maí 21, 2003

Imperíalískt hlutverk

Tómas Friedman skrifar pistil í New York Times um sinnuleysi Bandaríkjamanna í Írak, Bored With Baghdad — Already.
But the generals were also miscast because they and their men are trained to kill people, not chase looters. Neither they nor their men want to be serving as the police, and they were not prepared to do that. They came to Baghdad with 1,800 military police officers. Saddam Hussein used 20,000 police officers to control this city of five million.
Athyglisverðar tölur. Friedman líkur pistlinum með orðunum:
Iraqis are an exhausted people. Most seem ready to give us a chance, and we do have a shot at making this a decent place — but not with nation building lite. That approach is coming unstuck in Afghanistan and it will never work in Iraq. We've wasted an important month. We must get our act together and our energy up. Why doesn't Mr. Rumsfeld brief reporters every day about rebuilding Iraq, the way he did about destroying Saddam?

America is in an imperial role here, now. Our security and standing in the world ride on our getting Iraq right. If the Bush team has something more important to do, I'd like to know about it. Iraq can still go wrong for a hundred Iraqi reasons, but let's make sure it's not because America got bored, tired or distracted.
Maður er nú ekki beint bjartsýnn á að Tómasi verði að ósk sinni.
Agust skrifaði 21.05.03 17:02

Flokkun: Meðmæli , Mið-Austurlönd