{"id":4326,"date":"2003-11-10T10:15:02","date_gmt":"2003-11-10T10:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4326"},"modified":"2003-11-10T10:15:02","modified_gmt":"2003-11-10T10:15:02","slug":"public-work-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=4326","title":{"rendered":"public work in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the beginning of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.civicyouth.org\">CIRCLE<\/a>&#8216;s<\/p>\n<p>annual Advisory Board meeting, when we present our year&#8217;s work for review.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, I recommend this long but excellent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theconnection.org\/shows\/2003\/11\/20031106_a_main.asp\">radio<\/p>\n<p>program <\/a>about <strong>neighborhood councils in Baghdad<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>(Thanks to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archonfung.net\">Archon Fung<\/a> for spreading<\/p>\n<p>the word about it.) At least once a week, I read an article about Americans<\/p>\n<p>and\/or Iraqis who are improvising public services or creating democratic<\/p>\n<p>forums in Iraq. Even though the Army is a hierarchical and bureaucratic<\/p>\n<p>organization with a partly violent purpose, many of our soldiers seem<\/p>\n<p>to have a great capacity for improvisation and diplomacy and a deep<\/p>\n<p>understanding of liberal democratic ideals. There are plenty of stories<\/p>\n<p>about poor planning at the highest levels of our government (and in<\/p>\n<p>the Iraqi Governing Council), and about the inadequate training of the<\/p>\n<p>occupation forces; but these stories don&#8217;t detract from the work that&#8217;s<\/p>\n<p>being done by at least some of our rank-and-file servicemen and women.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>There is a danger that this work will go unappreciated and unstudied.<\/p>\n<p>Most experts on democracy are so angry about Bush and the war that they<\/p>\n<p>aren&#8217;t alert to the grassroots public work that is going on over there.<\/p>\n<p>And most of the leading proponents of the invasion are hawks who are<\/p>\n<p>glad we blew Saddam out of Baghdad, but they don&#8217;t see the nuances,<\/p>\n<p>complexities, and challenges<em> <\/em>of democratic reconstruction.<\/p>\n<p>On Veterans&#8217; Day, I think we should celebrate American<\/p>\n<p>soldiers as nation-builders, because the skills that matter most in<\/p>\n<p>Baghdad today are also needed back home. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the beginning of CIRCLE&#8216;s annual Advisory Board meeting, when we present our year&#8217;s work for review. Meanwhile, I recommend this long but excellent radio program about neighborhood councils in Baghdad. (Thanks to Archon Fung for spreading the word about it.) At least once a week, I read an article about Americans and\/or Iraqis [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iraq-and-democratic-theory"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}