The Reality of Liberal Rhetoric About The 'Boiling Pot' That Is Iraq 
 

12-05-2004

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote recently in an article, "I confess that I cover this story, and it has never been clear to me who is our chief strategist for Iraq- who is really orchestrating the intelligence and public affairs, with the politics, diplomacy and military operations, around a coherent plan that is being communicated to Iraqis and the world. Indeed, I have never understood how an administration that wanted a war so badly and will be judged on it by history so profoundly could manage it so sloppily."

Once again we find ourselves faced with more pseudo-intellectual liberals pontificating about the situation in Iraq and the intricacies of the decision making process as if it should be street-corner common knowledge and that if we don't question it...well that's just being blind and stupid.

Do you really know who handles the decision making process that constitutes the daily lives of average, everyday, middle Americana? Sure, we all know the town boards and commissioners who, as a unit, make decisions for us in a representative manner, but the question is, do you really know who pulls the strings?!

Right now many of you probably already have a response for that question even though that response doesn't really answer the question directly, yet it satisfactorily deals with the issue while at the same time infuriates liberals and reinforces their view of the rest of us as simple-minded Neanderthals. The answer is there are some things we will never know for reasons outside of our control and others we just simply don't need to know.

Another repetitiously banal premise liberals have attacked President Bush with utilizing arguments of oil to imperialism concerning Iraq, is also exemplified in his assertion the war in Iraq transpired because of, 'an administration that wanted a war so badly'. Part of me wants to just let it go, but as I bask in the glow of my own post-election hubris, I digress.

It is certainly a prudent assessment to hypothesize that the administration was preparing and modifying a strategic philosophy that focused specifically on Iraq... you could probably also add Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to the list of strategic planning... just as they most assuredly had planned a strategy for tax cuts, education reform and Medicare reform. So they must have wanted those things 'badly', too!

Liberals want to continue the inadvertent tactic of promoting the idea that nothing changed on September 11, 2001. Those of us mind-numbed followers of Karl Rove understand that free societies on this planet can no longer play a game of cat-and-mouse with ruthless dictators, where serious consequences are warned... repeatedly... but nothing ever really happens. That is until the terrorists finally have the capability to attack us, then every liberal with communication skills wants to know why something wasn't.. done.. beforehand!

Mr. Friedman wrote that a study focused on America's 'strategic communications' discovered that, 'the United States today is without a working channel of communication to the world of Muslims and of Islam.' "No kidding," writes Friedman. "We are losing a public relations war in the Muslim world to people sawing the heads of other Muslims."

Of course, in the minds of elitist liberal columnists it never occurs to them that the problem may not reside within operational aspects of American intelligence or correspondence, but with organizations who have tried to thwart our every move specifically concerning our liberation of Iraq. Organizations such as: the United Nations, France, Germany, the Muslim world itself, Arab nations, or most indelibly, countless media outlets across the globe.

Friedman goes on to talk about the unrest left in the wake of the capture of Saddam and the death of Arafat and compares the two unruly societies to boiling pots. "The Bush team helped remove the lids off both these pots. But the first rule of cooking and warfare is: Never take the lid off a boiling pot unless you also have a strategy for turning down the heat. President Bush had a lid-removing strategy only. He has been improvising on the heat part ever since."

In the first place Friedman doesn't really know what strategy the administration has or doesn't have and secondly, he is doing nothing more than colorfully regurgitating the same mantra Kerry used on the campaign trail that the President 'had a plan to win the war, but not a plan to win the peace'. They also claim that there wasn't an 'exit strategy', why the President's been 'improvising' on that.

You see, sir, we surrounded the building, put the S.W.A.T. team in place, and have been in negotiations with the bank robbers to release the hostages... every part of our plan has worked to perfection. But there is one little contingency.... We weren't expecting the robbers to strap bombs to themselves or get help from other robbers to attack us. So what do we do now?

Improvise officer!

What liberal columnists like Friedman fail to realize... accept... understand, be it because of ideological, philosophical, or just simply mendacious reasons, is that using his analogy, sometimes leaders reach a point where they have to decide whether or not they have the fortitude to take the lid off the pot that is boiling even if they don't initially know how to reduce the heat underneath it.

You can create a multitude of 'strategies' in theory to reduce or turn off the heat, but it is only once you deal with the situation first hand that the true remedy to the problem materializes.

While self-aggrandizing pundits continue to 'analyze' the situation in the Middle East, specifically Iraq, they always refer to the problems that exist, 'strategies' that may or may not have been devised beforehand, and critiques of every decision that transpires along the way without ever putting themselves into positions where they could do anything substantive to rectify the problems they find to complain about.

Then they get defensively angry when it is pointed out to them that as they reference what has already transpired, the reality of their arguments always lead to the same conclusion. If President Bush and the 'Neo-Cons' hadn't taken the lid off the boiling pot that is Iraq as an attempt to do something about the problem, the pot would still be boiling!

Which is better, a chance for democracy and freedom in Iraq even if you have to find a way to reduce the heat afterwards, or the status-quo that existed before where the lid of Saddam Hussein would still cover the boiling cauldron as evidenced by their own rhetoric?

Lee P Butler