It seems that there is really no limit to the nonsense generated by neocon attempts to rationalize the failure in Iraq.
This week, I read a column (translated into Hebrew in Haaretz) by Edward Lutwack, of a thinktank in Maryland. Civil wars, writes Lutwak (more or less), are nasty affairs, but they have a purpose: they help people settle their differences. Why, after the American civil war, American society got where it was supposed to be and flourished. And so on through a list of other examples. So if the Iraqis are having one now, better let them get on with it, because this, too, has a purpose; this, too, will lead to a beneficial reshaping of Iraqi society.
Did you get this? American basically did the Iraqis a favor by getting rid of their dictator so that they could have at each other. What's a body count of (at conservative estimates) 35,000 souls, if you end up with a country in which the tensions have been played out?
Needless to say, no one has compiled statistics on "might-have-been" civil wars -- places where social tensions ultimately were settled without large-scale violence of this sort (South Africa might be an instructive example in this regard).
Well, maybe we should have the Americans invade Israel. We certainly have enough tensions here to fuel a civil war or two between the Arab and Jewish denizens of the land (if not among the Jews themselves). Here, unlike Iraq, there shouldn't be a problem finding the WMD, especially since Shimon Peres has told the world that we can unleash them any ol' time we like to take out Iran. We're a small country; they won't have to look too hard. And of course finding the evidence of government corruption won't be too hard, either. Then we can really have peace in the Middle East.
These neocons cling to the naive idea that the Americans invaded Iraq in order to install democracy there. As though the U.S. had a record around the world of getting rid of nasty dictators, rather than installing them -- like Pinochet and Noriega -- wherever it appears to suit their interest. To them as to us Israelis, it seems, America is to be worshipped and served by all as a kind of omnipotent, benevolent god, whose actions are always for the best.
Perhaps it bears remembering that we are forbidden to worship any God but God.
This week, I read a column (translated into Hebrew in Haaretz) by Edward Lutwack, of a thinktank in Maryland. Civil wars, writes Lutwak (more or less), are nasty affairs, but they have a purpose: they help people settle their differences. Why, after the American civil war, American society got where it was supposed to be and flourished. And so on through a list of other examples. So if the Iraqis are having one now, better let them get on with it, because this, too, has a purpose; this, too, will lead to a beneficial reshaping of Iraqi society.
Did you get this? American basically did the Iraqis a favor by getting rid of their dictator so that they could have at each other. What's a body count of (at conservative estimates) 35,000 souls, if you end up with a country in which the tensions have been played out?
Needless to say, no one has compiled statistics on "might-have-been" civil wars -- places where social tensions ultimately were settled without large-scale violence of this sort (South Africa might be an instructive example in this regard).
Well, maybe we should have the Americans invade Israel. We certainly have enough tensions here to fuel a civil war or two between the Arab and Jewish denizens of the land (if not among the Jews themselves). Here, unlike Iraq, there shouldn't be a problem finding the WMD, especially since Shimon Peres has told the world that we can unleash them any ol' time we like to take out Iran. We're a small country; they won't have to look too hard. And of course finding the evidence of government corruption won't be too hard, either. Then we can really have peace in the Middle East.
These neocons cling to the naive idea that the Americans invaded Iraq in order to install democracy there. As though the U.S. had a record around the world of getting rid of nasty dictators, rather than installing them -- like Pinochet and Noriega -- wherever it appears to suit their interest. To them as to us Israelis, it seems, America is to be worshipped and served by all as a kind of omnipotent, benevolent god, whose actions are always for the best.
Perhaps it bears remembering that we are forbidden to worship any God but God.
posted by Deborah Greniman @ 3:14 AM
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