American Civility

    3992 American lives, $500 billion … today marks the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, and the sacrifice we are making.
    Is it worth it? What should be done now? These are indeed difficult questions; probably without definitive answers, as we can only hypothesize about the alternatives. What if we never invaded? Would we have suffered more terrorist attacks? (It turns out the West has.) Or, would we have been better equipped to destroy Al Qaeda? Was there another way to depose Saddam Hussein and his coterie of tyrants?
    What is most prominent in the present atmosphere and debate is exasperation at our inability to define: to define the problem, the strategic objective, the enemy, the possible outcomes, the factors of success, our future with the Middle East, our future sacrifice, the state of our defense against terrorism. Remarkable is the lacuna in good ideas and imaginative leadership, now, when we need them most. This void that so disturbs the American spirit cannot possibly be filled with the polarized views that result from the dipole that is our political system. Pull out or stay, retreat or surge, timetable or 100 years. There must be a better way.
    No one is flocking to any of the presidential candidates declaring a breakthrough in the prevailing thinking. Polls show that many Americans have lost interest in the war by weariness, disillusionment, or the insight that the administration has violated a sacred trust with even the 29% of the population that approves of it.
    As long as one American life is at risk, we cannot be complacent. We must force ourselves to focus, without bickering or bitterness. Our soldiers, sailors and their families who are giving so much deserve our utmost attentiveness as they merit our infinite gratitude.
    The things we know at this point are:

    The facts do not incandesce many options or clear choices. Where are the likes of Brzezinski, Eagleburger, Kissinger, Marshall, Schultz, and other statesmen our country is capable of producing? In an article one year ago¹, Zbigniew Brzezinski argued that the words “war on terror” have terrorized the American people more than any terrorist action, and the resulting fear prevents a productive dialogue. It is a compelling argument: the invocation by the administration of these three words to justify a military campaign that they failed to substantiate with good intelligence at the outset yields the diametric, unappealing choices offered by our candidates. This in turn makes our thinking opaque and muzzles open discussion of creative solutions to a serious problem in a part of the world we should admit we do not fully understand.
    Our military involvement is indefeasible, and Democrats hallucinate that it can be undone without severe repercussions. Planting a base in the region, as McCain envisions, risks enflaming a people and a culture with great peril ... to them and to our interests.
    We need at this moment a sober yet inspiring vision that disentangles us without leaving the detritus of two countries torn asunder--one physically, the other in spirit; a vision that can be supported by our allies and engages their resources in cooperation with us; one that will promote self-determination by Arabs for their own region and can begin to displace their fear and resentment toward us with their friendship.
    Most urgently, we need a strategy to destroy Al Qaeda. Isn't that why we went to war?
 

1 - "Terrorized by 'War on Terror', How a Three-Word Mantra Has Undermined  America", The Washington Post, 25 March 2007