The willingness of members of the Bush administration to abandon their past records of prudence and match Saddam's reckless and delusional behavior with their own may have been the most important element missing from my own thinking about the war.
In taking such strong issue with that statement, both you and the Dispatch must first characterize his statement to read that Pollack said the Bush people, " were (are?) as "reckless" as Saddam?"
In fact Pollack's statement could be just as easily read as saying that the Bush people, "exhibited reckless and delusional behavior, characteristics also exhibited by Saddam, the man they overthrew." That reading of the Pollack statement makes a great deal more sense than interpreting his statement as claiming that the Bush people were "equally" as reckless and delusional as Saddam.
It is, however, much easier to destroy the logic of one who presents unpleasant views if those views can be distorted and exaggerated to such a degree that they are indefensible.
Carranza2, in your critique of Pollack you use both of the techniques commonly employed by emotional (or dishonest) thinkers who refuse to seriously entertain or discuss views that compete with those they "want" to believe; creating straw men who make "wrong" statements and, for good measure, questioning the motives of those who present the views.
What you HAVEN'T done is discuss the question of whether, as Pollack clearly now believes, the Bush administration WAS reckless and delusional in invading Iraq, nor have you discussed the possible legitimate reasons for Pollack might have for raising those questions at this time.
Taking the second question only, it's clear that not only Pollack, but also Tom Friedman, Fareed Z., George Will and other intellectuals who were war hawks, have recently attacked the Bush Administration for their asserted "incompetent conduct of the Iraqi occupation." It's not difficult to understand why they've done so.
Each of them makes a living by, and takes pride in their ability to, offer insightful analysis. They NEED to be right both professionally and, because they take pride in their place in life as intellectuals, emotionally. After having gotten on board with one or more of the rationales for the war, and after asserting the "doability" of the "transformation," they now see almost certain failure. While it's true that failure can be defined away by continuously watering down the "mission," and can be excused away to an uninformed audience by continuously pointing the finger of blame elsewhere, their true peers are a far more critical audience.
That leaves them with two basic choices, one is to admit that they AND the Bush Administration were simply WRONG in assessing and analyzing what we could and couldn't do with the invasion and occupation of Iraq and what the Iraqis could and would do to resist our efforts. To follow that course would require taking full personal responsibility for an erroneous analysis and reveal true humility and honesty, and none of the three have done so yet.
The second choice, and the one those three have taken, is to continue to assert the correctness of their views but to assail the competence of the Bush Administration in conducting the mission. Pollack is taking the NEXT logical step and saying that the Bush Administration was incompetent but that he should be excused for not foreseeing their incompetence.
In effect he's excusing himself for being wrong by pointing the finger of blame at the Bush team for incompetence, and then excusing himself for being wrong once again for not predicting their incompetence. Now that's funny.
The underlying truth is that all three of them, like the decision makers in the Bush Administration, greatly underestimated the outrage that occurs when you interfere with someone else's hive. They further underestimated the strength of average people with few resources but with lots of determination, passion and brains. Those three, like Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rice and others, should have gotten out more in their youth and spent time with people who sweat for a living and who, when aroused, are as tough as they need to be.
The underlying failure in the planning for the Iraqi "transformation or subjugation" was, therefor the mistaken belief that average people are malleable sheep that can be herded wherever the "power" sends them.
They should have understood that if you intend to use power to influence basic behavior, you better have lots of power and the willingness to use it brutally, or you'll fail. That's a truth that Saddam Hussein understood and one that the war hawks and self-styled Mideast experts are learning the hard way.
They should have each done what Kerry did in 1969 and taken a dip in the world of real people doing little things for a while. Then maybe they'd have understood that little people can be just as determined, just as deadly and just as nobly willing to sacrifice for a cause as they think they are. That's why many of the Generals that came up the hard way, including Colin Powell, and even the elder Bush who saw real combat, were so "pessimistic" about the wisdom of going into Iraq. And that's why those people were right and, despite their finger pointing at the Bush incompetence, Fareed, George Will and Pollack were dead wrong. They, like some on this board, should have the integrity and humility to simply admit their mistakes, learn from them and hope to never repeat them.
But then they could afford to take a flyer and be wrong since none of THEM died because of it, did they? |
