22 July 2007
Shore Has Been Taken In
In his commentary on NPR’s Weekend Edition, July 21, 2007, Daniel Shore attributed the failure of Senator Reid’s all-nighter on Capitol Hill to his failure to perceive that “many Americans do not want to cut the rug out from under our troops in Iraq.” It seems that Mr. Shore has bitten the President’s bait by accepting his labeling of forcing a withdrawal of the U.S. forces in Iraq as a withdrawal of support for the troops.
In fact, it is the President who has placed the military in harm’s way in Iraq, where it has no reason to be and where it cannot achieve the goal of instilling commitment to supporting a democratic system of government. Pulling the troops out of Iraq is only in their best interests and ultimately in the interest of self-rule in Iraq.
In his commentary on NPR’s Weekend Edition, July 21, 2007, Daniel Shore attributed the failure of Senator Reid’s all-nighter on Capitol Hill to his failure to perceive that “many Americans do not want to cut the rug out from under our troops in Iraq.” It seems that Mr. Shore has bitten the President’s bait by accepting his labeling of forcing a withdrawal of the U.S. forces in Iraq as a withdrawal of support for the troops.
In fact, it is the President who has placed the military in harm’s way in Iraq, where it has no reason to be and where it cannot achieve the goal of instilling commitment to supporting a democratic system of government. Pulling the troops out of Iraq is only in their best interests and ultimately in the interest of self-rule in Iraq.
11 July 2007
Giving the Surge a Chance
It is inappropriate to characterize objections to the policy of the Bush Administration on Capitol Hill as efforts “to undermine the war in Iraq.” In his OpEd article in the July 9, 2007 Wall Street Journal, Pete Hegseth missed the point of our being in Iraq: the objective is not to win a war; it is to pursue a policy. Unfortunately, the policy is wrong: overthrowing a dictator who was not a threat to our security, and whose presence was essential to keeping Iraq together in one piece (notwithstanding the debatable benefit of that geopolitical arrangement).
Each of the “falsehoods” that Mr. Hegseth claims to refute is a distortion;
1) Of course the “surge” is a failure because the longer it persists, the less it is a surge and the more it is an escalation, with no end in sight.
2) “Political reconciliation” cannot be achieved through force of arms.
3) To summarize General Petraeus’s mission as pacifying Baghdad is exactly to acknowledge that the “whack-a-mole” game is afoot.
4) “Civil War” is a red herring. Iraq is faced with chaos in the absence of a strong center, which the U.S. proudly destroyed.
President Bush seeks to hide behind the military when he doesn’t have an answer to why we are in Iraq. The American people are fed up with this subterfuge. Dissolving refuges for international terrorists, like Al Qaeda, takes more than attacking their proven few bases; it requires a lasting effort to convince the terrorists’ supporters that their nihilistic beliefs are a dead end.
It is inappropriate to characterize objections to the policy of the Bush Administration on Capitol Hill as efforts “to undermine the war in Iraq.” In his OpEd article in the July 9, 2007 Wall Street Journal, Pete Hegseth missed the point of our being in Iraq: the objective is not to win a war; it is to pursue a policy. Unfortunately, the policy is wrong: overthrowing a dictator who was not a threat to our security, and whose presence was essential to keeping Iraq together in one piece (notwithstanding the debatable benefit of that geopolitical arrangement).
Each of the “falsehoods” that Mr. Hegseth claims to refute is a distortion;
1) Of course the “surge” is a failure because the longer it persists, the less it is a surge and the more it is an escalation, with no end in sight.
2) “Political reconciliation” cannot be achieved through force of arms.
3) To summarize General Petraeus’s mission as pacifying Baghdad is exactly to acknowledge that the “whack-a-mole” game is afoot.
4) “Civil War” is a red herring. Iraq is faced with chaos in the absence of a strong center, which the U.S. proudly destroyed.
President Bush seeks to hide behind the military when he doesn’t have an answer to why we are in Iraq. The American people are fed up with this subterfuge. Dissolving refuges for international terrorists, like Al Qaeda, takes more than attacking their proven few bases; it requires a lasting effort to convince the terrorists’ supporters that their nihilistic beliefs are a dead end.
05 July 2007
Goose and Gander
At a July Fourth barbecue yesterday, we and several friends read aloud the Declaration of Independence. That got us talking about the use of force by our President George W, in contrast to King George, to pre-empt the use of terrorism by Islamic radicals. What particularly worried some at the table was the sentiment of 25% of young Muslims in the West, reported by a respected Poll, that the use of terrorism was justified to resolve certain political issues.
The Bush Administration has chosen to combat the use of terrorism with military force, which is designed to repel socially organized violence. It’s a terrific waste of resources and human life in the case of spontaneous anarchy. But the tactic was justified as needed to pre-empt the formation of homes for terrorists who may threaten our own lives.
Instead of pacifying whole countries with cultures different from ours, the nation’s fear of terrorism would be better directed toward measures to change the views of those people who are convinced of the spiritual value of destroying earthly existence. There have always been demagogues who take advantage of distraught populations; but in today’s wired world, these populations have access to dangerous means of fulfilling their nihilistic mission.
Western civilization has over the years assigned more value to individual welfare than in years past, making us unwilling to sustain the devotion of armies to murderous campaigns. However, the advance of information technology is not synchronous with the attitudes towards life and violence of all cultures around the world. It is the source of invasions of certain societies by recidivist blow-ups of violence imported from other cultures characterized by an earlier lifestyle pattern.
At a July Fourth barbecue yesterday, we and several friends read aloud the Declaration of Independence. That got us talking about the use of force by our President George W, in contrast to King George, to pre-empt the use of terrorism by Islamic radicals. What particularly worried some at the table was the sentiment of 25% of young Muslims in the West, reported by a respected Poll, that the use of terrorism was justified to resolve certain political issues.
The Bush Administration has chosen to combat the use of terrorism with military force, which is designed to repel socially organized violence. It’s a terrific waste of resources and human life in the case of spontaneous anarchy. But the tactic was justified as needed to pre-empt the formation of homes for terrorists who may threaten our own lives.
Instead of pacifying whole countries with cultures different from ours, the nation’s fear of terrorism would be better directed toward measures to change the views of those people who are convinced of the spiritual value of destroying earthly existence. There have always been demagogues who take advantage of distraught populations; but in today’s wired world, these populations have access to dangerous means of fulfilling their nihilistic mission.
Western civilization has over the years assigned more value to individual welfare than in years past, making us unwilling to sustain the devotion of armies to murderous campaigns. However, the advance of information technology is not synchronous with the attitudes towards life and violence of all cultures around the world. It is the source of invasions of certain societies by recidivist blow-ups of violence imported from other cultures characterized by an earlier lifestyle pattern.
