ISIS on the offensive in Iraq

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Ya that's not the point. If you're in the People's Liberation Army of 1990, you're as lilkely to be a fire fighter as anything else. To a large degree that still holds true--the chinese military is heavily involved in infrastructure and civil service.

Quite correct. Any number of Chinese organizations were "wholly owned" subsidiaries of the PLA. The soldiers were "active duty" as machinists etc. and the places were run with -- quite literally -- military discipline.

[Brenus]

So, the solution would have to create artificial jobs in order to relaunch the activity in Iraq (in building new infrastructures). Yeah, but this would have benefit to the Iraqis, not to the US firms. It would have cost less as well. Employing former soldiers, keeping them out of unemployment in providing services, isn't it against the "free" market economy that is the Holly idea of the time?

[HopAlongBunny]

We tried to rebuild the civil service (that is to say, the police and the army) from scratch, on a generic model pretty much exactly like the one that was in place before. The Iraqis just didn't want it.

Given that that amounts to a social revolution (given the tribal/familial structure) of social position and technical knowledge/ability, again it is hard to imagine that the resulting disorder was not foreseen.
The transformation required a generational commitment to security and support.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Well, everybody assumed (by everybody I mean Bush, Cheney, and Co.) that it would be a like a Field of Dreams scenario. If you build it (or throw money at it) they will come (or stop killing you).

Absolutely. Not saying that this wasn't negligent on the part of our leadership -- it was -- but it was assumed that the vast majority of Iraqis sought freedom as much as the Kurds -- who had lobbying commercials running -- and that the natural yearning for freedom would take care of the rest. Sadly, those who kept saying that it would fall into a shambles and we needed to be ready for that were ignored or actively told to shut up.

[HopAlongBunny]

The whole adventure was based on fabrication: WMD's, baby-killers, AlQ linkages.
The media bubble made it difficult (even here in Canada) to get factual data; if there was any victory out of the whole mess, it has to be assigned to the developers and implementers of the disinformation campaign that sold the policy.
Interesting, is the apparent trend for people to "double-down" on the propaganda when faced with facts

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...tical-unreason