Optimism Can Be Folly
Excerpts for your consideration from one of today's posts to Talking Points Memo, which addresses Bush's state of denial about the situation in Iraq:
It's always possible to posit 'optimism' up until the point when the whole place actually erupts spontaneously into hellfire. But to any thinking individual it's clear and it's been clear for some time that our whole enterprise in Iraq is going extremely poorly, by pretty much every concievable measure.And yet the president just says none of this is true. Things are going well. Yes, things are difficult, he says. But we're on the right track and things keep getting better....
The president is simply in denial. Or he's willing to keep burning through the US Army and the Marine Corps to avoid admitting the failure of his policies or even the obvious fact that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating terribly....
Words and excuses meet incompetence, chaos and death. That's what this election is about.
Comments
I agree that Mr. Bush seems to be overly optimistic. Judging from today's news reports, many senior Republican legislators agree.
I would like to point out a section from Mr. Bush's speech at the Republican convention. At the time, I found it to be the only noteworthy moment.
"And we are working to advance liberty in the broader Middle East, because freedom will bring a future of hope and the peace we all want. And we will prevail.
"Our strategy is succeeding. Four years ago, Afghanistan was the home base of Al Qaida.
"Pakistan was a transit point for terrorist groups. Saudi Arabia was fertile ground for terrorist fund-raising. Libya was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, Iraq was a gathering threat. And Al Qaida was largely unchallenged as it planned attacks.
"Today, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror. Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders. Saudi Arabia is making raids and arrests. Libya is dismantling its weapons programs. The army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom. And more than three-quarters of Al Qaida's key members and associates have been detained or killed."
I found this section noteworthy because it is the only time I recall Mr. Bush even partially articulating an understandable overall strategy for the Middle East region. Mr. Bush also pointed out several factors to suggest that the overall strategy is succeeding.
Although Mr. Bush jumps almost directly from Freedom to Peace, I feel safe filling in the dots. The following, it seems to me, are the missing points: The growth of democracy in the Middle East will lead to economic freedoms, economic freedoms will lead to increased opportunity, increased opportunity will lead to less violent societies, less violent societies will reduce the risks faced by the United States in the Middle East region.
What I find so discordant about Mr. Bush's optimism on Iraq is this: the stated objective is not easy. It is not at all clear that we will prevail. There are powerful and entrenched elements within Iraq who clearly oppose democracy. If we do prevail, it will be very difficult to do so.
Anyone heard the "Bagdad Bob or Bagdad Bush" bit where they read an optimistic statement about how the war is going and ask contestants to choose who said it? It's hard to tell the difference between Saddam's lackey and our President.
If anyone out there wants to get a really unique, well researched and written commentary on what has really been going on between Iraq and the U.S. over the past several years, I recommend an article written by Naomi Klein which appeared as a report in Harpers magazine, September 2004 edition called "Baghdad Year Zero: Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia." If you can't find it on the web, get in touch with me with your address and I'll snail mail you a print copy.
Here are a few quotes from the opening paragraphs to pique your interest.
"...I couldn't help but think about something Senator John McCain had said back in October. Iraq, he said, is 'a huge pot of honey that's attracting a lot of flies.'...I was also reminded of the most common explanation for what has gone wrong in Iraq, a complaint echoed by everyone from John Kerry to Pat Buchanan: Iraq is mired in blood and deprivation because George W. Bush didn't have 'a postwar plan.' The only problem with the theory is that it isn't true. The Bush Administration did have a plan for what it would do after the war; put simply, it was to lay out as much honey as possible, then sit back and wait for the flies. The honey theory of Iraqi reconstruction stems from the most cherished belief of the war's ideological architects: that greed is good. Not good just for them and their friends but good for humanity, and certainly good for Iraqis. Greed creates profit, which creates growth, which creates jobs and products and services and everything else anyone could possibly need or want. The role of good government, then, is to create the optimal conditions for corporations to pursue their bottomless greed, so that they in turn can meet the needs of the society. The problem is that governments, even neoconservative governments, rarely get the chance to prove their sacred theory right:...even George Bush's Republicans are, in their own minds, perennially sabotaged by meddling Democrats, intractable unions, and alarmist environmentalists.
Iraq was going to change all that. In one place on Earth, the theory would finally be put into practice in its most perfect and uncompromised form. A country of 25 million people would not be rebuilt as it was before the war; it would be erased, disappeared. In its place would spring forth a gleaming showroom for laissez-faire economics, a utopia such as the world had never seen."
The rest of the article points out the steps taken by the provisional authority to create this laissez-faire economic utopia, the mistakes and errors in judgement made along the way, and documents both these assertions and the ways in which the plan has unraveled.
I have been accused of having a very cynical and jaded view of the role of the United States in world political and economic affairs. Even I was shocked to see, in this article, how much truth there is to these long-held beliefs.
Anyone who's interested can find the "Baghdad Year Zero" article online at Harpers.org at this URL:
http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html