What we did to Iraq and Afghanistan

[SoonerCoug]

Saint Louis is designated as a refugee city, and so it has a tremendous population of Bosnians (largest outside of Bosnia), Iraqis, Afghans, Liberians, Russians, Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis, and many other immigrants.

About 50% of my clinic patients are immigrants.

I make it a point to ask them about how things are going in Iraq and Afghanistan. (All of them have family there, and most emigrated within the last 5 years or so.) Their universal opinion is that life is much, much worse than it was before we invaded.

I have shared this with many Americans. The typical American response is: "It's worse for THEM and THEIR FAMILIES, but not for the people persecuted by the regime!" I'm not sure if that's true or not. In fact, many of these people were able to emigrate because they were persecuted.

Iraqis typically say things like this: "Saddam was very bad, but we had a government and there was order. Even now in 2012, it is just chaos."

[Indy Coug]

It's going to be a lengthy process.

[Moliere]

I took over a hundred years and 5 revolutions for France to finally shirk off most of it's aristocracy. People don't go from a dictatorship to democracy overnight. I'm not saying what we did has improved Iraq (I really don't know) but basing the progress on 10 years of work would be like calling the French Revolution a failure because of the reign of terror.

[SoonerCoug]

It's going to be a lengthy process.

This is what I said to them. I used Russia as an example. They did not find this example reassuring.

[Katy Lied]

I can see that. Maslow would say that people crave order, and only when there is order do they crave freedom. Marx said societies have to pass through certain economic stages, in roughly the same order as Maslow's hierarchy. It was Lenin who advocated jumping over the inevitable path of economic history.

The Taliban created order but before them, the soviets created order and before them, the ottoman empire created order. Perhaps that whole region is stuck in the order rut. Especially since the individuals for whom freedom is very important have escape routes to the West.

[byu71]

Saint Louis is designated as a refugee city, and so it has a tremendous population of Bosnians (largest outside of Bosnia), Iraqis, Afghans, Liberians, Russians, Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis, and many other immigrants.

About 50% of my clinic patients are immigrants.

I make it a point to ask them about how things are going in Iraq and Afghanistan. (All of them have family there, and most emigrated within the last 5 years or so.) Their universal opinion is that life is much, much worse than it was before we invaded.

I have shared this with many Americans. The typical American response is: "It's worse for THEM and THEIR FAMILIES, but not for the people persecuted by the regime!" I'm not sure if that's true or not. In fact, many of these people were able to emigrate because they were persecuted.

Iraqis typically say things like this: "Saddam was very bad, but we had a government and there was order. Even now in 2012, it is just chaos."

That's too bad. A lot of money and more importantly lives were lost trying to make Iraq free. Why have they come to America? We don't have a government that makes decisions for everyone yet. I would think the existing government in Iraq is closer to what they want than we are.

[SoonerCoug]

I realize that it's hard to make a transition to democracy, but all of this makes me wonder if we did something wrong. Why don't we just leave these countries the hell alone?

[Uncle Ted]

Seems like a good time to post this again...

[YOUTUBE]tjuUWr9vaXo[/YOUTUBE]

[SoonerCoug]

That's too bad. A lot of money and more importantly lives were lost trying to make Iraq free. Why have they come to America? We don't have a government that makes decisions for everyone yet. I would think the existing government in Iraq is closer to what they want than we are.

They came here for the same reason that many people come here--economic opportunity. And they were also fleeing chaos.

[byu71]

I realize that it's hard to make a transition to democracy, but all of this makes me wonder if we did something wrong. Why don't we just leave these countries the hell alone?

Bad timing. You should have let this thread fester for a while before coming out with what you were getting at.

[tooblue]

I work with and teach many immigrants from Afghanistan and Iraq. My experience is the exact opposite of yours. They dread the inevitable NATO and US pullout. This is the first time they have actually been able to return to their native country in relative safety and visit family they haven't seen for decades. Some—including many woman, surprisingly—actually now consider it a possibility that one day soon they could choose to return and live their permanently, so long as they continue to see progress supported by a strong US and NATO presence.

[SoonerCoug]

I work with and teach many immigrants from Afghanistan and Iraq. My experience is the exact opposite of yours. They dread the inevitable NATO and US pullout. This is the first time they have actually been able to return to their native country in relative safety and visit family they haven't seen for decades. Some—including many woman, surprisingly—actually now consider it a possibility that one day soon they could choose to return and live their permanently, so long as they continue to see progress supported by a strong US and NATO presence.

Don't you live in Canada? Isn't everything backwards up there? Maybe you have a different batch of immigrants.

I see that you are referring to people who haven't been there for DECADES. This is clearly a different batch. If they left in the 80s, we are talking about apples and oranges.

[jay santos]

I think the theory behind it is...

Your country or people your country harbors attacked us or threatened to attack us. We took military action to retaliate and protect our country. After this is done, we don't necessarily have a moral obligation to make your country politically and economically as thriving as it was before. We'll do a little of that, mostly to protect against this happening again, but we're not going to break our necks over it.

Whether or not that describes exactly what happened, I think this is what we intended, and I don't think we have a moral obligation to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan to make everything perfect. Bummer guys, but good luck with that. Next time don't attack us or threaten to attack us.

[tooblue]

Don't you live in Canada? Isn't everything backwards up there? Maybe you have a different batch of immigrants.

Canada's military presence and sacrifice in terms of commitment and lives lost in Afghanistan has been as great or greater than any other nation, the US included. The people I work with and have taught are very appreciative.

As an aside, there is also LDS Persian language Sunday School classes being held some city Wards. My college shares a campus with a University. You wouldn't believe how many Iranians, Pakistanis and middle eastern students are here studying nuclear science and engineering. Interestingly, they are dwarfed by the sheer numbers of Sri Lankan and Indian students on campus.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

It's interesting to see how Germany and Japan responded to us after we destroyed and then rebuilt their countries and contrast it with these Neanderthals in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Iraq was of course a mistake. But as for Afghanistan, let's just take a small part of the country and keep it, think something larger than Gitmo (sparsely populated but enough flat land for a sizable military installation) then we can bomb the shit out of the rest of the country when some group like the Taliban inevitably takes over again.