"Stay Behind" strategies in Iraq

[James A. Donald]

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On 10 Apr 2003 at 22:51, Tim May wrote:
> Meanwhile, most of the nation's 20,000,000 will continue to 
> rely on handouts.

Observe that as the regime falls, Iraqis behave like American 
blacks, which suggests that the cause of the problem is the 
welfare state, rather than racism or genetics.  This conjecture 
is also supported by the fact that black people did not start 
burning their homes and neighbourhoods until after the war on 
poverty.

> I said that no major ghetto/slum area, whether Calcutta or 
> South-Central LA or Baghdad has ever, in memory, gone to 
> nearly full employment. I'm a libertarian, not a do-gooder: I 
> realize that more and more people are simply useless eaters. 
> The useless eaters in Baghdad, Basra, etc. will

Given the right environment -- the US permits capitalism but 
steals all the oil, the Iraqis have the potential to become 
civilized.  I was hugely impressed by the released POWs 
marching home.   The Kurds took their weapons, stole their 
shoes and did not give them any food, but they were happy about 
the prospect of walking hundreds of miles through the desert 
with no shoes and no food, because they were going home.  They 
looked to me like people who when they got home would promptly 
set to finding work.

Unfortunately, if the US steals the oil, though it would 
doubtless be good for the Iraqis, it would be bad for the US, 
because any government bureaucracy that gets its own income 
source goes even further out of control.

> You're showing your statist/idealist roots. It's not a matter 
> of "the US could keep the Iraqis poor." No more so than the 
> U.S. is keeping the South-Central LA negroes poor, or the 
> Calcutta natives poor.

Socialism is keeping Arabs poor.  Because oil fits the 
socialist model of wealth as something to be distributed, 
rather than produced, oil encourages socialism.

> It's good for Iraq that they have oil. Having oil is always 
> better than not having oil.

Oil is an attractive nuisance.  Attracts gangs of men with 
guns.  While Iraq has oil, Iraqis do not have oil and never 
will.  Observe the richest newly developed countries are those 
with absolutely zero resources, Hong Kong with nothing but 
rock, Singapore with nothing but sandbanks.

Better to burn it all. 

    --digsig
         James A. Donald
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