(no subject)

[mrph]

So, the 2nd Battalion of the Iraqi Armed Forces refused to fight in Fallujah.

At the time, the Washington Post quoted Major General Paul Eaton (who is "overseeing the development of Iraqi security forces") as saying members of the battalion insisted that they "did not sign up to fight Iraqis."

General John Abizaid, much more widely quoted in the press, has a different view on things. He says the battalion "did not stand up to the intimidators", and he has a solution in mind: "In the next couple of days you'll see a large number of senior officers being appointed to key positions in the ministry of defence and the Iraqi joint staff and in Iraqi field commands.".

A lot of onlne news sources don't really elaborate on that statement, but the BBC site spells it out very clearly:

A number of top brass from Iraq's Baathist former regime would shortly be appointed to "key positions in the ministry of defence and the Iraqi joint staff and in Iraqi field commands", the top officer announced

Yeah, I can see why that makes sense to Abizaid. I mean, if they were "top brass" under Saddam, they're unlikely to have any real problems with shooting troublesome Iraqis, are they? Or anyone else they're told to shoot, for that matter.

Another great day for freedom and democracy, then.

Comments

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Yup.

Thing is, if they were re-appointing the rank and file army, I wouldn't be so worried. I still think one of their biggest mistakes was sending the conscripted soldiers home with their weapons - and without their wages...

[taoist-goth.livejournal.com]

I just get the feeling that all these opposing factions - Sunni, Shia and what have you - actually *need* a forceful hand to keep them from slapping each other. I'm certainly not suggesting Saddam should return but I really think this new democratic thingy is just too fragile and namby pamby to survive while all these tribes are vying for power with each other. I'm not sure democracy can ever actually work in arab states - their whole ethos just doesn't sit well with a voting system. None of the other Arab states are democracies, are they? I think we'll find that as soon as the yanks hand Iraq over to this new government and withdraw, the whole thing'll erupt into civil war until the most powerful tribe kills everyone else. I hope not, but I can just see it happening. And the yanks'll get the blame and probably rightly so.

[second attempt]

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Not so sure about that. After all, they were putting up portraits of Al-Sadr in the Sunni areas last week... nothing like a common cause to help build bridges.

As for democracy... well, the best (only?) local example would be Arafat, who was voted into office. That seemed to work until the last intifada took hold.

I think the main problem is actually showing the people that their vote will matter - if politicians are all the same, or if they're going to obey the US instead of the electorate, then why vote? If there's no chance achieving your aims through the ballot box, might as well try bullets and bombs instead...

[Which is why I'd much rather see Sinn Fein in the Northern Ireland Assembly, incidentally - once you've got ministers and MPs, you've taken root and there's suddenly much more to lose by abandoning the democratic process...]


Note to self: always check who's logged in on the PC before browsing LJ and posting comments. :)

[deeply-spurious.livejournal.com]

The problem, I think, is not that democracy can't work in Arab states - it is that democracy seems to take a huge amount of time to establish itself culturally - and also that it has far more chance of success when it is created from within than when it is imposed from without... In Iraq, for example, the democracy will always be vulnerable to attack by nationalists who will be able to present it as an alien phenomenon imposed from without...

Having said that, even the beginnings of democracies in the West were not exactly without chaos, bloodshed or elements of authoritarianism.