Friday, June 01, 2007
Iraq - The Human toll of the Neocons' War
125 American soldiers died in Iraq in the month of May |
How many more must die? It was not a merry month -- not for the hapless Iraqi civilians, not for the soldiers, and certainly not for the families of the dead and injured.
125, the highest number of military fatalities in a month since November 2004 -- and this after the troop surge. Total since the beginning of the war 3476. Yes, the president had mentioned that there would be increase in violence. He wants victory before troop withdrawal. The majority of Iraqis (Shias, Sunnis) do not want us there. To them we are an army of occupation. We have taken part in atrocities that have not endeared us. The president, however, is determined to continue. He has no choice. He and his team created the bloody mess and they want to save face. All the rest of it is just noise. Barring a few exceptions, the gutless, cynical members of Congress are doing their share of uttering mumbo jumbo.
Time for an Egghead President
Shouldn't be difficult to find when you think about the current one. Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post: "I want a president who reads newspapers, who reads books other than those that confirm his worldview, who bones up on Persian history before deciding how to deal with Iran's ambitious dreams of glory. I want a president who understands the relationship between energy policy at home and U.S. interests in the Middle East -- and who's smart enough to form his or her own opinions, not just rely on what old friends in the oil business say." We can hope but our system is such that "friends in the oil business" have a lot to do with who gets elected.
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Time for an Egghead President
Shouldn't be difficult to find when you think about the current one. Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post: "I want a president who reads newspapers, who reads books other than those that confirm his worldview, who bones up on Persian history before deciding how to deal with Iran's ambitious dreams of glory. I want a president who understands the relationship between energy policy at home and U.S. interests in the Middle East -- and who's smart enough to form his or her own opinions, not just rely on what old friends in the oil business say." We can hope but our system is such that "friends in the oil business" have a lot to do with who gets elected.
Excerpts I want a president who looks forward to policy meetings on health care and has ideas to throw into the mix. I want a president who believes in empirical fact, whose understanding of spirituality is complete enough to know that faith is "the evidence of things not seen" and who knows that for things that can be seen, the relevant evidence is fact, not belief. I want a president -- and it's amazing that I even have to put this on my wish list -- smart enough to know that Darwin was right. Actually, I want a president smart enough to know a good deal about science. He or she doesn't have to be able to do the math, but I want a president who knows that the great theories underpinning our understanding of the universe -- general relativity and quantum mechanics -- have stood for nearly a century and proved stunningly accurate, even though they describe a world that is more shimmer than substance. I want him or her to know that there's a lot we still don't know. I want the next president to be intellectually curious -- and also intellectually honest. I want him or her to understand the details, not just the big picture. I won't complain if the next president occasionally uses a word I have to look up. The conventional wisdom says that voters are turned off when candidates put on showy displays of highfalutin brilliance. I hope that's wrong. I hope people understand how complicated and difficult the next president's job will be, and how much of a difference some real candlepower would make. I don't want the candidates to pretend to be average people, because why would we choose an ordinary person for such an extraordinary job? I want to see what they've got -- how much they know, how readily they absorb new information, how effectively they analyze problems and evaluate solutions. If the next president is almost always the smartest person in the room, I won't mind a bit. After all, we're not in high school anymore. |
