Shailagh Murray of the Washington Post, in 2006, on why public opposition to the Iraq war is irrelevant: “Would you want a department store manager or orthodontist running the Pentagon? I don’t think so. The reason that many politicians are squeamish about hard and fast goals of any kind in Iraq is that there is no simple response or solution—it would have emerged by now. A withdrawal by year’s end carries enormous, very serious implications.”

That would be a valid point if the topic was ordinary Americans lecturing the military on tactics (”Clearly you should use flanking movements and heavy artillery in Basra!”). Stay or withdraw is not a tactical decision, however, it’s a political one: Is what we’re doing likely to produce worthwhile results? Can we afford to flush billions down the drain in Iraq? And that’s something where the public—whether or not I or Murray agree with them—are perfectly entitled to weigh in (civilian control of the military and all that).

Does Murray seriously think the public is showing worse judgment than the White House? Than the administration that decided to attack Iraq without waiting for the weapons inspectors to finish their work, or for our troops to have adequate armor? That claimed conquering Iraq would be the start of turning the Middle East into a democracy? That turned down offers of assistance from Iran when they were still looking to negotiate?

Okay, some people in the public are just as daft: The people who still think Saddam was behind 9/11, for instance. But those are the ones who want us to stay.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 7:37 am and is filed under Journalism, War/military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.