Conchobar emailed me this NYT article. It was written by Bono and is in response the the Saville Report issued the week before last, echoing my own sentiments but with an eloquence that I could never hope to achive. I cannot even summarize the most imprtant thing I took away from it better than the man himself:
If there are any lessons for the world from this piece of Irish history ... for Baghdad ... for Kandahar ... it’s this: things are quick to change for the worse and slow to change for the better, but they can. They really can. It takes years of false starts, heartbreaks and backslides and, most tragically, more killings. But visionaries and risk-takers and, let’s just say it, heroes on all sides can bring us back to the point where change becomes not only possible again, but inevitable.
None of us must ever forget this. From the bottom of my heart, I thank Conchoar for sending me the article, Bono for writing it.
More than welcome, Eddie.
ReplyDeleteI think Americans would do well to listen to people who've had a lifetime of exposure to terrorism in their own lands. Peace didn't come to Northern Ireland until the British Government reluctantly recognized that they could never defeat the IRA militarily, even with overwhelming superiority. Kudos to Bill Clinton (and a little recognized informal group of Irish-American businessmen) for forcing the Peace Process into being and sticking with it for the five years of frustration it took to get the Good Friday Agreement.
We're just as deluded as the English were if we think that we can bomb or shoot our way to safety in our "war against terror."
This isn't to say that I think jihadists can be negotiated out of terrorism. But I have to give Rumsfeld credit for asking one pertinent question, though he (or George Cheney) never had the guts to follow it up with policy adjustments: "are we creating more terrorists than we're killing?" It seems to me that, with every drone strike that kills a dozen civilians for every high value target taken out, we're doing exactly that.
You're absolutely right. We will not win the war on terror in the battlefield, but at the voting booths - and I mean THEIRS, not OURS! And these countries are not going to embrace liberal democracy when the world's foremost example of it is in their country killing civilians. And the governments that are in power noe will not be able to continue to let us operate if they get voted out in favor of more conservative elements.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as the mission started requiring "hearts and minds" for victory, it should have been scrapped. The military wins wars. It great at that, and pretty much sucks at everything else. And there's no judgement intended in that: That's what the EXSIST FOR. A gun (tank, bomb, etc...) is simply the wrong tool for any other purpose.
But as we all know: Bush (& co.) wanted war for war's sake, for economic and political reasons. So they never had any intention of "winning," only of FIGHTING. Nor did they ever have any reason, from their POV, NOT to let the fighting spill over, into Iraq for example.
Their wasn't a coherent strategy to ANY of it right from the start. The War was an END, not a MEANS. "Terrorism" was just the 'justification du jour.' Proof of that can be seen in how often the justification of the Iraqi front kept changing. I supported the Afgan war (and still do), but I fell for the illusion of us having an actual strategy: Ace the Tali's, set up a puppet, get OBL and AAZ and get the hell out. And we could have done that by 2003, if Bush had ANY INTENTION AT ALL of letting the war end. So we needed a distraction to keep it going, and along comes Iraq.
And THAT'S the difference between Bush and Obama. Obama wants to actually WIN - meaning that at some point the war has to END. Bush's goal was just to be "winning" the war... indefinitely.
Worst. President. Ever.
Agreed.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that Weiner is a scumbag.
And I owe George Mitchell a HUGE apology for not giving him recognition for herding (some very lethal) cats and getting the Good Friday Agreement signed and up and running. It may be true that no man is indispensable, but I don't know of another man alive who could have done what he did.