Horses

Let me propose to you a situation. Let’s say that today someone came up to you and said that they were going to give you a horse. “What?” you ask. A horse. It’s a large quadruped herbivore domesticated for various uses such as riding or pulling wagons and farm equipment, but that’s beside the point. Someone wants to give you a horse. Not a race horse to bet on at the track or fancy Clydesdale to pull beer wagons around, just a regular horse. Now, never mind the fact that you live in a 2 bedroom apartment in the city with no yard and the absense of an inner city horse stable near your domicile. What are you going to do with this horse? Would you turn it down? How could you? Horses are very expensive and becoming an owner of one definitely puts you in a higher social status. Everyone wants a horse, right? Plus, you are getting it for free. Why would you say no?

Let’s say you accept this gift. What are you going to do with this horse? You will have to find someplace to board it because the apartment complex frowns on road apples near the pool area. You have to feed it and last I checked, they don’t sell horse feed at the local 7-11. Housing and feeding an animal of that size would have to be done in the country which will make for long trips to visit or ride the animal. That will take a lot of time out of your weekends, not to mention be a little straining on your pocketbook for the fees you’ll likely pay for boarding. What will you do if the horse gets sick? If you think vet bills for Fluffy the cat are expensive, what do you think they will be for a horse? Do you even know how to ride a horse? I’m sure you can take a few lessons, but only after you go out and buy all the saddle, bit and tack you need to do it right. Can you afford the upkeep for something like this? Did you think about any of this before you said you’d take this very generous gift?

I write about this hypothetical situation to prove a point. In our efforts to help the Iraqis in their reconstruction, we don’t do a very good job of thinking through some of the decisions we try to help them make. I see evidence of this all the time and it is frustrating that the coalition leadership refuses to take off the rose colored glasses and take a good gander at reality. We pour money, blood and time into this place to give the Iraqis conveniences that they have never asked for, everything from state of the art technology to luxury items that are only seen on satellite TV. Time and time again I see Iraqi leaders being toured around the US to see examples of how we make things work back home in hope that they will glean some information from us to take back to their country to make it better. Instead, they see some gee-wiz-bang device or piece of equipment and make the proclamation that if they had a large quantity of those things then they could single handedly take back their country and the Americans and the rest of the coalition could go home. So, we go out and buy them a freighter ship full of stuff without putting a lot of thought or research in deciding if this is what they really need, or is it something that they just want. Take a kid to any grocery store and he is going to whine that he wants the candy at the checkout line. They might scream and make a scene, or they might turn into little negotiators by making hasty promises to do their homework and not beat up their little brother if they only got the candy. Regardless, it’s the candy they are focused on and not the other food in the cart. You want to make them happy, but at some point you have to realize that they need fruits and vegetables instead of sweets and you need to teach them the values of eating right.

I sit in meeting after meeting listening to the higher brass talk a big game on how purchasing the Iraqis this or that will make everything better. I can’t and won’t give examples, although I wish I could because most are pretty humorous. It would be on par with deciding that monkeys need to eat warm meals, so you’re going to give them a microwave oven to heat up their bananas. Great idea, right? Maybe. Without a lot of patience and training, the monkeys will be happy they have something new to play with but will most likely break it if they don’t radiate themselves and their fellow monkeys first.


I’m in no way trying to make a stereotypical generalization that Iraqis are dumb like monkeys or whiny like spoiled kids. I’m trying to say that maybe we need to stop trying to decide what the Iraqis want and ask them what they need to get on their feet again and make them follow through on their plan. It is our responsibility when they come with this list of needs to really see if they’ve thought it through (which is a pretty integral part of the coach, teach and mentor mission we are suppose to be following). Have they thought about how they are going to maintain or sustain this or that? Have they developed a good plan that doesn’t include Americans buying or building more stuff for them in the future? I see way too many decision being made “for” the Iraqis with almost no input from them nor any education or training in the equation, only later to be analyzed by the next rotation of coalition who scratch their head asking “What was my predecessor thinking?”

I wonder how many times we’re going to keep throwing money and effort into this thing before someone will stop and be the voice of reason.


I’ve used one too many analogies, but here is my last (although it is nothing more than an extension of the first one):


We as Americans are generous lot, and I think that has to do with our culture and our relative wealth to the rest of the world. It is generous that we see the Iraqis walking everywhere and decide that we’d like to help them by giving them horses. The Iraqis, due to their culture, would be more than gracious to accept free horses out of respect, but they don’t know all the ins and outs of being a horse owner. Over time, this frustration will build despite our attempts to teach them how to rear these animals, but due to their culture, they would never say that that they can'thandle the task. In three years time, instead of reaching the coalition’s vision of Iraq full of happy galloping Iraqis, we’ll instead see a small shack selling horse meat kabobs that will only stay in business for a week or two at most. The Iraqis will be happy and satiated, but after that week is up, they will still be walking everywhere while contemplating when the next shipment of horse meat is from the US is coming.