And what about Iraq? Part II; The aftermath period.  

Posted 20 May 2003.

Yes, what about Iraq now the war is over? Lets answer this with a set of answers and comments via the following summary:

A) Speed of the war, the sudden ending.
B) The economical sanctions.
C) The hate against America.
D) The failure of the concept of 'Instant retaliation'
E) What about that democracy thing and Islamic law and so on?

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A) Speed of the war, the sudden ending. Indeed, with the wisdom of hindsight you can conclude it went all a bit fast. A lot have been told on this subject, lets simply say a lot of things worked well but when you talk of war it is evident that things could always have been better. 
The sudden ending was good, suddenly the bombs stopped falling and from this place I would like to thank CENTCOM and stuff like that for listening to me at the right time. Thank you, I won't forget this.

In case you are interested, in nr 37 of the timeline you can find more info on the sudden end of the bombings.

And after the war there was silence...? No, there was no silence and if you would have asked me on the forehand if I would expect looting on such a scale I would simply have said 'no, I do not expect that'. But it happened and since the entire army suddenly melted away in society still a lot of guns are in the population so one could expect problems to continue for some time. Most people are simply not willing to give up their guns... May be in the future, may be.

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B) The economical sanctions. To my surprise there were all kinds of problems in the United Nations when it came to the subject of lifting the economical sanctions, it had to be proofed that the WMD stuff was really gone, there had to be this and there had to be that. The 'economical arguments' from Russia and France did make some sense but all in all I did get some bitter taste in my mouth from it all.
It is wise to know that all I ever wanted is lifting of these sanctions, therefore it would be wise to get rid of that stupid Saddam figure with his rapist regime and that was some pleasure too. My primary goal has been lifting of the sanctions, this was clear the main goal and I hope they will be gone as soon as possible. 

I hope you hope this too, lets pray for that.

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C) The hate against America. This point is a problem for the Americans in Iraq, so many people hate America so very much that it simply never ever anything is good. There is always suspicion, there are always second thought about everything America does or say. This is the problem of America, she has created the hate herself and it would be wise to try and make this hate less massive and less burning. Given the way America rammed around for a lot of decades this will take many years and if she does not solve the 'hate problem' well than terror attacks on a much larger scale will be reasonable to expect.

Even I, some democratic guy living in Holland, hated America in rather large quantities and with a heavy and burning desire. When the sanctions will be lifted, one of the roots to this hate will be gone. That is all I can say to America, to the Iraqis I would like to say 'Don'l let your hate be some barrier into rebuilding Iraq'. Try to forget it a few months or may be years and use your brain to deal with the problems the Americans might arouse. So a bit less of all these emotions please, don't forget the Americans aren't that supersmart and they are no superhumans or so. 
It is true that America is the most powerful nation right now, but the differences aren't that big as a lot of people do believe. Simple example; just look at me, how much billions dollars damage did I do just on my own? 

All in all, it could be that the hate against America is some serious hinder for a long time from now. The Americans must not indulge in 'they hate the freedom loving people' because this is a fake argument, the hate was build brick by brick over many many years but you never ever cared very much. And that's one of your problems America....

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D) The failure of the concept of 'instant retaliation'. This was for me the biggest disappointment of it all, at points in time it drove me mad and I got a bit despair in my heart from it. It looks safe to conclude that the international 'terror organizations' are by far not the sharp sword I need, by far not. Who knows what the future brings, but the retaliation against civil Iraqi losses was simply not at the scene.
Happily there are always more ways to reach the 'desired state' and with a lot of luck I was able to grab all my strength together and suddenly the bombs stopped. Again I would like to thank 'the beast' (of modern warfare) for listening to me on the moments it counted (remark me being terrible diplomatic...;)).

Also I would like to thank the White House for ramming a bit different approach to war through the throat of the Pentagon, if it was up to the Pentagon old old war planners things would be very different and I probably would hate you a lot more today. So thank you for that, and for the rest I would like to ask you the next:
Simply evaluate the WMD you found against what you were thinking would be found or would be there... Don't you think there is a bit of a difference between thought and 'real findings'? I can tell you with drugs you have the same kind of problem, you have some talent to create enormous problems by the way. But give it a second thought please.

