Wednesday, May 02, 2007

"That is the mindset of a child."

How I do love Glenn Greenwald, for telling it like it is:

Mature societies do not make decisions by wondering what the Bad People want and then automatically doing the opposite. That is the mindset of a child. Had that perspective prevailed in Israel, they never would have issued this report, and likely would never have withdrawn from Lebanon at all --- because: "hey, Hezbollah wants withdrawal from Lebanon and will be 'emboldened' by it and happy about this Commission report and therefore we can't do any of that. We have to stay and fight and stifle criticisms of the war, otherwise Hezbollah will be happy."

Yes that's correct. We should not decide things the way toddlers decide things, by intuiting what someone else wants...and then denying it to them. Nonetheless, you'll see this sort of thing peddled by right-wing bloggers and pundits all over the place. "Timetables will tell the insurgents when we'll leave Iraq, and thus embolden them! We can't do it! We must stay and fight...forever if need be!"

Well yes, and Hitler said to his generals in the Eagle's Nest "We cannot abandon the defense of our positions in Stalingrad! The Sixth army cannot be allowed to retreat! Doing so will embolden the Soviets, and give them reason to think that they can defeat us!" Only of course the Soviets did eventually defeat the Germans at Stalingrad, despite the fact that Hitler and his generals repeatedly ordered their troops to keep fighting and displayed incredible strength of will by sitting around and thinking very, very hard about not losing.

We can't "win" the war in Iraq just because we sit around thinking very, very hard about how we're going to win the war in Iraq. That is, as Glenn Greenwald would say, the mindset of a child. It's long past time to grow up.

1 comment:

adam said...

That's awesome.