It is, at least to me, an interesting phenomenon how people can get wedded to an idea, or set of ideas, and, those facts that contradict their ideas, do so at their peril.
One example of this phenomenon is well illustrated by the “Wise Men.” This was a group of men called together to help advise LBJ about the war in Vietnam. The Wise Men were our best military leaders and statesmen, retired an active. They met in 1967. Proposals were put forth to invade North Vietnam, bomb the dykes in North Vietnam and, as a consequence, kill a few hundred thousand people. More bombs, more destruction. Defense Secretary McNamara, one of our brightest men in high office, told the assembled that the bombing of the North was not affecting the war in the South in any significant way, and that we, The United States, were mired in a stalemate. And, a stalemate was something the American people would not continue to tolerate.
The implication of a stalemate, something that the Wise Men could not conceive, was that it was time to get out of Vietnam. McNamara, after seven years as Secretary of Defense, resigned shortly thereafter, and even he never realized that the Vietnam War was not about communism, but rather about national liberation: Vietnam for the Vietnamese. Ironically, Clark Clifford, McNamara”s successor, very soon came around to McNamara”s point of view. It was over, although Nixon and Kissinger continued to savage Southeast Asia for many more years.
These men could entertain the idea of different strategies, but questioning underlying assumptions was akin to asking a man of faith to renounce his belief in god.
Similarly, Obama, and his advisers, all bright men, can”t conceive of simply throwing the war machine into reverse and getting out. I heard a round table discussion sponsored by the Brookings Institute. There were several bright men in the group, including one scholar who had written seven books about the Middle East. I did not hear the entire program, but during the part I did hear, not one “bright” man questioned the assumption that we should be in Afghanistan at all.
Lastly, I offer the Republican Party. It is still preaching that if only government would get out of the way and let the system work, everything would be fine. This is after 30 years of deregulation has brought our economy to the point of collapse. It reminds me of the movie Mars Attacks, even as the Martians are blasting the earthlings, the Martian loudspeakers are announcing “Do not run away, we come in peace.”
Nelson Strasser
Kelseyville
