Riddle Me This
Nate correctly mentions the anti-war (and pro-war) folks don't just fall into a binary and there's all sorts of nuance to a lot of people's position. What I've never quite understood, however, are the all the folks (and there are many - smart ones) who initially supported the war and then turned against the idea at various points when things got ugly - concluding the war was completely mismanaged, perhaps even criminally.
Frankly, I don't understand this position. Almost all wars are criminally mismanaged since stupid choices result in the death of innocent people and soldiers, as opposed to say, making a bad movie or losing a client. The Civil War was completely mismanaged by the North for several years before Lincoln promoted Grant. And then, we only managed to finally win the war by the scorched earth warmaking of Sherman's March through the South - a crime by any modern standards. Furthermore, the war gave birth to organizations like the KKK and Jim Crow laws. Certainly many people of the South preferred the good 'ole days of slavery. And yet, the "mismanagement" and potentially illegal warmaking didn't make the endeavors wrong.
2 comments:
There is perhps a simple explanation: we tolerate a certain amount of incompetence before we jump ship, and the amount we tolerate is in direct relationship to the severity of the situation.
We had to tolerate incompetence in the Civil War and WWII, because what was the alternative? It was a crisis the whole country was caught up in. Vietnam and Iraq are not existentialist struggles for the country, despite what hardcore conservatives want us to think. We tried, we did some good things, but now the bad is outweighing the good, so let's get out.
I think Bush screwed up in ways that we shouldn't tolerate, in the same way Lincoln got rid of his Generals when the were screwing up. Bush had a chance, it didn't work out, so that's that. Is that such a bad position to take?
i'm not sure wwii was an existentialist struggle. japan had no capability to land ground troops in america. neither did hitler. maybe - over time they would have come after us...but isn't that preemptive war? ie the exact same thing we're talking about with respect to iraq?
i suppose your position isn't morally bad or incomprehensible, but it strikes me as rather fickle and thin-skinned on the wrong side.
basically, it amounts to playing down the threat of saddam to long term regional instability - saying more or less, iraq isn't that big of a deal to the united states. (and fine, maybe some conservatives overestimate the threat he posed). but then on the other hand you are playing up the negatives of the war, civilian causalties, abu ghraib, going at it alone and argue these ARE a much bigger deal and bigger loss to the united states.
in the end, i guess, it just seems to bad math to me. if your hand was good enough to call on the flop, it's probably good enough to call on the turn. you want to fold. andrew sullivan wants to either fold or go all in. president bush wants to call.
but the democrats never pose it this way. they pose it as criminal negligence, incredible stupidity...and on and on. instapundit had an interesting link today and said the only way to get the dems on board with the war on terror was for them to win the house, senate, and pres in 2008 and they'd come around to pretty similar policies as bush.
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