Better Than the Alternative
When asked “How are you?” I reply, “Well, I am still alive.”
And always, anyhow almost always, comes the retort, “That’s better than the alternative.” To which I ask, “ How do you know?
And that, my friends, explains the success of the Republican Party. The party of no new ideas reigns because somehow that limitation is perceived by oh so many as better than the alternative. Sometimes Republicans do talk about change which would possibly indicate they mean by that introducing new ideas to the political process. Not so, change is considered only when forced upon them and when they do talk about change they mean change back to some older very limited used–up idea.
When Bush thoughtlessly plunged us into Iraq his initiative shocked nearly everybody into silent complicity. That was truly an uncharacteristic Republican action. Now, bogged down in that ungodly place for over five years, the Republican Party and a goodly number of Democrats do the “Better than the alternative number.” The response to any call for out of Iraq is countered, even by many who originally opposed the war, with ‘We can’t leave now because the alternative would make things worse.’
Again I ask, how do we know? Well, we know because the experts that got us that mess in the first place say so. We know because the president, clearly no expert on anything, says so.
We really have no idea if life is better than death. Most us lack the insouciance of a Mark Twain who had no qualms about his post life future in either heaven or hell because he “had friends in both places.” So we blithely accept life as the better alternative. At least most of us do.
Recall, we went to Iraq to bring heaven and the Iraqis by and large feel we brought hell. We were told we would be showered with flowers. That didn’t happen. We killed a slew of Iraqis. A large number of our troops were killed and many more badly wounded. Now that killing has decreased, mainly because there are fewer left to kill. That good news doesn’t seem to matter. Polls indicate that winning the war is less important than evacuating. No matter. Being there is passively accepted as the better alternative.
Unlike the life is better than the alternative, with Iraq we can we can engage in some informed consideration of the alternatives. There are only two. Rather than things necessarily getting worse if we left Iraq right now as fast as our exit resources can get us out of there, things either would remain the same, or, things would get better.
The best possible guess is that we are pretty irrelevant apart from our capacity to kill and destroy. If we left, things would probably remain the same. The rivalries would continue. Shia would continue to kill Sunni and Sunni would continue to kill Shia or they would stop. The Kurds would remain aloof with that killing, but would continue to have some difficulties with Turkey or they would resolve their differences. They would what they would do regardless of our presence. There will, however, be no more Al Qaedia because Al Qaeda is only in Iraq because we are there and once we leave they too will leave. Will they come to the US as George Bush who has made a living out of scaring us, was warned? They would if they could, but only if our Homeland Security is as inept as everything else in the Bush administration.
Things could also get better as a result of our leaving Iraq. After we leave, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran Jordan, Turkey, Russia could get involved. Iran, is the place where the government we created goes whenever it wants real advice. Jordan is overrun by thousands of Iraqi refugees and that is causing some problems. The same holds true for Syria. None of those nations joined our much hyped Coalition of the Willing. Those nations don’t want their region to explode. They have very good reasons for peace in the neighborhood and what’s more they have influence. Our closest friends in the region, the Saudis, have convened an Arab conference that asked us to leave. The Iraqi government wants us to pick a date to leave. They don’t think our staying is better than the alternative.
From what we read and from what our leaders say we are given the impression that we alone can do things in this world. We have undermined our creation, the United Nations, and then criticize it for its inadequacy. We have lost a lot of friends because of our presence in Iraq. With the exception of Israel every country in the world would like us out of there. Australia, a country we could always count on for support was an original member of the Coalition. The war there was so unpopular that it became a determining factor in its most recent election. The pro Iraq war party not only lost the election, its Prime Minister the most loyal ally George Bush could count on, John Howard lost his seat in Parliament. The winning part announced its troops would leave Iraq.
If the President was an honest man , he would announce, “Country, I’ve shrunk the Coalition” but that is not likely to happen. Nor will many commentators applaud the countries that have left.
Needed now is a serious discussion and a careful consideration of the consequences of staying or leaving Iraq. That kind of discussion is vital to the nation’s interest. Unfortunately that is not the debate that taking place between the candidates for the presidency. Nor is it a part of the media analysis. Bloggers hurl invectives at each other but that is a weak substitute for debate. There is no solution to any complex problem in existing policies and practices. In this instance the alternative is far better.
