Funny, I could have sworn hearing from US officials that things were going exceedingly well in Iraq. The Surge and all that was working. The article catalogs how the Brits, perhaps unintentionally since they didn’t bother trying to figure out how things worked here (sound familiar?), created this situation.
UK has left behind murder and chaos, says Basra police chief
The full scale of the chaos left behind by British forces in Basra was revealed yesterday as the city’s police chief described a province in the grip of well-armed militias strong enough to overpower security forces and brutal enough to behead women considered not sufficiently Islamic.As British forces finally handed over security in Basra province, marking the end of 4½ years of control in southern Iraq, Major General Jalil Khalaf, the new police commander, said the occupation had left him with a situation close to mayhem. “They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world,” he said in an interview for Guardian Films and ITV.
Khalaf painted a very different picture from that of British officials who, while acknowledging problems in southern Iraq, said yesterday’s handover at Basra airbase was timely and appropriate.
Remember when the Brits had to jailbreak a fews SAS operators. I wonder if that was the same police chief. And in this week news cycle Adem is going to Mecca. No, the other Mecaa, the one the bin Ladens rebuilt. Maybe he will get trampled getting purified.
Funny, I thought the UK pulling out was less “It’s going well out there” and more “It’s not our problem anymore”
Your damned if you do and your damned if you dont with the press now days
And of course liberals would like to pull US troops out and bring this sort of mayhem in the rest of Iraq. Oh wait, there’s been ethnic cleansing so it won’t be a problem. Or is it that the US has bought off the warring factions?
Let’s just settle on it’s all George Bush’s fault.
They are going exceeding well with the troops in place! The UK gutless retreat is a preview of what happens when you don’t put the proper structure in place to sustain the gains. Our troops deserve better.
Let’s just settle on it’s all George Bush’s fault.
Are you saying that it’s your fault?
Who’s responsible if not you or Bush?
If an occupying force stayed 20 years the results would be the same. Too many factions with decades of bad blood. Only an idiot fails to heed historical lessons, or an egotist that believes God has granted him special grace to succeed.
Bush did not control that part of Iraq.
The British had an agreement with the locals: “We will hide in our bases and pretend everything is okay, if you keep the noise down until after we leave.”
Result? Exactly the sort of thing projected for the rest of Iraq should the Democratic Party succeed in forcing a deadline to leave.
Its not just the Democratic Party, it is the Iraqi Government and the UN which are looking to end American occupation by December 31, 2008.
Truth is, this was inevitable. There will be similar stories when the US eventually pulls out too. All of this was predicted to happen before the illegal invasion of Iraq even took place.
Iraq sounds like a welfare queen. One who can’t ever get off their ass and make themselves a productive member of society. Instead they are dependent on government handouts.
It is a shame it is such a mess there. But that is not the UK’s fault. Iraq has had over 4 years to get their act together since the collapse of Saddam’s rein.
If the UK stayed another 2 months, 2 years, 20 years, things aren’t going to change there. They are still a bunch of dis-functional losers who care more about killing their neighbors for their religious beliefs than getting their own house in order.
Saddam knew something we didn’t. These people seem to need a strongman tyrant to rule over them with terror. It is the only thing they respect. God knows they don’t respect each other.
All wars are “illegal” in the sense meant in #10.
Why pick the ones the US in involved with and give all the others a free pass?
I must admit to being totally against the invasion of Iraq in the first place, but I think invading a country, destroying its stability and government, then pulling out before you stabilize is just sick.
As for Iraq being a welfare queen, well, really, how is a country supposed to get shit together with an occupying army there? Either leave a country to get on with themselves, or invade the country and establish order. This half-measure shit is just sick and is do little other than creating a whole never generation of people who hate us!
Problem:
Group and group, tribal, HATRED..
Empty city that Extremists THINK they can take.
Outside Extremists, Making things WORSE..
Until it gets AS BAD or WORSE then when Housain WAS’ in charge.. Things WILL NOT settle down.
POST the LAWS, and use Shea’ as the Back ground, and KILL everyone that goes against it…PERIOD.
Uncle Dave, Uncle Dave…
You don’t get to have it both ways now. Don’t you remember? You wanted forces out of Iraq, so don’t complain about what you were given.
They took their ball and went home…just like you asked!
ECA, try an alternative state of mind. One called “sobriety”.
Think…
This is/was going to happen, NO MATTER how we/they did it.
There is going to be Civil unrest/civil war, AND outsiders coming in to make it WORSE.
