or that the dems don't try and attract their support, which is unfortunately what may be happening, and why Kerry is lurching right on foriegn policy.
In Saturday's New York Times, conservative commentator David Brooks aired a striking change of heart in a column titled "A More Humble Hawk." In light of mounting unrest and a spike in U.S. casualties (as of Tuesday evening, at least 100 soldiers have been killed in action since April 1), Brooks conceded, "The first thing to say is that I never thought it would be this bad" and "I did not appreciate how our very presence in Iraq would overshadow democratization." Though with cautious words, Brooks faults the Bush administration for more than a failure of imagination.
"Let me describe my attitude toward the Bush administration. Despite all that's happened, I was still stirred by Bush/Blair statements about democracy in the Middle East. Nonetheless, over the past two years many conservatives have grown increasingly exasperated with the administration's inability to execute its policies semicompetently."
Such "semicompetence," Brooks argues, should have included more money and manpower.
"When I worked at The Weekly Standard, we argued ad nauseam that the U.S. should pour men and matériel into Iraq -- that such an occupation could not be accomplished by a light, lean, 'transformed' military. The administration was impervious to the growing evidence about that. The failure to establish order was the prime mistake, from which all other problems flow.
"On July 21, 2002, my colleague Robert Kagan wrote the first of several essays lamenting the administration's alarming lack of preparation for post-Saddam Iraq. Yet the administration seemed content to try nation-building on the cheap.......
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/salon7.html
The 'National Review' Flip-Flop
by Marcus Epstein
National Review has issued a surprisingly semi-sober editorial acknowledging the state of the Iraqi occupation. They condemn the Wilsonianism neoconservative mindset that thinks that American can import democracy to Iraq. They also denounce the extreme optimism that denies any American failures or difficulties that occur in Iraq. While not admitting that the war was a bad idea to begin with, they at least call for a relatively prompt withdrawal from Iraq. Good for them.
The editorial concludes,
Ultimately, even if our choices now can help or hurt, it is Iraqis who have to save Iraq. It is their country, not ours. In coming weeks and months, we will have to defer to the authorities we hope will eventually take control, in the process endorsing compromises that we will consider less than ideal. But it is time for reality to drive our Iraq policy, unhindered by illusions or wishful thinking. We should do what we can to give Iraqis a chance at a better future, then pray that they take it.
I couldn’t agree more, but it would be nice if our friends at National Review could admit that they were the ones full of illusions and wishful thinking. Maybe they could issue a mea culpa and apologize to us unpatriotic conservatives who have urged a "self-fulfilling defeatism." Just for fun, I thought it would be nice to compare what National Review’s new illusion-free editorial board thinks to earlier comments made in the nations premiere conservative magazine.
Now:
Since the conclusion of the war, the Bush administration has shown a dismaying capacity to believe its own public relations. The post-war looting was explained away as the natural and understandable exuberance of a newly-liberated people......
http://ad-adex3.flycast.com/server/iframe/Antiwarcom/LewRockwell/123456
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
