Saturday - January 17, 2004

Category Image What is Next in Iraq? Why Would Anyone Ask Lind?




This rant was edited on 1/18/04.

In my last rant, I disagreed with William Lind and discussed his lack of understanding of basic logic, which stems from his need to get paid to tell us how much smarter he is than the rest of the world. First, never trust a man who sucks on a pipe in his official photo. Who smokes pipes anymore? I've nothing against pipes, but clearly for him it is an affectation even though he might enjoy smoking one. Do cigarette smokers have their cigarettes dangling from their mouths in their photos? It's a pathetic ploy to make us regard him in some sort of faux professorial way, and it's a warning klaxon that he's pompous and full of balloon juice.

But I am distracted from my point. In my last rant I said that the war in Iraq is essentially over and the problems that remain are political. I thought that was a clear enough statement, but on reflection it may not be so clear to everyone. Heck, some people even think Lind makes sense, so I'd better explain myself a bit better.

In Iraq our military is faced with an insurgent campaign. Ba'athist hold-outs who want a return to their former privileged positions have been conducting frequent attacks, all of which are impotent in the large view so long as we don't relent. There is a second source of attacks and that is a pan-Islamic fanaticism.

I had said that these attacks will continue until the people making them are converted from their way of thinking, or they are killed. The killing part is the role of the military and Iraqi police. The conversion is not.

The military can contribute to this conversion of thought, but they cannot do it or lead that effort in the long term. This is the arena of ideas, and people with guns are only persuasive against bodies, not minds.

The work of changing and affecting minds is an art practiced by politicians. Our politicians, led for now by the very successful Paul Bremer, need to encourage Iraqi politicians with correct ideologies to speak up and sway the public's way of thinking. There is every indication that most Iraqis favor a secular and free government. We need to find a way to make the people follow leaders that also support this way of thinking.

This is an art. Soldiers and Marines handing out candy bars to children won't do it. It doesn't hurt, and it might even help, but the military cannot do it, except to act as politicians. It is best to let politicians do the politicking, while the military concentrates on providing physical security, and intervening on an immediate basis with humanitarian and engineering assistance.

If our nation fails in Iraq now, it is not because of a failing in the military, it is now purely a function of politics -- and that is never easy, but always necessary. But you can count on politicians to duck any blame, and you can count on self-important think tank wannabes to blame the military for not hiring them for their bad ideas.

Addendum, Jan 18, 2004:

Okay, I've been doing some research on Lind. I knew that he had been around for a while, and now I see that his writings are all over the internet. I was gratified to find an article written by an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel in 1985 that is almost the same as my last rant .

He also hangs out with Holocaust deniers . He doesn't deny the Holocaust happened, but he does believe in an international Jewish conspiracy to destroy Western Civilization.

Like many other racists, he believes the Lost Cause theory that slaves in the south were treated like beloved family members .

There are innumerable sites out there highlighting him and his really bad ideas. I'll leave further research to the initiative of the reader. What is clear is that he is a racist (a term that I use very rarely, but he clearly merits it), muddled-minded man who thinks the best plan in Iraq is to leave no matter what happens.

Why would anyone take him seriously?

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