[lit-ideas] Re: Iraq and news
- From: Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 11:10:59 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
Andreas is not being unfair. Everything I have heard from experts and analysts
says that there is, essentially, no way out. Both staying there and pulling
out have disastrous consequences. Tipping the scale slightly to the more
disastrous side is pulling out, especially too quickly. It's hard to believe
that Bush et al. learned so little from this experience that they now are
talking about repeating it with Iran, who they suspect has nuclear weapons no
less.
Andy Amago
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric Dean <ecdean99@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Jan 29, 2005 10:03 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Iraq and news
Phil Enns writes:
"<snip> I note that Andreas doesn't bother making any constructive
suggestions for improving the lot of Iraqis. If I were more cynical I might
think that Andreas doesn't give a rat's ass about Iraq and Iraqis, but is
only interested in bitching about the Bush administration. Since such
cynicism about people's motives and intentions would be out of place on this
list, I will give Andreas another opportunity. I wonder what Andreas would
have the Bush administration do now? What practical concrete steps would
Andreas see the U.S. take in the next six months?"
To which Andreas replies:
"Any proofs for any of these statements [i.e. previous statements in Phil's
post about specific constructive things that he understands the US is
doing]? News stories, statistics, etc?
"Please, don't submit anything from Fox News or the White House.
"The ball is still in your court. Prove your statements."
I think that Phil rightly calls for a thoughtful answer to what positive
steps one would suggest be taken in Iraq. However wrong the US was to
invade, however ineptly things have been done to this point, the only way to
improve things is to find specific actions that can be taken now which have
a hope of improving the situation.
There are lots of difficulties with that, though. A few that come to mind:
o Those who have come up with such ideas in the past (whether on this list
or elsewhere) only to see them derided as naive, foolish, soft-headed,
whatever, may not have the stomach for another round of dismissal;
o Those who have come up with such ideas in the past only to see them
derided as American imperialism, insensitive cultural dominion, whatever,
may figure it's a lot easier to keep their mouths shut and let the Bushies
take the heat for their ideas, even if a lot of other bad ideas get
implemented at the same time;
And the most difficult of all:
o A good idea that arises from an opponent to the administration might
actually get taken up by the administration, implemented and then claimed as
justification for how right the administration was all along.
o An idea that sounds good and arises from an opponent to the administration
might be taken up by the administration and turn out to have been flawed at
which point the administration would come in for endless heat about another
example of its ineptitude (with a tip of the hat to Larry Kramer).
With that in mind, I would suggest that Andreas is in fact unfair in
spurning everything Phil Enns says by suggesting that his sources for any
optimism can only be the manipulative, distorted messages from the
administration and its media lackeys. As I read Phil's examples, they make
a very reasonable case for withholding judgment about who's at fault for
what in any particular case. In a situation as chaotic as Iraq is today,
everyone's got a piece of the responsibility. Even if magically all the
right people were suddenly making all the right decisions in Washington, the
chaos would continue for quite some time and the evidence for the rightness
of those decisions would be every bit as blurry and unreliable as that which
Phil cites. So the fact that the evidence for progress is at best ambiguous
and at worst inaccurate is not reason to doubt that there *might* be some
productive things happening.
The point is that at a time like this the only constructive thing to do is
to look for what actions the administration is taking that *could* be
productive. It's *very* hard to do that without appearing to be supporting
destructive actions that are being taken concurrently, but the compassionate
thing for us all to do is to recognize that it the only way things are going
to improve is for the productive things that happen, whether deliberately or
inadvertently, to happen more frequently -- for *whatever* reason. It
doesn't matter to the dying who's responsible for relief. It's the relief
that matters.
Endorsing constructive things happening today need not be endorsing Bush.
But denying them out of hand simply *is* collaborating in the perpetuation
of misery in Iraq.
Best regards to all,
Eric Dean
Rockford IL (back home for a week -- yeah!)
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