BBB
The political leader I most respect in the world is Nelson Mandela. The Iraqis could learn a lesson from him.
BBB
sumac, Seems to this reader like both sides must "forgive and forget" in order to start from square one.
Agreed. There has been so much animosity in past history that it will take huge efforts.
Gelisgesti wrote:OCCOM BILL wrote:Just thinking out loud, here...
But I think we may be wrong in the stance that those who've killed G.I.'s should be excluded from amnesty. We call it a war and we're talking truce... so don't you almost have to legitimize the killing of your enemy? Wouldn't we be better off if the Iraqis offered Amnesty to all who aren't guilty of crimes against humanity... in exchange for full disclosure and some form of future monitoring? Wouldn't we rather know who the killers are and have their agreement to stop killing, than send the message that they may as well keep killing until they can be identified and brought to justice? A soldier who kills his enemy isn't necessarily a murderer.
Just a quick question here .... the people labeled 'collateral damage', are they considered enemies?
What need of the term collateral damage if they were?... Kind of a senseless question, IMO. You could, however, make an excellent case for amnesty out of that mindset.
OCCOM BILL wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:OCCOM BILL wrote:Just thinking out loud, here...
But I think we may be wrong in the stance that those who've killed G.I.'s should be excluded from amnesty. We call it a war and we're talking truce... so don't you almost have to legitimize the killing of your enemy? Wouldn't we be better off if the Iraqis offered Amnesty to all who aren't guilty of crimes against humanity... in exchange for full disclosure and some form of future monitoring? Wouldn't we rather know who the killers are and have their agreement to stop killing, than send the message that they may as well keep killing until they can be identified and brought to justice? A soldier who kills his enemy isn't necessarily a murderer.
Just a quick question here .... the people labeled 'collateral damage', are they considered enemies?
What need of the term collateral damage if they were?... Kind of a senseless question, IMO. You could, however, make an excellent case for amnesty out of that mindset.
Regardless of your understanding of the term, as evidenced by your response to my question, I will extend the benifit of doubt and resubmit my question as follows;
Are the people labeled 'collateral damage' considered 'enemies', 'friends', or 'neutral' in respect to the circumstance of their demise?
OB
Quote: ... so don't you almost have to legitimize the killing of your enemy
U.S. troops accused of killing Iraq family
Quote:BEIJI, Iraq - Five U.S. Army soldiers are being investigated for allegedly raping a young woman, then killing her and three members of her family in Iraq, a U.S. military official said Friday.
The soldiers also allegedly burned the body of the woman they are accused of assaulting in the March incident, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
The U.S. command issued a sparse statement, saying Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of coalition troops in Baghdad, had ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged killing of a family of four in Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad. The statement had no other details.
The case represents the latest allegations against U.S. soldiers stemming from the deaths of Iraqis. At least 14 U.S. troops have been convicted.
I think it is clear that it is time for the US to go home.
revel, You can say that with a straight face while we are making so much progress - so often repeated by Bushco?
Gelisgesti wrote:OCCOM BILL wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:OCCOM BILL wrote:Just thinking out loud, here...
But I think we may be wrong in the stance that those who've killed G.I.'s should be excluded from amnesty. We call it a war and we're talking truce... so don't you almost have to legitimize the killing of your enemy? Wouldn't we be better off if the Iraqis offered Amnesty to all who aren't guilty of crimes against humanity... in exchange for full disclosure and some form of future monitoring? Wouldn't we rather know who the killers are and have their agreement to stop killing, than send the message that they may as well keep killing until they can be identified and brought to justice? A soldier who kills his enemy isn't necessarily a murderer.
Just a quick question here .... the people labeled 'collateral damage', are they considered enemies?
What need of the term collateral damage if they were?... Kind of a senseless question, IMO. You could, however, make an excellent case for amnesty out of that mindset.
Regardless of your understanding of the term, as evidenced by your response to my question, I will extend the benifit of doubt and resubmit my question as follows;
Are the people labeled 'collateral damage' considered 'enemies', 'friends', or 'neutral' in respect to the circumstance of their demise?
