In todays edition of the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger assesses the the national mood as fatalistic. "The United States is talking itself into defeat in Iraq. Its political culture is now in a downward spiral of pessimism. In the halls of Congress, across endless newspaper columns, amid the punditocracy and on Sunday morning talk shows -- all emit a Stygian gloom about America.
Yes, on any given day on some discrete issue (Prime Minister Maliki's bona fides, for example), the criticism of the American role is not without justification. But the cumulative effect of this unremitting ill wind is corrosive. We are not only on the way to talking ourselves into defeat in Iraq but into a diminished international status that may be harder to recover than the doom mob imagines. Self-criticism has its role, but profligate self-doubt can exact a price."
Is America wrong in it's largely negative assessment of George Bush and our progress in Iraq? In contrast to the reasons put forth in Henningers article there are two others, which in my view, are more germain.ÂÂÂ
The American people by and large have come to the fundamental conclusion that we should never have invaded Iraq in the first place. That being the case it follows that we shouldn't be there now. Any increase in our forces only compounds the original mistake. Any reduction in our forces at least is responsive to the necessity of rectifying that terrible mistake.
Second: By framing and defining our paramount objective in Iraq as "Winning" the President and Vice President are attempting to take our eye off the ball (the original error) and to confound and challenge the opposition to come up with an alternative strategy that will result in America winning. Fatalism results because there is no such strategy anywhere, including and particularly the strategy being pursued by the administration. We simply do not have enough forces to impose our will on the Middle East, plain and simple. The Presidents "Surge" is a half baked measure at best. Imposing our will in that region would be impossible, even if it was desireable. That too is questionable. ÂÂÂ
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Comments: 14
We out here in voterland are, for the most part, not totally stupid. We can see when we're being lied to. It gets disillusioning when we listen to the highest officials in the land exhibit such contempt for us personally that they feel they can lie with impunity and we will believe them, even if what they are saying today is exactly the opposite of what they told us yesterday.
The trend I am seeing is that all but the very dimmest among us is seeing clearly that because of the enormity of the blunders in Iraq, there really is no way we can actually "win" over there any more. We see a President who seems pathologically incapable of telling the truth, but also seems equally unable to view situations as they are rather than as he wishes them to be. Naturally faced with such things, people are becoming cynical.
I agree with the WSJ article.
At the beginning Iraq was conflated with "Terrorism" by the administration. That continues to obfuscate matters. Suicide bombing, for example is a tactic that is of recent vintage in Iraq and has been learned. Distinctions are sorely needed in the understanding of the situation. The public is more advanced in gaining those distinctions than is our civilian leadership.
I hope you're right because the stakes are far higher this time around.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page has been far out of the mainstream since the inglorious end of the GHW Bush presidency.
WSJ editorials were outrageous in their rumor-mongering about Clinton, and equally unreasonable in their unthinking support of the Snorter in Chief.
Americans refuse to be misled further into the quagmire of Iraq; the only fatality is the credibility of the bullying writers of WSJ editorials.
While the newspaper istself is a great source of financial news, the operation of the editorial page has been seperate and extreme for almost twenty years.
There is an obvious correlation between repeated failure and becoming discouraged. Feeling discouraged is unpleasant even painful. It is natures way of alerting us to get up and change what isn't working. If as Henninger says it has gone too far it means we have waited too long to institute those changes. The WSJ is aiding and abetting that resistance to change.
Sheryl O
The WSJ has an inside track with the administration. That is too valuable a commodity for them to relinquish.
comment by centurion on January 25, 2007 8:35 PM (EST) [ reply ]
centurion
Your points are well taken. If only it would turn out that way. That is something we would relish and be comfortable with. A close inspection after four years belies every worthy objective you set forth. Not one of them is even visible on the distant horizon. You are saying, I believe, that we haven't allowed enough time. I am saying that the paradyme is not working because we like it, and the stubborn beneficiaries do not. Our powers are being sapped. Time is not on our side. Iraq is not our enemy, but neither are they our twin.
reply by fixed845inc on January 25, 2007 10:04 P
Must have great weed up there in Oregon. What kind of fantasy land do you live in?
We do not have a major "left-leaning" newspaper in these United States.
Please identify the "major" papers who support universal health coverage, who have declared their support for gay marriage, who opposed unequivocably the entrance into the horror show in Iraq.
The Snorter in Chief got a "pass" from all the mainstream press on Iraq, the huge privileges heaped upon the wealthiest, the assault on Social Security, the continued attempt to hold down wages, the assault on science by religious bigots appointed to positions in the NIH, the FDA, the CDC, and the Supreme Court.
It is only after the mid-term elections that of the media have shown any guts about this posturing fraud in the White House. Like politicians, they have a finger to the wind at all times.
Not at all left leaning, absolutely a convocation of whores.
What are you smoking in those Oregon hills.
If the President got a "pass", I'd hate to see what today's mainstream media would do to someone who really pissed them off. William Hearst would be proud.
Good exchange. John is not alone in detecting press bias. There is a virtual army of such observers and who was that guy who wrote a book about CBS and it's distortions? But it is clear Peter that your standard for reporting the facts brooks nothing less than total denunciation of the opposition.
President Bush over sold the Iraq war. Americans expected it to be easy. Most still refuse to make any sacrifice because the president has not called for one (except from the troops who volunteered and their loved ones.)
The president keeps suggesting this is the biggest war ever but won't rally the nation to sacrifice.
When Great Britain was threatened with invasion by Nazi Germany. That nation mobilized for war. The threat was far greater and the prospects far grimmer. But they did not give in to fatalism. They won the Battle of Britain without the United States.
Why can't we win? Our leadership keeps hoping for a feel good war. All Churchill offered was "blood, sweat, toil and tears."
Right, doing it on the cheap(without enough sacrifice, troops and equipment) contributed to the lack of success and thus to American despondancy. We also feel terribly about what we have wrought.