Macgregor's latest shot at the matrix: "Sheikhs For Sale"

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

In response to a number of people above, the problem is welfare economics 101. If you keep sending people a check until the find a job, they don't look for work. If you pay sheiks until they create a nice stable country, they won't create a nice stable country.

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If what you appear to think was happening was the fact, you'd be pretty well correct. They're getting some money -- and it goes to the Sheik to pay his people (after his rake off, of course -- it is the ME), for tribal welfare and for construction and other things. That money comes with few strings, transitioning to some strings and further transitioning to a lot of strings. The amount will vary depending upon performance. It isn't the mass give away you seem to think.

People cannot find jobs where there are none. All we could ever do in Iraq was open a window for them. We've done that. They've got to fix it themselves and all we have to do is hold the window open for a while. Think of it a a pre-Marshall Plan. Was that, BTW, welfare also?

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Undoubtedly, we've made a bad situation slightly less worse, but when the best arguments intelligent people can make in favour is "We had no other choice," and "the government wastes money at home too," I think you need to concede that it's not exactly the equivalent of raising the stars and stripes atop Mount Suribachi.

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Some may make those arguments, I'm not making them. All I'd say is that it's an eminently sensible approach, has been standard practice around the world for thousands of years and is the norm for business in the ME. I will say that it would be abysmally stupid NOT to do it.

Anyone who gets wrapped around the axle over Mt. Suribachi is living in a strange time warp. Those days are gone, probably never to return. There has not been a full bore, total warfare type "unconditional surrender" war since WW II and there's unlikely to be one in the future. There was never going to be a 'victory' in Iraq, the best result could be only an acceptable outcome -- which is highly probable.

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It's nice to know that I'm not the only one.

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Oh...

This article serves to illustrate one of our biggest problems in Iraq. Namely, a complete lack of understanding of Iraqi culture. LTC MacGregor makes a comment that this program has "breathed new life" into tribalism, not just in Iraq, but all across the ME and Africa. I was not aware that tribalism was that close to death. Neither, I suspect, were the tribes. Tribalism has dominated the ME for how many thousands of years? Do people really believe that we were going to undo all that in a few years? Getting rid of tribalism is going to take more than a few democratic votes. It is going to take at least a generation and probably more in some areas. Tribe trumps everything for a significant percentage of the population. The tribes have always held considerable power and that is not going away. Consider this, Saddam Hussein had an extensive secret police network and a total willingness to resort to the kind of brutality that no western democracy would ever contemplate and he, ultimately had to deal with the tribes. The idea that we could be successful in Iraq without co-opting the tribes is not just wrong, it's delusional.

SFC W

This is a great thread, certainly more dynamic than CNN & a lot more brutal.

At the end of the day the USA has set itself up as the global policeman, the US govt decreed that regime change should take place in Iraq, so it happened. The Iraqi's has expectations when the US / Coalition forces arrived - that things were going to get better - water, electricity & jobs etc - they didn't materialise; so what did they do?

Coalesced into support groups and figured the best way to make the most out of the situation. We, the coalition powers failed at the top level to grasp the urgency of need & their expectations of us - the US & GB are not the only ones that want instant gratification!

In case anyone forgets these were the same Iraqi's who were "egged on" in '92 to rebel - with the promise of support - look what happened then!

Why should they not serve themselves, we should just let them have at it until they all say enough (my wife says that it might encourage us to be more eco friendly if there were less oil available - not too sure about that)

RA--

You appear to assume that economics is some sort of exact science. Even though the economists want us to think that (and use all kinds of quant measures - tempered by assuming away anything that challenges their numbers - to prove their position) they can't even agree among themselves. There are a whole bunch of unreconstructed Keynsians out theire who totally disagree with the equally unreconstructed Friedmanites. We tend to believe the economists whose policy preferences most closely resembel our own.

So your view of welfare economics 101 really depends on where and with whom you studied it. Mine depends on an under read classic called Politics, Economics and Welfare by economist Charles E. Lindblom and political scientist Robert A. Dahl. Which only shows my prejudices against pure economists :wry:

Cheers

JohnT

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Originally Posted by John T. Fishel

RA--
So your view of welfare economics 101 really depends on where and with whom you studied it.

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I switched majors after my freshman year. Economics bored the heck out of me. I drew a bunch of charts and never got to the point where people had different opinions on the charts. But I know what happens when the government creates demand for ethnic militias in an environment with many unemployed. (I can draw the chart.;)

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Originally Posted by Ken White

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Anyone who gets wrapped around the axle over Mt. Suribachi is living in a strange time warp. Those days are gone, probably never to return. There has not been a full bore, total warfare type "unconditional surrender" war since WW II and there's unlikely to be one in the future.

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Originally Posted by Uboat509

Tribalism has dominated the ME for how many thousands of years? Getting rid of tribalism is going to take more than a few democratic votes.

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No disrespect to Cavguy or anyone else who was there: fog of war, friction, enemy gets a vote, making the best out of a bad situation is what you need to do. Since everyone is so comfortable on this path, however, and I agree with the two above comments, let's follow the path to the end. Since expecting surrender and democracy was unrealistic - as per Ken and Uboat - wouldn't paying Saddam to not develop WMDs, and to not cooperate with terrorists, have saved billions of dollars and many lives?

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

Since expecting surrender and democracy was unrealistic - as per Ken and Uboat - wouldn't paying Saddam to not develop WMDs, and to not cooperate with terrorists, have saved billions of dollars and many lives?

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I may be mistaken but, I believe that had been tried in one form or another, and it apparently hadn't worked to well?

Originally posted by Rank Amateur:

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Since expecting surrender and democracy was unrealistic - as per Ken and Uboat - wouldn't paying Saddam to not develop WMDs, and to not cooperate with terrorists, have saved billions of dollars and many lives?