At last I would like to remark that the 'retaliation terror' was more or less annihilated because the stupid Saddam started asking for this himself. This must have confused all operatives that were working on 'some help to the Iraqi people'. I do not understand why a statesman (the stupid Saddam) would ask for terror, that is simply some impossible thing for a statesman to ask for and again we can conclude it is ok this not so smart thing is gone right now.

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E) Democracy, Islamic law and all that difficult stuff. For some time I am breaking my head on this subject and even I do not have very much clues. How to explain to the Iraqi people how some fair democracy works? That it is simple 'one human has one vote' and that laws are made in parliaments and that in the parliaments also simply 'one human one vote' and so on and so on.
How to explain that each person and each group of people always can start some political party and can take part into elections? All those political parties have to do is accept the rules along the parliament works, the so called fundamental laws that rule the state structure?

Lately I have read a lot of criticism against 'democracy' in so called 'Muslim news and opinion articles', stuff like 'democracy and dictatorship go along very well' (meant was of course that America very often did make use of rouge states to make some cold war). Again, this is only a part of the 'hate problem' America has, she did build the hate brick by brick and it will take many years to get rid of the hate if ever.
The critics have been read by me and weighted too light, they do not attack the foundations of the 'democracy idea' but only the real life behavior of states. And if there is no power to correct such a state, in that case democracy is raped in some way and indeed this is what America has done over and over again (protecting the 'American interests'...).

But I simply want some kind of real democracy in Iraq so I just hope this will be done. Now lets look at what kind of model could be applied or may be thought of. No clue did I have, just no clue whatsoever. But today I read on some news wire a good suggestion; it was called the 'Belgium model'. Simply said; in Belgium there is a 'national parliament' and a few others serving dominant minorities (the French speaking population is rather different from the Dutch speaking part and there are a few hundred thousand German speaking civilians too). Iraq has also three 'big minorities' so it could be wise to look at something like one national parliament (or may be two national parliaments like here in Holland, I do not care upon such details) and a few 'local parliaments' that have much less 'law making power'. But the local parliaments do stuff like education laws, laws around religion, may be health care and stuff like that. Important to the local people but always very boring in nature to discuss. 

Now what about Islamic law? This sure is some 'hot potato' as the saying goes here, but I am clear on this point; Islamic law has a lot of good sides in it but simply look at the economical condition of countries having 'much Islamic law'. When Iraq would implement the full Islamic law (family, civil, criminal and so on) your economical future is clear; there won't be any. Simply because people from abroad will never accept killing females with stones for reasons just not understandable to them and this will hinder a lot of economical development. 

On the other hand, when you have some kind of working democracy you can make the all the laws you want. Do you get my point on this? Pic up the good stuff from the Islamic law as it is today, think about the long term consequences and try to be reasonable. Make reasonable laws and build reasonable courts, that is what brings peace and prosperity in the long run. Also it is not wise to look too much at America in making your 'own democracy', they have a lot of very unreasonable laws and are a sick kind of country in many ways, make it yourself make it fair and make it reasonable; one human=one vote, freedom of speech (you must speak polite of course), freedom of enterprise and so on (whole simple bunch). But again; do not believe the Americans when they say 'we are the true democracy', I could give you rather unreasonable and stupid and dangerous laws from there that you simply would not believe. Do not forget they lock op a full 4% of the entire population so de not fall into their sicknesses.   

And as always; when some (big) part of the population is some kind of Muslim than it is only natural that the local laws reflect this in a lot of details. Free from work at important days, and it is all so simple my dear Iraqis so what is holding you back? 

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End of the second part of this 'strange story'. I hope the Iraqis will pick some elements up from it and I am well aware of the lousy situation you are in right now. It is just a big chaos and I like chaos but I can understand too that you would like to see things getting back to normal again. It is up to you, get some help from that 'coalition stuff'

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