As a critic of the Iraq war, I get very tired of war supporters claiming that just about any criticism is akin to treason because it emboldens the enemy to keep fighting.
So I was very amused when I read this article on U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad that included the following:
MR. Khalilzad, who is known as both a strategic thinker and a skilled political operator, may have put himself in the middle of this maelstrom shortly before the Samarra shrine bombing. He had begun to sharply criticize Shiite leaders for sectarian killings carried out at the Interior Ministry, hinting that the United States might withdraw its support if Iraq's security forces were not reformed. Those remarks prompted Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Shiite alliance, to declare that Mr. Khalilzad was partly responsible for the attack, because his words had emboldened Sunni terrorists.
I'm sure war supporters will see the illogic in al-Hakim's assertion. Will they recognize the parallel illogic in their own version of the same claim?
Khalilzad, terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia
2 comments:
Of course most war supporters won't recognize the parallel illogic of their own version. It's all too easy for them to dream up reasons why the outside world doesn't apply to their insular rhetoric.
- Caracarn
Well, I can hope. It's not often I find such a great example to illustrate the fallacy in such thinking.
Post a Comment