The language used by the pro-war faction in the US is implicitly attacked by an official phrasebook produced by the British Government, which seeks to reverse the impression that the British believe all Moslems are terrorists, and avoids making direct links between the Moslem religion and crimes against the innocent. . It wants civil servants to refer to "violent extremism" and "criminal murder" rather than "Islamic extremism" and "jihadi-fundamentalism". It bans the use of in-your-face reference to the "clash of civilizations" and "islamo-fascism".
Epicurus would , were he alive today, tell us that we have to win hearts and minds and not tar all Moslems with the same brush. He would tell us to try to isolate the extremists and persuade their fellow-religionists to help.
Having trashed the country, killed tens of thousands, set Sunni against Shia and exposed the crass incompetence of the political party that used to pride itself on businesslike good management, we are now told we’ve restored peace in Iraq and it’s all the Iraqi’s fault is they haven’t reconciled . So let’s forget it, shall we? None of our business now. All we need to do is the wash out hands of the social chaos and destroyed infrastructure and concentrate on the US economy. A drop of a couple of percent in US GNP growth is so more important than re-building the country we destroyed.
This is a moral and ethical matter.
We went there to defeat Al Quaeda, and that we’ve done. They are all but
finished. You can’t make omelets without breaking eggs. The surge was brilliant and it isn’t true that the US is ignoring the infrastructure. A lot of work is being done on schools and hospitals and so on. Iraq will one day be counted as President Bush’s great achievement. We have rid the world of a ruthless dictator and can now pump oil from the biggest untapped source in the world.
You do talk cr*p, Charlie! If it’s only oil you want we can always buy oil, at a price, from anyone, including nasty regimes like the Taliban, if necessary. What you right-wing people don’t get is that a high price of oil is actually a good thing. Prices ought to be even higher, if anything. We need to wean ourselves off of oil all together and be creating new exciting industries to counter global warming, and make some money doing it. The less oil we buy the less we have to have our young guys in bases all over the world, the less we are held to transom by Bush’s best buddies like the Saudi king, and the more we get to reduce atmospheric pollution. It’s called a virtuous circle. Cheney doesn’t get it, but then why would you expect these old guys to get it?
WE WANT CHANGE!
Well said Betty! First, though, we need to sideline the class warriors who only boost the incomes of the rich and encourage unprecedented corruption (another one today, from Arizona) and install a grown-up, thoughtful government with judgment. Only then will we be able to have some ataraxia in out lives