Tread lightly on the things of earth

I woke up today, U.S. Memorial Day, thinking about this —

Wrong thing done wrong. Under the theory that any action and its outcome falls into one of the following categories —

• Right things done right
• Right things done wrong
• Wrong things done right
• Wrong things done wrong

I assess that invading Iraq to address the problem of terrorism has never been a right thing. As much as Bush & Co. wanted Americans to believe that invading Iraq was a right thing that would be done right, that was never true and never possible.

As time went on, seeing the scale of fsckups and the costs in dollars and human lives, even unapologetic war promoters began to think invading Iraq was a right thing done wrong.

But invading Iraq was a wrong thing from the beginning, because addressing the problem of terrorism by invading Iraq is like addressing a high risk of heart attacks by switching to a diet of only fried foods. It’s a “solution” that may make you feel good but it doesn’t stand any chance of solving the problem — because it doesn’t address root causes. Iraq invasion promoters don’t even think terrorism has root causes, apparently; “they hate us for our freedoms” implies zero deep thinking about the subject.

The best possible outcome of invading Iraq, however unlikely, has always been that it might be a wrong thing done right, that unforeseen benefits might arise to compensate for its fundamentally flawed premises.

[2005-06-04: The central flawed premise being, as Hunter puts it, that we could succeed by “occupying a hostile nation and campaigning for their support by bombing the holy crap out of their neighborhoods and families,” a premise that “was and is a neoconservative fiction from the start.”]

Lately Bill Maher has been promoting this idea [invading Iraq as wrong thing done right]. As bubble-headed hopeful as I sometimes am, even I don’t think this is smart: the chance of benefits arising is small and distant, yet the cost in lives and treasure is astonishingly (and I think, immorally) high independent of outcome. [2005-06-04: There is no “I think” to it; killing off large numbers of people based on a lie is immoral by definition.]

I think invading Iraq has always been a wrong thing done wrong. The wisest possible response on recognizing this reality is to stop doing the wrong thing. To continue doing the wrong thing wrong even after you diagnose it, just because you’ve invested so much to this point, is insane, by definition.

A change of plan. Brains will always triumph over brawn in cases like this. We’ve tried brawn for the last 4+ years — letting our burliest inmates run the asylum — and we’ve found the outcomes (predictably) lacking. Almost all we’ve done is burn through irreplaceable brains, brawn, reputation, and our basic humanity — and multiple shitloads of dollars — even as we’ve addressed hardly any of terrorism’s root causes or attended any of our vulnerabilities to it; that’s dumb. Let’s try brains now. Unfortunately, AFAICT, this will require a thoroughgoing personnel change in Washington. We missed our chance in 2004, IMO, and whether we have the luxury of waiting ‘til 2006 and 2008, I don’t know.

What we’ve invested, and whom we’ve invested, we must remember today and allow to teach us: there is a better way.

As pastordan reminds me —

For leaders who send young men and women to war,
that their judgments be sound
and their motives be pure, we pray.

For soldiers who lay down their lives for others,
that the love which inspires their sacrifice
be fulfilled in the love that surpasses all love, we pray.

For soldiers who have been maimed or brutalized by war,
that our love for them may make their scars less hurtful
and make their brutality yield to the tenderness of returning love, we pray.  …

For those who suffer most from war,
that the homeless, the orphaned, the hungry, and the innocent
may help us turn from warlike ways to pursue the potential of peace, we pray.

As we remember those who died in war for the cause of peace:
Lord, make us peacemakers.

As we look to the future of our children and grandchildren:
Lord, make us peacemakers.

As we think of the war-torn, blood-stained, sorrowful world:
Lord, make us peacemakers. …