From Lileks:
I went back to the editorial archives today, to see what was said around the time of the Dec 1998 “Desert Fox” campaign. (And let us just imagine the panic if the current administration started naming military operations after famous Nazi nicks.) As I trolled back and forth in the microfiche looking for the relevant piece, I was struck by the other things the chattering classes brayed five years ago. "Lift the sanctions" was a popular item. And why? Because it would show Saddam the world was serious about giving him one last chance. Okay, here’s your gun back. But if you shoot us we’re going to take it away. The naivety nearly makes you weep. These people didn’t want Saddam’s body bobbing ass-up in the Tigris. They wanted a world in which the fascist clique that ruled Iraq curtseyed and bowed in the lovely gavotte of international diplomacy. However many people died in Saddam’s gulags was irrelevant; what mattered was that the UN was Concerned, and that the Iraqi Ambassador - clad in a nice Western suit, skilled in many tongues, daubed with a Macy’s cologne - agreed to facilitate the process of calibrating the precise nature of the consquences of failing to live up to the spirit of the letter of the penumbra of the -Ah, a leisurely lunch. Let's consult the Frenchies.
Ah, it’s noon; shalll we have lunch sent in, or have our drivers take us to the Village? I understand there is an excellent Tibetan restaurant that’s just opened.
I’ve read enough editorials from various papers from this period to reinforce something I’ve long suspected: the reason many editorialists hate this war is because they don’t feel it’s theirs.I never seem to hang out with the right people.
If Clinton had risen to the occasion, wiped out al-Qaeda, sent Marines to kick down the statues and put bullets in those filthy sons’ brainpans, this would be the most noble effort of our time. We would hear clear echoes of JFK’s call to bear any burden. FDR, Truman, Marshall Plan, forbearance, patience - the editorial pages of the land would absolutely brim with encouragement and optimism every damn day, because the good fight was being waged, and the right people were waging it.
I can’t help but come back to the central theme these edits imply: we should have left Iraq alone. We should have left this charnel house stand. We should have bought a wad of nice French cotton to shove in our ears so the buzz of the flies over the graves didn’t distract us from the important business of deciding whether Syria or China should have the rotating observer-status seat in the Oil-for-Palaces program. Afghanistan, well, that’s understandable, in a way; we were mad. We lashed out. But we should have stopped there, and let the UN deploy its extra-strong Frown Beams against the Iraqi ambassador in the hopes that Saddam would reduce the money he gave to Palestinian suicide bombers down to five grand. Five grand! Hell, that hardly covers the parking tickets your average ambassador owes to the city of New York; who’d blow themselves up for that.Can we provide
Would the editorialists of the nation be happier if Saddam was still cutting checks to people who blew up not just our allies, but our own citizens? I’d like an answer. Please. Essay question: “Families of terrorists who blow up men, women and children, some of whom are Americans, no longer receive money from Saddam, because Saddam no longer rules Iraq. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? Explain.”
