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Apr. 13th, 2004 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrphSo, 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:
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 announcedYeah, 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.
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Date: 2004-04-13 11:29 pm (UTC)The first democratic elections in South Africa were ten years ago. SA passed from apartheid to intergration relatively peacefully[1].
But even now, despite relative peace[2] there is heavy unemployment, a massive increase in Aids and crime.
And this is 10 years later. New governments, or any government for that fact, can promise housing, jobs and a better life...but that doesn't mean they can neccessarily make it happen...SA is a prime example of this - life is not much better for some people, and in some cases it is much, much worse.
I imagine it would be 100x harder to do that in a country that is on the brink...like Iraq
[1] in comparison to the recent events in Iraq. They weren't that peaceful because I remember the shit that was happening at the the time that _didn't_ get reported - however that is not the point
[2] ie: there is not rioting in the streets and bombs going off etc