Maturity, the NYT, and the war
I’ve always, even as a child, believed that mature people dealt with what there is; i.e., a mature person deals with reality while an immature person squanders their energy and resources lamenting what there isn’t/crying-whinning-complaining about what they don’t like/wishing their time away. A mature person handles a situation realistically, and sets goals to see it through.
The NYTimes editors have a record of lamenting, complaining and wishing, rather than coping. Just this morning they’ve come up with this editorial, Three Things About Iraq, which they start with the statement, “To have the sober conversation about the war in Iraq that America badly needs, it is vital to acknowledge three facts. . . “
Tiger Hawk takes care of fisking two of the things, starting with, “The war has nothing to do with Sept. 11.”
That there may have been no material connection between Saddam Hussein’s government and September 11 hardly means that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with September 11. While there were definitely important reasons independant of September 11 to take Saddam down — it was American policy to bring about the fall of his government even before George W. Bush came into office — the invasion itself was directly related to our war on al Qaeda and its cognates. First, we needed to re-establish out credibility in the Arab world, which credibility was squandered by virtually every president since Jimmy Carter. This could only happen by brining the war into the heart of the Arab world and taking casualties killing jihadists. We are doing that every day. Second, we needed to put ourselves in a position to coerce the regimes most important to the war on Islamist jihad, including particularly Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia joined the fight only when it realized that we did not need its bases or its geography once we occupied Iraq. Third, we simply could not run the risk that an undeterrable and power crazy tyrant like Saddam Hussein might make common cause with al Qaeda.
One might well argue that these purposes for the war are inadequate, but there are many people outside the administration who have no particular partisan ax to gring — me, for example — who think they carry the day. For the Times to declare as a fact that the Iraq war has “nothing to do with September 11” is transportingly dishonest.
But let me add more more fact the NY Times appears to consider a simple side issue:
Were the Times use its considerable resources to do all it can towards the goal of winning the war, it would show a great deal maturity.
The rest is just childish belly-aching.
