"...the failure of the Left to have a program for bringing democracy and a voice to the people of Iraq (and Afghanistan and Kosovo and etc.) without use of those B-52s is why it lacks the moral authority to stop any of these wars."
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Therein we find the leitmotif.
Right now, as I type these words, I am trying to imagine a program that we could concoct which might be presented to the Iraqi people (or any beleaguered people) as a sort of gift. Nathan's criticism is not without weight and should be worked through with some care.
How, I'm wondering, could we 'bring democracy' to another nation? Perhaps there is some formula, some method, which our imaginations have failed to conjure.
All I can imagine unfortunately are various types of condescension and coercion, sweetened (at least in appearance and rhetoric) by the milk of liberal kindness.
Under the present circumstances, insisting that the occupation persist until it's done right is like demanding that the thief who broke into your home to steal the TV stop, in mid thieving, to fix your plumbing, adjust the family photos and generally help out.
It's not going to happen.
If the left were to present a carefully reasoned, multi-point program for a non-militaristic rebuilding of Iraq who would listen? Bush? Wolfowitz? Rumsfeld?
These men are the gatekeepers; the senders of machines and men to the farthest reaches to do their bidding. What would they make of this alternative program complete with, I imagine, the inclusive principals we cherish? The question answers itself.
But let's say that there is a groundswell of public support for this counter-plan, the left finally stops merely complaining and being "isolationist" and presents its own vision of intervention (or, to coin an awful phrase, 'muscular democratic assistance' or MDA). Washington, pressured by public opinion, is forced to change its ways. The new, better, foreign policy model is now in motion.
How do the Iraqi people respond?
Some would be pleased I'm sure. Others would be disinterested. And still others would be aggressively opposed. How do the new, improved democracy warriors respond to those Iraqis who, still angry that foreigners are telling them how to order their affairs, resort to RPGs and the like to make their point?
Of course, they return fire; everyone has the right of self-defense of course. Which leads to retribution on the part of Iraqi insurgents, which leads to more counter-insurgency and so on...
In a few short steps and with the participation of a relatively small number of Iraqis, the noble experiment has become, like its blatantly imperialistic predecessor, a messy business.
Wouldn't it be better, for everyone involved to, as the brothers around the way used to say, 'step the hell off'?
You do not put out a fire by turning a flamethrower upon the burning building.
Withdrawal, followed by reconstructive aid (as reparations). Capital gifts, technical assistance, debt forgiveness, reasonable loans, access to the US market on fair terms.
This would be a good way to start repaying these people for the criminal destruction and loss of irreplaceable life our tax dollars have wrought.
To insist upon withdrawal is not "isolationist", it's putting water on the fire.
DRM
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