Quotes of the Day
Joshua Foust on Apr 10 2008 at 5:09 pm | Filed under: Notes on the war
First:
Here’s the sorry reality: Such occurrences in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the “arc” of territory that the Bush administration has, in a mere few years, helped set aflame are the norm. Our “mistakes,” that is, are legion and, in the process of making them, our planes, drones, and helicopters have killed villagers by the score, attacked a convoy of friendly Afghan “elders,” and blown away wedding parties. For us, “incidents” like these pass by in an instant, but not for those who are on the receiving end…
Let’s remember that, after 9/11, Americans, from the President on down, spent months, if not years in mourning, performing rites of remembrance, and swearing revenge against those who had done this to us. Do we not imagine that others, even when the spotlight isn’t on them, react similarly? Do we not think that they, too, are capable of swearing revenge and acting accordingly?
The above list of incidents covers just a couple of weeks in one embattled country — and just the moments that made it into minor news reports that I happened to stumble across…
Whatever happened in these latest air attacks, the deaths of civilians are not some sideline result of the War on Terror; they lie at its heart. If your care is safety — a subject brought up repeatedly by Senators who wanted to know from U.S. commander General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker this week whether the surge had made “us” safer — then, the answer is: This does not make you safer.
—Tom Englehardt, in a hard-hitting critique of the U.S. reliance on air power to accomplish our wars (emphasis mine). Despite the interjections of lefty jeremiads, the fundamentals of his piece are well-argued, and the piece warrants reading in full.
Then:
This is hardly the fault of Petraeus, a brilliant general tasked with a nearly impossible mission. Building a decent political order in Iraq has always been something of a fantasy. Even if Petraeus somehow succeeds in bringing violence down to a manageable level, it may be generations before Iraq becomes the “dramatic and inspiring example of freedom” in the Middle East that President Bush has repeatedly invoked. Instead, it will most likely evolve into a country plagued by instability, ethnosectarian violence, weak institutions, and unreliable oil production—if we’re lucky. Few Americans would support spending $12 billion a month in Iraq if they understood that they were buying, at best, another Nigeria, and at worst, Somalia with oil.
—Foreign Policy Web Editor Blake Hounshell, on why he thinks the Surge won’t matter (by contextualizing it in the broader literature on democratization, nation-building, and so on). This in particular is about placing blame for Iraq where blame is due; that is, not on Petraeus or Crocker, who have carried out their assignments despite their annoying politicization, but on President Bush and his advisors, who keep pushing through the dream of utopia on a land that seems to reject it. It is, again, worthy of a complete read before commentary.
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