What Fools Good At

We are so easily gulled by our politicians who prepare us into a war as the only solution to a problem. Since our primitive part of thinking has not shed vestiges of paternalistic ‘Father-knows-best-syndrome’ from our reasoning, it makes easier to accept the reasons trotted by them as legitimate. Remember the former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s performance at the UN with all those ‘evidences’ to convince the world as to the danger posed by Saddam? The leader who is convinced of his God-given mission we know as often the case is, has neither let God into the plans hatched by him or applied his mind well into the consequences of his adventure.
War in Iraq as we now see is like splicing pieces of rope ino each other. Toppling Saddam was one piece. Then came the De- Baathification program initiated by Paul Bremer. It was a fiasco and now President Bush is trying to undo the damages of Coalition Provisional Authority. For instance: Timothy M. Carney went to Baghdad in April 2003 to run Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Minerals. His mission, as he put it, "was to listen to the Iraqis and work with them." He left after two months, disgusted and disillusioned. The U.S. occupation administration in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), placed ideology over pragmatism, he believed. "Planning was bad," he wrote in his diary on May 8, "but implementation is worse." He is now called back. Desperate for new approaches to stifle the persistent Sunni insurgency and Shiite death squads that are jointly pushing the country toward an all-out civil war, the White House made a striking about-face last week, embracing strategies and people it once opposed or cast aside.
Two other key Baghdad appointments are from among the ranks of dissenters in 2003: Ambassador designate Ryan Crocker and Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who will take over command of all coalition forces in Iraq.
Crocker, who spent the summer of 2003 helping to form Iraq's Governing Council, left the country frustrated with the CPA's reluctance to reach out to minority Sunnis. Even before the invasion, he wrote a blunt memo for then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warning of the uncontrolled sectarian and ethnic tensions that would be released by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Petraeus, who spent 2003 commanding the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul, chafed at the way reconstruction funds, personnel and decision-making were centralized in Baghdad. The CPA's policies, he said in 2004, should have been "tempered by reality."(ack: The Wa.Post. 14 Jan)
When I see the wanton destruction and death I ask myself: are wars ever fought as sloppy as this? I do think no one can have any certainty of success until the last nail of opposition is driven in place- dead. By such a reckoning you may be sure three such wars would depopulate much of this living planet.

benny