Bad Arguments Ruin Good Ones
August 19th, 2007The New York Times is running an article written by active duty soldiers which argues that our invasion has robbed Iraqis of their “self-respect” and claims that press coverage of the War in the United States neglects the social, political and civil problems in that country. I say, Oh really? What self-respect did Iraqis have before us? What self-respect should they have had, exactly? You always respect yourself as a human being, or try to, but that’s a difficult thing to do when you’re controlled by a brutal dictator. There are significant portions of the world that lack self-respect on a national or international scale because they’re so used to being pushed around, and so I doubt that we’ve robbed the Iraqis of any self-respect unless we did so by, say, allowing them the freedom to fight amongst themselves and destroy one another and then look in the mirror and say, “What are we doing?” but I doubt they’re talking about that. I think they’re just trying to strengthen a good argument (US + Iraq = bad) with a bad one (”We’ve robbed them of their self-respect”). As to the media, No no no no no. The press definitely covers the instability and social breakdown in Iraq. The American public wouldn’t be so opposed to the war if our failures weren’t being illustrated loud and clear.
Recently, I spoke a little about the Iron Triangle in Washington and today, I conveniently read this article about Mike Brown’s work as a consultant to government agencies on natural disasters. If there’s something that better illustrates the need to reform our system, I haven’t heard it, but I’d like all the evidence I can get!