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12/01/2003 Archived Entry: "Managing Iraq"

IT'S A WAR STUPID: You would think by now that everyone realizes that there is a war in Iraq: Us vs. Them. Good Guys vs. Bad Guys. Freedom vs. Tyranny. You know, that kind of stuff. Michael Ledeen argues that there are people in prominent positions who believe we can "manage" Iraq instead of defeating our enemies.

It's not just our diplomats who do not believe we are in a real war. The Japanese victims of terrorists in Iraq on Saturday were headed for a meeting in Tikrit, to evaluate whether or not the power station there was a worthy recipient of aid. But since the Japanese refuse to acknowledge that they are participating in a war effort, they weren't particularly careful about security, so their car was not armored, they had no weapons with them, and so they were easy prey.

Add them to the growing list of scores of people who have died in Iraq because they assumed that the terrorists wouldn't confuse them with the evil Americans. This little conceit led to such folly as U.N. officers in Baghdad insisting that the Americans remove cement blocks from the approach to their offices, the Red Cross declining protection, and so on. It reminds me of a terrible story some years ago, about a very nice girl from southern California who went to South Africa to help the victims of apartheid. She, too, assumed that she would be protected by her innate goodness, and went to the wrong township one night. Her body was flown back to America a few days later.

Her story, and the story of countless other people who confuse their feelings with reality, always reminds me of a piece of dialogue from the movie The Thin Red Line. A Japanese soldier confronts one of the Americans and tells him:

Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?

Read on.