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![]() Just Above Sunset
July 3, 2005 - Failure Is an Option?
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Okay, you could compare
this week's presidential address on what the real situation is now in Iraq - full text of the speech here - to Nixon's "Silent Majority" speech (here) back in the days of the Vietnam War. Taking the lead from Digby at Hullabaloo
we tried that here. Both were exhortations to "stay the course" no matter how we got to where we
are. We cannot pull out. That's
no way to end this war. NIXON: "But I want to
end it in a way which will increase the chance that their younger brothers and their sons will not have to fight in some future
Vietnam someplace in the world." No. We may be there again, and in the commentary all over in the days following the speech comparisons to the
Vietnam War were growing by leaps and bounds. The inference here is
clear. The U.S. intervention, and its ill-planned, under-manned, haphazard execution,
has made Iraq more of a terrorist threat than it might otherwise have been. I
say "might," because an eventually unconstrained Saddam could well have become such a menace.
But the president here outlined the case of the war critics: that this war may have made matters worse; that
Iraq could become another Taliban-Afghanistan; and that is now why we can't afford to lose. … But he goes on to say that
these are fights over the past, and the question is now what? The critical reaction
to Bush's speech - I'm talking here about the "respectable" establishment critics, not the antiwar left and right - seems
to revolve around three points: So Bush has managed to
make himself right at last? Seems so. … trying to
fight a counterinsurgency campaign with a ground force that is far too small to pacify the country, but far too big (and visible)
to avoid acting as the insurgency's recruiting officers. Meanwhile, a hefty cut of whatever supplies or weapons are given
to the Iraqi security forces are likely to end up in hostile hands - meaning the Army could wind up being the insurgency's
quartermaster corps as well." Under the circumstances,
the mindless chants of "failure is not an option" are starting to sound like the desperate prayers of the terminally ill.
Failure is always an option - particularly for morons who launch a war of choice under the impression that they can't possibly
lose it. And he provides an outline
of how that would work. And that is recommended reading, a detailed discussion of phased withdrawal options and realignments of alliances and priorities.
... it would require
us to admit that the traditional thrust of U.S. foreign policy - the relentless drive to open the globe to American trade,
American capital, American ideas and American values - has left us facing some hard questions, like: How far is America willing
to go to ensure the rest of the world adapts to its economic and cultural preferences? So we muddle on. And failure is an option. "It seems to me that
so much of the political divide boils down to the issue of American exceptionalism. The dominant conservatives have blind
faith in American exceptionalism (more and more fueled by religious faith) and have no reservations about the use of American
power. The most vociferous liberals categorically reject American exceptionalism and any use of American power (internationally).
Independents (as well as independent thinking liberals and conservatives) seem to be tolerating simultaneously seeing that
America is great, we do have special role in the world, and that we are capable of intentional and unintentional bad acts.
We therefore see the use of American power as sometimes appropriate but approach it cautiously. Too bad that, in the current
climate, any politician capable of independent thought gets eviscerated and 'disciplined' by their own party." As was said in these pages
on June 22, 2003 – If Canadians were like
these guys - the conservative Republicans who have the helm down here now - they would be out to transform the world and put
a Tim Horton franchise on every corner in every third-world country, and force people to watch endless curling events. And
every single one of my pleasant Canadian friends would ask the same question. Why do that? What's the point? There is national
pride, and then too there is pure foolishness. |
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This issue updated and published on...
Paris readers add nine hours....
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