Sunday, October 09, 2005

Welcome to the Occupation

Unexamined in this review, and much else by erstwhile enthusiasts for war in Iraq, was their own doleful ignorance about the country, not the mention that of the policymakers. The requiem for America's Iraq gambit must not ignore the enthusiasts.
Welcome to the Occupation: "It is not too soon, however, to return a judgment on those at the helm who took a difficult job and made it infinitely more so, dramatically undermining America's regional and global position in the process. They were 'careless people,' as Fitzgerald said of Tom and Daisy Buchanan, who 'smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.' That, if nothing else, can stand as a lesson for future tender souls contemplating the possible benefits of liberal imperialism and mulling attempts to do the right thing with the wrong partners. �"

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