OB
Quote: ... so don't you almost have to legitimize the killing of your enemy
Neutral, obviously, or they would be labeled friends or enemies. I suspect it is you who can't come to terms with the term "colateral damage". Those enemies who've taken up the fight because of collateral damage, IMO, have a legitimate gripe and should therefore be considered for amnesty, should a truce be negotiated. Make sense to you now?
On June 1, as the political furor over Haditha was building, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, lashed out at the American military, saying that violence against Iraqi civilians by American troops was a "regular occurrence."
Major Breasseale said Friday that he did not know when results of the Haditha investigation would be made public.
In June, the Army charged four American soldiers suspected of killing three detainees in Iraq and then threatening another American soldier with death if he reported the shootings.
Two days later, the Marine Corps said it had charged seven marines and one Navy corpsman with murder and kidnapping in the April killing of an Iraqi man in a village on the western outskirts of Baghdad. In that episode, the assailants are accused of planting a Kalashnikov rifle and shovel by the body of the victim to frame him as an insurgent after shooting him in the face four times.
Last Sunday, the military said two members of the Pennsylvania National Guard had been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Iraqi man on Feb. 15.
The announcement of the investigation in Mahmudiya came as the military said Friday that three soldiers had been killed in separate combat incidents. One died Thursday night in a bombing during a foot patrol south of Baghdad. Another was killed in an explosion while on patrol on Thursday night near Balad, north of the capital; that blast also wounded a soldier. The third death occurred Thursday in the northern city of Mosul, when a soldier was killed by small-arms fire.
At least 60 American soldiers died in Iraq in June, a slight decline from 69 in May and 76 in April. Yet, that was almost twice as many as in March, which, at 31, had the second-lowest monthly fatality count of the war. Until the sharp spike in April, American fatalities had been dropping for five straight months. American commanders at the time attributed the decline to a shift by insurgents to concentrating attacks on Iraqi civilians and local security forces, and to the fact that Americans were leaving their bases less often on operations and patrols.
Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the American command, said he saw no clear reason for the rise in fatalities after March or the small drop in June. "We are not inclined to attribute the rise and fall in numbers to any particular factor," he said. "Coalition forces remain a priority target for terrorists and insurgents, even though we've also seen a steady increase in attacks on civilians and Iraqi security forces as their primary targets."
Deaths of Iraqi civilians dropped in June from previous months, according to a rough estimate by the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent Web site. At least 840 Iraqi civilians died in June, compared with an all-time high of 1,100 the previous month, according to the site, which counts deaths from news reports. The June toll was about the same as that in February, the month that hundreds of civilians were killed in sectarian bloodletting after the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine.
Three civilians were killed Friday when a bomb exploded in a minibus in Kirkuk, and an Iraqi soldier died in another bombing in the west of the city, police officials said. Gunmen killed five Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint south of Kirkuk. At least 21 bodies were found across Iraq, many showing signs of torture. One of them was a boy in Baghdad between the ages of 4 and 6 who had been tortured and shot in the head, an Interior Ministry official said.
The Russian government offered $10 million for information leading to the killers of five Russian Embassy workers here. On Wednesday, President Vladimir V. Putin ordered Russian special services to hunt down and kill those responsible.
In an Internet audio message posted Thursday night, Osama bin Laden praised Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant killed in an American airstrike this month. Mr. bin Laden defended the copious bloodshed engineered by Mr. Zarqawi and his group, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, saying that Mr. Zarqawi "had clear instructions to concentrate his fighting on the occupying invaders" and "make neutral those who wished to be neutral," according to a translation by the SITE Institute, which tracks jihadist Internet postings. Mr. bin Laden vowed that the struggle would continue in Iraq and demanded that the ruler of Jordan, King Abdullah II, allow Mr. Zarqawi to be buried in his hometown of Zarqa, Jordan.
Mona Mahmoud contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article, and Thom Shanker from Washington.
OCCOM BILL wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:OCCOM BILL wrote:Gelisgesti wrote:OCCOM BILL wrote:Just thinking out loud, here...
