TelePolis writes about the kill ratio of US soldiers ¹. If you want small groups of hightech soldiers to survive in hostile environments, they have to be prepared to kill. Remember Black Hawk Down? A few US soldiers wounded, 19 killed, and estimates for Somali deaths reaching up to 1000 dead. What we need is a new type of soldier: True Peace Keepers and Nation Builders. Good communicators, fluent in other languages, interested in other cultures, prepared for the strange and colorful world out there.
TelePolis also writes about the failures of humanitarian war in Somalia and in the Kosovo, Afghanistan, and now Iraq. ² They claim that the US was unprepared, foolish, and naive. And I agree with that. They *also* say that we should have put more political and economical pressure on him, to have him removed from power by his own people.
Excuse me?! Are they saying perhaps, like Madam Albright did, that maybe those 500’000 dead children during the embargo were justified? Are they perhaps ignoring the humanitarian disaster in Iraq during the embargo?
They should have started much, *much* earlier: Not supporting a bastard like Saddam Hussein in the first place. And as TelePolis says, since the US has lost all credibility in the Near East, all they can do is be allies with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Now those are wonderful friends to have, unless you’re a freedom loving, human-rights respecting, free speech advocating person that is against torture (current technical term: “stress and duress techniques”) and the death penalty.
Where does that leave the American government? Actually, *where does that leave most of the classe politique in the West!?* Because America-bashing is not enough. Here in Europe we might point fingers accross the Atlantic, but let us not forget who helped Saddam build the bunkers (Switzerland), who built the chemical plants (Germany), who sold hims his first *weapons of considerable destruction* – my guess: France, Germany, the UK, and the US *all* did it. So thank you, too!
Which reminds me that the Swiss state-owned weapons producer RUAG is still dealing with the US and Israel. This is sad.
Back to Iraq. What now?
1. Are the no peace keepers available? People trained in this stuff?
2. Human Rights, Geneva Conventions. Start there.
3. Democracy at the bottom. Education and courses, experiments with local initiatives.
4. Improved internal feedback. Empower local initiatives (students, kids) to produce news. (I heard of such a project in Sri Lanka, accompanying the peace process.)
#Iraq