Mr. Maturity
Philadelphia Inquirer
Editorial
Five Years Lost - It's time to grow up
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Who would have thought that words spoken long ago by Benjamin Franklin would speak so clearly to this time of terrorism and its discontents?
"A child thinks 20 shillings and 20 years can scarce ever be spent," Franklin said.
In a child, such optimism mixed with ignorance can be charming.
In leaders who shape national security policy for the United States, it's distressing.
When George W. Bush took office on Jan. 20, 2001, his minions chortled that, after a Clinton White House staffed by puerile boomers, the nation could rest easy. It was now being led by adults, people you could trust to make sound judgments: Dick Cheney. Donald Rumsfeld. Colin Powell. Condoleezza Rice.
Yet five years after al-Qaeda used planes as weapons in Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in the sky over Pennsylvania, the war on terrorism they've conducted seems more the work of children than of grown-ups.
Polls indicate that many Americans do not think this nation's policies have made them safer. A Gallup poll last month reported 45 percent of Americans were "very" or "somewhat" fearful about falling victim to terrorism.
The Bush administration's handling of U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq causes the greatest concern - and highlights the differences between mature and immature governance.
Officials would have shown mature judgment by finishing the job they began in Afghanistan after 9/11.
Bush was absolutely right to send U.S. troops there to destroy al-Qaeda's headquarters and push the terrorists' eager hosts, the Taliban, from power. If only he'd sent enough to do the job once and for all.
The fighting over, wise adults would have recognized the importance of rebuilding the nation and securing the peace. Afghans and the world would have proclaimed the invasion an unqualified success if basic freedoms and economic progress had taken root in Kabul and beyond.
But, like children who won't clean up after they have made a mess, the Bush administration shunned the critical chore of nation building. We don't do that, said old heads Cheney, Rumsfeld and others. They just like making the mess.
Children are often impulsive, with short attention spans. Before the job was done in Afghanistan, this administration shifted resources and attention to invading Iraq on a whim.
Children often invent monsters under the bed. Administration officials justified their new war by insisting that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, that he was an ally of those who planned the Sept. 11 attacks, that he would partner with them again to harm us.
When they don't want to hear facts they don't like, children put hands over ears and sing "la, la, la." And so it was that the administration refused to take seriously the many reports from credible sources that said Hussein had few WMD.
When youngsters are challenged about their mistakes, they often make up stories, harp on small points, concoct a million excuses for why they did what they did.
And so behaved Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld after U.S. soldiers could not find any active WMD.
Bush officials then offered a bevy of new rationales for why they felt they had to oust Hussein immediately. When those rationales collapsed, they went back to stressing that Hussein was a bad, bad man.
Few Americans debate that point. They agree Hussein is a beast who deserves his imprisonment. That doesn't mean, however, that Iraq was in any way the next logical front in protecting America from attack.
Adults learn from their mistakes.
This administration did not heed the lessons of Afghanistan, where the Taliban are fighting their way to a comeback. In Iraq, once again, the White House made war and courted instability without having a good plan for securing and rebuilding the country. They ignored nearly every one of history's lessons about how best to counter an insurgency.
We see today the results of that unformed, overly optimistic thinking: the growing chaos in Iraq.
It would be comforting if, after five years, President Bush showed maturity gained from tragedy, if he showed firmer grasp of how a complex world demands nuanced realism about both friend and enemy.
It would be nice if his team's political rhetoric did not dismiss diplomacy as the work of wimps, did not deride as appeasement the attempt to persuade moderate Muslims around the world to reject the destructive jihadist ideology.
But there's an election to win, so adult thinking goes out the window.
A grown-up administration would explain to the public that an effective anti-terror strategy requires as much police work and human intelligence as bomb-dropping and phone-tapping - and that it requires financial sacrifice from all.
It would be comforting if grown-ups were in charge of protecting the country. Maybe some day.
Editorial
Five Years Lost - It's time to grow up
(a ukethanks to Phyll)
Who would have thought that words spoken long ago by Benjamin Franklin would speak so clearly to this time of terrorism and its discontents?
"A child thinks 20 shillings and 20 years can scarce ever be spent," Franklin said.
In a child, such optimism mixed with ignorance can be charming.
In leaders who shape national security policy for the United States, it's distressing.
When George W. Bush took office on Jan. 20, 2001, his minions chortled that, after a Clinton White House staffed by puerile boomers, the nation could rest easy. It was now being led by adults, people you could trust to make sound judgments: Dick Cheney. Donald Rumsfeld. Colin Powell. Condoleezza Rice.
Yet five years after al-Qaeda used planes as weapons in Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in the sky over Pennsylvania, the war on terrorism they've conducted seems more the work of children than of grown-ups.
Polls indicate that many Americans do not think this nation's policies have made them safer. A Gallup poll last month reported 45 percent of Americans were "very" or "somewhat" fearful about falling victim to terrorism.
The Bush administration's handling of U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq causes the greatest concern - and highlights the differences between mature and immature governance.
Officials would have shown mature judgment by finishing the job they began in Afghanistan after 9/11.
Bush was absolutely right to send U.S. troops there to destroy al-Qaeda's headquarters and push the terrorists' eager hosts, the Taliban, from power. If only he'd sent enough to do the job once and for all.
The fighting over, wise adults would have recognized the importance of rebuilding the nation and securing the peace. Afghans and the world would have proclaimed the invasion an unqualified success if basic freedoms and economic progress had taken root in Kabul and beyond.
But, like children who won't clean up after they have made a mess, the Bush administration shunned the critical chore of nation building. We don't do that, said old heads Cheney, Rumsfeld and others. They just like making the mess.
Children are often impulsive, with short attention spans. Before the job was done in Afghanistan, this administration shifted resources and attention to invading Iraq on a whim.
Children often invent monsters under the bed. Administration officials justified their new war by insisting that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, that he was an ally of those who planned the Sept. 11 attacks, that he would partner with them again to harm us.
When they don't want to hear facts they don't like, children put hands over ears and sing "la, la, la." And so it was that the administration refused to take seriously the many reports from credible sources that said Hussein had few WMD.
When youngsters are challenged about their mistakes, they often make up stories, harp on small points, concoct a million excuses for why they did what they did.
And so behaved Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld after U.S. soldiers could not find any active WMD.
Bush officials then offered a bevy of new rationales for why they felt they had to oust Hussein immediately. When those rationales collapsed, they went back to stressing that Hussein was a bad, bad man.
Few Americans debate that point. They agree Hussein is a beast who deserves his imprisonment. That doesn't mean, however, that Iraq was in any way the next logical front in protecting America from attack.
Adults learn from their mistakes.
This administration did not heed the lessons of Afghanistan, where the Taliban are fighting their way to a comeback. In Iraq, once again, the White House made war and courted instability without having a good plan for securing and rebuilding the country. They ignored nearly every one of history's lessons about how best to counter an insurgency.
We see today the results of that unformed, overly optimistic thinking: the growing chaos in Iraq.
It would be comforting if, after five years, President Bush showed maturity gained from tragedy, if he showed firmer grasp of how a complex world demands nuanced realism about both friend and enemy.
It would be nice if his team's political rhetoric did not dismiss diplomacy as the work of wimps, did not deride as appeasement the attempt to persuade moderate Muslims around the world to reject the destructive jihadist ideology.
But there's an election to win, so adult thinking goes out the window.
A grown-up administration would explain to the public that an effective anti-terror strategy requires as much police work and human intelligence as bomb-dropping and phone-tapping - and that it requires financial sacrifice from all.
It would be comforting if grown-ups were in charge of protecting the country. Maybe some day.
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