Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Forcing It
This is a summary of Bush's position on the middle east conflict:
Just about everybody leads with the Mideast war, but only the Wall Street Journal and New York Times focus on what seems like the most significant development: President Bush basically declared that Israel should go on bombing Lebanon and trying to pummel Hezbollah for now. "What we recognize is that the root cause of the problem is Hezbollah," said the president. "Sometimes it requires tragic situations to help bring clarity in the international community."
Clueless. Absolutely clueless.

I know this is not new analysis, but bears repeating. When will leaders recognize the limits and uses of force? Whether it's parents in a household or a world leader, force is an extreme and very limited tool in conflict resolution. And those limited circumstances usually have to do with last resort self-protection. When force is used inappropriately, it only leads to retaliation and an overall worsening of the situation.

This is known.

This is predictable.

Yet those who wield the most power in our world seem to be the most clueless.

I don't think it's an accident that simplistic thinking about the use of force is more prominent in conservative circles. Those who would like to simplisticly hang onto the "known" are resistant to nuance and the laws of unintended consequences. Unfortunately, that simplicity is also appealing to a mass of voters in the U.S., particularly during times of stress and fear. It would appear that we're in a cycle now where the limits of force have to be explored to the point of complete fatigue (death, loss of treasure, loss of standing) before those same simplistic leaders explore other options. Unfortunately, by the time they start to "get it", it's often too late.
Written at 9:06 AM by Greyhair.
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