The greedy battle for Iraq’s ‘Hearts And Minds’

[Steve the Planner]

I remember the early pitches for this book a few months ago: a rollicking tale of foolishness by a dimwitted bureaucrat mis-assigned to "rebuild" Iraq. Ha. Ha. Buy my funny book.

Sorry, but I was one of those civilians brought in in late 2007 to unscramble the mess made by folks like him---desperate to deliver for their superiors---no matter how much they knew what they were doing was harmful and wasteful.

This kind of routine character was exactly the problem, while other folks, including competent FSOs and military folks, fearlessly sought to get beyond them (at least during their particular year).

From early days, my immediate colleagues and I were very much aware that young soldiers were out getting shot to keep our projects going, so to promote and support projects that were irrational was an absolute disgrace.

It would be nice if this happy-go-lucky fellow would, at some time, start his press hype interviews with a reverential deference for those who shed blood for him to goof off and rollick around Iraq for a year while wasting millions of US dollars and a year's worth of important Iraqi reconstruction time---after things quieted down in 2010.

No wonder he had a bad relationship with the military.

[Steve the Planner]

Rex:

Right. The practical effect of COIN/Money As A Weapon, in an accurate post-conflict analysis, will be none too pretty, whether by DoD, DoS, or SIGIR.

The focus should have been less on "Win Friends and Influence People" and more on the [practicalities of getting basic systems restored and getting out of their way to rebuild their own country.

The Tikrit poultry plant was always a shiny bangle for the self-licking puppies, even when there was no capacity for basic poultry production: feed, feed mills, hatcheries, and fattening barns were more important than the poultry processing plant---the gap was basic civilian infrastructure, security and free movement of goods--- roads, bridges and free movement of goods, not poultry plants and refrigerated bongo trucks.

The Iraqis would reopen the poultry industrial components once there was an economics to support it. Money was never an issue for the rich folks who owned this stuff.

It took a lot of courage for the folks who tried to put breaks on this stuff and steer back to basics.

[ganulv]

It would be nice if this happy-go-lucky fellow would, at some time, start his press hype interviews with a reverential deference for those who shed blood for him to goof off and rollick around Iraq for a year while wasting millions of US dollars and a year's worth of important Iraqi reconstruction time---after things quieted down in 2010.

At the risk of being accused of puppy kicking, I don’t understand why that would matter. What difference would it make if a commissar who spent 1948 in the Soviet Sector of Berlin failed to acknowledge the sacrifice of the Red Army three years earlier in the first chapter of his tell-all? What difference would it make if an ex-union lobbyist failed to acknowledge the blood left in the streets by garment workers prior to giving a narrative of what s/he observed about organized labor in today’s America?

[Steve the Planner]

Ganulv:

Right.

This guy's continuous insulting slurs of Iraqis, and Iraq in general, far outweigh his fuming disdain for the (1) loser military nuts, (2) the dopes, creeps and incompetents that he was forced to "lead," and the (3) the stupid crooks he worked for.

What difference would it make.

Where do they find these people?

[ganulv]

Ganulv:

This guy's continuous insulting slurs of Iraqis, and Iraq in general, far outweigh his fuming disdain for the (1) loser military nuts, (2) the dopes, creeps and incompetents that he was forced to "lead," and the (3) the stupid crooks he worked for.

I didn’t really get fuming disdain from the interview. His tone came across as a bit effete to me, if anything. And I didn’t hear any insulting slurs of Iraqis. He clearly had issues with at least one colonel in particular, but I don’t know that he thought he was a loser nut as much as he was puzzled as to why anyone should think the guy was qualified to do development work in the first place.

Where do they find these people?

Stanford, Georgetown, Davidson, etc.… All institutions which to be sure count very effective FSOs and colonels as their own, but whose training does not by itself mean one is up to snuff for the task at hand.

[Steve the Planner]

I read the excepts from Amazon.

Apparently, almost everyone (but him) was some kind of a creature from the Star Wars bar. Very uncomfortable if you happened to be any of these people (or the various thieving Arabs he described).


Bio shows he is an Asian specialist, fluent in Mandarin, with multiple assignments there.

I know for a fact that FOB Falcon's EPRT had one of the best dry land/range ag specialists assigned to it in late 2008, who had previously spent nine months in Tuz.

My experience with EPRTs, including at FOB Hammer, was that they were some of the best and most committed of the DoS folks. The good ones were like human sponges when in Baghdad or at the MND---always looking for ideas, resources and assets to take back.

You either loved that kind of work or didn't---getting out to the towns and on the streets.

He obviously hated it, and was not effective at finding the resources needed to bring back a set of positive accomplishments.