Thursday, July 14, 2005

Iraq at New Ruskin College Part II


www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Army Navy Club
Item No.: 45
07-13-05

“ First, the United States missed the opportunity before the war to train enough Kurds and other Iraqi exiles to assist the U.S. military, he said. "That didn't happen in the numbers we had hoped," he said.

“ A plan to train an estimated 5,000 Iraqi exiles in Hungary produced instead only a few hundred, in part because U.S. military leaders at Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, were uncomfortable with it. Training Iraqi forces has since emerged as the central thrust of the U.S. exit strategy for Iraq.

“ Even more important, Feith said, was the reluctance among some U.S. officials to transfer power early on to an Iraqi government and dismantle the U.S. occupation authority, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA),
headed by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer.”
---- Washington Post, Pentagon Official Admits Iraq Errors, By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post Staff Writer, July 13, 2005

“BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 13 - A suicide car bomber on Wednesday steered his sport utility vehicle toward a group of children who had crowded around a patrol of American troops and detonated his payload, killing as many as 27 people, nearly all of them children, government and hospital officials said. One American soldier was also killed.”
---- New York Times, Baghdad Bomb Kills Up to 27, Most Children, By
KIRK SEMPLE, Published: July 14, 2005

So we never learn. Why should anything be different now at the end than it was before?

Was the patrol worth the lives of 26 Iraqis and an American?

Did we even ask the question?

The American generals had permission, authorization, to train 5,000 Iraqi troops, before the war, and they only trained 500?

Remember in Falujha the Marines were said to be “frustrated” because the day before five Marines had been killed by a terrorist who had pretended to be dead?

First question: Why five? How many Marines does it take to check out a dead Iraqi?

Second: Why not leave the enemy dead and wounded to the Iraqi Red Crescent?

Because there was no Iraqi Red Crescent accompanying the Marines. Because the 5,000 troops that could have been trained, before the war, were not trained.

That soldier on the candy distribution mission might have been sent home had the troops been trained in 2002.

Had the . . .

Oh well, . . .

“ Iraq's government acknowledged that some of its new security forces could be resorting to the sort of torture and abuses of detainees seen under Saddam Hussein as they struggle to put down Sunni insurgents.
Responding to reports alleging the widespread use of irregular arrests and of violence against prisoners by Iraqi police and other security units, a government spokesman blamed it in part on the brutalizing of Iraqi society under Saddam and said ministers were addressing the problem.

“ "These things happen. We know that," Laith Kubba said in a news briefing after a report in Britain's Observer newspaper detailed allegations of death squads and secret torture centers.

“ Six months ago, New York-based Human Rights Watch documented what it called "routine and commonplace" abuse by Iraqi forces.” --- Iraqi government acknowledges torture of detainees, Spokesman attributes incidents of abuse in part to the brutalization of society under ousted regime of Saddam Hussein, Compiled by Daily Star staff, Monday, July 04, 2005

And so it goes. Of course our general in charge of prisons says she is not guilty of mismanagement because she never inspected the prisons. Such was the American example of how to handle prisoners.

“Accounts are common of people being seized by armed men in the uniforms of the police, army or special units like Baghdad's Wolf Brigade police commandos, and then disappearing without a trace or being found dead, sometimes showing signs of torture.”

See, this was the strategic objective. Not “kill them over there so we do not have to fight them here,” nor to “demonstrate our dominance”, nor to “rough up some rag heads.” The strategic objective was to deny the terrorists a state sponsor by creating a free Iraq, that could secure its sovereignty and not fall into civil war and genocide.

This was the objective. This was your job. What were you doing?

This is what all our billions were supposed to have bought us. Not just the billions for this war, I’m talking about all the billions. All the training. All the equipment. McCain has been an apologist saying “In North Africa we made mistakes but---” North Africa! That was an army that had been thrown together in two years! This army has had billons of dollars, decades to prepare. North Africa! What foolishness.

But when you entered the country you did not have even the puny 5,000 you were permitted. You did not accept the surrender of the old army. You did not even photograph and finger print them. Forget programs of indoctrination, civil reconstruction corps, training battalions. Not even a picture and a record of who they were, where they served . . . where they lived . . .

Did not care?

Painting classrooms was not the objective. Guarding gas stations and banks was not the objective. Giving out candy was not the objective.

Just secure the sovereignty of the new Iraq, prevent the new army from seizing control and prevent genocide . . .

But I have to let go. What a confusion. What turmoil.

When I was nine I was informed by my mother that the teachers had determined that I was retarded.

And given my personality, ah, you know, I ah, focus on life . . . and yet as I have grown older I have learned that I am not retarded. I look around at the rest of you and I am in disbelief . . . I am retarded?

So when things with Marlene started to go down hill, the more things fell apart the more I thought about a promise I had made to myself that when I grew up I would do something to help in education.

So I kept my promise to the unhappy child. I tried to get the government interested in the use of technology in education. Then I could die.

But I met Yvonne and perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps I could . . .

But then Yvonne betrayed me too . . .

I have continued on these last fifteen years as one after another of them, Weiner, Owens, Krasney, Imus, Swanson . . .

If you don’t take action against them it gets worse . . . if you do take action against them it gets worse . . . if you do or if you don’t . . .

What have you all been doing? You have destroyed my life . . . for what? Why?

I don’t understand what you are thinking. Are you thinking? You had the funding to train 5,000 and you only trained 500?

And I am retarded? I just wrote some letters to the Senate. Just a few letters. And for this you have followed me for fifteen years . . . destroyed my life for what?

Emptiness


www.NewRuskinCollege.com

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