Iraq tragedy as tipping point in U.S. history?
Listened tonight on C-SPAN to five writers who have spent extensive time in Iraq in recent months. They spoke with restraint and urgency. Their consensus, to the extent that there was one, seemed to be that the country is formidably complex and essentially inscrutable to transient outsiders, our lack of planning for postwar security and reconstruction has irreversibly damaged our credibility with mainstream Iraqis, there is no nothing close to a clear, discernible "best course of action" for the U.S. at this point in time, and there is a major disconnect between what is happening on the ground in Iraq and the simplistic posturings of our politicians in Washington, D.C.
Like many in this country, I had been viewing the conflict as a test for the Bush administration in terms of national politics, but now I am moving more and more toward seeing it as potentially a defining event in this country's history for many years to come, much as the Vietnam war was for 25 years after our defeat in that small, sad country. "Things will never be the same again," as I used to remind psychotherapy clients who were struggling to make sense of crippling personal loss. The Bush experiment may bring about the end of the Republican hegemony, or even the death of the party itself, as well as accelerate the U.S.'s loss of world leadership to other countries.
More broadly speaking, my sense of our historical trajectory is that the U.S. has had 60 years as the dominant world power in which to spread a humane, wise vision for the world, and we have blown it. We had an essentially unlimited moral credit rating in the eyes of much of the world for a generation and then some, while Europe and Asia stumbled up from the wreckage of World War II, but that time has passed, and now it appears that world leadership will be appropriated by China and, perhaps, India for the next few decades. Their current rulers are not known for their chivalry toward the powerless or their stewardship of the land.
Rather than projecting a dream of justice, integrity, compassion, nurturing strength, and intelligence during the time window while we commanded the world's respect, we instead went increasingly for military occupation, capitalist exploitation, cynicism, hedonism, and religious fanaticism. If our grandchildren inherit a future characterized by rampant greed and inequality, thought control, and environmental devastation, they will have us, in large measure, to blame. The historians a thousand years from now -- if there still are people alive then -- may write, "The make-it-or-break-it time for our species, and indeed for all life on Earth, was in the late 20th century and the early 21st, and those shortsighted fools on the North American continent dropped the ball."
Like many in this country, I had been viewing the conflict as a test for the Bush administration in terms of national politics, but now I am moving more and more toward seeing it as potentially a defining event in this country's history for many years to come, much as the Vietnam war was for 25 years after our defeat in that small, sad country. "Things will never be the same again," as I used to remind psychotherapy clients who were struggling to make sense of crippling personal loss. The Bush experiment may bring about the end of the Republican hegemony, or even the death of the party itself, as well as accelerate the U.S.'s loss of world leadership to other countries.
More broadly speaking, my sense of our historical trajectory is that the U.S. has had 60 years as the dominant world power in which to spread a humane, wise vision for the world, and we have blown it. We had an essentially unlimited moral credit rating in the eyes of much of the world for a generation and then some, while Europe and Asia stumbled up from the wreckage of World War II, but that time has passed, and now it appears that world leadership will be appropriated by China and, perhaps, India for the next few decades. Their current rulers are not known for their chivalry toward the powerless or their stewardship of the land.
Rather than projecting a dream of justice, integrity, compassion, nurturing strength, and intelligence during the time window while we commanded the world's respect, we instead went increasingly for military occupation, capitalist exploitation, cynicism, hedonism, and religious fanaticism. If our grandchildren inherit a future characterized by rampant greed and inequality, thought control, and environmental devastation, they will have us, in large measure, to blame. The historians a thousand years from now -- if there still are people alive then -- may write, "The make-it-or-break-it time for our species, and indeed for all life on Earth, was in the late 20th century and the early 21st, and those shortsighted fools on the North American continent dropped the ball."
posted by Sam at 10:54 PM
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