Until they have ENOUGH power/backing for the gov(there). Things are going to HELL in a Basket.. Until that country WORKS to keep OTHERS out, AND fixs the infighting of the GROUPS in the country..
this is like Hatfields/McCoys with Groups on the sides, rooting for BOTH SIDES, and filling IN with EXTRA’s(instigating MORE fighting)…and the GOV(theirs/Ours) trying to Stop the fighting..
The sooner we get out and let them go about killing each other off, down to the last man, woman and child, the better. Same goes for the rest of the Middle East.
If they are going to dye, them let them do it, and reduce the surplus population!
I agree with #19 And let’s ship them all of our LA gangs to finish off who ever is left.
#16: Where in this post am I complaining about that? I’m complaining, if anything, that the Brits did what the Americans did — went in without a clue about what they were doing and in the process made things worse.
What does one country owe another?
Nothing.
Countries have self interest and that is all.
Time to leave.
I’ll side with ArianeB –
Aren’t there enough historical examples of imperialism and the aftermath that we don’t really need to pretend it’s not a futile gesture to remain in Iraq as some sort of stabilizing force ? We either complete our takeover and declare them our newest member of the United States our just gtf out. There ain’t ever gonna be stability in a place that never had a clue what the word meant in the first place. But, oh yeah, let’s use this to justify an insane agenda from a moronic administration of greedy idiots.
Dr. Phill….#17
I’ve lived to long and watched this happen..
And all I get is a NICE fuzzy picture, being drunk or sober, hasn’t mattered, only in my spelling.
UncleDave,
Well, thats not how you came across. I read, and reread your post, and I’m trying to find something like that in it.
Perhaps you’re just upset about it. I could understand that.
#25: For the record, I am (and have been for a long time) unsure what to do about Iraq. It’s obvious that should never have gone in, but since we did and are responsible for fucking up the country, on the one hand, I think we have a responsibility to fix what we broke. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure it isn’t fixable so we should get out, let what’s going to happen eventually happen, and not get any more of our people killed. The Brits pulled out after doing the same as us, leaving their area more screwed up than it was before, despite what they are publicly saying. They decided to pull out, we’re still there.
My original thought on the whole middle east mess was to brick it all off and throw in a bunch of weapons. Nuke the place when the shooting stops.
There’s a joke I heard back some time ago, I don’t recall all of it, but three men find a magic bottle and each get one wish. I forget who the first one was, but the second was ObL and the third was a British civil engineer.
ObL’s wish was for the Moslem countries to be surrounded by a huge, impenetrable wall. The Brit says “I’d like a little clarification on that wall, if it does not count against my wish”. Genie says “Okay, maybe”. Brit says “This wall, it will hold water?”. Genie says, “No, that would not count. Hmmm, yes, it would hold water.”
Brit says “Fill it up.”
Nobody should have stuck their noses in the middle east’s business anyway. Let the Iraqi’s figure their own shit out. If Bush had pulled everyone out of the middle east as he was told to back in 2001, none of this would be happening. Saddam would still be telling the truth about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and untold thousands of lives would not have been lost.
In the meantime, one of the major markets in Baghdad, which was at this time last year largely shutdown with all the attacks, is open for business.
Sadly, the British have never had the heart for Iraq and basically went in as a favor to Bush from Blair. Brown has been spouting platitudes for months about how the UK being there was the right thing, and pulling troops out at the same time. Basra dosen’t have a Sunni/Shia problem like most ogf the central and Northern provinces. But they do have a lot of Bahai’s and Christians and Shia militia’s who don’t like eachother. The militia’s are killing the Bahai’s and the Christians for not being Islamic enough, and killing everyone who cooperated with the British, and eachother.
Even the Liberal media is finally telling the stories of success everywhere in Iraq, except Basra. The surge is working, quite well actually, but the Iraqi goverment is still playing jack off, so all the effort will come to naught, and when we leave it will be a bloodbath. If Bush and company had done what McCain had suggested from the begining, the militia’s and outsider’s and insurgent’s wouldn’t have ever been allowed a space to form and Iraq would a totally different place today.
I honestly feel that Rumsfield and Cheney should be tried for the war crime of deriliction of duty.
The only person that could have fixed this problem was hanged.
Even Saddam had problems with the Shiite areas in the south, which is why he had so many purges down there.
Iraq is much like the way Yugoslavia was, a rather delicate balancing act of a nation composed of many different ethnicities, religion variations, and all teetering on the edge of conflict.
The neocons had better not invade Iran, because iran is a completely different place. It has a real military, it has no ethnic divisions, it has a singular religion, and THEY ALL hate us.
Don’t think that a Ming the Merciless divide and conquer strategy will work there.
Bush will be putting your 14 year old children in camouflage and having them do suicide runs in humvees in iran before admitting fault. Its a GOP thing.