On Wed, 11 May 2005 04:47:48 -0500, Ronn!Blankenship wrote > How much was right about it before GW2? Is the "average" Iraqi > better off or worse off now than then? Or, for another measure, is > the number of Iraqi people who are better off without SH in charge > greater than the number who were better off with him and his sons > and cronies in charge?
The death rate has risen -- 100,000 more civilians have died since the invasion, based on the death rate before the war. The rate is 12.3 per thousand per year, compared with 4 per thousand per year in surrounding countries (Lancet/Johns Hopkins). Acute malnutrition among children has almost doubled, from 4.4 percent to 8 percent (Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science). Twenty-five percent of Iraqi children don't get enough food to eat (UN Human Rights Commission). Health care is less available. Clean water is less available (we targeted the hospital and water supply in Fallujah and elsewhere). Hundreds of thousands still live in refugee camps. We shut down the newspaper in Sadr City (welcome to democracy?). Does anybody have a measure by which life is better in Iraq today than it was before we invaded? And it has been two years! At the very least, this points to unbelievably poor or non-existent planning. After doing what we've done in Iraq, I cannot find any way to have faith that we can bring peace or to rebuild the infrastructure that we destroyed. Even if the Iraqis believe we have their best interests in mind, we have demonstrated enormous incompetence at doing anything positive. We've shown that we know how to charge ahead without international consensus, which can be a good thing. We've shown that we know how to remove the bad guys with force, which can be a good thing. We've shown that we know how to destroy, which can work to good. However, we haven't demonstrated that that the United States is competent to nurture, heal and restore, which I find tragic and humbling. What is required for us agree as a nation that we have screwed up massively, that the way we went about this was wrong, that we must invent better ways to deal with such situations, which aren't just about destruction, but also about building? Is what "Pax Americana" will continue to look like -- "successful" operations that leave the patient crippled and bleeding? Our leaders may have had noble intentions, but there's more to bringing freedom and peace than knowing how to destroy. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
