You know, that folks can ask a question like this is what amazes me about how bad a state the country is in right now.
I mean, think about asking an ordinary person in ordinary circumstances the following:
Can we admit that:
1) getting hundreds of thousands of people killed, 2) spending 300+ billion dollars 3) exhausting our military 4) ruining our preparedness (in terms of equipment) and 5) throwing away the good will we had
was a mistake, given that doing this has left us much, much less safe?
Well, if you asked a person that any other time, they'd stare at you like you asked if you thought taking down one's underwear before taking a dump was a good idea. "Uh, yeah... is this a trick question?"
But the war has, for some reason, been sanctified. That it's been a horrific failure and a terrible waste is clear; it's objective. There's no sensible argument against these things. You can *just barely* argue that it wasn't stone stupid to go in, but remember, people *did* predict troubles of this nature before we went in. But still, you could argue that it wasn't stupid to go in. You can't argue that it's smart to say it hasn't been a horrible failure.
But people do.
If the architects of this war were looking at us, aghast and ashen faced, saying "we screwed up. Please, let us do what we can to try to fix the horrible problems we caused," well, I could deal with that. I'm not convinced that we *can* do some good, but at least that's an honest and meaningful argument. But people who swear that we might still pull out a victory? The time we could have had a "victory" is long past.
no subject
I mean, think about asking an ordinary person in ordinary circumstances the following:
Can we admit that:
1) getting hundreds of thousands of people killed,
2) spending 300+ billion dollars
3) exhausting our military
4) ruining our preparedness (in terms of equipment)
and
5) throwing away the good will we had
was a mistake, given that doing this has left us much, much less safe?
Well, if you asked a person that any other time, they'd stare at you like you asked if you thought taking down one's underwear before taking a dump was a good idea. "Uh, yeah... is this a trick question?"
But the war has, for some reason, been sanctified. That it's been a horrific failure and a terrible waste is clear; it's objective. There's no sensible argument against these things. You can *just barely* argue that it wasn't stone stupid to go in, but remember, people *did* predict troubles of this nature before we went in. But still, you could argue that it wasn't stupid to go in. You can't argue that it's smart to say it hasn't been a horrible failure.
But people do.
If the architects of this war were looking at us, aghast and ashen faced, saying "we screwed up. Please, let us do what we can to try to fix the horrible problems we caused," well, I could deal with that. I'm not convinced that we *can* do some good, but at least that's an honest and meaningful argument. But people who swear that we might still pull out a victory? The time we could have had a "victory" is long past.