"What does it profit you, to gain the whole world but lose your own soul?" Mark 8:36.
If you were reading the right-wing blogosphere you might find yourself in a strange, alternative, attractive universe today. A universe in a Republican victory is assured in 2008, a universe in which the Democrats are shown to be craven, sucurrilous dogs who never had any intention at all of doing right by the world, and whose only emotion was one of winning against the Republicans, damn the nation and the world.
The window into that universe is Bartle Bull's Mission Accomplished, After All, in which he claims, contrary to the popular notion that we're just keeping a lid on a civil war which will break out the moment we leave,
And all of this churns my gut if Bull is right. Because I don't believe the cost, in blood and money, has ever been worth it. I have seen the rise of jihadi fundamentalism, the destruction of American civil liberties, the loss of world respect and world authority, the desecration of respect for human knowledge and science, the destruction of our intellectual capital as a nation, under the watch of the current administration. This has been an administration of men, most of them incompetent, and not the rule of law. We will not get any of those things back.
If Bull is right, then Iraq is our Milvian Bridge: the last great victory before we start our slide into historical irrelevance. If he's not, well, the worst is still yet to come.
If you were reading the right-wing blogosphere you might find yourself in a strange, alternative, attractive universe today. A universe in a Republican victory is assured in 2008, a universe in which the Democrats are shown to be craven, sucurrilous dogs who never had any intention at all of doing right by the world, and whose only emotion was one of winning against the Republicans, damn the nation and the world.
The window into that universe is Bartle Bull's Mission Accomplished, After All, in which he claims, contrary to the popular notion that we're just keeping a lid on a civil war which will break out the moment we leave,
The country is whole. It has embraced the ballot box. It has created a fair and popular constitution. It has avoided all-out civil war. It has not been taken over by Iran. It has put an end to Kurdish and marsh Arab genocide, and anti-Shia apartheid. It has rejected mass revenge against the Sunnis.Who knows, maybe he's even correct about that. The right is having a field day with this article, finger pointing and telling us that the all-father President Bush, in whom they have put their worship, patiently guided us all by his sheer will, defied our impatient childish tantrums, and led us to place where his vision of a free Iraq could take hold.
And all of this churns my gut if Bull is right. Because I don't believe the cost, in blood and money, has ever been worth it. I have seen the rise of jihadi fundamentalism, the destruction of American civil liberties, the loss of world respect and world authority, the desecration of respect for human knowledge and science, the destruction of our intellectual capital as a nation, under the watch of the current administration. This has been an administration of men, most of them incompetent, and not the rule of law. We will not get any of those things back.
If Bull is right, then Iraq is our Milvian Bridge: the last great victory before we start our slide into historical irrelevance. If he's not, well, the worst is still yet to come.
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