Ruth Rosen, the anti-liberator

Ruth Rosen took to the streets last winter in a bid to help Saddam Hussein stay in office (on human rights grounds). So it is no surprise that she still can't find any good in the liberation of Iraq.

The results are not pretty.

For the Iraqi people, it is a blazingly hot, deeply disillusioning summer.

Blame the weather on Condoleezza Rice and the cabal of oil-drinking neo-conservative chickenhawks.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld deployed just enough troops to secure Baghdad and a quick military victory, but not enough personnel to keep the peace.

I think the sign Ruth Rosen carried at the various pre-war anti-war rallies must have said: "Send a hundred thousand more troops to Iraq".

Why can't the Americans provide electricity and basic services?

Does Ruth Rosen want the Americans to govern Iraq or does she want the Iraqis to govern themselves?

Like ghosts from the past, words and phrases from the Vietnam-era -- quagmire, credibility gap, guerrilla war, winning the hearts and minds of civilians, requests for more troops -- are creeping back into military and public parlance.

Only because Vietnam-era fossils, like Ruth Rosen, are flooding the zone with Vietnam-era words and phrases. And only because they're still stuck in 1969 and have no other framework for viewing the world.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 11, 2003 12:09 PM