Bill Maher On Why We Can't "Fix" Iraq

The following rant from Bill Maher (from his HBO show) is humorous, but there is also a lot of truth in it. Enjoy.

Now that Iraq is falling apart again, someone needs to drill it into the American psyche that broken nations are a lot like broken people — you can't fix them.  Look at Afghanistan and the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan.  Look at Denise Richards and the lawless tribal areas of Charlie Sheen. 

Lately, there's been so many calls for American intervention in Syria, Ukraine, north Africa, now Iraq again.  Maybe America is the one that needs an intervention.  Maybe America needs Dr. Phil to come by and ask us, "How's that nation building workin' for ya?"

Now I know we're Americans, which means that when this nation was founded by Jesus, he made us exceptional.  But we're not miracle workers.  We have to realize that some nations — much like Nick Nolte's pants — are never going to change.  Some of them aren't even nations, they're just tribes that we threw together like reality show contestants on a sex boat.  And when Presidents of both parties have dealt with them over the decades and got bad results, we always blame the President.  But maybe it's not the President, maybe it's the place.

It's like how, you know sometimes there's one place on a street where every business that goes in there fails?  You drive by, it's a Quiznos.  You drive by again, it's a nail salon.  Drive by again, it's a pawn shop.  It's not failing because it hates freedom, it's just a shitty location.  

I'm sorry, Iraq!  Not to be mean, but you're a shitty location.  Which is why it's so frustrating to now hear "if only we had stayed".  This is the delusion that launched the war in the first place.  Remember the plan?  We were going to go into Iraq, we'd be greeted as liberators, then we'd install an American-style democracy that we'd then use as a model for the rest of the Middle East to become democratic.  Then after lunch....  

Don Rumsfeld once said we could fix Iraq in six months.  "Fix" Iraq.  America's like one of those women who always think she can "fix" the bad boy.  And Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Pakistan, Somalia, these are all the bad boys we couldn't resist trying to fix.

We think, "You know, if they just got to know us, I know they'd straighten out.  If I just spend time with him, he'll see how happy he is, and he won't want to drink and chase whores anymore!"  "I'm going to smother him with love, that's what I'm gonna do!  And then he'll realize what he really wants — to be a secular democracy."

I mean, sure, bad boys are exciting — the hot sex, the rug burns, the missing money from your checking account.  What girl could resist that?

I mean, we've all seen how even big stars, beautiful, rich, successful women, women who could have anybody, chose to get with dirtbags!

Why?  Because it's human nature to think you can change human nature. Remember in that movie As Good As It Gets when lifelong asshole Jack Nicholson tells Helen Hunt, "You make me want to be a better man"?  Yeah, that happens never.  Just like President Maliki isn't going to call Obama tomorrow and say, "You make us want to be a better country."

(The caricature of Bill Maher above is by DonkeyHotey.)