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Jewish World Review June 30, 2005 / 23 Sivan, 5765 Iraq debate in transition By Tony Blankley
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
One can contrast people in many ways: the fat and the thin, the
rich and the poor, those who play the tuba and those who don't. In assessing
the opinions of our Iraq policy, perhaps the most useful dichotomy is of
those who consider the consequences of acts and those who don't. In that
regard, special attention should be given to the opinions of Sen. Edward
Kennedy and some of the other war critics who are calling for a prompt
departure.
It is a well-established principle of developmental psychology
that young children have no sense of cause and effect. They live in a
magical world in which things just seem to happen. They don't understand
that if you pull a gun's trigger, a bullet will come out. They don't even
understand the finality of death. Things just seem to appear, disappear and
re-appear.
In fact, the earliest perception of cause and effect turns out
to be a false one. Babies cry, and a mother brings them milk. They cry, and
a mother brings them a blanket. They are thirsty, and water is brought to
them. They cry, and a mother changes their nappy. Thus the immature mind
develops the magical idea that the physical world can be manipulated by
merely wishing for something.
But usually by 5 or 6, and certainly by 8 or 9, the human mind
comprehends cause and effect, and tries to do things in the present that
will cause a desired future fact to come into being. Thus the mature mind
tends to think largely about the future.
And then there is Ted Kennedy and the exit strategy crowd. They
mock, ridicule and criticize the president's war effort but have never
described the consequences of their own policy of prompt withdrawal of
troops. Like the immature attitude of a young child, they don't like the
current circumstances in Iraq (as who does?) and simply want to wish it
away, with no consideration to the effect of such an action.
There are, in fact, valid grounds to criticize both the
president's war effort and his speech Tuesday night. While everything he
said was fine, he continues not to discuss with the public why more of the
same strategy will get a better result. While he justifies his current troop
levels on the advice of his field commanders, ultimately, it is the
president's decision. Many informed people suspect that the generals are
afraid to request more troops, because they don't think the president wants
to hear that. Whether that is the case or merely a nasty Pentagon rumor, we
clearly don't have enough troops to take and hold enemy territory, such as
Fallujah, where we lost several Marines last week — even though it had been
cleared of terrorists several months ago. The president owes the country
more than bromides. He needs to publicly discuss, with some regularity, why
and how the causes he is bringing into being will have the effects that we
all hope for.
But his fundamental policy — that we must stay until the Iraqis
can take charge because the effect of premature departure would be far worse
than the status quo — has not only not been refuted, it hasn't even been
challenged. Almost all his critics simply don't discuss the effects of their
policy — except, finally, the New York Times.
In a conceptually jumbled yet admirable editorial yesterday, the
NY Times actually described their view of the likely consequence of an early
exit: "The president does not have any good options available, and if
American forces were withdrawn, Iraq would probably sink into a civil war
that would create large stretches of no man's land where private militias
and stateless terrorists could operate with impunity."
Let Ted Kennedy and his allies rebut the New York Times's
assessment of the consequences of Kennedy's policy proposal, and we might
actually have the beginning of a rational, forward-looking policy debate —
instead of a screaming match.
Near the end of the N.Y. Time's editorial, they wrote a sentence
they should have written two years ago — but thank G-d they have finally
written it. They endorsed a letter that "urged the American left to get over
its anger over President Bush's catastrophic blunder and start trying to
figure out how to win the conflict that exists. No one wants a disaster in
Iraq."
While I reject many side points in the editorial and certainly
don't consider the Iraqi war to be a blunder at all, The New York Times'
call to the Democrats to end the anger and start thinking rationally about a
successful future in Iraq, if heeded by the Democrats, could turn out to be
an historically more import utterance than the president's speech.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
© 2005, Creators Syndicate |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
