Ever since the end of World War Two, we have been involved in so-called "nation building," trying to create nations in our image of what a nation should be. We have picked or supported leaders who supposedly met our needs and threw mountains of dollars at them in hopes that they will create nations that will meet our requirements and be our allies. Unfortunately, we seem to have failed miserably in that department, mainly because the leaders that we picked or supported turned out not to be what we expected.
I am very curious to know as to just what process we follow to select these leaders. What vetting system do we employ to decide that this or that person is the right one to support? Whatever system or method, if we have any, that we are employing is obviously not working. Time and time again we seem to pick the wrong individuals!
I don't wish to beat a dead horse, since I have covered this topic before, but starting with our backing of the Nationalist China and Chiang Kai Sheik during and after World War Two, we seem to make wrong choices, one after another. We had a chance with China when we sent the ill fated Dixie Mission to Yenan to report on Mao and his group. Our specially picked observers reported dutifully and recommended that they believed Mao was a better choice! Instead of heeding the advice of those who were on the ground, who were all experts on China and familiar with the situation, the decision makers went with the advice of those who had no idea what really was going on, but were staunch anti-communists. After ruining the lives and careers of loyal Americans that we sent on the Dixie Mission, calling them communists, etc., and pledging undying support for the Nationalists, we dumped Chiang Kai Sheik and the Nationalists unceremoniously a little over twenty years later and became friends with PRC, but not before the Korean War and Vietnam!
In Vietnam, after the French and the Emperor of Vietnam Boa Dai were badly beaten by the communists, we took over and supported the corrupt regime of Ngo Dinh Diem for almost a decade! We finally got tired of his corruption and engineered a coupe in 1963 and had generals take over. For a while General "Big" Minh was our favorite. After all, he led the coupe against Ngo Dinh Diem. But Minh, it turned out, was not a very good leader so we had him replaced with another general who also turned out inadequate. We finally ended up with Thiu, another general, and a clown for Vice President, Nguyen Kao Ky, before the whole thing fell apart and the Ho Chi Minh's forces took over the country and we lost everything that we invested in that place, which was considerable both in dollars and lives!
Oh, by the way, we did have an opportunity to back Ho, who incidentally was our only ally in Indochina during World War Two. In fact, we had promised him that we would support his bid for independence. After all, that is what America stood for, and Ho knew it! But alas, when push came to shove, those brilliant minds in Washington ( I almost said Hollywood!), once again, a bunch of "experts" who had no knowledge of Southeast Asia, decided to maintain status quo, so to speak and back the corrupt regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, and we know where that led to!
There were also a multitude of smaller nations that we "built" that didn't pan out as we planned, but the American public is mostly unaware of those countries existence. Some did make the news. Remember Noriega in Panama? He was our creation, our Frankenstein! He was on CIA payroll for a long time before he went "rogue" so-to-speak. Of course, we took care of that, at great expense, I might add.
Now, with the current problems in the Middle East, we are confronted with inadequate leadership in Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries in which we spent enormous amount of money, lost American lives, and more than likely will continue to spend money and lose lives for the time to come yet. In Afghanistan we are sort of stuck with Hamid Karzai. There probably isn't anyone that we can identify at this time that is capable of leading that nation. At the time we supported Karzai, he was the right guy since he was one of the leaders of the Northern Alliance whose support we needed to oust the Taliban. Karzai's family has been in a leadership position with one of the major tribes in the area, so his support was crucial. Besides, Hamid Karzai had been on our payroll for a number of years, he was what is often referred to as a CIA "contractor." So, he was used to getting money from us, which he continues to receive in huge amounts. His family is very controversial, since one of his brothers who was recently killed had been identified as a major opium supplier and another brother is a banker whose banks had just failed and many people lost their entire savings, etc. Wrapped in controversy, Hamid Karzai is far from ideal, but we are stuck with him for now.
Iraq's Nouri al-Maliki is somewhat of an enigma in a sense that it is hard to understand how he had received our approval. After our successful initial year in Iraq, we tried to establish a new government and supposedly all of the Iraqis that participated in establishing the new government met our approval, or should have, after all, we had just defeated Saddam Hussein and had complete control of Iraq, or so we thought. Maliki was supposedly vetted by our intelligence, which is hard to understand considering his background. Maliki was anti-Saddam and had to flee Iraq, that would be his only qualification for the new government.
When he went into exile, he went to Syria where he became very chummy with the Assad regime. They allowed him complete freedom of movement and action, and he was very closely associated with Iranian sponsored terrorist organization Hezbollah, that launched attacks against Israel. His association with the terrorist group made his presence in Syria a bit risky. It was rumored that Israeli Mossad had targeted him for assassination, so he moved to Iran. In Iran he was welcomed and treated very well and he was often seen with various Iranian leaders. This was basically his background before Saddam's regime fell and Maliki returned to Iraq.
When the first new Iraqi government was established, we vetted Maliki who became the Prime Minister of the new regime. Immediately there were problems. Instead of trying to unite the various sectarian groups, a major problem in that part of the world, Maliki showed his true colors and became very divisive, favoring the Shia (sometimes spelled Shiite) and actually refusing to accept some of the minorities into the government. After a long term as Prime Minister (2006-2014), long enough to do a lot of damage and start the seeds of sectarian violence, Sunni vs. Shia, he finally agreed to leave office. But his sabbatical from politics was very brief, less than a month, for he was elected to Vice Presidency shortly after. Now, as Vice President, he seems to have more power than the President and the Prime Minister. The way the Iraqi government is set up, it is the Prime Minister that is supposed to have the political power. But Maliki seems to have changed that.
Some claim that the whole business of ISIS is Maliki's fault, that his refusal to include the Sunni in the government brought about this horrible splinter group. If that is indeed the case, then it is but one of the many problems that he has created. He won't allow any entry of additional U.S. or NATO troops without special permission. The 300 "trainers" that we were supposed to send to Iraq have not yet been given permission to enter! Australia has also committed several hundred "trainers" but they too are awaiting visas! Visas! What a ridiculous demand and situation! That is Maliki. Besides being corrupt and having gotten filthy rich off our dollars that we poured in, he plays real hard ball and favors Iran as an ally! This seems to be a surprise to some in our government (I guess they never looked into his background!) and now they want him out since he appears to be a major obstacle not only in unifying Iraq but combatting ISIS as well.
Yes, we sure do know how to pick them!
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