Bringing Freedom to Iraq American Style

[Disinterested]

Even if, against the odds, Iraqis manage to avert worse violence, history will still condemn America for its blundering in their country. Mr Shadid lists the mistakes dispassionately, including those well known—the insufficient number of occupying troops, the disbanding of Iraq's security forces—and those less advertised, that the Sadrist uprising began after an American helicopter rammed a sacred Shia flag for fun, or that the resistance in Fallujah began after American troops there massacred 15 unarmed protesters.

http://www.economist.com/printeditio...ory_ID=4342329

[RickSp]

Another review of "Night Draws Near"

A Harrowing Portrait of Life in Postwar Iraq

As the weeks of violence turned into months, frustration turned to bitterness and resentment at what was perceived by many Iraqis as "malicious inattention or inattentive malice" on the part of the United States. Memories of the Reagan administration's support for Mr. Hussein's government during the Iran-Iraq war resurfaced, as well as grievances over the American-supported sanctions that took such a toll on the civilians. "God Curse Saddam and the Americans" became a popular graffiti. ..... For ordinary Iraqis - who lived through the repressive regime of Saddam Hussein, the harrowing losses of the Iran-Iraq war, the ravages of the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and the hardships of international sanctions - the 2003 invasion by America and the continuing insurgency represent yet another chapter in what seems like a Sisyphean litany of suffering. As for the unrelenting suicide attacks and car bombs, Mr. Shadid writes near the end of this sobering and revealing book: "Bloodshed in itself was the ambition; it was a brutal, chilling, but calculated way to produce the perception of American failure" and "they succeeded, with cold brilliance, in magnifying the sense of U.S. failure in the eyes of most Iraqis and, for that matter, in the eyes of much of the world."

[jose]

Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.
http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html
those who do not study history are condemed to repeat mistakes

[newfederalist]

Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.

There is nothing like the sound of reading Sun Tzu in the morning. But in fact, it is true that with all the lives lost and money spent, Democracy in the Middle East will never survive, at least in the form/way we want it too. Unfortunate that those in power don't understand that.