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Headline from the Washington Post:
In Iraq, No Clear Finish Line
Timing Is Muddy For U.S. Pullout
This gives rise to questions such as:
Surely not. The WaPo is just accelerating its own march to irrelevance, and hence circulation losses, by such meaningless and absurd objections.
#1
#2You overlook the word "timing" in the subhead of the article.
#3No, I saw the word "timing." The Bush administrations lacks both a finish line and an estimate of when it will be reached. That's the point of the article.
#4Deposing Hussein and installing Democracy isn't specific enough a goal?
#5How do you define "installing Democracy"?
#6Here's one definition of Democracy, from dictionary.com.
#7How will you know when Democracy has been installed?
#8
#9That doesn't answer the question.
#10If you refuse to accept dictionary definitions of words, you remove yourself from discussion.
Can you specify in what way the dictionary definition of the words does not answer your question?
#11Tom:
I think Anne Coulter cited the best definition of "install" when she made the following comment two days after 9/11:
"Invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them all to Christianity."
'Nuff said.
Pomoze Bog.
Tsar Lazar
#12Christofascism, eh?
#13Tom:
Indeed, Coulter overstated the point a bit, as she is often wont to do, in the cause of making her point.
However, what she said was illustrative of the beliefs and stated purposes of the Islamic jihadists. If they had the opportunity to enact the 'Coulter Doctrine' on the United States or a Western European nation (albeit with the background being Muslim rather than Christian) they would do so without hesitation. Indeed, the mujhadiin lieve they have a divine fiat and command to do so. Both the Qur'an and the most authoritative of the Hadiths make the purposes and executional instructions of Jihad quite clear.
No one who has read the Bible would ever seriously consider Coulter's idea (assuming they even took it literally to begin with). Such forced conversions, though commonplace in Islamic conquests in spite of Qur'anic injunctions against it, are anathema to the basic teachings of Christ and the NT theologians, not to mention orthodox theology and commentary since then. In spite of Muslim rhetoric, popular conception, and purposeful distortion of revisionists, the Crusades were not wars of theological conquest; they were much belated defensive maneuvers against the rapid Islamic jihad which overtook the East from the mid-600s and continued in one form or another until the 1500s. They were not "holy wars" in the vein of the Islamic jihad, because thier execution could not be justified by the Bible or by orthodox Tradition. Indeed, there can never be a Christian version of jihad that is justifiable by the basic tenets of Christianity. The reverse, of course, is true of Islam. But I digress, here.
My point is that Islam and Western Enlightenment-based values are incompatible because to a Muslim who truly believes in his faith, the Qur'an is the pre-existant, externally-relevant literal Word of God, and is therefore beyond the Western idea of "interpretation." In other words, there will never be a Muslim version of the infamous "Jesus Seminar," because no true Muslim would ever allow their faith to be torn apart in such an egregious way---hence the hit ordered on Salman Rushdie. In this sense, ALL Muslims are fundementalists, because all view the Qur'an as the final Truth that trumps all others. If you have ever tried to have an "interfaith" dialogue with a Muslim, you would understand better, because it just doesn't happen---Islam looks upon all other faiths as, at best, incomplete and obsolete.
I personally do not believe the attempt at democracy will succeed in Iraq, but not because of flaws in US policy. Simply stated, we've done the best we can, and the rest is up to the Iraqis, themselves. Therefore, unfortunately, lies the problem at the heart of the matter; the history of secular governments in Islamic regions is 'nasty, brutish, and short,' to abuse a phrase. Even a "successful" secular government like Turkey has an abysmal human rights record; the Armenians can attest to that, since they fared far worse under Ataturk than they ever did under the Ottomans. Other secular governments show similar records: Syria under the Hashemites, Iran under the Pahlavis [sic?], The People's Republic of Yemen, etc. All of them were or are dismal failures from human rights perspectives. Iraq, itself, has just come out from under the worst period in its history; what will change? Ultimately, the experiment will fail. Personally, I am indifferent to the success or failure of "Iraqi Democracy"; if it keeps the Muslims focused on internal matters or keeps them fighting among themselves, it shows positive results, no matter how long- or short-lived. The Iraq wars (I&II) are just skirmishes in the coming conflicts between Islam and the West at any rate.
Pomoze Bog.
Tsar Lazar
Should the Washington Post stop publishing because it has "no clear finish line" for reversing its own drop in circulation?
The "finish line" in reversing the Washington Post's drop in circulation is obvious. It would require the paper's circulation to either remain steady or increase over that of the previous year. Whether or not the Post can achieve this goal is debatable, but the goal itself is perfectly clear.
The war in Iraq does not have a comparable "finish line," as the article notes:
I imagine scientists searching for a cure for cancer would get more grief over their muddy timing if they had proclaimed "mission accomplished" two years ago and recently declared that cancer was in its "last throes."