« Chalabi - In Washington Now | Main | The Democrats and Free Trade »
November 10, 2005
The American Problem in Iraq
-- by John Emerson
Bush's Iraq ploy was an Ariel Sharon "facts-on-the-ground" Humpty Dumpty strategy. Basically he said, "If I don't succeed, I'll fuck things up so badly that no one else can fix them either".
The "can do" natural optimism of Americans works against them. It makes them suckers for adventurists like Cheney and Bush, it makes them punish the bearers of bad news, and makes them unable to support a "cut the losses" policy when appropriate.
TV, gated communities, malls and the political churches enable people to live in a bubble of cheerfulness. This does NOT prevent them from being paranoid: when optimism is threatened, scapegoating and witchhunts begin.
(Slightly edited comment posted on Brad Delong Nov. 9, 2005, 9:39 PM.)
Posted by John Emerson at November 10, 2005 6:36 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.seeingtheforest.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.fcgi/1046
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
