Having It Both Ways

YOU’VE GOT to hand it to veteran Democrats like Washington’s own Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA). After the vote in the House of Representatives a week ago in which the Democrats decided not to vote for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, he allowed as how the whole war was a mistake. Quoted in The Seattle Times:

Dicks now says it was all a mistake — his vote, the invasion, and the way the United States is waging the war.

But Dicks isn’t calling for an immediate pullout. Nor is he even calling for a pullout in six-months, which is the modified proposal from John Murtha (D-PA). Oh no.

While he disagrees with Murtha’s conclusion that U.S. troops should be withdrawn within six months, Dicks said, "He may well be right if this insurgency goes much further."

But if Dicks voted against an immediate pullout, and he disagrees with Murtha’s six-month timetable, then he is more or less in agreement with the Bush administration policy that troops will be withdrawn as and when the Iraqi security forces are capable of taking over.

Presumably the Bush plan is that some time in January, after the Iraqi elections and after a new Iraqi prime minister is chosen, the Iraqis will formally request that the US will start withdrawing troops.

Oh good. That means we are all in agreement. Except that Democrats like Norm Dicks maintain that the whole thing was a mistake, and that knowing what he knows now he would never have voted for the war in the first place.

Another way of looking at the Iraq “mess” is from the perspective of the Iranian Amir Taheri. He reckons that the US policy, to hand Iraq back to the Iraqis, is on track. To hand back Iraq to the Iraqis has taken several steps:

The first objective, to bring down Saddam, was achieved in three weeks.

The next objective was to break the apparatus of oppression created by the Ba’ath. Despite some residual problems, this, too, has been achieved.

Another objective: Break Saddam’s war machine, which had been used against Iraq’s neighbors as well as Iraq’s Kurds and Shiites. After just three years, nothing is left of that infernal machine.

The formation of the Governing Council represented the first step toward restoring Iraqi sovereignty. Next came the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis, in June 2004.

That was followed by the formation of an interim government, a series of municipal elections, a general election leading to the formation of Iraq’s first pluralist government, the writing of a new constitution and a referendum to get it approved.

The next item on the checklist is the general election set for Dec. 15.

And the first thing that the new Iraqi government will do in February, Taheri writes, will be to negotiate the withdrawal of coalition troops.

Presumably, Congressman Norm Dicks could agree with that. Even though he maintains that the whole Iraq adventure has been a complete mistake.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Civil Society

“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust

Hugo on Genius

“Tear down theory, poetic systems… No more rules, no more models… Genius conjures up rather than learns… ” —Victor Hugo
César Graña, Bohemian versus Bourgeois

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Postmodernism

A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ’merely relative’, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.
Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy

Faith and Politics

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable... [1.] protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; [2.] recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family... [3.] the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
Pope Benedict XVI, Speech to European Peoples Party, 2006

China and Christianity

At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing

Religion, Property, and Family

But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family. Thus the outlook for communism, which is both anti-property and anti-family, (and also anti-religion), is not promising.
F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit

Conservatism

Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity

US Life in 1842

Families helped each other putting up homes and barns. Together, they built churches, schools, and common civic buildings. They collaborated to build roads and bridges. They took pride in being free persons, independent, and self-reliant; but the texture of their lives was cooperative and fraternal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

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