But I think we may be wrong in the stance that those who've killed G.I.'s should be excluded from amnesty. We call it a war and we're talking truce... so don't you almost have to legitimize the killing of your enemy? Wouldn't we be better off if the Iraqis offered Amnesty to all who aren't guilty of crimes against humanity... in exchange for full disclosure and some form of future monitoring? Wouldn't we rather know who the killers are and have their agreement to stop killing, than send the message that they may as well keep killing until they can be identified and brought to justice? A soldier who kills his enemy isn't necessarily a murderer.
Just a quick question here .... the people labeled 'collateral damage', are they considered enemies?
What need of the term collateral damage if they were?... Kind of a senseless question, IMO. You could, however, make an excellent case for amnesty out of that mindset.
Regardless of your understanding of the term, as evidenced by your response to my question, I will extend the benifit of doubt and resubmit my question as follows;
Are the people labeled 'collateral damage' considered 'enemies', 'friends', or 'neutral' in respect to the circumstance of their demise?
OB
Quote: ... so don't you almost have to legitimize the killing of your enemy
Neutral, obviously, or they would be labeled friends or enemies. I suspect it is you who can't come to terms with the term "colateral damage". Those enemies who've taken up the fight because of collateral damage, IMO, have a legitimate gripe and should therefore be considered for amnesty, should a truce be negotiated. Make sense to you now?
Realizing that you are never going to get this... they are the people we are supposed to be liberating with no regard to their ideology ... they are called 'Iraqis'.
We are called 'occupiers'. What need have we of amnesty?
In the Muslim world, sexual assault of women, especially by foreigners, is considered one of the most heinous of crimes. Sunni Arabs infuriated by the American presence have often speculated that American troops are raping Iraqi women in prisons like Abu Ghraib.
In other violence on Saturday, at least five Iraqi Army soldiers were killed in an ambush on a checkpoint south of Kirkuk, police officials said. Three soldiers were captured in the attack. Their bodies turned up later, along with a fourth body; all showed signs of torture.
A bomb exploded near a police patrol transporting prisoners in Kirkuk, killing one prisoner. In south Baghdad, the police found six bodies dumped in a building under construction.
The American military said a soldier assigned to the 43rd Military Police Brigade died Saturday of noncombat injuries.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Khalid al-Ansary, Khalid W. Hassan, Hosham Hussein and Mona Mahmoud from Baghdad, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
We have the following choices:
1. Pull out by a conditional date on condition;
2. Pull out by a date certain on condition;
3. Pull out by a date certain unconditionally;
4. Pull out as soon as possible.
Examples, respectively:
1. Pull out when the Iraq government asks us to pull out;
2. Pull out by the end of 2007 if the violent death rate among Iraqi civilians has been reduced to less than 5600 per year;
3. Pull out by the end of 2007 no matter what.
4. Pull out as quickly as we can.
The following are the vital questions.
Q1. Which is the most moral?
Q2. Which is most in our self-interest?
Q3. Which will result in the fewest Iraqi violent civilian deaths per year?
Q4. Which will result in the fewest USA military deaths per year?
Q5. Which will result in the fewest USA violent civilian deaths per year?
Q6. Which do you think we must do and why must we do it?
The following are not the vital questions:
q1. Are we winning?
q2. Are we losing?
q3. Is Bush no damn good?
q4. Is Bush any good?
q5. Can Bush win?
q6. Can Bush lose?
q7. Did Bush lie?
q8. Did Bush believe what he said when he said it?
We knew that. Now will he ignore the Supreme Court or try to get Congress to work up some language to get around it?
sumac, If you're asking congress to write legislation to control Bush, you still haven't learned how our government works during the Bush era.
As far as this Shiite is concerned the Americans are just as bad as Saddam Hussein. Sadr call for debaathification is a rejection of Maliki's reconciliation plan. On the other hand Sistani's representative, Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala'i, approved the plan. And on the other hand the Association of Muslim Scholars, which are hard line Sunnis, called it meanlingless.
Quote:Fiery Shiite cleric demands rebuilding of Iraq shrine Fri Jun 30, 9:57 AM ET
Iraq's fiery Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has demanded the reconstruction of a revered Shiite shrine that was allegedly bombed by Al-Qaeda and the withdrawal of US troops from the country.
"We have said previously that the Iraqi government should rebuild the Shiite shrine in Samarra, but we have not seen anything but talk," he said in a sermon in the southern Shiite town of Kufa.
