In light of Canada’s half billion dollar and counting imbroglio in Iraq and Syria, I would like to quote Dr. Pharag Khana, a former senior geopolitical adviser to the U.S. Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The following is from his book, The Second World, published in 2008 by Random House Publishing Group in New York:
“The Iraq War exposed the United States as a superpower whose intelligence does not match its aspirations. Unable to differentiate meaningfully among Arab tribes and Islamic sects, the United States rashly abdicated its ethical responsibility to understand the country it was occupying, both for its own sake and for the sake of those it occupied.
Hulking American military structures (as well as the gargantuan new American embassy) became the symbol of America’s treating Iraq as if it were for sale (to above-the-law private contractors whom Iraqis, with some justification, view as rampaging looters) rather than a liberated country.
“Even strategies that had worked in the Balkans - such as providing security, access to basic goods, and a banking system - were ignored in Iraq, which became a 21st-century Afghanistan for thousands of foreign fighters: an opportunity to receive training for global missions against a mighty imperial occupier, training that paved the way for anti-Western terrorist attacks in places like London and Bali, and, even more important, the locus between Sunnis and Shi’a Muslims.
“Numbed by the grotesque violence of the civil war, Iraqis have been too proud to show that they are past the breaking point: they just bury their dead and move on. Yet as the combination of the death toll and exodus mounts, one must wonder how many Iraqis will be left to rebuild their country when the war ends.
“Most Iraqis continue to feel that they are worse off today than under Saddam’s rule-with some outsiders ironically remarking that only another dictator could save Iraq. ‘The Americans have been so busy trying to kiss their own asses that their heads are stuck,’ snapped one Iraqi translator.”
The American government was high-jacked by rich, oil addicted, evangelical Christians. They supplied the fuel for Canada’s shiny new Bill C-51. What a mess. Thanks.
Christian Torbik
Whitehorse