Waste Not, Want Not When We Leave
"Res nolunt diu male administrari. Though no checks to a new evil appear, the checks exist, and will appear. If the government is cruel, the governor’s life is not safe. If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, juries will not convict. Nothing arbitrary, nothing artificial can endure. The true life and satisfactions of man seem to elude the utmost rigors or felicities of condition and to establish themselves with great indifferency under all varieties of circumstance. "
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays
Henry's back, and I humbly apologize to the loyal readers who have waited entirely too long for my latest attempt to clarify the mud. Much to discuss since the elections, but tonight I turn to the ever worsening situation in Iraq. Pundits and media pollywogs banter endlessly about the definitions of civil war in the Middle East. Generals confidently state conflicting information. The Democrats, spurs sharpened for the stampede towards Rumsfeld that never occurred, look towards a new target. How are we to understand anything, especially to understand chaos?
But, let us ask one question: what happens if we leave?
One idea states outright civil war, bloodshed on a massive scale, unimaginable human suffering. Along with human suffering comes exodus, and refugees destabalize other nations. Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and even Iran lose when the human swarm crosses their borders. The UN will break under the weight of trying to help that many people. The ones who remain will have no choice but to join the local gang for protection. The sticky question with this outcome relates to responsibility: what is the moral responsibility for the nation that caused the power vacuum? If we leave, we answer the question, "nothing."
The other idea is that this civil war has existed for the entire regime of Hussein and his thugs. Like every other civil war studied in theory, one faction of society cannot withstand the oppression any longer. In Iraq, some argue, the current of civil war has built up for decades, and we chipped the dam. In our own case, the US Civil Rights movement was a "peaceful war" in comparison to the US War for Independence where armies lined against each other. Both caused suffering and bloodshed. Both took decades to resolve. But they did conclude.
Emerson's quotation above explains that all matters will resolve, and human societies must thrive in order to survive. Sure, the gloomiest, ghastliest of predictions summon the spectre of a regional nuclear war. Other nasty ones portend the Middle Eastern equivalent of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, the single act of violence committed with a pistol that eventually eradicated entire generations in World War I. Who knows how many nations could be absorbed into that type of conflict, but certainly, the world cannot stand idly by when oil costs $300 a barrel.
Emerson's point is that no government can survive, no dire situation can exist ad infinitum. Hussein can no more survive than the Zarqawi lieutenant hoping to replace him in "The Land of Two Rivers." The human spirit, one that repairs, invents, and heals, triumphs in the end. It will be ugly, but freedom will triumph. That's what happens when we leave. The real question is whether or not we can handle the truth of how ugly it will be.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays
Henry's back, and I humbly apologize to the loyal readers who have waited entirely too long for my latest attempt to clarify the mud. Much to discuss since the elections, but tonight I turn to the ever worsening situation in Iraq. Pundits and media pollywogs banter endlessly about the definitions of civil war in the Middle East. Generals confidently state conflicting information. The Democrats, spurs sharpened for the stampede towards Rumsfeld that never occurred, look towards a new target. How are we to understand anything, especially to understand chaos?
But, let us ask one question: what happens if we leave?
One idea states outright civil war, bloodshed on a massive scale, unimaginable human suffering. Along with human suffering comes exodus, and refugees destabalize other nations. Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and even Iran lose when the human swarm crosses their borders. The UN will break under the weight of trying to help that many people. The ones who remain will have no choice but to join the local gang for protection. The sticky question with this outcome relates to responsibility: what is the moral responsibility for the nation that caused the power vacuum? If we leave, we answer the question, "nothing."
The other idea is that this civil war has existed for the entire regime of Hussein and his thugs. Like every other civil war studied in theory, one faction of society cannot withstand the oppression any longer. In Iraq, some argue, the current of civil war has built up for decades, and we chipped the dam. In our own case, the US Civil Rights movement was a "peaceful war" in comparison to the US War for Independence where armies lined against each other. Both caused suffering and bloodshed. Both took decades to resolve. But they did conclude.
Emerson's quotation above explains that all matters will resolve, and human societies must thrive in order to survive. Sure, the gloomiest, ghastliest of predictions summon the spectre of a regional nuclear war. Other nasty ones portend the Middle Eastern equivalent of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand, the single act of violence committed with a pistol that eventually eradicated entire generations in World War I. Who knows how many nations could be absorbed into that type of conflict, but certainly, the world cannot stand idly by when oil costs $300 a barrel.
Emerson's point is that no government can survive, no dire situation can exist ad infinitum. Hussein can no more survive than the Zarqawi lieutenant hoping to replace him in "The Land of Two Rivers." The human spirit, one that repairs, invents, and heals, triumphs in the end. It will be ugly, but freedom will triumph. That's what happens when we leave. The real question is whether or not we can handle the truth of how ugly it will be.
posted by Henry Plantagenet at 11:12 PM
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