And always, anyhow almost always, comes the retort, “That’s better than the alternative.” To which I ask, “ How do you know?
And that, my friends, explains the success of the Republican Party. The party of no new ideas reigns because somehow that limitation is perceived by oh so many as better than the alternative. Sometimes Republicans do talk about change which would possibly indicate they mean by that introducing new ideas to the political process. Not so, change is considered only when forced upon them and when they do talk about change they mean change back to some older very limited used–up idea.
When Bush thoughtlessly plunged us into Iraq his initiative shocked nearly everybody into silent complicity. That was truly an uncharacteristic Republican action. Now, bogged down in that ungodly place for over five years, the Republican Party and a goodly number of Democrats do the “Better than the alternative number.” The response to any call for out of Iraq is countered, even by many who originally opposed the war, with ‘We can’t leave now because the alternative would make things worse.’
Again I ask, how do we know? Well, we know because the experts that got us that mess in the first place say so. We know because the president, clearly no expert on anything, says so.
We really have no idea if life is better than death. Most us lack the insouciance of a Mark Twain who had no qualms about his post life future in either heaven or hell because he “had friends in both places.” So we blithely accept life as the better alternative. At least most of us do.
Recall, we went to Iraq to bring heaven and the Iraqis by and large feel we brought hell. We were told we would be showered with flowers. That didn’t happen. We killed a slew of Iraqis. A large number of our troops were killed and many more badly wounded. Now that killing has decreased, mainly because there are fewer left to kill. That good news doesn’t seem to matter. Polls indicate that winning the war is less important than evacuating. No matter. Being there is passively accepted as the better alternative.
Unlike the life is better than the alternative, with Iraq we can we can engage in some informed consideration of the alternatives. There are only two. Rather than things necessarily getting worse if we left Iraq right now as fast as our exit resources can get us out of there, things either would remain the same, or, things would get better.
The best possible guess is that we are pretty irrelevant apart from our capacity to kill and destroy. If we left, things would probably remain the same. The rivalries would continue. Shia would continue to kill Sunni and Sunni would continue to kill Shia or they would stop. The Kurds would remain aloof with that killing, but would continue to have some difficulties with Turkey or they would resolve their differences. They would what they would do regardless of our presence. There will, however, be no more Al Qaedia because Al Qaeda is only in Iraq because we are there and once we leave they too will leave. Will they come to the US as George Bush who has made a living out of scaring us, was warned? They would if they could, but only if our Homeland Security is as inept as everything else in the Bush administration.
Things could also get better as a result of our leaving Iraq. After we leave, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran Jordan, Turkey, Russia could get involved. Iran, is the place where the government we created goes whenever it wants real advice. Jordan is overrun by thousands of Iraqi refugees and that is causing some problems. The same holds true for Syria. None of those nations joined our much hyped Coalition of the Willing. Those nations don’t want their region to explode. They have very good reasons for peace in the neighborhood and what’s more they have influence. Our closest friends in the region, the Saudis, have convened an Arab conference that asked us to leave. The Iraqi government wants us to pick a date to leave. They don’t think our staying is better than the alternative.
From what we read and from what our leaders say we are given the impression that we alone can do things in this world. We have undermined our creation, the United Nations, and then criticize it for its inadequacy. We have lost a lot of friends because of our presence in Iraq. With the exception of Israel every country in the world would like us out of there. Australia, a country we could always count on for support was an original member of the Coalition. The war there was so unpopular that it became a determining factor in its most recent election. The pro Iraq war party not only lost the election, its Prime Minister the most loyal ally George Bush could count on, John Howard lost his seat in Parliament. The winning part announced its troops would leave Iraq.
If the President was an honest man , he would announce, “Country, I’ve shrunk the Coalition” but that is not likely to happen. Nor will many commentators applaud the countries that have left.
Needed now is a serious discussion and a careful consideration of the consequences of staying or leaving Iraq. That kind of discussion is vital to the nation’s interest. Unfortunately that is not the debate that taking place between the candidates for the presidency. Nor is it a part of the media analysis. Bloggers hurl invectives at each other but that is a weak substitute for debate. There is no solution to any complex problem in existing policies and practices. In this instance the alternative is far better.
Comments