Episode Details

In this episode, we explore how firing the iraqi army created isis. In March of 2003, the United States military dropped thousands of leaflets all over Iraq. Right. The psychological operations dropped. Exactly. And the message printed on them was, you know, essentially a guarantee. It said, if Iraqi soldiers lay down their weapons and refuse to fight, they'll be allowed to go home. Keep their dignity. Yeah, keep their dignity and help rebuild a new posts a domination. Which sounds like a solid strategy on paper. It does. But then, weeks later, after the government actually falls, the coalition Provisional Authority issues an order that just straight up fires all 375 ,000 of those men. Unbelievable. Just permanently dissolve their military. Send them home without a pension, without a paycheck, nothing. And I mean, the immediate consequence of that wasn't just, you know, mass unemployment. No, of course not. It was the overnight creation of this highly trained, deeply alienated shadow fabrications to the UN as hard facts. It's just wild. I'd like to give you an analogy. It's like deciding a neighbor is dangerous based on a totally baseless rumor. Having the police investigate and find absolutely nothing, but you go ahead and kick their door down anyway just because you have this preemptive feeling. What's fascinating here is how the newly formalized Bush Doctrine provided the actual bureaucratic cover for that cognitive bias. Right, the doctrine of preemption. Exactly. It shifted American foreign policy toward preemptive war, this idea that the U .S. couldn't wait for a threat to fully materialize before striking. Right. And when you adopt preemption as your core philosophy, you inevitably lower the threshold for actionable intelligence. You start relying on worst -case scenario assumptions. instead of hard evidence. And they push forward despite massive global opposition. I mean, 36 million people protesting globally. UN