How bad does it have to get?

[yesdachi]

If you go and dismantle the extant law-enforcement system without setting up a decent replacement, the resulting anarchy is pretty squarely your fault. Human societies have developed more or less extensive systems for enforcing the assorted rules of behaviour that keep people from murdering each other at the drop of the hat for the quite simple reason that without those, they will and do. There's always enough violent assholes around for that, even without the pre-existing tensions Iraq had. "Doesn’t change the fact that the individual citizens have a personal responsibility to carry on in a civil manner and act according to the law" is nothing more than a cheap cop-out in the context.

You don’t think people should be responsible for their actions? Even children without parental supervision know the difference between right and wrong and understand that there will be consequences if they do something considered wrong. It’s hardly a cop-out to say that people should act responsibility if given a little freedom. It may be a bit presumptuous given the circumstance but hardly a cop-out.

[Ser Clegane]

It’s hardly a cop-out to say that people should act responsibility if given a little freedom.

I don't think that "people who cannot responsibly handle a little freedom" are the current problem in Iraq...

[yesdachi]

I don't think that "people who cannot responsibly handle a little freedom" are the current problem in Iraq...

But these moral guardians have been given some freedom and chose to murder rather than take a civil approach.

[Kagemusha]

May they rest in peace.What else can i say.There are lights and then there are darkness in this world.If people who made a living to make children happy had to die becouse of that,i can only hope that they are in better place now.

[Watchman]

We're talking about a country that has been sliding towards the edge of complete sectarian strife for the past few years, with escalating levels of violence and lines being drawn. Nevermind now hardocre fanatics form both home and abroad running amuck around the place. And wasn't one of the few things the Iraqi legislation has been capable of the dissolving of some of Saddam's actually progressive laws...?

You don’t think people should be responsible for their actions? Even children without parental supervision know the difference between right and wrong and understand that there will be consequences if they do something considered wrong. It’s hardly a cop-out to say that people should act responsibility if given a little freedom. It may be a bit presumptuous given the circumstance but hardly a cop-out.

Vous must be kidding. Regardless of what they should and ought to be doing, it is pretty much a fact that in the absence of credible enforcement people will all too often simply ignore "the rules" even in less extraordinary circumstances as have reigned in Iraq for a while now. Assuming anything else is simply naive. You said it yourself: "understand that there will be consequences if they do something considered wrong". Well, the thing is, among the many really bright things the US did was entirely dismantling all the existing institutions charged with taking care of these things and not building working new ones to fill the vacuum...

Of course people are responsible for their actions. That just isn't worth a rusty tin can full of slimy rainwater in practice if nothing exists to keep them from doing as they will to each other. Nature and human societies hate vacuums. Social power vacuums will shortly be filled, and rarely by very pleasant people. It could be argued that just about the foremost duty of any ruler is specifically to keep this from happening, in order to avoid a Hobbesian Jungle situation where, as it were, "the strong did what they could, the weak suffered what they must".

Ultimately, the whole thing traces back to the rank inability of the US to do a decent job about occupying the place. If whoever is in charge isn't doing his job right criminals, extremist groups and other such unpleasant elements will be running amuck, and this is universally regarded as a shortcoming of the ruler(s).

[yesdachi]

I guess when given some freedom it is easier to take advantage of the situation that to act responsibly. Sad that they will have to be watched over like children, or abandoned if they cause too much trouble to their less than patient guardians.

[Watchman]

It's not just "some" freedom. The practical absence of rules enforcement in a sense creates total freedom - which includes the freedom to harm others. A rather major point of all law-enforcement systems - be they peer pressure, uniformed police, ancient custom or whatever - tends to be the idea that "your right to throw a punch stops at your neighbor's nose". Where enforcement is lacking and the society disintegrated, however, the normal restrictions rapidly cease to apply and people are increasingly likely to not adhere to them at all, or only in a particularistic (ie. own-group) fashion.

The worse slums actually work kind of the same way, I understand.