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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   20951 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 2024

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There is quite literally a direct line of causality between deBaathification in Iraq and ISIS. Purging the Iraqi military and public service resulted in thousands of professional soldiers and officers as well as otherwise peaceful professionals like graphic designers, accountants, intelligence analysts, etc being unemployable overnight and so they joined up with fledgling ISIS and that's how it became such a competent organization so fast. This was even predicted by US analysts and foreign policy writers at the time, but Rumsfeld et al proceeded any way and only rescinded after most of the damage was done.

So "otherwise peaceful" but now unemployable Baathist graphic designers, accountants and intelligence analysts just naturally sign up with ISIS because, well, what else would they do?

Shouldn't we be thinking of people like this in similar terms as we might view southern Confederate sympathizers during and after the American Civil War?

just naturally sign up with ISIS because, well, what else would they do?

Why don't you try to consider it from their perspective? Almost overnight, their careers are ended and are made unable to support themselves and their families and their own government and fellow people subjected to tremendous violence and destabilization more or less for no good reason. Why wouldn't that radicalize a person?

This was both the anticipated and actual outcome of deBaathification.

Shouldn't we be thinking of people like this in similar terms as we might view southern Confederate sympathizers during and after the American Civil War?

You mean we should have extended them a blanket pardon conditional on an oath of loyalty? Yes, I think that would have been the ideal outcome and may have stopped Iraq from sliding toward Iran puppet-state status by having continuity and more robustness in its institutions.

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