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Who Lost Iraq?
Michael Scwartz has posted a essay on TomDispatch discussing Iraqi efforts to purge the American army like some nauseating stomach parasite.
I admire Mr. Schartz for his principled and intelligent opposition to Bush/Cheney, but in this instance I think he's asking a silly question.
The United States pulverized Iraq physically and culturally and now we're driving around in an old Chevy with the corpse of Iraq in the back seat. All we really want to do is find a vacant lot on the edge of town so we can dump the body and make a clean getaway, but every time we stop the car some old lady from Neighborhood Watch wanders up and asks us what we're doing.
"Just admiring the view," we say.
"Bullshit," says the little old lady. "You're looking for a place to dump the corpse of Iraq. Not on my block!"
Who lost Iraq?
Nobody lost Iraq, Mr. Schwartz. That's exactly the problem.
Comments (6)
I think the bottom line was actually the bottom line:
"If this turns out to be the case, then watch out domestically. The inevitable controversy over "who lost Iraq" -- an echo of those earlier controversies over "who lost China" and "who lost Vietnam" -- is bound to be on the way."
But, reading your post, for the first time I begin to feel, inexplicably, that we should stay in Iraq to nurture nationalism there. For the first time, I begin to feel that we should, for our sins, help rebuild Iraq. The right way.
We have the power to murder any country in the world and dump its mutilated corpse in the alley. We have to find a way to stop doing that, don't we?
September 10, 2008 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
After I posted this, it occurred to me that I should have referenced your essay on the same subject, where you were significantly ahead of the curve, as usual.
I spent 18 months of my life trying to fix the infrastructure of Iraq, and among many other exciting adventures...
The dumbest guy I met was Joe Biden.
September 10, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, if we broke it, we should fix it. If we killed it, we have to revive it (if we can).
September 10, 2008 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
"If we broke it, we should fix it."
Dude, you sound like a citizen from the era of Teddy Roosevelt, when half the country subscribed to Popular Science, and our future was full of personal empowerment and responsibility.
But Colin Powell is a man of the present moment, and of course his formula takes account of the transformation of citizen-farmer-mechanics into consumers:
"If you broke it, you own it.
The world is one big Pottery Barn to us, and we never fix anything. If it breaks, we throw it away.
Eventually we'll find a big enough trash-can to throw away the planet...
September 10, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Won't need a trash-can soon. The Large Hadron Collider is going to take care of that...
Place is going to implode like a cheap punctured balloon!
I wonder how it gonna feel to be a trillion mile long strand of quark-gluon spaghetti sliding over the lip of an Event Horizon?
That wasn't in my Popular Science magazine either!
September 10, 2008 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah! We needn't be bothering about bringing those troops home.
"Home" is going to be about the size of pin head and we're all going to be sharing the rent!
September 10, 2008 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
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