Despite promises to eschew nation building, the BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 23 – Even in a country beset by murder The brigade, a 1,000-man force set up by Iraq’s Ministry of Defense in Such is the country that the new Iraqi leaders who took from the It started as a simple idea. What the world needs The neo-con cowboys thought Democracy could be exported and imposed, They thought that if they threw enough lawyers, guns and money at a country, they could buy a Democracy. But Democracy can’t be bought, and it can’t be imposed at the point of a gun.<\/em><\/p>\n In fact, the world today is a very different place than The difference is that India had been oppressed The 99.9% of Iraqis have never spent one hour in a democracy Take a country like this, a patchwork of open wounds, Welcome to Iraq. Please send more Lawyers, Guns and \n <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Haider Hamid was arrested in Baghdad on April 15 by officers wearing Interior Ministry uniforms, according to Mr. Hamid’s brother, Majid. Majid Hamid found his brother’s body, above, showing signs of torture, five days later in the city morgue. He … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/24securit.jpg\")
Haider
\n Hamid was arrested in Baghdad on April 15 by officers wearing Interior
\n Ministry uniforms, according to Mr. Hamid’s brother, Majid. Majid Hamid
\n found his brother’s body, above, showing signs of torture, five days
\n later in the city morgue. He said he received no explanation for what
\n happened.<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n
\n Bushistas feel they have found
\n the recipe
\n for Democracy:
\n "Send Lawyers,
\n Guns and
\n Money".
\n How’s
\n that working out for them? An article on the front page of today’s New
\n York Times<\/a> exposes how the massive injection of billions of dollars and
\n millions
\n of weapons into Iraq has created an era of "freelance government
\n violence." <\/em><\/p>\n
\n and death, the 16th Brigade represented a new frontier.<\/p>\n
\n early 2005, was charged with guarding a stretch of oil pipeline that
\n ran through the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dawra. Heavily armed
\n and lightly supervised, some members of the largely Sunni brigade transformed
\n themselves into a death squad, cooperating with insurgents and executing
\n government collaborators, Iraqi officials say.<\/p>\n
\n office Saturday are inheriting. The headlong, American-backed effort
\n to arm tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and officers, coupled with
\n a failure to curb a nearly equal number of militia gunmen, has created
\n a galaxy of armed groups, each with its own loyalty and agenda, which
\n are accelerating the country’s slide in<\/p>\n
\n New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n
\n now, agreed idealists at both ends of the political spectrum, is more
\n Democracy.
\n But what the gung-ho gang of giddy neo-cons who tried to act on the idea
\n didn’t realize is that Democracy is a delicate bloom, which needs to
\n be nurtured gently over time, adapted to the native soil, protected from
\n frost and parasites and assorted worms, roaches and other vermin. Land mines, improvised explosive devices, carpet bombing and death squads are not condusive to its growth.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n and if it doesn’t take right away, well astute application of arms, technology,
\n dollars and good old American know-how can smooth the way. After all,
\n if the British Empire, even as it ebbed into the sunset, could create
\n in India the largest Democracy in the world, why then converting our
\n little Iraqi buddies should be no problem.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n it was 100 years ago, Iraq is no India, and Nouri al-Malik is no Mahatma
\n Gandhi. The axiomatic mistake of those who envisioned Iraq as a beacon
\n of progress and democracy illuminating the entire Middle East was the
\n believe that any population, oppressed long enough and brutally enough,
\n will, upon being liberated, embrace Democracy like a drowning man grabbing
\n an inner tube.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n by an enlightened Democratic Empire, and once freed, desired, in a
\n sort
\n of
\n national Stockholm Syndrome, to emulate that oppressor’s political system. <\/em><\/p>\n
\n Iraqi’s have spent 30 years being ground under the heels of a series
\n of despotic sadists bereft of any political philosophy beyond how many
\n fingers on how many triggers they can put on the street. Naturally, once
\n the chains and fetters come off, the survivors instinctively grope to emulate,
\n nay, outdo their oppressors. <\/em><\/p>\n
\n and wouldn’t recognize one if it dropped out of the sky and flattened
\n their houses like pancakes. Which, come to think about it, is
\n pretty much what happened.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n blood feuds, generation-old clan warfare, revenge starved widows and
\n orphans, violent and unrestrained murderers and torturers, flood it with
\n easy money and a million automatic weapons, and what do you expect?<\/em><\/p>\n
\n Money.<\/em><\/p>\n