The missing context for IS's rise

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-171014.html



The missing context for IS's rise
By Ramzy Baroud
Oct 17, '14

Consider this comical scene described by a former US diplomat who was deployed to Iraq on a 12-month assignment in 2009-10. Peter Van Buren led two Department of State teams assigned with the abstract mission of the "reconstruction" of Iraq after the 2003 US invasion.

"In practice, (reconstruction) meant paying for schools that would never be completed, setting up pastry shops on streets without water or electricity, and conducting endless propaganda events on Washington-generated themes of the week ('small business,' 'women's empowerment,' 'democracy building.')

"We even organized awkward soccer matches, where American taxpayer money was used to coerce reluctant Sunni teams into facing off against hesitant Shiite ones in hopes that, somehow, the chaos created by the American invasion could be ameliorated on the playing field."

Of course, there is nothing comical about these soccer matches when seen in context. The entire American nation-building experiment was in fact a political swindle engulfed by many horrifying episodes, starting with the dissolution of the country's army, entire official institutions and the construction of an alternative political class that was essentially sectarian.

[CJCRANE]

1. The GOP neocons don't believe in liberal democracy or nation-building in America

so how could they succeed at it abroad?

It's just absurd.

The Clinton Era America of the 90s was a prosperous, innovative and optimistic place. I'm sure the Iraqis expected that kind of development. They probably expected functioning utilities and institutions, and middle class jobs.

But, of course, as we've now realized, that America was gone, replaced by something altogether different and more sinister.