Pentagon: One-third of new Iraqi army quit just before starting operations

USA Today (AP) ^ | 12/10/03

[elli1]

It may be that w/ the training they have received, they can make more providing private security services or make about the same & not be separated from their families. And maybe other opportunities are beckoning many of them. But it's just as likely that the reasons are almost as numerous as the number of those who have opted out.

[McGavin999]

Are there any Iraqi men who have the guts vision and character to create a free and prosperous country?

Well, how about the 160,000 men and women of the Iraqi Police, the new Iraqi Defense Corp, and the Facility Protection Service? Do they count? Good grief, just because 250 former Saddamites quit because they wanted to feel superior to the other people who are risking their lives just because Saddam used to let them accept bribes and we don't, doesn't mean there are not hard working and loyal Iraqis laying their lives on the line every single day.

[John Lenin]

Thats the spirit, are you from France ?

[RLK]

You are right.

[Maynerd]

The 160K Iraqi Police that you cite may be brave patriotic Iraqi's or they may merely be a collection of rent a cops looking for a pay check. Time will tell.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

They don't need a constitutional government, they need a mommie.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Iraqi's are like abused children or abused animals -- it will take them a long time, to emotionally learn that things are different.

But have WE learned the lessons of our past misadventures? Vietnam, for example? Or Korea? When the UN/PC crowd influences decisions, we only end up with interminable unresolved conflict. Only after we have marched in, obliterated everything, and held their gonads in our hands and said "Have you had enough?", has the resistance truly ended. Ref: Germany, Japan, circa 1945. Iraq = Vietnam = Korea = quagmire = IMO.

[FairOpinion]

"When the UN/PC crowd influences decisions, we only end up with interminable unresolved conflict. "

==

I completely agree with you. I think we have to be tough, no holds barred, not treat the bad guys with kid gloves. Then, when we put down the "resistence", i.e. Saddam's henchmen, then we can build up the country.

I do think, that unfortunatly we have underestimated the resilience of the bad guys, and weren't willing to do what needed to be done right at the beginning, which just emboldened them.

[wizardoz]

Hello, Germany's economy was essentially socialist during the Weimar Republic. Then they were fascist, which was, in practice, socialism + dictator. The largest party in Germany was the "Social Democrats" who espoused German socialism. They were considered "right wing" because the most meaningful opposition was the Communists. So please, do not blame socialism in Germany on us. (I won't say anything about Japan because I don't know.)

[wizardoz]

Failing to remove entrenched socialism is hardly the same as what you initially accused the administration of doing.

[wizardoz]

The leadership was destroyed, not the entire government. Oh screw it, you obviously have an ax to grind. Go grind, then, if it pleases you.

[wizardoz]

There's no question there were socialists in our White House at the time. But the US didn't introduce socialism to Germany, the entire frigging philosophical lineage of anti-rational collectivist thought is GERMAN! Kant! Marx! Hegel! Heidegger! Freud! If anything, Germany instilled socialism in the US, by importing their poisonous ideas.