Sadr urged the people to help rebuild the shrine whose bombing in February triggered nationwide sectarian clashes between Shiites and Sunnis.
"From here (Kufa) I say that the believers, worshippers of Iraq and outside must register their names as volunteers to reconstruct and protect the shrine but they should wait for the permisssion from us to start work," Sadr said.
Iraqi authorities said Wednesday they had captured a Tunisian Al-Qaeda militant allegedly behind the bombing of the shrine in Samarra, north of the capital.
The radical cleric also rejected any reconciliation with the US authorities.
"I strongly reject reconciliation with three groups -- first the US, the nawasib (the killers of Shiites), and the Baathists" of the deposed Saddam Hussein regime, Sadr said.
"We demand that the occupiers leave and offer a timetable for their withdrawal and not extend their stay here," Sadr said, adding that de-Baathification must be activated fast and "their leader executed".
He also called for the release of detainees from Najaf who had fought the US forces during a rebellion in the summer of 2004.
We face defeat in Afghanistan, Army chiefs warn Blair
KABUL: Army chiefs have warned Tony Blair that British forces face defeat in Afghanistan unless more troops and equipment are sent out immediately, it has been claimed.
According to a senior military source, Army top brass have told the Government there is a possibility of failure in Afghanistan, where British soldiers have met significant resistance from the Taliban forces defeated by the US-Anglo invasion five years ago.
The source said that officers at the Services' Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood, North London, run by Major General Nick Houghton, had told Ministers that 'strategic failure' - military jargon for defeat - could not be ruled out.
The report comes amid growing pressure on Defence Secretary Des Browne to reinforce the 3,300-strong contingent of British troops in Afghanistan, where two Special Forces soldiers were killed last week after fighting with the Taliban.
Conservative frontbencher Patrick Mercer said: 'This has turned into a shooting war and our forces do not have the firepower to deal with it.
Army chiefs have told Mr Blair they urgently need more soldiers on the ground, extra artillery, more helicopters to ensure that wounded soldiers can be airlifted to medical centres, and GR7 Harriers to attack Taliban bases.
'The British forces are having difficulty in coping,' a military source said. 'They were sent in there as peacekeepers and now find themselves in what is, in all but name, another war.
'They cannot get proper supplies and if men are injured, it is proving difficult to fly them out of the danger zone. That cannot go on.'
Extra resources
Both Lieutenant General David Richards, commander of the Nato force in Afghanistan, and General Sir Mike Jackson, Chief of the General Staff, are calling for extra resources.
When British forces were switched to Afghanistan from Iraq last year in a deal with America, former Defence Secretary John Reid said their main task would be peacekeeping. But they were soon taking on insurgents determined to bring down the democratic government of Afghanistan elected after the Taliban regime was toppled.
The British force was sent to Helmand Province, the Taliban stronghold, and is now involved in daily battles with its guerrillas. The resurgence in the Taliban has taken Britain and America by surprise.
In spite of several victories against Taliban fighters, the British force has been hampered by other problems. Because of the size of the area for which they are responsible, they have to fly troops to the front line to avoid Taliban forces attacking long-distance lorry convoys almost at will.
In an added complication, the Chinook helicopters they rely on are unable to operate in the intense heat of the Afghan summer.
Ministry of Defence aides say there is irritation in Downing Street that Spain and Germany, both with troops in safer parts of Afghanistan, are reluctant to divert forces to relieve the British contingent.
emphasis added by ican
Quote:By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 30, 2006; Page A01
The Supreme Court yesterday struck down the military commissions President Bush established to try suspected members of al-Qaeda, emphatically rejecting a signature Bush anti-terrorism measure and the broad assertion of executive power upon which the president had based it.
Brushing aside administration pleas not to second-guess the commander in chief during wartime, a five-justice majority ruled that the commissions, which were outlined by Bush in a military order on Nov. 13, 2001, were neither authorized by federal law nor required by military necessity, and ran afoul of the Geneva Conventions.
Detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, must have courts-martial, the Supreme Court ruled, or the president can ask for legislation to proceed differently.
...
