Yeah, this is pretty much why I’m more libertarian/classical liberal, haha. Live and let live.
So there’s a shit ton to unpack here. Agreed that we could have done better. Personally, I loved the strategy prior to the invasion: keep a no fly zone, economic sanctions, and keep the evil asshole known as Saddam in a box. If he stepped out of line, launch a few tomahawk missiles at his neighborhood, and let him know that the shit he’s pulling isn’t cool. Full-scale war was unnecessary.
We actually did spend a lot of time talking to locals, trying to work through and with them. The problems were this: we spent years putting stuff like their army back together after we dismantled it. Oops. We shouldn’t have done that. We also didn’t realize how little their culture cares about emulating our values, meaning that they were never going to form in our image. We also didn’t appreciate their lack of work ethic. Seriously. I used to joke that Iraqis want a strong man to tell them what to do... and then go do it for them. You can’t make someone build a country if they want to keep sittin on their porches, drinking chai tea while the women do all the work. Another problem was that the locals didn’t all agree what they wanted to do, and when they did, it wasn’t always a good thing. They all agreed that protecting their cousins, even when that cousin was a vicious killer or bomb maker, was more important than building a fair justice system. Bummer. But we tried to get them to come along, listening about what they wanted in terms of schools, clinics, playgrounds, etc., but it just wasn’t enough. How do you make people want more for themselves though? How do you make someone develop the pride needed to build a great society? We can’t even do that here across the board. We have problems with motivation and culture in every ghetto, trailer park, and holler across America. How the hell can we fix another country when we can’t even get all our own citizens to work as hard as they can, get them all the tools they need for the job, and give them every incentive to make their lives and communities better?