Foolish Criticism of the War

Power Line has a post discussing some of the common criticisms of the Iraq War, in particular criticisms of Bush and Rumsfeld as leveled by Andrew Sullivan. Worth checking out. This conclusion is particularly interesting:

Is there a mega-theme that ties all of this together? One candidate is the modern liberal view that the state can accomplish anything. However, Sullivan does not appear to be a statist in that sense, nor is Bill Kristol. Maybe it has more to do with baby-boomer traits -- a sense of entitlement and the demand for instant gratification. This might explain why it's particularly galling to have a pre-boom Defense Secretary refusing, a bit snidely perhaps, to confess error when 'stuff happens.' All the worse when the geezer isn't even sensitive enough to sign letters of condolence. In any case, I doubt that during World War II there was a comparable hue and cry about the absence of a 'plan' and the failure to own up to responsibility every time we suffered a setback.

Being Gen-X, I am always happy to blame Boomers for all ills in society. I expect though, that this is not so much a boomer problem as a problem with not understanding the nature of war. Perhaps people that havn't spent quite enough time reading history (or just playing strategy games.) War is a horrible thing, not the worst thing possible, but a horrible thing nonetheless. Most often nothing goes right, events happen in ways you can't predict and the enemy seeks to exploit any weakness you may have. Even worse, innocents are killed and your own troops, the sons and daughters of your countrymen may react very poorly to the stress and terror of the situation, doing things that in a 'civilized' place they would never think of. That is part of the price. It is a heavy price but some things are worth it. I happen to believe that freedom and democracy in Iraq is one of those things. A lot of Iraqis agree with me. Some don't obviously. America is split on the subject, and the world as a whole, as we all know, feels pretty strongly that a free Iraq is not worth the price. I supported the Iraq War with the belief that it would be more costly in terms of American lives than it has been so far. I am glad I was wrong. I did believe that things would settle down after about a year and Iraq would be fairly peaceful and on the path to Democracy. As we see from the headlines, I was wrong about that as well. However, none of these misguesses changes my belief that our cause in Iraq is noble and just. I am disturbed by people like Andrew Sullivan who supported the war, indeed vigourusly campaigned for it, and now, that things are not as 'nice' as they believe they should be are against those leading the war. I am disturbed by this not because I think it wrong to criticize our leaders, but because the majority of the critiques reflect a deep misunderstanding of the nature of war. It means they we advocating something they did not understand very well, and to the extent that they were influencial this is troubling, even though I was advocating the same thing. As I stated, this does not mean that criticism is wrong (although some of these specific criticisms are foolish) but it is a fact that the propaganda dimension of this war is perhaps the most signifigant, and most closely fought aspect of it. It is a very troubling development that honest criticism, and even honest questioning can be used as a 'weapon' by our enemies in this aspect of the war.