ISIS on the offensive in Iraq

[Viking]

The Kurd PM seems like a clever fellow. Of course, he also agrees with me.

Meanwhile, Iraq formally asks the US for air support. And the war, it...uh, goes on.

[drone]

Meanwhile, Iraq formally asks the US for air support. And the war, it...uh, goes on.

Do you want airstrikes? Because that's how you get airstrikes.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Ask and ye shall receive. Also, I believe that the record will show that I was against De-Baathificatiin when it was brought up.

[HoreTore]

Ask and ye shall receive. Also, I believe that the record will show that I was against De-Baathificatiin when it was brought up.

What they did back then was to basically fire the entire civil service of the nation.

If that's not a guaranteed screw-up, nothing is.

[ICantSpellDawg]

What they did back then was to basically fire the entire civil service of the nation.

If that's not a guaranteed screw-up, nothing is.

I'm not sure what they were thinking.

[Beskar]

I'm not sure what they were thinking.

That is not hard to understand. "They are part of the evil regime, they need to all be removed"
It just starts to fall apart when they didn't actually implement an action plan on the part after, which left everything in shambles.

[Pannonian]

That is not hard to understand. "They are part of the evil regime, they need to all be removed"
It just starts to fall apart when they didn't actually implement an action plan on the part after, which left everything in shambles.

It's part of the hankering after the Greatest Generation and the Good War. Which all the victorious Allies (British, Americans, Russians) fall prey to, but the Americans are particularly affected by the combo of having the power to play out their WW2 fantasies whilst not having the stomach to repeat the atrocities. Intervene to save the world from the evil dictator, de-nazify, build a nation for freedom and democracy, etc.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I'm not sure what they were thinking.

That Bush was Harry Truman and it was the End of World War II, I think.

[GenosseGeneral]

What they did back then was to basically fire the entire civil service of the nation.

If that's not a guaranteed screw-up, nothing is.

It is. "On a daily basis, rule is primarily instituted by the government's bureaucracy." Max Weber

I remember how people liked to draw analogies between Iraq and Nazi Germany becoming a democracy after WW2.
In fact, the elites of 1950s and 1960s Western Germany were to a large percentage Nazis.

[Kralizec]

It is. "On a daily basis, rule is primarily instituted by the government's bureaucracy." Max Weber

I remember how people liked to draw analogies between Iraq and Nazi Germany becoming a democracy after WW2.
In fact, the elites of 1950s and 1960s Western Germany were to a large percentage Nazis.

One of the most surprising things I learned in the past few years (from reading the Spiegel, in this case) was that even in the later days of Adenauer's government it was common practice among politicians and civil servants to call someone they despised a "judenhilfer".

The Soviets were far more thorough with their de-nazification efforts. But then again, political purges were a compulsive habit of theirs. And the ones they did put into power weren't particulary nice people, either.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28042302

Russia sells Iraq jets because the US won't.

Well done guys

*Headdesk*

[Brenus]

“I remember how people liked to draw analogies between Iraq and Nazi Germany becoming a democracy after WW2.
In fact, the elites of 1950s and 1960s Western Germany were to a large percentage Nazis.” Partially true, but the Allies didn’t fire all of them, even the SS, with their weapons. And the Allies had a plan for Germany. They even had one for France, but it failed.
And the Anti-Nazi Germans were genuine one, having paid the price in Dachau and others place like this. And even the Nazi knew they had lost the war, and 1944 attack on Hitler showed it.

[Pannonian]

In the USA we draw a stark distinction between the military and the civil service. It is hard for a lot of Americans to wrap their heads around nations where there is virtually no difference between the two... and there's a lot of nations like that--Ba'athist Iraq, North Korea, China (not so much as it used to be), lots of smaller dictatorships in the mid-east and elsewhere. Culture-blindness is our biggest problem, internationally.

AFAICS China's ruling class is comprised of engineers, whereas classical western democracies have a ruling class comprising of lawyers. Which results in China's government prizing solutions at the expense of rights, whereas western democracies prize rights at the expense of solutions.

[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?