No, I’m not trying to go around trolling, but there are some things that occur to me, statements that do not appear to be completely thought-out that I would like to comment on. And no, I don’t think that everything that Bush does is golden or that there are not better ways that some things related to the war could have been handled. For instance, I agree with the assertion at the end that it was dumb to put together project ideas without being on-site. Also referring to the end, it was probably dumb to think that the Iraqis would be able to fund the continuation of the completed projects.

However, when have you seen a major construction project done on time and within budget? I’m not in the construction business, so my experience is limited, but I know I’ve never seen it here in the US, where we don’t have people shooting at the contractors.

To people who quote things (like the part about 40% of Iraqis not having clean water in 2004) without looking further, I ask, what percentage of Iraqis had clean water in 2000? Or electricity? Don’t just count the people and households acknowledged by the Iraqi government at the time, make sure to count the political prisoners and the Kurds living in abandoned stadiums because their homes and businesses had been seized by Saddam.

To what level is the US government and military supposed to bring things up to a standard of living that we, as US citizens, would consider acceptable? Are we supposed to just fix the last things that were left when we got there? Are we supposed to make it the country look like a US state, at the time and expense of leaving our soldiers there long enough to protect the contractors doing the work? I assume somewhere in between, but have you thought about where in between? I can’t decide that for you, I’m just raising the question.

Whether the invasion was justified or not (and I’m not getting into that one at all, because I won’t change your minds and y’all won’t change mine), it happened. We can’t change that. Given that, if y’all were running the government, what choices would you make? I see people (not here) asking why the government is spending money in Iraq while people here can’t read, and I see other people asking why we’re not giving more money to rebuilding things in Iraq and therefore leaving projects unfinished. Where would you spend the money? Especially given that contractors aren’t going to go work on water and power systems without the degree of safety (even if it’s not complete security) provided by soldiers? So the aims of bringing our troops home and rebuilding the infrastructure over there are close to mutually exclusive.

Also, to rubberband, no, guns don’t win hearts and minds. However, some of the men and women who carry them do conduct themselves in such a way that they win hearts and minds. Not everyone there hates us, and some of the troops over there have won the hearts and minds of some of the Iraqi people.

Let serious people deal with this, and get out.

Unfortunately, I think we’re in a Catch-22. It would be irresponsible to leave the country a mess, but the country won’t get better as long as we’re there. I have no idea how to solve this.

I no longer believe in a place called Hope, but I’m still kind of holding out for a place called Correctionville.

We might have to settle for a place called Suckerville, though.

I spent the better part of the 90′s working in the developing world on different contracts (government and NGO) and I’ll tell you, the USAID personel I dealt with gave me a foretaste of how the US was going to handle the Iraqi reconstruction. They alternated between cluessness chirpiness and profound exacerbation over the inability of “these people” to just get things done. I never thought to ask at the time if they’d ever posted their CV’s at the Heritage Foundation.

My solution to this? Get out now, and let other people who are really interested in and good at reconstruction take over.

You may be angry now…I’ve been angry for 4 years.

Huzzah for us!

Invisible hand, and all that.

Yep. That’s exactly what it is. Pathetic.

The trouble is you operate in a world where “shame” and “obligations” and “goodwill” still have currency in politics.

The cognative dissonance that goes on daily within the brain of a American conservative these days must resemble TV snow — and more than ever they’re responding like old Communists when the party line changes.

Here’s the thing, though: I do think we have an obligation to help Iraq rebuild, seeing how we invaded their country and whatnot. We owe it to them to continue the funding of reconstruction projects. That these assholes are simply gonna withdraw all funds makes me incredibly angry.

I had thought about the ‘liberal/messianic hawk’ angle, but realistically, there weren’t that many of them, they are overrepresented in the media/political sphere and they were overly credulous, willing idiots to trust and/or believe this president. Sure, they’re mad, but what the fuck are they going to do about it? They’re just mad at the execution of the war, as if there was the possibility of a better outcome to this madness — an ad hoc war based on lies and/or utter distortions in the name of fear.

Most of the most egregious characters made their nut out of this war. They got fat off the no-bid contracts, they won their election, they mau-maued the opposition — and they got rid of Hussein. To them, that was the most positive outcome possible. Why stay now? Iraq has served its purpose.

But as for the rest of them… well, I think they just enjoy invading countries.

That, or the whole ‘democracy in Iraq’ thing was really only a fig leaf covering their unceasing support of crippling and killing brown people in order to save them.