Reactions
Reflecting the reactions of many of us to the President's "Plan For Victory", the New York Times serves up three thought-provoking editorials:
The paper as a whole describes Mr. Bush as "less in touch with reality than Richard Nixon."(NOTE: For those of you who are not yet subscribers to the NYT's "Times Select", both Mr. Herbert's and Mr. Brooks' articles are reprinted in the comments section below. Click "add your opinion" to access the complete editorials.)
Columnist Bob Herbert comments on the tiring spectacle of "a computerized bundle of administration talking points."
And David Brooks, with whom I almost never agree, observes how Iraq is launching an age of skepticism that threatens "the future of American self-confidence."
posted by Bob P @ 12:14 AM
2 Comments:
BUSH HITS REWIND
By BOB HERBERT
Published: December 1, 2005
It's weird. It's like watching a computerized model of a president. Somebody programs George W. Bush, carefully embedding the information to be dispensed over the next several hours, and then he goes out and addresses the nation - as a computerized bundle of administration talking points.
"We will never back down," said Mr. Bush in his speech at the U.S. Naval Academy yesterday. "We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory."
I don't think there were many people who believed him. Members of Mr. Bush's own party are nervously eyeing next year's Congressional elections. They would abandon Iraq in a heartbeat if it meant the difference between getting re-elected or having to hunt for a real job.
This war (which has already cost the lives of more than 2,100 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis) was cynically launched (it was never about Sept. 11) and incompetently fought (we have never sent enough troops or sufficient equipment), and will be brought to a close by people obsessed not with the security of the United States and the welfare of the troops, but with the political calendar.
"I will settle for nothing less than complete victory," said Mr. Bush. He then dutifully defined victory as follows:
"Victory will come when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation."
Those were some of yesterday's talking points. Here's today's reality: the $6-billion-a-month U.S. military mission in Iraq is unsustainable, as is the political support for the war. There is now a virtual consensus that a significant American troop withdrawal will get under way in 2006.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi security forces are ill equipped, understaffed and widely infiltrated by private militia members and insurgents. In many ways, it's an amateurish operation.
As Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat who served in the 82nd Airborne, told reporters this week:
"Without an effective ministry that can keep track of soldiers and police, pay those soldiers and police, apply those soldiers and police and essentially provide the foundation, then you're going to have some tactically trained units, but they're not going to be a coherent or effective force."
Despite the rosy scenarios offered by President Bush, American-style democracy is nowhere in sight in Iraq. Among other things, the evidence of horrific human rights abuses by Iraqi forces allied with us - including kidnappings, torture and murders - is increasing.
In short, the picture in Iraq is not a pretty one, and there is no indication that substantial improvements are coming soon.
If the president gets any of this, you couldn't tell it by his appearance yesterday. He stuck to his talking points. "To all who wear the uniform," he said, "I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your commander in chief."
We may not cut and run in Iraq, but with the G.O.P. sweating out next year's elections, the plans are already under way for American forces by the tens of thousands to cut and speed-walk toward the exits. Mr. Bush could have been honest about this yesterday, but he chose not to be.
If the administration does not address this inevitable pullout, or pullback, seriously, it will be conducted as incompetently as the post-invasion operation.
The inevitable drawdown of U.S. forces is hardly a secret. In addition to the political pressures coming from the G.O.P., there's the fact that we don't have enough people in the military - and can't entice enough people into the military - to back up the president's blithe promises.
Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, said in an op-ed article in The Washington Post that it was likely that 50,000 troops would be redeployed out of Iraq by the end of next year and "a significant number" of the remainder in 2007.
A president who's little more than a bundle of talking points cannot possibly maintain the long-term trust and confidence of the public. There's a disturbing remoteness to President Bush that seems especially odd in a politician who was selected by his party because of his supposed ability to project warmth and the kind of fundamental authenticity that his Democratic opponents lacked.
©2005 The New York Times
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THE AGE OF SKEPTICISM
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: December 1, 2005
War is a cultural event. World War I destroyed the old social order in Europe and disillusioned a generation of talented young Americans. World War II bred a feeling of American unity and self-confidence. Vietnam helped trigger a counterculture.
