U.S. Chaplain says Iraqis aren't capable of maintaining a water pump so we have to stay

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.startribune.com/scripts/setpass.php?goto=http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1330290.html

Sounding off: Iraq veterans look back

<snip>Chaplain Erik Feig, 43, was assigned to the 134th Brigade Support Battalion for its full 22-month deployment. Although he carried no weapons, he often went out "in-sector wearing full battle rattle." The Lutheran pastor also served the Guard in Kosovo in 2004. His wife and two teenage daughters moved the family to White Bear Lake during his time away.

Our battalion helped open up irrigation channels for a large portion of southern Iraq because, for the longest time, they'd been closed. And you can't farm in the desert without water.

We took a look at that and, being good Minnesotans used to agriculture, we asked how we can help raise a crop not only in the rainy season, but also in the summer. We worked really hard to pull the water out and get it to the fields, and the farmers were able to do a double set of crops for the first time in years.

We needed to clean the culverts, reconnect them to the Euphrates River, and we needed to put a pump on the Euphrates. Who's going to supply those? Who's going to do the maintenance on those pumps?

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[porphyrian]

1. Who will help the poor savages with our magical technologies when we're gone?

Give me a fucking break.

[madrchsod]

2. gee whiz rev..iraq was close to a first world country

before george,billy,and george decided to bomb them back into a third world country..dumb fuck

[KharmaTrain]

3. And They've Lived In That Desert For How Long????

So it's only Americans who have the "knowledge" to irrigate and build an infastructure? Yeah, right...ask the Iraqis who only get one hour of electricity a day (if that much) and haven't gotten a drop of fresh, clean water from drinking taps since 2003...or 1991...pick your bombing.

Now why doesn't the good Chaplain do the lord's work and find where some of those billions that were supposed to pay for fixing up the infrastructure we destroyed so we could "win hearts and minds".

The lasting "legacy" of this invasion will be that we'll hear how "we tried" to help the Iraqis and they were just too stupid or savage to take the help. The Repugnicans bave already astroturfed this meme...yet another CYA move.

[Robbien]

4. Of course they are backward and barely just one step above animals

Why else would we think we could invade, bomb, occupy, grab all their assets and kill without impunity anyone who objects.

[Kagemusha]

5. Maybe they can't maintain what no one's given them?

Okay, it's southern Iraq, that means, the territory where the Shiites who rose up and revolted against Saddam when Poppy said to, and got crushed as a result while the US let it happen, right after the first Gulf War, lived. So of course Saddam didn't lift a finger to get the irrigation back working.

I'm sure if the US doesn't want to help, Iran will be happy to provide assistance.

[DeSwiss]

6. Okay, I've had it!!!

We went from WMDs, to removing a tyrant from power, to spreading democracy in the middle east to water pumps????

It the fucking OIL chaplin!!!! You know, I know it. We all know it. So cut the bullshit!!! How damned stupid do you think we are???

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Picking up the White Man's burden.

“The White Man’s Burden”: Kipling’s Hymn to U.S. Imperialism

In February 1899, British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem entitled “The White Man’s Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands.” In this poem, Kipling urged the U.S. to take up the “burden” of empire, as had Britain and other European nations. Published in the February, 1899 issue of McClure’s Magazine, the poem coincided with the beginning of the Philippine-American War and U.S. Senate ratification of the treaty that placed Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, and the Philippines under American control. Theodore Roosevelt, soon to become vice-president and then president, copied the poem and sent it to his friend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, commenting that it was “rather poor poetry, but good sense from the expansion point of view.” Not everyone was as favorably impressed as Roosevelt. The racialized notion of the “White Man’s burden” became a euphemism for imperialism, and many anti-imperialists couched their opposition in reaction to the phrase.

Take up the White Man’s burden—

Send forth the best ye breed—

Go send your sons to exile

To serve your captives' need

To wait in heavy harness

On fluttered folk and wild—

Your new-caught, sullen peoples,

Half devil and half child

Take up the White Man’s burden

In patience to abide

To veil the threat of terror

And check the show of pride;

By open speech and simple

An hundred times made plain

To seek another’s profit

And work another’s gain

Take up the White Man’s burden—

And reap his old reward:

The blame of those ye better

The hate of those ye guard—

The cry of hosts ye humour

(Ah slowly) to the light:

"Why brought ye us from bondage,

“Our loved Egyptian night?”

Take up the White Man’s burden-

Have done with childish days-

The lightly proffered laurel,

The easy, ungrudged praise.

Comes now, to search your manhood

Through all the thankless years,

Cold-edged with dear-bought wisdom,

The judgment of your peers!

[WinkyDink]

8. Maybe we should send the Peace Corps.