Iraqis wonder how U.S. can be so inept.

[greatauntoftriplets]

Well, we all knew that Bushco was inept. Now the people of Iraq are learning that. This is a great article, especially when you consider it is appearing in the reactionary Chicago Tribune. Enjoy.

MISTAKES HAVE BEEN MADE
Iraqis wonder how U.S. can be so inept

By M. Cherif Bassiouni. M. Cherif Bassiouni is a professor of law and president of the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University
Published September 14, 2003

On Aug. 19, when the United Nations building in Baghdad was blown up, a little-known Franco-Egyptian UN worker, Jean-Selim Kanaan, was killed. He had volunteered for Iraq duty to help people, and was counting on the protection of the world's mightiest power.

Two weeks after his arrival in June, he wrote letters to friends around the world. "Americans understand only what is American. . . . made this war for their interests and surely not to liberate the Iraqi people . . . the revolt is growing," he said in the letters.

There are some a series of questions on the streets of Iraq.

How is it possible for the U.S. to make so many mistakes? Does the U.S. want to destroy Iraq or have it plunge into civil war and disintegrate? Is all of this an American conspiracy?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0309140031sep14,1,4487419.story?coll=chi-printperspective-hed

[loudnclear]

1. A people who would elect someone of the intelligence and ilk of GWBush

explains it all. The US talks a good game about 'the best qualified,' fairness, justice, democracy, leadership...etc. Its rhetoric does not match its reality.

[LittleApple81]

4. We DID NOT ELECT HIM. n/t

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. They're not inept and it's not a conspiracy

Just dollars and barrels, boring business decisions.

[Brucey]

3. So many things to blame, one doesn't know where to begin.

Nineteen year old soldiers, uneducated except for TV and movies, scared, tired, homesick, ready to shoot at anyone who looks different, macho commanders brainwashed to believe they're fighting evil, etc. etc. It's all so pathetic and disturbing, it's nearly hopeless. A better question is: Has the military ever done anything right?

[cliss]

5. Stan Goff says it best.

Stan Goff, retired US Major for Special Forces:
In a recent article:

"That's why I tell people not to buy into the hype about US military invincibility. Person for person, and dollar for dollar, the US military is the most inefficient in the world. And the most fragile. They are fragile because of their overwhelming dependence on high technology, and fragile because the troops come out of a pampered consumer culture where real physical hardship is anecdotal. Sustained hardship, as we are seeing in Iraq today, devastates morale."

I can't add anything to that.