An essay about Iraq worth reading

[Quartz]

http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1106828705.shtml

Be warned that it’s very long.

Not really sure it should be in GD, but I think it’s going to spark some argument.

Some excerpts:

“You know, used to, we gave parades for people who tried the hard things. Wrote books about 'em. We encouraged, even declared as noble the kind of people who, if they fell, would pick themselves up, dust off, and start out again.”

"We don’t do that any more.

"It’s also probably why the people of Baghdad became so quiet after that shoe-slapping spree. Remember? Same as right out here a hunnerd and fifty years ago. It was why townsfolk, peeping out shop windows when the marshal was staring down outlaws in the street, didn’t yell out, ‘Look out, Sheriff, there’s one up there on the roof!’ Think about it. What if that guy on the roof nails the marshal… which was most likely in those days? What if ol’ Bush really loses? Far too many people for my taste want to position themselves to damn his soul to hell if he does lose, but be able up to rush to his side if he wins, so they can say, ‘We was always right there behind you, Dubyah.’

"But just look at who’s saying this about the Arabs. I’m not sure who those guys are but they are either misinformed… ignorant… or liars. What I find curious is that the things those guys are saying about Arabs today is exactly what Jim Crow gringos was saying about black folks fifty years ago in Mississippi. ‘Why them nigras don’t want to have to make up their own minds. They need organization put into they lives. Three hundred years of being told what to do, why they couldn’t even organize a good church supper. They need to be told where to be, what to do and how to do it. And then they are content.’

"I can’t tell you how many times I heard that as a child… only it came from the barber shop philosophers… people like Verdell McCutchins, from the hardware store, and not the so-called educated elites of today. Verdell had a thigh the size of a pot belly stove, and would slap it as he crossed his legs, as an exclamation point to some luminous revelation about how the country was going to hell in a hand basket. Everybody knows somebody like this… except maybe Republicans, who don’t seem to get out very much. But it’s amazing to me how similar Verdell was to what passes as our most educated minds nowadays

“Are you a fan of Mohammed’s?” I asked.

"Of course. Remind me to talk about him sometime.

I interrupted, “What about the English? You talk as if they’ve made no impact on the world.”

"Well, the Brits are half-French, so that just about says it all. Half-man, half-woman.

[The_Hamster_King]

He’s a Romantic at heart. Loves pretty words and pretty ideas, although he tries to hide it with his down-home aw shucks act. He’s got Big Theories about how the world works, but they’re all built on foundations of sand – anecdotes, half-baked analogies, his own limited knowledge of history and human nature.

It’s Romantic know-it-alls like him that get people killed.

Iraq ain’t about playing movie-hall sheriff. The bad guys aren’t uncivilized bandits, they’re members of competing factions each squaring off to grab as much of the pie as they can. Which means that bringing order requires more than killing the law-breakers. It means figuring out a way to divvy up the pie that everyone agrees is fair.

And from where I stand that looks impossible. The pie’s too small and each faction thinks they deserve the biggest chunk. And that means a whole lot more people are gonna get killed, Americans and Iraqis alike.

By the way, the whole “some folks think Arabs are incapable of Democracy” is a crock. It’s a strawman set up by folks on the right who don’t want to learn enough about Iraq to actually understand why its a mess. For democracy to take root it must grow from the ground up in conditions of stability and security. It starts in village councils and union halls. You can’t force it from the top down and you can’t impose it from outside a country by the barrel of a gun. It’s not the goal that impossible, but the means that this administration has chosen to achieve it.

“Common Sense” … pfft … .

It’s George W. Bush’s reliance on “common sense” and “gut instinct” that got us into this mess. “It’s just common sense” really means “I’m too stiff-necked and lazy and ignorant to learn the facts or listen to the experts. Instead I’m gonna trust in luck and God to see me through!”

Moses Sand’s a damn fool. And he’ll go to his grave thinking he’s a deep-thinker and a patriot.

[David_Simmons]

I get tired of reading fictitious interviews with old hands who roll a chaw into one cheek and start talking about how good we used to be. It reads to me like Vassar made up ole Moses and is hiding behind him to state views that he is afraid to own up to.

[Squink]

Is this the same Robert Hightower?

Know only that now, whether by mistake, incompetence, indifference or outright cynicism, there are nearly one million lost souls who are suffering at least in part because of us.

And know also there are other evil men, with even greater capability to do harm to our real national interests, who are interested in how credible America’s word is in these days of ‘‘it depends on what your meaning of honor is.’’

In October it may have been all right for us to sit in our dens, snuggled in a cardigan and a hot cup of Earl Grey, and congratulate ourselves because we were willing to risk a few aircraft, pilots, in order to lay down a few bombs for our beleaguered brethren in Kosovo. That is no longer the case, for now we must consider laying down many . . . and no one knows how many . . . Americans for those same brethren.

[Quartz]

I think Pochacco has the right of it: very romantic. But the article does make you think. And it does provide an insight into what’s going on which I find useful.