President Bush is often criticized for not having a plan to “win the peace.” I’ve always found that phrase elusive--mostly because it doesn’t mean anything. You don’t “win the peace.” You win the war. Once you’ve done that, peace will take care of itself. Those who talk of “winning the peace” are really just grasping at straws, inventing something to criticize because they can’t find anything of substance to attack the President about.
These same people are fond of pointing to any negative aspect of the war and declaring it “a mess.” I always want to ask them to name just one war that wasn’t. Still, I have to admit, they have a point. If we could just find a way to stop all that messy fighting and violence, this would be a pretty swell war.
And I’m sure that if we put John Kerry in charge, he’ll not only fight a more sensitive war, but a much tidier one as well. I bet even Howard Dean and Michael Moore could support that kind of war: Give ‘em hell, John—just don’t get any on ya!
Look. It’s a war, folks. It’s not pretty. It’s not nice. People are trying to kill each other and, yes, that gets messy. But another 9/11 would be pretty messy too.
You want peace? Win the war. Kill the bad guys. Make a real mess of them, in fact. Once that’s done, we can scrape them off the rocks and let John Kerry negotiate with them if you think it’ll help.
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