The Case For Facing Facts
Why we need to acknowledge that the news from Iraq has been getting better.
I have been troubled by the reluctance of my fellow liberals to acknowledge the progress made in Iraq in the last six months, a reluctance I am embarrassed to admit that I have shared.
Giving Gen. David Petraeus his due does not mean we have to start saying it was a great idea to invade Iraq. It remains the terrible idea it always was. And the occupation that followed has been until recently a continuing disaster, causing the death or maiming of far too many American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
Still, the fact is that the situation in Iraq, though some violence persists, is much improved since the summer. Why do liberals not want to face this fact, let alone ponder its implications?
The problem is one that I have seen cripple our political life again and again and that seems to grow steadily worse. Liberals and conservatives are equally guilty. Neither side wants to face facts that don't fit its case.
Consider abortion. Too many pro-lifers and pro-choicers seem determined to ignore the other fellows' points as they cling to their own rigid positions. And abortion is just one example.
Conservatives refuse to face the fact that free markets need to be regulated to guard against chicanery and to protect the health and safety of consumers, workers and the public in general. Liberals are too prone to see government as the solution, which of course it can be, and not as part of the problem, a role in which it has also demonstrated impressive potential.
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Member Comments
Posted By: gcrowe @ 02/25/2008 8:47:06 PM
Comment:
if you put enough troops in any small country you will reduce the violance. can you tell your enemy from your friends? i say you can not. you can not win what ever you are trying to win. as long as you stay there you wil always be dying. what will we gain by staying in iraq to creat what we call a win? it sound good when mccain keep holling that we are going to win. i still would like to know what will you win? it should be against some one law for america to keep killing people that have done nothing to america. we are fighting people whose only crime is being born an iraqi. we are wasting young people lives and limbs because we hate to face the fact that we are wrong. iraq did nothing for the people to be murder because we hated one man, their leader.
Posted By: wmk3rd @ 01/15/2008 12:37:00 PM
Comment: Of course, the root of the problem is Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants fan. Scream, holler and cheer for every one of his home runs. Home runs win games and winning games means Championships. It doesn't matter how you get it. Just win.
Well -- as we are finding out -- to alot of us it does matter.
Even if this whole "things are getting better" notion is true, I feel for conscientious Americans it's just hard to root when you know how it all started.
Posted By: faminchin @ 01/04/2008 11:49:27 PM
Comment: If only we hadn't gone into Iraq....what a wonderful world it would be with Saddam still in power. Those damn Iraqi people would never know freedom, never have a say in their government or their country. Saddam would still be there in power, with his deranged sons, probably digging more mass graves and murdering their own citizens. Damn that Bush messing up this fairy tale that Iraq was before we went there! It was such a wonderful place to live before we invaded.
Personally, just the idea that somebody has to write an op-ed piece like this, demonstrates how slanted the reporting has been out of Iraq. Wouldn't it be nice if reporters and the media actually told us the truth about whats going on, instead of forcing their political agenda on us. What if the media just reported what's happening, the facts, instead of expressing their opinions and trying to pass it off as the news!