In Al Franken's book he points out that the army & batthists in Iraq

[applegrove]

were likely all fired because that would leave more room & money for Haliburton et all to do the rebuilding (if there was not enough army to do rebuilding of infrastructure - then contracts would go to US corporations).

De Bathification took place, all the army (even low level commanders who never had any decision or responsibility in Saddam rule) were all fired. All 400,000 of them. And let with their assault rifles.

Seems profit was more important that integrating Sunnis & Shiites, or maintaining stability.

After all - governance of any sort is believed by neocons to be in competition with big business.

Assholes!

So too were all low level govrnment functionaries fired - with the same effect of leaving more contracts for the private sector. Which the private sector is incapable of carrying out.

[NoPasaran]

1. De-Bathification stinks!

:crazy:

[applegrove]

2. Well no doubt a whole pile of baathists deserved to loose their jobs.

But pulling out the whole structure of governance and the army - for profit to American corporations seeking gross contracts - is simply another example of why neocon should be barred from power.

[enigma000]

3. Biggest strategic error of the occupation

Firing the entire Iraqi army and leaving them open to be bribed to fight the coalition and the new Iraqi government.

Should have kept them on the payroll and put them to work on make-work projects.

Naturally the top Baathists would be fired or put on trial. Put like the de-Nazification program of 1940 Germany, you couldn't prosecute every low level party functionary.

[applegrove]

4. Like the South African Truth & Reconciliation Tribunal - if you told

the truth and proved you were following orders - you got a pass. Not pretty. But the only way to keep structure in place.

The worst mistake was ignoring the generals and going in with too few troops.

Or perhaps going in altogether when Saddam had let weapons inspectors return to monitor & was offering to hold elections or to leave the country (as some rumors have it).

[enigma000]

6. Truth & Reconciliation Tribunal

I think that was one of the most important actions the South Africans took during the post-Apartheid period. Perhaps the Iraqis will setup something akin to it. I suspect the Shia and the Kurds are expecting some show of remorse from the Sunni Arab community - an apology for the persecution suffered under the Baath regime.

It will have to wait until after this new government is formed (April '06?) and then some of the more reasonable insurgent groups stand-down and foreign troops start to leave.

[applegrove]

7. Well the South Africans did that to heal - and to keep structure in place.

To late for the Iraqis - neocons already messed up the structure - obviously purposely - cause they love that. The crisis that creates the opportunity to experiment and put their Utopia into practice.

Perhaps such a commission would help Iraqis heal. God knows they deserve that at least.

[enigma000]

8. The neocons sure did mess up

1000 days in, and still making mistakes. Mind you the one advantage the South Africans had was the white minority gave up its monopoly on authority willingly. (It was pushed along, yes, but there was a choice). The Sunni Arabs (and certainly not the Baathists) never made that choice to give up power, they were overthrown. So now we have a sizable minority of Iraqis (20%-ish) who are slowly coming to terms with the post-Saddam realities.

You are right - a commission would help Iraqis heal.

[applegrove]

11. South African hate mongers did not give up willingly. They had to

face growing sanctions that stopped the ability of the rich elite to make any money. They were a systematic & institutional crime. The economy was only for whites all the time, and for blacks, only during the hours you were actually working for money and making nothing. The rest of the time black South Africans were ejected from the economy and forced to live in poor, insecure townships. Sanctions tore apart the benefits to apartheid.

Under Saddam - it wasn't a question of money so much. A personality cult. As the ability to be on the side of a monster who would not hurt you or your family - the prize under Saddam was to not live under terror if your were baathist. But to dole it out. Given a choice - many people choose to go that way. I don't know why. But because it was a personality cult - it was not affected by sanctions. Starvation just was passed on to non-baathists.

Don't know what the Sunnis were thinking - but it certainly was that they didn't want to get hurt. Why the whole air force stood down (they would have been sitting ducks in the sky when the country was invaded).

Still - something along the lines of not destroying infrastructure would have been a good thing to keep in mind. But as Al Fraken pointed out - that very infrastructure of nationalized industries and government (of course it would only be the lowly baathists in place - they still had experience & professionalism to an extent - the army could have been cleaning up cities). But that would compete with the opportunity for Haliburton to get a bigger contract.

Sounds like that was the thinking to me. And now they run around and try and get the same people they fired to sign up for jobs.

[FreedomAngel82]

5. Of course it's all about profit

In Moore's F911 film he points out how Haliburton "won" all these contracts to "rebuild" Iraq and nobody else even had a chance to do so.

[alfredo]

9. To get any good position like surgeon, officer, teacher, you had

to join the party.

bush and his junta didn't differentiate between loyalist and working stiff. Even when the casualties mounted, the US authority would not allow Iraqi doctors to return to their posts because of their membership in the party. Now those generals that could be rebuilding Iraq's army are with the insurgents.

[Kingshakabobo]

10. This article is an oldie but a goodie. From Harper's in case anyone hasn't

seen it. Explains the neo-con ideal of a free-market utopia and how they tried to implement it.

http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html

[applegrove]

12. Yes - Naomi Klein is brilliant. Al Franken sighted her in his thanks.

[Kingshakabobo]

13. Cool! I haven't finished the new book yet. I've been sending....

this article to everyone I can.

[applegrove]

14. I never read no logo. I've got a take on world trade which puts

Africa and the poorest places in the world first. I'm a third wayer so I don't know if I agree totally with all her economics - I have not read that much. Though when it comes to neocons - she is very perceptive.