The Iraq war is not going to have that kind of pervasive cultural impact, but it has already shifted the zeitgeist. There has been a sharp drop in Americans' faith in their institutions. Trust in government has fallen back to about half of where it was in 2001. More Americans believe that government is almost always wasteful and inefficient, according to surveys by the Pew Research Center.
There has been a sharp decline in support for the United Nations. There has been a sharp rise in the number of people who say the U.S. should mind its own business when it comes to world affairs. Isolationist sentiment is about where it was just after Vietnam.
Americans are increasingly cynical about politics and their parties. Only 24 percent of Americans say the Republicans represent their priorities, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, and only 26 percent say the Democrats do.
The hammer of disapproval has fallen hardest on the Republicans, of course, but the public is just as eager to think the worst of the Democrats. Seventy percent of Americans say Democratic criticism of the war is hurting troop morale, according to a poll by RT Strategies. Most Americans cynically believe that Democrats are leveling their attacks on the war to gain partisan advantage, while only 30 percent believe that they are genuinely trying to help U.S. efforts.
Finally, a brackish tide of pessimism has descended upon the country. Roughly two-thirds of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction. Iraq is not the only issue that is driving this sour pessimism, but it is the main issue. (Katrina has had a surprisingly modest impact.)
And Americans are in this awful mood despite rising consumer confidence and strong economic growth, 4.3 percent. Americans are not pessimistic about their own individual futures, but they are pessimistic about their leadership and their country's future.
In this atmosphere of general weariness, the political pendulum is no longer swinging on a left-to-right axis. As Christopher Caldwell noted recently in The Financial Times, the same phenomenon is striking country after country: the governing party is sinking, but the opposition party is not rising. Problems on the right do not lead to a resurgence on the left, or vice versa. In other words, the Democrats may win elections in 2006 or 2008, but that doesn't mean they will have the public's confidence or a mandate for change.
In this atmosphere of exhaustion, the political pendulum swings from engagement to cynicism. When polarized voters lose faith in their own side, they don't switch to the other. They just withdraw.
The chief cultural effect of the Iraq war is that we are now entering a period of skepticism. Many Americans are going to be skeptical that their government can know enough to accomplish large tasks or be competent enough to execute ambitious policies. More people are going to be skeptical of plans to mold reality according to our designs or to solve the deep problems that are rooted in history and culture. They are going to be skeptical of our ability to engage with or understand faraway societies in the Middle East or Africa or elsewhere.
In theory, skepticism leads to prudence, not a bad trait. But when it is tinged with cynicism, as it is now, skepticism turns into passivity. In skeptical ages, people are quick to decide that longstanding problems, like poverty and despotism, are intractable and not really worth taking on. They find it easy to delay taking any action on the distant but overwhelming problems, like the deficits, that do not impose immediate pain. They find it easy to dawdle on foreign problems, like Iran's nuclear ambitions, rather than confronting them.
As the Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman has observed, Americans begin social reforms when they are feeling confident, not when they are weary and insecure.
Already the resolve to rebuild New Orleans and seize the post-Katrina moment has dissipated. The bipartisan desire to do something ambitious about energy policy is going nowhere. Even the problem of Darfur evokes little more than sad sighs and shrugs.
What's at stake in Iraq is not only the future of that country, but the future of American self-confidence. We may have to endure a cycle of skepticism before we can enjoy another cycle of hope.
©2005 The New York Times
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(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed an interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. The Hue and Cry has no affiliation with the originator of this article nor is The Hue and Cry endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
Can you believe this friggin national nightmare? I mean here we are, stumbling headlong into World War III, and we have this lunatic for a President? And why do idiots on the left keep claiming that Kerry didn't win in 2004? I absolutely hate that! It's so stupid to give more credit to this President than he deserves, and it's totally unnecessary.
Did you hear Thom Hartmann the other day? He thinks that Al Gore would make a great president? His short list was Gore, Dean, Edwards, and Boxer. I guess I could be down with that. What do you think?
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