Missing in Inaction
When we look back on this Great War on Terrorism/Extremism, will we be as puzzled, as I sometimes am now, about how the American administration committed so much of the nations military resources -- and lives -- to a cause, and so little of its heart? After 9/11, the people were all but begging their leaders to ask them to make sacrifices, to contribute to do something. But we were told to go about our business as though nothing had changed.
The people who still care are still doing their part for the troops, and for the nations embroiled by the war, often via non-government efforts like Soldiers' Angels and Spirit of America. But only the government can do certain things on its own behalf, and so often it fails to do them -- so often it seems to fail to appreciate that there is a need to do them.
Perhaps this is the Bush Administration genuinely running government like a business, compartmentalizing the war, trying to not let a criris in one department spill over into the whole organizational chart. I don't know. But there's a faintly hollow feeling to it sometimes.
This rumination was inspired by a Belgravia Dispatch post that ended like this:
The people who still care are still doing their part for the troops, and for the nations embroiled by the war, often via non-government efforts like Soldiers' Angels and Spirit of America. But only the government can do certain things on its own behalf, and so often it fails to do them -- so often it seems to fail to appreciate that there is a need to do them.
Perhaps this is the Bush Administration genuinely running government like a business, compartmentalizing the war, trying to not let a criris in one department spill over into the whole organizational chart. I don't know. But there's a faintly hollow feeling to it sometimes.
This rumination was inspired by a Belgravia Dispatch post that ended like this:
This is why B.D. is so sensitive to tales of torture, of denigration of Islamic tenets in detainee treatment, and so on. This is not born of squeamishness; but of realism. An important element in securing a long term victory in this struggle against extremist terror is denying the enemy propaganda tools. Where are our fluent Arabic speakers on al-Arabiya explaining what legal reasons compelled us after 9/11 to have a detention center in Guantanamo for fanatical al-Qaeda detainees? Where are our spokesmen apologizing for the death of detainees in Bagram and Abu Ghraib who perished under U.S. custody? Loudly, repeatedly, in Arabic? Where are our spokesmen in spelling out the disciplinary measures that have been taken, the corrective measures that are being instituted, the red-lines that have been communicated to grunts in the field as to what is and isn't acceptable when it comes to treatment of POWs? Where are our spokesmen in explaining that it was the United States that led efforts in tsunami relief (inclusive of in kind contributions) that struck and killed so many thousands of Muslims (whilst showcasing the embarassingly paltry Saudi contributions)? That it was the United States that pressed intervention (if belatedly) to save ravaged Muslim Sarajevans and, later, Muslim Kosovars? Where are our spokesmen in explaining that we understand the hopes of those who aspire to Palestinian freedom as much as we understand the hopes of those who hope for a secure Israel? Is it just me, or are we behind in getting these messages out? If so, why?
