ybc, I really appreciate the good-faith debate you’re willing to have on this. When I say Bush should explain things better, I have in mind what FDR did in the fireside chats – but more frequent, probably more transparent. FDR laid out for people in rough terms where the fighting was and why. In doing so he didn’t stop any attack by the Germans or Japanese, but he let Americans know what they were fighting for. I’m not suggesting that terrorism would stop if Bush had a really nice PowerPoint. I’m saying people would support Bush more if they heard regularly from him what he was trying to do and why, including things like references to heroic acts by our soldiers. (You know who Audie Murphy was? How about Norman Schwartzkopf? Can you name a single decorated veteran of this conflict, who’s not running for office?)
As for the number of veterans, even generals speaking out – it gives me pause, I’ll admit. Proportions are important to keep in mind: there are ~6,000 serving and retired flag officers. Six of them are making a lot of noise. They were high up, but not the highest; and they may speak for lots of fellow officers, but they may not. Yeah, the criticism of the generals bothers me. But it’s not without precedent, either. In 1864 Lincoln’s ran against the man who’d been the Union commander at Gettysburg the year before.
ybc, your last paragraph says it all. If you want Iraq to have a better turn, there’s just no other way besides the present course. Maybe if the Democrats had some way to fight the war better – but they don’t, they want to leave. There are people over there willing to murder anyone. They won’t stop if we leave. We can stop them, we can help the fledgling Iraqi government stop them if we stay.
