Cures For The World’s Ills – Part I

Now I as I have made abundantly clearing previous entries, I have never been for the war in Iraq. Afghanistan, hell yes. They had fair warning and didn’t release bin laden. We had ever right to be in there and boot the Taliban out. The Iraq war was started on flimsy pretexts of WMD and “Protecting our Nations Security (against a nation so poorly armed it would have trouble defending itself, let alone launching an attack) and “freeing the Iraqi people”. Only now it looks like the Iraqis really didn’t want to be freed. At least, not by us.

But whether we all agree on if we should be there or not, the fact is we are there and we now have to deal with it. Given rising death toll of our troops something needs to be done fast.

First of all, it has been suggested (Kudos to Book Hound) that the best way to “build democracy” is not to have national elections first thing. These people have not lived in a democracy, they don’t know how it works, so they need to take baby steps. Let them get to know the system from the ground up. Instead of voting for a representative they do not know and probably do not trust, they should be voting for city/village council members. It’s hard to believe Abu the Barber is an American Imperialist Stooge if he’s been cutting your family’s hair for 30 years. From there you can do regional and then national elections, depending on how fast things come together.

Second: We need to remove the contractors from Iraq. Now. Iraq has engineers, architects and construction companies. The contractors are simply taking jobs from the Iraqi people leaving them with little income and no stake in what we rebuild. The average Iraqi household income has dropped by a third since the invasion. Not only that, but big contractors like Haliburton subcontract, subcontract and subcontract with each sub contractor taking a chunk off the top so millions of dollars are lost before anyone even sets foot in Iraq (not to mention there exorbitant salaries) There’s very little work being done for the taxpayer dollar.

The contractors were the first target of Iraqi resentment and that speaks volumes. Let the Iraqi’s decide how Iraq should be rebuilt. By removing the contractors and just giving the Iraqi the materials to rebuild, we give them a stake in their country again.

Third. Stop building permanent military bases. Now. The most obvious sign on American intent, can such a permanent military prescience mean anything but “We’re here as an occupying force?” Is it any wonder that the Iraqis are joining the insurgents and terrorist groups in droves?

Four: Relinquish control of the Iraq’s oil. Get the contractors out. Relinquish the veto we hold over the Oil ministry’s decisions. Oil is 95% of Iraq’s economy. By retaining control over that, we are keeping our boot firmly on their necks.

These four steps will show that we are there in good faith, that we are not there to turn their country into a satellite nation for our own gain. After everything that has happened, I don’t know if we will ever regain the Iraqi’s trust in our lifetime, but we can show that despite our mistake, we do want the best for them. Putting Iraqi’s back to work, giving them a stake in the democratic process and rebuilding their nation the insurgents will have less support and American troops can spend less time being at risk and more time training the Iraqi’s to defined themselves.

And maybe someday we can get out of there.

Thus spaketh the bossy Lioness....

Boom-shaka-laka-laka-boom.*



*Sorry Duncan!