[Industrialblog,
September 14, 2004]
BTW, going a little wobbly on Iraq ...
I'm surprised at the depth of the resistance in Iraq, its effectiveness, and how long it has lasted. I'd say we need to stay the course, if I knew what the course was. What's the course again?
UPDATE: Donald Rumsfeld responds to Industrial Blog here. [Yes, I'm kidding ... but Rumsfeld did address the concerns I just raised. No time to be "faint hearted," as he says. Dean Esmay is always warning me about this.]
UPDATE: Donald Rumsfeld responds to Industrial Blog here. [Yes, I'm kidding ... but Rumsfeld did address the concerns I just raised. No time to be "faint hearted," as he says. Dean Esmay is always warning me about this.]
Andrew Sullivan pointed out this very interesting Newsweek piece here
How exactly can continued resistance make you forget this?
A free, democratic Iraq? Um. What if the Iraqis aren't up to it? Sure doesn't look like they are.
I like the part about the zero mad dictators and the no-help terrorists, though.
Plus, France still has French as its official language. Talk about incompetent government.
But, seriously, make a point of reading Donald Rumsfeld. As he pointed out, even our country had Shay's Rebellion (sp?) several years into its existence. Democracy can take a while to take hold.
I really do think that Bush is right when he says that it's the practice of democracy which makes men fit for democracy. Kind of a variant on 'the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him'.
But, I mean, really. The course is hard. We knew that before we got into it. Of course we didn't know how hard it was going to be. No hypothetical — however bad — is ever as bad as reality is — however good — for the simple reason that reality is real.
My favorite definition of reality is "that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away". When considering hypotheticals, one always skips over the bad parts and dwells on the good parts. Reality comes at its own pace. Whatever ills it brings must be endured for however long they exist — not merely for how long we think about them.
(Incidentally, this works against us doubly: every dead soldier is far more real to us than the death than 100 Iraqis would have faced but didn't in Saddam's torture chambers. The latter is, at this point, hypothetical. Those Iraqi deaths are no merely what-ifs, whereas the coffins coming back are what-happeneds. So it is with every sacrifice which prevented something worse.)