The disaster in Iraq and constuctive criticism

[candy331]

The disaster in Iraq and constructive criticism

"So what do you propose?" That is the question hurled at us critics of the war. Presumably, being right about the war so far is "irrelevant" now. We must be judged by giving sound, practical advice that can make the best of a bad fix.

First, that we were right about the war should not be so easily dismissed. We were right because we analyzed the U.S. government objectively, while Thomas Friedman and the "give war a chance" crowd was looking at things through a dark glass of misplaced piousness. Has a lesson been learned? No it hasn't. The mainstream media, the 9/11 Commission, the Democrats and the liberal and conservative pundits are critical of the failures of the Administration. But with few exceptions, they still assume that the goals of the White House were and are noble. Since that very assumption is the cause of error, those who gave wrong advice will continue to be wrong.

There is a new "wisdom" that begins to unite some faux lefties and some old defense hands. According to this new wisdom, the failure in Iraq is the result of too much optimism, but optimism of a specific kind. Supposedly, had we only understood that Iraq was just "not ready for democracy," had we only sent twice as many soldiers, and given them a simple mission, such as to put in charge a friendly dictator and get out, everything might be different.

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John Kerry follows the same line. He is critical of "the way" the war was fought. To prove his point, he has backed from calling the war crimes he, himself, committed thirty years ago "atrocities." Perhaps the new p.c. term for burning villages and their inhabitants should be "robust landscaping." Moral clarity is, of course, no longer a priority, now that Marine snipers are taking potshots at women, children and ambulance drivers in Falluja. But Kerry has an eye for the future, too. A candidate who prepares to spend his term in office burning cities should be careful how he describes burning villages.

It was just a question of time before the exhilaration of empire would turn into the melancholy of murder. In less than a year, giddiness morphed into somber anxiety. But the one thing that remained constant is the self-righteousness of the American public discourse. We're back to faulting the natives for their stubborn refusal to understand the purity of our hearts. And hell hasn't seen the wrath of a heart-broken colonialist. Iraqis must learn now, as did Native Americans, African slaves, Vietnamese and Palestinian peasants, and many others, that ingratitude is a capital offense.

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The only change in policy that will make a dramatic, long-term positive effect on U.S. Middle East relations would be for the U.S. to dump Israel. Unless that happens, the U.S. is doomed to fight in the Middle East all the way down to financial ruin. And until that happens, offering advice is neither useful nor right.



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