Definition of “insurgency”: Rising in revolt against established authority, especially a government.”
We have taken over Iraq by force of arms as the “established authority”. The Iraqis did live under a repressive dictator, and their leader was “a very bad guy.” However, most Iraqi citizens had normal or near normal lives before we “set them free and on the path to democracy”. They had jobs, food, running water, electricity, housing, and they could drive safely to the airport.
WMD things, and ties to Al Queda were most probably at best distant abstractions to these people.
So what did we do as the most powerful military nation in the history of the world? We tried to bomb their nation back to the Stone Age of course and then invade and occupy THEIR country with a couple of hundred thousand soldiers. I think that many of, if not most of the Iraqis believed that we were there to take their oil, and make their nation a “colony” of our own.
How did we expect the people in Iraq to respond to the destruction and subsequent occupation of their country by an invading Christian army?
Do the Iraqi insurgents know or understand that “we are only trying to help them establish a western style democracy”?
Do the insurgents understand that we were not at all interested in controlling their oil? Do the Iraqi insurgents believe that we would leave their country in the next 50 years if there were no insurgency? I surely don’t.
What do we mean when we say that we should leave Iraq only after we have completed our mission. What is our mission? What was our mission? What will our mission be in the future?
I just do not understand why we are not willing to announce that we are going to leave Iraq? Instead of encouraging the insurgency perhaps it would reduce or eliminate it. Most Iraqi insurgents are fighting an invading army. This is not the first time in history that citizens are opposing an invading army.
This may not be one of my best metaphors, but what the hell:
My friend Seymour owned a beagle named Daisy who was always running away. One afternoon on the way home, Seymour found Daisy a couple of blocks from his home, grabbed the dog and for the next five minutes admonished the dog sitting next to him in his car. He took the dog into his house, only to see Daisy bounding down the stairs. Seymour looked at the dog under his arm and of course realized his mistake. Now try explaining that to a dog. To apologize Seymour gave the dog a bunch of biscuits, and took it back to where he found it.
We as a nation should find a way to apologize to the Iraqi people. We invaded their country for all the wrong reasons. I expect that it is not possible, however The United States should start out with an apology, and then, just as Seymour tried to do with the wrong dog, give them money, rebuild their infrastructure, build hospitals, schools, etc after we leave.
The administration loves the notion of avoiding blame, and not dealing with the “now what” situation. They just change the subject. They keep telling our country how well things are going and that we must stay the course, whatever that means.
We have done the wrong thing for the wrong reasons at the wrong time while killing untold thousands of people, and wounding countless others.
We used to be “the good guys,” but not so any more. I know that it would be nearly impossible for any government to say, “I’m sorry”, yet we should.