and restore order is MANDATORY when you illegally invade a country, destroy its infrastructure, eliminate its leadership, and kill and maim hundred of thousands of civilians.

[TwilightGardener]

5. That's not what many believe here, otherwise they wouldn't be screaming "OUT NOW!!11!!11"

I am of a belief that our military should be used primarily for national defense, and the occasional humanitarian effort. That's it.

[Kelvin Mace]

8. If we are defending ourselves from invasion

then we don't have an obligation to clean up your country after we destroy it, but it is a nice thing to do, and helps avoid future problems.

If we invade on a false pretext, we do.

That said, I make the following observations:

1) Sending in MORE troops does not help you withdraw. It is "coitus interruptus" without the "interruptus", but with more "insertus".

2) Afghanistan has been the graveyard for many imperial powers. The last imperial army to successfully invade and "pacify" Afghanistan was Attila the Hun in 1219.

Britain spent about a century in the country and eventually gave up in 1919. The Soviet Union spent Nine years failing to subdue the locals, and now here we are fighting many people we helped train to fight the Soviets.

3) The Afghani tribes have been almost continually at war with each other for almost 2,000 years.

4) If you destroy, or help destroy a country, and fail to help rebuild it, the country's people will not forget, and will hold it against you.

5) This war is going to be the longest and most expensive war ever, and we will have NOTHING to show for it.

6) We continue to fight longer, at a higher cost, against weaker enemies as time goes on. In WW-II, we spent $3.2 trillion killing about 8 million German, Italian and Japanese soldiers. which works out to $440,000 per "bad guy" killed.

In Iraq and Afghanistan we have spent about $1 trillion killing about 30-40,000 "bad guys" (The US gov't refuses to get very specific, but various reports make estimates that are in this range), this means we have spent $25 MILLION per "bad guy" killed.

In WW-II we faced the combined military might of three nations, numbering tens of millions of soldiers. In Korea we faced several million Chinese and Koreans soldiers. In Vietnam we faced around a million NVA troops. Today, we are facing tens of thousands, and losing.

[TwilightGardener]

9. I didn't say we shouldn't help at all--just not with thousands and thousands of combat troops.

That's not what they're for--that's not what the military is for, really--and that's what we're doing wrong when we "wear out our welcome" in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm all for money and civilian aid and international peacekeepers. The problem is, in Afghanistan, it's too dangerous and unstable for this sort of thing to work WITHOUT large numbers of troops to enforce security. This is what happens when you don't bring the conflict to a swift conclusion and let enemy forces resprout. That's why Afghanistan is such a mess--we haven't completed the military combat mission, we stayed too long, and now the military combat mission is getting mixed into the peacekeeping/nationbuilding mission. Did the same stupid thing in Iraq--although Iraq was 100% bogus to begin with.

[Kelvin Mace]

12. We agree then

I was simply responding to your remark that the military has only one purpose. I think it can have many purposes other than death and destruction. Remember when the Army Corp of Engineers wasn't just an office that farmed out its work to private contractors? Remember when it BUILT things? REBUILT things?

We need to kick out every single "contractor" out of Iraq and Afghanistan and that would allow us to reduce our military presence by reducing the number of people to "guard" (Or FAR WORSE, let the likes of Blackwater guard). Then, serious work can be accomplished with NON-PROFIT agencies helping rebuild while a reduced military force keeps watch.

Peace-keeping and nation-building can be done by the Army, see Bosnia/Kosovo for how to do it right.

[No Elephants]

10. IMO, the Afghanis and the Iraqis will hold our long occupation of their countries against us as much

or more than they will hold the initial invasion against us.

You make it sound as though the occupation entails only benovolent re-building of their respective nations. It doesn't. We continue to kill and displace civilians and partner with indigenous folk they see as their oppressors, right along with us.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. I meant to imply nothing of the kind

I simply stated you can't walk into a country, illegally, destroy it and walk out. The initial point being made by the poster I responded to was that an army has one job, "to kill people and break things." I view this as very simplistic, and somewhat barbaric. Civilized people have a need for armies, but have a responsibility to use them sparingly, as a last resort, with the least amount of force required to accomplish the task, and while STRICTLY adhering to the Geneva Conventions. Before corporations took over the military, the military did quite well helping rebuild things it destroyed once the hostilities ceased (see Japan and Europe 1945-1960).

An "occupation force" that is feeding the starving, treating the sick, and rebuilding schools, hospitals and infrastructure is tolerated more than one that simply kills people, protects the corrupt, and attempts to force the locals to repudiate their culture and way of life.

We need to leave Iraq and Afghanistan NOW, because we are not doing anything constructive. For every "terrorist" we kill, we create three new ones. We need to LEAVE NOW, not tomorrow, not in 2010, 2012 or 2016.

It is a tragedy that Obama does not understand this.

[iandhr]

6. Re: U.S. troops did not expect postwar role,

I think this point has been covered 5,000 times

[tanyev]

7. "It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months"

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, February 2003

[CJCRANE]

13. The neocons couldn't advertise what they really wanted to do

which was stick in a Bushie Colonial Governor to oversee their new fiefdom.