Madame Potemkin has been experiencing the joys of kidney stones over the past several days, leading me to see the world through the prism of egestion; thus the title.
Anyhoo, there's been a fascinating, well, pishing match between uber-bloggers Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds of late, focusing, as I understand it, on the significance of allegations of military misbehaviour in Iraq, specifically the "Please Don't Squeeze the Koran" issue. Andrew is horrified, and Glenn is nonplussed.
My two cents (about two-and-a-half, Canadian) is scattered, as usual.
As I see it, the major threat to success in this venture is faint-heartedness on the part of the Western World. Some of this faint-heartedness appears to be fostered by the Cowboy-in-Chief's political opponents. There seems to be an inability on the part of many people to come to terms with the fact that someone whose policies they oppose may be doing a good thing. This inability is itself manifested in, among other things, an exaggeration of the significance of the inevitable errors in Bush's execution of the war.
To his credit, Andrew Sullivan was and is, an ardent supporter of Operation Iraqi There-Must-Be-WMD-In-There-Somewhere-Because-That's-All-This-Was-Ever-About, but he's a great example of how one's perspective on one issue (torture) can be skewed by opposition elsewhere (gay marriage). I think that this weakened support (of the military effort, not the president nor his party) is itself the primary threat to success. Some folks see it as Bush Lied!, some see it in Halliburton Lied! (Again!), and some see it in Abu Ghraib, but in all cases, it looks and sounds like a McLuhan-esque "If I hadn't believed it, I wouldn't have seen it" limited perspective.
Besides, I don't know if Israeli flag burritos and menstrual blood facials are ineffective means of 'softening up' potential terrorists, but Andrew's assumption that they must be seems a little suspect. I'm also less concerned about whether these methods are incendiary or offensive than whether they contribute to the long-term project of developing the Muslim world's sensibilities so that they can co-exist with the rest of humanity. I don't know the answer to that, but the fact that it might offend people who are untroubled by babies being murdered in the streets of Tel Aviv does not in itself cause me to lose any sleep. I don't think that particular level of sensitivity has yet been earned.
- Moishe Potemkin
Posted by MoisheP at May 18, 2005 09:29 PM | TrackBack