The Nation Building Business

Law and order are essential to any society; in fact a prerequisite for a civil society.

BAGHDAD, Oct. 16 — American military units joined with Iraqi forces on Monday in maintaining a fragile peace between Sunni and Shiite communities in Balad, a rural town north of the capital where an explosion of sectarian violence over the weekend left dozens dead.

No people will tolerate this kind of insecurity. Personal freedoms and liberties will gladly be forfeited in the hope that the real existential threats are minimized. The Islamists understand this facet of human nature and are exploiting it across the Islamic world. From Somalia to Afghanistan, Islamists are providing a "secure" alternative to the death and corruption being visited upon the civilian populations. Never mind that in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Islamists are a huge source of the death and insecurity. Somalia seems to be a different matter as it was the competing war-lords and their kat-addled thugs which reduced that country to a chaotic cesspool.

People must be given a modicum of peace and security in their lives or they will turn to whatever power, democratic or otherwise that can provide that security.

In the aftermath of the reprisals, some residents of Balad asked why American troops had not intervened when the killings began in earnest on Saturday. One of the largest American military bases in Iraq, Camp Anaconda, which includes a sprawling air base that serves as the logistical hub of the war, is nearby.

“People are bewildered because of the weak response by the Americans,” said one Balad resident who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals. “They used to patrol the city every day, but when the violence started, we didn’t see any sign of them.”

If news reports about Balad are true, this is a disgrace to the US. Lawlessness is gaining the upper hand in Iraq and unless civil order is quickly restored in Iraq, the militia violence will escalate into a full scale civil war ending only when one side has achieved dominance over the over. The question becomes how is a civil order imposed on a people accustomed only to submitting to the dictates of a brutal and ruthless dictator?

Unfortunately, due in large part to the constant cacophony of the anti-war critics including the charges of "American Imperialism," the "Democracy Project" may have been advanced prematurely. Regardless, we are where we are. Unless we want to take 10 steps back to a real military occupation with a military governor and 250,000 or 500,000 troops it has become a matter of police actions and criminal prosecutions. This means somebody, the US military or the Iraqi Army must take whatever steps are necessary to stop the kind of violence which occurred in Balad. The surviving perpetrators must then be brought to justice in an Iraqi court. Peaceful people trying to establish a just and civil society deserve no less and will turn to whoever can provide security and justice. And who can blame them?

The US Military doesn't like nation building, well who does? Unfortunately, that's the business we are currently in and since we can't find any business partners or suckers to buy it from us, we just have to keep it going or dissolve the enterprise and suffer the disgrace of failure.

I suggest somebody get serious about governing and I believe that the Germans left a trove of documents on "how to occupy." The Department of Defense can start with those if it needs an "Idiot's Guide."