Herbert: Ideological madness

[Guest guest]

This writer assumes that the war and the way that it was carried out

is a " mistake " in judgement. He assumes that any sane right thinking

individual would want peace, prosperity, etc. He should have written

the article from the standpoint of the Neocons who want a war without

end, then he would see that is exactly what they are very successfully

fomenting. To the Neocons it is going exactly in the direction, though the

timing may be slightly off, that which they have planned all along. F.

 

 

 

 

" Zepp " <zepp

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 07:00:17 -0700

#Herbert: Ideological madness

 

 

 

 

Bob Herbert, The New York Times, July 25, 2005

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/25/opinion/25herbert.html?hp

 

I remember the arrogance that accompanied the " shock and awe " bombing

campaign that kicked off the war in Iraq more than two years ago. The

war was supposed to be quick and easy, a cakewalk. The enemy, we were

told, would fold like a dinner napkin. And then, in the neoconservative

fantasies of some of the crazier folks in the Bush crowd, the military

would gear up for an invasion of Iran.

 

In one of the great deceptions in the history of American government,

President Bush insisted to a nation traumatized by the Sept. 11 attacks

that the invasion of Iraq was crucial to the success of the so-called

war on terror.

 

" Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract

from the war against terror, " said Mr. Bush in a speech in the fall of

2002 that was designed to drum up support for the invasion. " To the

contrary, confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the

war on terror. "

 

In the speech, delivered in Cincinnati, Mr. Bush said of Iraq: " It

possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking

nuclear weapons. "

 

I've always urged politicians to be careful what they wish for. The

president got the war he wanted so badly. But he never understood an

essential fact that Georges Clemenceau learned nearly a century ago -

that " it is easier to make war than to make peace. "

 

So where are we, now that the real world has intervened? The military is

spinning its wheels in the tragic and expensive quagmire of Iraq and

there is no end to the conflict in sight. A front-page story in The

Times on Sunday said the insurgents " just keep getting stronger and

stronger. "

 

As for the fight against terror, the news runs the gamut from bad to

horrible. The Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik in Egypt was traumatized

by a series of early-morning terrorist blasts on Saturday. London is

trembling from the terror attacks on its public transportation system

that have claimed dozens of lives.

 

Here in New York, where the police have begun random searches of the

backpacks and packages of subway riders, there is an odd feeling of

resignation mixed with periodic bouts of dread, as transit riders

struggle with the belief that some kind of attack is bound to happen here.

 

Interviews over the past few days have shown that subway riders in New

York almost instinctively understand what the president does not - that

the war in Iraq is not making us safer here at home.

 

" No, in fact I think it makes us less safe here, " said Edmond Lee, a

salesman who lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side. " We went over there

with no real plan. No real thinking about what we'd be able to do. "

 

He said he was concerned that " what happened in the London Underground

might happen here. "

 

Memories of the destruction of the World Trade Center are still etched,

as if with acid, in the minds of New Yorkers. Very few people are dovish

when it comes to the war on terror. But Mr. Bush's war in Iraq is

another matter.

 

" Our soldiers being over there make it worse here, " said Michael

Springfield, a 32-year-old engineer from Brooklyn.

 

One of the people encountered in the subway was Andy Dommen, a musician

from Germany who was pushing a shopping cart filled with luggage. He

made the fundamental distinction between Iraq and Al Qaeda and said the

war in Iraq was a distraction that " was taking the public eye off " other

important problems, namely the fight against terror.

 

" Messing up other countries, " said Mr. Dommen, " doesn't make the world

or America safer. "

 

There is still no indication that the Bush administration recognizes the

utter folly of its war in Iraq, which has been like a constant spray of

gasoline on the fire of global terrorism. What was required in the

aftermath of Sept. 11 was an intense, laserlike focus by America and its

allies on Al Qaeda-type terrorism.

 

Instead, the Bush crowd saw its long dreamed of opportunity to impose

its will on Iraq, which had nothing to do with the great tragedy of

Sept. 11. Many thousands have paid a fearful price for that bit of

ideological madness.

 

--E-mail: bobherb

 

 

 

--

The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making ten-thousand revolutions a

minute and man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. Religion is

the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him

the ride. --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

 

 

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!

Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.

 

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