A dose of Reality-Based commentary
Tim Simpson of the publictheologian blog mirrors some points I've recently been making here about the (metaphorical) "War on Terror":
The unilateralist approach (so beloved of the UN-hating constituencies in the GOP base) is in danger of failing in Iraq and in the "War on Terror" generally. It is difficult to fault the Spanish, Italians and others for wanting to get off this Bush train-wreck. It is an untenable situation for a sovereign government to place its' soldiers in a warzone subject to the over-riding whims of an incompetent US leadership.
While the political appointees of the Coalition Provisional Authority were busy creating a free-marketeering Utopia, Al Qaeda and others were infiltrating and organising. The ideologies governing the present US administration, though, trap US foreign policy to a losing course. Where is the broad international coalition we need to bring peace, security and prosperity?
UPDATE: More from publictheologian:
The $200 billion cost so far of the Iraq war could have been invested in a lot of sucking up of Al Qaeda's recruiting pool worldwide. And American troops could be put to much better use elsewhere, like Afghanistan.
Time for the Bush administration to finally bite the bullet and ask the UN to take over in Iraq? Time, also, for the Arab League to step up to the plate?
"All the tanks, all the bombers, all the ships all the hundreds of thousands of soldiers about which the president likes to boast he has deployed in the war on terror did not save a single soul in London today. All we are doing in Iraq is creating a giant zone of recruitment and training ground for more America-haters. We aren't stopping anybody from anything, but are rather pouring gas on an already burning fire.
We have got to fight this war smarter, rather than harder. This will not be won with armies, but with accountants, translators, detectives, and informants-- namely the kinds of resources at which the president sneers. We must get out of Iraq as soon as possible, not as a capitulation to terrorism, but as the first positive step to defeating it. Once we're out, the giant recruiting zone and training ground for world terrorism that Iraq has become will immediately go out of business. The fledgling government will undoubtedly have difficulty maintaining some stability, so other countries in the world who have some credibility with the Iraqi people as countries not interested in world domination will have to step up and take a role."
The unilateralist approach (so beloved of the UN-hating constituencies in the GOP base) is in danger of failing in Iraq and in the "War on Terror" generally. It is difficult to fault the Spanish, Italians and others for wanting to get off this Bush train-wreck. It is an untenable situation for a sovereign government to place its' soldiers in a warzone subject to the over-riding whims of an incompetent US leadership.
While the political appointees of the Coalition Provisional Authority were busy creating a free-marketeering Utopia, Al Qaeda and others were infiltrating and organising. The ideologies governing the present US administration, though, trap US foreign policy to a losing course. Where is the broad international coalition we need to bring peace, security and prosperity?
UPDATE: More from publictheologian:
"We have fallen into the trap that has ensnared the Israelis--we are on someobody else's turf trying to control things inside the House of Islam and can't seem to bring ourselves to get off of it lest we be thought weak. The Israelis have been doing this same song and dance for nearly sixty years, but hopefully someone in our country will wake up and get us out this mess before we too are in it for that length of time."
The $200 billion cost so far of the Iraq war could have been invested in a lot of sucking up of Al Qaeda's recruiting pool worldwide. And American troops could be put to much better use elsewhere, like Afghanistan.
Time for the Bush administration to finally bite the bullet and ask the UN to take over in Iraq? Time, also, for the Arab League to step up to the plate?
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