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This is support?

A commenter over on Wizbang claimed that he/she was supportive of the effort in Iraq but that, just like the Soviet Union, it would have all worked out on it's own if people had just left well enough alone. Same results. No expense.

This is my reply (slightly edited) that I left at Wizbang.


It is not supportive of the effort in Iraq, even allowing room for different ideas of what would have been best to do, to say that *nothing* should have been done because Saddam would eventually tire of being a tyrant and his sons would eventually tire of... what his sons tended to enjoy.

*Suportive* of the effort in Iraq requires... support. Not agreement, just support.

As an example, consider a woman I once knew... she *always* knew the best way to do anything. No matter what her husband did he could have done it a better way. For her to have been *supportive* of him would not require that she decide that his way was best after all but it would require that she help him with his plans.

Suppose he was changing a light bulb and set up a ladder when she thought he should use one of those telescoping poles. Supportive would mean handing him the lightbulbs. Unsupportive would be having a snit, refusing to help, and lecturing the whole time about the superiority of the telescoping light-bulb changing pole, waving the pole at him and demanding he get off the ladder without changing the light bulb and start over using the pole.

I don't think it's all that common but there do seem to be a bunch of people, like LoveAmerica Immegrant, who honestly believe that the light bulb will change itself.

That's what I wrote... and now I'm thinking, heck, at least LoveAmerica Immegrant has an optimitic outlook. I'm impressed. The more common outlook seems to be that there is no possibility of winning, no matter what, so there is no consequence to undermining that failed effort.

(Yes, I know. A new government in only three years, increasingly competent Iraqi security forces, progress everywhere you look and now we got Zarqawi... we'd better lose quick because if they aren't careful we'll win after all.)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Very clear example of what 'support' actually is.

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