The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is taking a bold stand in favor of defeatism: In today's editorial, Rethinking the rebuilding of Iraq, the P-I criticizes the administration's evolving strategy for rebuilding Iraq, solely on the grounds that it is flexible and evolving:
The Bush administration's attempt to remake the Middle East in its own political image has taken on the look of a pickup flag football game, with wide receiver L. Paul Bremer scurrying back to the huddle late last week to help scratch new play plans in the dirt.It's legitimate to ask whether or not the modified strategy is a wise one, but the P-I is not doing that, nor is it "rethinking" anything. The P-I is simply grasping for any excuse to trash the entire enteprise of transforming Iraq from a Ba'athist kakistocracy into a more decent society, as it has been doing for months:
This dramatic shift in transition strategy is evidence that the administration's original governance strategy -- like those of adequate troop strength and unilateral intervention -- was fatally flawed.First of all, the liberation of Iraq, which had the public support of thirty countries (and the private support of several others), was not "unilateral", just because Saddam's favored trading partners declined to participate in his removal.
If the P-I has any ideas on how to improve the situation in Iraq other than to declare the liberation "fatally flawed" and to surrender and hand the Iraqis back over to the Ba'athist torturers, the P-I hasn't shared those ideas with its readers.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at November 18, 2003 12:12 PMI'm reminded of the so-called Creation Scientists who attack the theory of evolution (and, by implication, the scientific method in general) with a similar argument -- evolution can't be real if the theory keeps changing.
As evolutionary scientists grew tired of having to explain, there's a reason why it's called the THEORY of evolution. A theory isn't absolute truth; it's an explanation, for which no contradicting evidence is known. The scientific method is the way we take a theory, test it, and make it a better and better description of reality over time. This, of course, implies that the theory will CHANGE, as we fix aspects of it that, at first, we didn't know were wrong.
And so it goes with the evolution of a body politic. Bremer and his team are working hard to bring Iraq to a state of democratic self-rule, but inevitably, there will be slip-ups and problems along the way. It is unreasonable to hope that mistakes won't happen; the best we can hope for is that we will be RESPONSIVE to our mistakes, fixing them as quickly as we identify them.
It seems that we're doing a reasonable job of that. Not a perfect job, by any means. Then again, have we forgotten the complexity of the job at hand? Bringing freedom and self-rule, to a country that has known neither for more than a generation! It's a project of such audacity as to take one's breath away. So yes, there have been mistakes -- but were mistakes made on the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, or the Hoover Dam? Of course they were. Was the American Constitution a perfect document? Twenty-seven amendments, to date, would argue otherwise.
I'm reminded of something else, too. It's called The Roman Rule: "the man who says something cannot be done, must not interrupt the man who is doing it".
If American soldiers in Iraq think we're seriously off course, I want to hear from them. But those who opposed the war from day one, and are now searching desparately for excuses to say that we're failing in Iraq, get little sympathy from me. They're the ones who said it couldn't be done, and that we shouldn't try. I say in response -- don't jiggle the elbows of the ones getting the work done.
Daniel in Medford
Posted by: Daniel in Medford on November 18, 2003 01:20 PMAs a conservative, I was always open to the idea that a government social program might 'work' in the sense of providing an overall social benefit. But I wanted to insist that government be honest after a program was implemented. If it wasn't working as 'planned,' then dump it or modify it. An example would be AFDC, which was adopted in the 1930's with the best of intentions, but by the 1960's was clearly not working, and indeed was causing social detriment. The P-I is hewing to a leftist line that social programs be preceeded by a 'plan' (ala Mao's five year plans). Only difference is that the Left usually insists that other social 'plans,' when facts on the ground demonstrate their failure, must be funded by increasing amounts of taxpayer money.
Fred Jacobsen
San Francisco
Same ol' stuff, just a different spin. . . . "No blood for oil".....blah, blah, blah.....very tired and boring . . . At least Bush has a vision.
Posted by: ipsofacto on November 18, 2003 07:34 PM