Serious Thinking on Iraq

This is a very tough time to be an Iraqi. They're already dealing with an incompetent occupation and a civil war, and now John Gibson is mad at them:

Whose fault is the trouble in Iraq? Bush's fault? No, it's the Iraqis' fault. They're the ones who are committing sectarian violence, not American troops. They're the ones who are using their freedom from Saddam [Hussein] to kill their neighbors instead of trying to get the power running or pump the oil or pave the streets or fix the schools or repair the hospitals.

Hmm. Just over a year ago, the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq (I bet you'd forgotten it existed until now!) called for the United States to "restore Iraq’s neglected infrastructure so it can meet increasing demand and the needs of a growing economy." It's really too bad those goddamn Iraqis ruined things for everyone.

But then, that's what always happens when big-hearted dreamers like us try to lend a helping hand to conniving ingrates like the Iraqis. Gibson's quite right: we're the victims here. We may have murdered their sons and daughters, but they murdered our innocence. Sure, it grows back, like a teenage chastity-pledger's virginity, but that's not the point. The point is, we dared to envision a better world. It may not have worked out, but at least we only experimented with the Middle East, instead of something really dangerous, like socialized medicine or the Kyoto Protocol.

Which is not to say that one isn't occasionally troubled by the corpses piling up at our feet. Even Bush concedes that it's no picnic:

Make no mistake about it, I understand how tough it is, sir. I talk to families who die.

And a very great comfort it is to them, I'm sure.

Something calling itself Jed Babbin claims that the Iraq Study Group report is unsatisfactory because it was cobbled together by a bunch of high-falutin' eggheads:

[T]he ISG report has all the attributes -- and all of the failings -- of an academic study. It is both theoretically sound and thoroughly inapplicable outside the laboratories of the schools of diplomacy.

You're probably thinking that this criticism could apply just as easily to the theories of people like Perle, Wolfowitz, and Kristol. But I'm confident that I speak for Jed Babbin when I tell you that you're wrong.

Meanwhile, over at Gates of Vienna, a small but valiant band of warriors is girding its loins for the coming battle against Islamofascism. They're just waiting for the right moment, you understand: They'll fight the terrorists then, so they don't have to fight them now. (And you never know...someone else may exterminate the brutes in the meantime.)

Anyway, there's one thing we can be fairly sure of: By tomorrow morning, more people will have died in Iraq. And the Defenders of Civilization will not let these deaths disturb what they imagine is their steely resolve. They're committed to this war, and if that means failing to recognize themselves as fools or frauds for another dozen years, they're willing to make that sacrifice.

By tomorrow morning, more people will have died so that our parasitic gaggle of political "experts" won't have to give up their bogus glamor, their televised moral calisthenics and silly self-approbation. They'll die so that David Brooks can pretend to be clever, and Charles Krauthammer can pretend to be civilized, and John Gibson can pretend to be sane. They'll die so that the scuttling cockroach colony that comprises American punditry can continue to enjoy the quasi-sexual thrill that comes with clipping on the tie mic, getting patted with the make-up artist's powderpuff, and knowing that in a few short moments, they'll get to impose whatever fever dream currently represents Serious Thought on viewers from coast to coast.

At the risk of seeming shrill, I suppose I may as well reiterate something I said earlier about our fearless watchdog media:

Perhaps they were as naive as they claim. If so, they ought not to be allowed out of the house without a guardian, because they're a danger to themselves and others. More likely, though, they're bought-and-paid-for cowards whose solipsistic vanity is more discomfited by looking foolish than by being an accessory to mass murder.