Talk:Mehdi Army

I'm sure this is not a popular, politically correct or probably even very well educated rhetoric about the situation that is going on in Iraq but, here it goes anyways. If we now have an uprising of peoples that are now fighting what they feel are their oppressors why can't we seem to address the particular issue of poverty, low standards of living and societal status. For instance, I hear for one of the first times about the "slums" of Baghdad. I was not aware that their needs were being particularily ignored. Their lack of power, sewage facilities and probably completely unsanitary living would of course cause rioting and dissention. It would in this country, too. It is even possible that these very people are the few that would have welcomed a new regime if it meant new hope for them and their families if their issues had been addressed sooner. And why can't we still address these issues in these areas if for no other reason than that a new government is going to also put them on the bottom of the list of priorities just as before, just as our elitest government does in our own country, and lastly and perhaps most motivating for our own government; great P.R. A Real Act of Peaceful Intervention! Why can't we use some of our civil engineers in the US army to organize and head some of the immediate needs of these people. Why aren't we hearing about are so called many Army enlisted and/or civilian civil engineers whom I had always thought the army was chiefly made of. I thought that was the main objective of the army; to build bridges, get the power grids up, assure clean water and food distribution is happening, organizing civilians and their families to assure their safety and to get them to participate in their own basic needs and recovery, and so on and so forth. Why are we waiting for a new government in Iraq to begin to meet these most basic needs? Who perhaps could organize a simple (heavily)armed troop to address these particular "high needs" areas and involve the very people that live there, offering them paid wages for something other than police and milatia work and use that opportunity to begin a civilian Census, and perhaps a civilian registry. Beginning on a small level a few garbage trucks, clearing the streets, unclogging sewers and annoucing your arrival. Begin to give them back control themselves with a simple thing like garbage day! Hand out tools and supplies for repairs to structures that have been damaged. In other words give them jobs! Saddam had plenty of money stored away. Use those wages! But, of course, I'm oversimplifying!