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...because, first off, Saddam & his bunch were a pretty bloodthirsty crew anyway, so the overall body count might very well of been similar to what actually occurred. Just different sets of bodies to count.

Secondly (and most importantly), how are you going to make sure he stays "Bought"? In this scenario, what's your hammer? Because you got to have one, and it better be a biggie.

And haven't even considered the issue of the Western "Goo Goo Types" (Good Government) who would be absolutely horrified at the crass concept of buying off somebody like Saddam.

You might not like the comparison, but what's the difference between our political parties here vrs. the tribal system in Iraq? Maybe the primary difference is that we have also developed other alternate methods of governance, which resulted in our version of the tribal system here mutating into our current political system. Something to think about.

Watcher, arguably a comparison could be made between some sheiks and some politicians but for a conparrison with tribal society as a whole I would look to gangs, where first loyalty is to the group and the group dominates most or all aspects of life. It is an imperfect comparison but closer than anything else I can think of in the west. I am sure that Mark can do a much better job than I can with this.

RA,

I did not say that creating a democracy in Iraq was unrealistic, only that the timelines that some people expected were unrealistic. In any case, WE will not create a democracy in Iraq. Only the Iraqis can do that (and maybe Chuck Norris, but he's busy right now). We are setting the conditions for them to do just that but it will take time and I doubt it will look like a western democracy in any case. Paying off the sheiks (if you choose to call it that) is nothing more than a means to an end. Create security so that democracy or its Iraqi equivalent, has a chance to take root.

SFC W

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...Since expecting surrender and democracy was unrealistic - as per Ken and Uboat - wouldn't paying Saddam to not develop WMDs, and to not cooperate with terrorists, have saved billions of dollars and many lives?

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If Saddam developing WMD and cooperating with terrorists had been among the more important -- or even marginally important -- reasons for the invasion of Iraq, you might have a point.

Since I'm pretty sure that those 'reasons' were quite far down a long list of "Why the US invaded Iraq" I don't think they have much bearing. Looking at both those factors realistically and objectively, neither constitutes a casus belli in any sense; yes, they were trotted out -- but only because Bush didn't want to explain that the real reasons involved responding to the threat of international Islamist terrorism directed against the west by seizing bases in the ME and shaking up the neighborhood and Iraq happened to be both centrally located which made strategic sense and had a pariah regime which made such a blatant grab a little more palatable to some.

I think he suspected that he was going to get adverse rest of the world opinion and didn't want that to be made worse by telling the unvarnished truth. I also believe he was not deterred for a second by thoughts of such adverse opinion. Nor, IMO, should he have been.

He was also the recipient of incomplete advice from his Generals on the potentials in the aftermath of the attack. In fairness to them, they didn't know what to tell him because a number of their predecessors over 30 years had very foolishly and unrealistically tried to distance the Army from such actions. Frankly, I doubt that would have deterred him but we'll never know for sure.

I have to agree with UBoat on unrealistic expectations and with Watcher on the "staying bought" aspect. Saddam would've done what he wanted when he wanted so staying bought wasn't likely and to expect 3,000 years of history to be reversed in an American Sound Bite Minute of a few short years is extremely unrealistic.

As I like to ferment hate and discontent, I am going to take a different view of all this. I see it as teaching federalism to the tribal leaders.

When the federal government wants to get the states to do something that the constitution does not give them direct authority to do, it uses money. An old example was the 55MPH speed limit. Congress tied road construction dollars to requiring the 55MPH speed limit. To get the money, you needed to tow the line.

Here you could do the same things. Get money, but strings attached. Yes this is hard to enforce. Yes you may be dealing with some nefarious characters (like politicians in the US). But it teaches a system where the local leaders are dependant on the power (money) that the central government has.


Just a thought.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

In response to a number of people above, the problem is welfare economics 101. If you keep sending people a check until the find a job, they don't look for work. If you pay sheiks until they create a nice stable country, they won't create a nice stable country.

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

Since expecting surrender and democracy was unrealistic - as per Ken and Uboat - wouldn't paying Saddam to not develop WMDs, and to not cooperate with terrorists, have saved billions of dollars and many lives?

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The knowledge of human nature and street smarts from the first quote are ignored in the second. Saddam was not someone whose regime could be trusted to adhere to an agreement or to even permit attempts to verify adherence. Paying Saddam to not develop WMDs sounds like a good way to create a market for not developing WMDs that other countries would have an interest in joining. It also raises the likelihood that payments would only be used to fund further WMD R&D and to fund terrorists or otherwise adversarial proxies through means more difficult to detect.

And Ken gave a good explanation above - that WMD were not the central issue. They were simply a central theme in the public relations piece.

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Originally Posted by TheCurmudgeon

As I like to ferment hate and discontent, I am going to take a different view of all this. I see it as teaching federalism to the tribal leaders.

When the federal government wants to get the states to do something that the constitution does not give them direct authority to do, it uses money. An old example was the 55MPH speed limit. Congress tied road construction dollars to requiring the 55MPH speed limit. To get the money, you needed to tow the line.

Here you could do the same things. Get money, but strings attached. Yes this is hard to enforce. Yes you may be dealing with some nefarious characters (like politicians in the US). But it teaches a system where the local leaders are dependant on the power (money) that the central government has.

Just a thought.

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the added bonus that those local leaders will have the expectations of their people to continue providing them with what they want

Sounds pretty grass roots to me :D

BTW Rank,

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A key step in a successful COIN effort is forcing the population to choose sides.

Economically, they have no choice but to go with the side that buys their opium. I heard one of the CNN generals say that we should buy opium from the population and use it to make morphine. I think that is about the only thing that might solve the problem.

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Just remembered this from another topic. Why would it make sense to pay for product but not for security?