As a result, no military commission can try Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the former aide to Osama bin Laden whose case was before the justices, or anyone else, unless the president does one of two things he has resisted doing for more than four years: operate the commissions by the rules of regular military courts-martial, or ask Congress for specific permission to proceed differently.
...
Oh my!
Bush must either:
(1) "operate the commissions by the rules of regular military courts-martial; or,
(2) ask Congress for specific permission to proceed differently."
That'll fix him!
I say
don't try any
itm prisoners of war. Just keep 'em prisoners until they commit suicide, are shot trying to escape, die from natural causes, or the
itm cancel their declaration of war against the USA
and stop waging war against the USA.
xingu wrote:...
emphasis added by icanQuote:Fiery Shiite cleric demands rebuilding of Iraq shrine Fri Jun 30, 9:57 AM ET
Iraq's fiery Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has demanded the reconstruction of a revered Shiite shrine that was allegedly bombed by Al-Qaeda and the withdrawal of US troops from the country.
...
Sadr urged the people to help rebuild the shrine whose bombing in February triggered nationwide sectarian clashes between Shiites and Sunnis.
...
Iraqi authorities said Wednesday they had captured a Tunisian Al-Qaeda militant allegedly behind the bombing of the shrine in Samarra, north of the capital.
...
"We demand that the occupiers leave and offer a timetable for their withdrawal and not extend their stay here," Sadr said, adding that de-Baathification must be activated fast and "their leader executed".
...
Sadr thinks "de-bathification" is going to occur without sufficiently trained Iraqi troops
I think Sadr is merely another anti-American fool
Brought to you by the American Committees on Foreign Relations ACFR NewsGroup No. 730, Monday, July 3, 2006.
emphasis added by ican
Quote:June 30, 2006, 5:21 a.m.
Winning the Iraq Wars
All of its many fronts.
By Victor Davis Hanson
The present fighting is part of a fourth war for Iraq: Gulf War I, the twelve years of no-fly zones, the three-week war in 2003, and now the three-year-old insurrection that followed the removal of Saddam Hussein.
But this last and most desperate struggle, unlike the others, is being waged on several fronts.
First, of course, is the fighting itself to preserve the elected democracy of Iraq. Twenty-five-hundred Americans have died for that idea: the chance of freedom for 26 million Iraqis, and the more long-term notion that the Arab Middle East's first democracy will end the false dichotomy of Islamic theocracy or dictatorship. That non-choice was the embryo for the events of September 11.
Although it is not the sort of conventional war that Westerners excel at -- the enemy has no uniforms, state organization, or real army -- our military has performed brilliantly. Past mistakes made were largely political, such as not quickly turning over control to an interim Iraqi government in summer 2003 while allowing the Iraqis sole public exposure.
But these were tactical and procedural, not moral, errors. They have only delayed, but not aborted, the emergence of a stable democratic Iraqi government. For all the propaganda of al Jazeera, the wounded pride of the Arab Street, or the vitriol of the Western Left, years from now the truth will remain that our soldiers did not come to plunder or colonize, but were willing to die for others' freedom when few others would. Neither Michael Moore nor Noam Chomsky can change that, because it is not opinion, but truth: something that the Greeks rightly defined as "not forgetting" or "something that cannot be forgotten" (alêtheia).
Note also that after the hysteria over body armor and unarmored humvees, the Democratic opposition offers no real concrete alternatives to the present policy .
Why not? Because there are none.
The choices are really only two: either leave right away and quit the war on terror, or train the Iraqis and draw down carefully as planned all along. The Democrats will clamor for the former. But when put in the public spotlight, they will hold off from Vietnam-style funding cut-offs to claim credit for the success of the latter.
There is a second war, one being waged over public opinion. It is critical, considering that we are in a non-conventional struggle of attrition that requires the American people to support a far-away war where movement and front lines are irrelevant. And it is sadly being lost: at least if polls are correct that only around 40 percent of the citizenry still supports the idea of finishing the war in Iraq.
Regrettably, there has not been successful and constant explication of why we are in Iraq. Yet, because George Bush is in his second term, and is not Clintonian in obsession with polls and being liked, he can still guarantee the military two more years to stabilize the country. Then the hope is that the Iraqis will be able to secure their democracy in the future with a small number of American advisors and civilian aides, which might allow Iraq an opportunity something akin to that offered to the postwar Balkans.
