Oreos, motivation and Iraq

Did you ever get caught doing something you weren't supposed to, and then made it worse by not admitting what you were up to?

Like when you got caught by your girlfriend naked in the kitchen at 3 AM with an Oreo in your mouth; and rather than just admit that you needed a sugar-fix, you tried to swallow the cookie too quickly and started coughing up black crumbs all over the floor.

What? That's never happened to you?

Me neither.

The point is that when you hide your true motivations when making a mistake, you tend to get into more trouble.

This phenomena explains why President Bush refuses to set a time-table for withdrawal from Iraq even though everything in that country is falling apart. He insists that we should stay until Iraq is able to maintain it's own security forces to fight the insurgency and Al Quada.

Or, as he puts it: "Until the mission is complete."

Okay, fine. We'll ignore that the original mission was to disarm Iraq and remove Saddam.

How long should it take to raise an army for security anyways?

To find out, let's let's jump into the time machine of our minds and take a quick trip to April of 1917. The United States Congress had just declared war on Germany in what was at the time called "The Great War". (Known today as WWI.)

At the time, the US Army didn't have a single unit of divisional size; it had no experience of large-scale operations since the end of the Civil War 51 years earlier, and, had no equipment heavier than medium machine guns. The only first-class American force was the Marine Corps of about 15,500, but it was scattered in overseas possessions such as Central America. (1)

Yet, by March 1918 over 318,000 American soldiers had been trained, equipped and shipped over to Paris - and they proceeded to kick the Kaiser's teeth in.

The lesson here is that it doesn't take that much time to create a functional military if you have the motivation.

And that's the nub of the problem: Motivation. A stable Iraq flies in direct contradiction of the real reason for the Iraq invasion: Oil.

If the Bush Administration had trained security forces properly and promptly, allowed a stable government, and repaired the infrastructure - the first thing Iraqis would have done is demand that the Americans, the oil companies and their contractors, leave the country.

And that is what the NeoConservatives are afraid of. They went into Iraq thinking that people would great them with flowers and beg them to stay to build McDonald's restaurants.

Instead they are stuck with a cookie in their mouth and no-where to hide.

It's not that I believe the Administration wanted a civil war - it's just that once it became clear they couldn't have a legitimate government that would let them stay, Bush's handlers decided to place their bets on the chance that if they stay in long enough Iraqis will accept a permanent US presence.

And why shouldn't they take that gamble? They aren't the ones who are going to have to clean the mess off the floor. That's what your children are for.

Read counterpoint here.

Tags: Iraqi Civil War - US Occupation - NeoConservative - Bush Administration - WWI - Motivation

(1) From The First World War, by John Keegan. Chapter 10, page 372.

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