12 November 2005
Destroying Our Way of Life
On Veterans’ Day, President Bush said, “As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them.” No, the elected leaders who threw our unsuspecting volunteer soldiers into a hopeless and dangerous situation won’t abandon them. Indeed, that is the real reason for the rest of us to “Support our Troops.” More to the point, that is the real reason that those soldiers are fighting as well as they do – they know that individual bravery is the best way for all of them to come out of the war alive.
It turned out to be the Bush Administration’s strategic deception that invading Iraq had any clear connection with fighting terrorists. Or in the more diplomatic language of Nicholas Lemann in the November 7, 2005 New Yorker, setting Saddam up as a threat to the security of the world was the “stagecraft” needed to validate the armed overthrow of his regime. It was a forceful demonstration of his determination to make the Middle East more like America. His advisors convinced him that only by wielding a big stick will leaders of Southwest and Central Asian countries be made to collaborate with us peacefully.
There is a big personal cost, to our victims and our soldiers (not to mention a tax dollar drain), to being the bully in the playground of world politics. If our way of life entails imposing it on other societies, it should not be a surprise when members of those cultures try to destroy it.
On Veterans’ Day, President Bush said, “As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them.” No, the elected leaders who threw our unsuspecting volunteer soldiers into a hopeless and dangerous situation won’t abandon them. Indeed, that is the real reason for the rest of us to “Support our Troops.” More to the point, that is the real reason that those soldiers are fighting as well as they do – they know that individual bravery is the best way for all of them to come out of the war alive.
It turned out to be the Bush Administration’s strategic deception that invading Iraq had any clear connection with fighting terrorists. Or in the more diplomatic language of Nicholas Lemann in the November 7, 2005 New Yorker, setting Saddam up as a threat to the security of the world was the “stagecraft” needed to validate the armed overthrow of his regime. It was a forceful demonstration of his determination to make the Middle East more like America. His advisors convinced him that only by wielding a big stick will leaders of Southwest and Central Asian countries be made to collaborate with us peacefully.
There is a big personal cost, to our victims and our soldiers (not to mention a tax dollar drain), to being the bully in the playground of world politics. If our way of life entails imposing it on other societies, it should not be a surprise when members of those cultures try to destroy it.
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