There is a third war: that for the larger future of the Middle East. Pessimists point to the Gulf, Egyptian, and North African autocracies. And they see there only failure in the American efforts at democratization.
But the point is not to see Rotary Clubs and school boards sprouting up in the failed states of the Middle East. Instead, we can be happy enough with the beginning of the end of the old "stability" that nurtured terrorism. The public is nursed on news of car bombs, and the tired canard that supporting democracy always ensures perpetual Islamism. But if we remain calm and rational, then we can already see signs of real change in the unease and agitation of the Middle East, from Libya to Lebanon. All this was unleashed by the removal of Saddam Hussein and the American effort to stay on to foster something different despite base slurs, escalating oil prices, and the politicization of the war in a soon to be third wartime national election.
Nascent democracy is the reason that Afghans and Iraqis, alone in the Middle East, get up each morning and risk their lives to hunt down Islamic terrorists. For all the mess on the West Bank, it was only the free elections that brought in Hamas which offered the Palestinians the opportunity of self-expression. And now they alone suffer the responsibility to live with the economic and military consequences of their disastrous decision. Perhaps they may wish to reconsider next election.
Arafat's pernicious façade of a "legitimate" government that "sincerely" tried to rein in "rogue" elements is now shattered in both Europe and America. After the Palestinians willingly voted a terrorist government into power, the Hamas politicians are simply fulfilling campaign pledges and doing what terrorists always do: rocketing civilians, murdering, and kidnapping. And now, since there is no more shady, so-called "Hamas," but only the Hamas-led legitimate government of Palestine, there may be soon a conventional struggle at last, between two sovereign and legitimate states. Such are the wages of moral clarity that accrue from democracy.
Finally, we are witnessing a larger existential war, in which Iraq is the central, but not the only, theater. Put simply: will the spreading affluence and liberality of Westernization undermine the 8th-century mentality of the Islamists more quickly than their terrorists, armed with Western weapons, prey on the ennui of a postmodern Europe and America: with our large gullible populations that either don't believe we are in a real war, or think that we should not be?
Americans know exactly the creed of the Islamists and what they have in store for us nonbelievers. Yet if we are not infidels, can we at least be fideles? That is, can we any longer articulate what we believe in, and whether it is worth defending?
The problem is not that the majority of Americans have voiced doubts about the future of Iraq: arguments over self-interest and values happen in every long war when the battlefield does not daily bring back good news.
Instead, the worry is that too many have misdirected their anger at the very culture that produced and nourished them. Sen. Kennedy could have objected to Abu Ghraib "so far the subject of nine government inquiries" without comparing the incident to the mass murdering of Saddam Hussein.
Sen. Durbin might have had doubts about Guantanamo "the constant site of Red Cross and congressional visits" but there was no need to tie it to the fiendish regimes of Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot.
Cindy Sheehan could have recanted her initial favorable remarks after meeting George Bush without later labeling him the world's greatest terrorist.
The New York Times might have editorialized about the dangers of stealthy government security measures without publishing sensitive, leaked material in a time of war. It is precisely this escalation from criticism of the war to furor at our elected government and civilian-controlled military that is so worrisome: and so welcomed by the enemy, as we see when it cleverly regurgitates our own self criticism as its own.
The military is doing its part. It defeated Saddam Hussein, and prevented a plethora of terrorists from destroying a fragile democracy abroad and the contemporary world's oldest here at home. Despite the caricature and venom, the original belief of the 2002 Congress that there were at least 23 reasons to topple Saddam remains valid and is reaffirmed daily, especially as we learn more of the ties between al Qaeda and Iraqi Baathist intelligence and slowly trace down the footprints of a once vast WMDs arsenal. And the effort to ensure a democratic denouement to the war, both in and beyond Iraq, is the only solution to wider Middle East pathology.
No, our problem lies in two more abstract but just as important struggles over Iraq. Either we did not communicate well the noble purposes of sacrifices abroad, or, after Vietnam, an influential elite has made it impossible for any president to do so.
We can correct that first lapse, but I am not so sure about the second.
