A Glass Half Full Is As Good As It Gets; So Let's Get A Bigger Glass

Like many progressives, I've looked at the Obama administration for the last four years and seen a glass half empty. Two recent Obama events have made me reconsider my disappointment.  I was naive.  The glass has been half full -- and always will be.  That's as good as it gets.

Obama's interview with Mark Maron on WTF was the first "event."  One smart-ass commentator criticized Maron for not pushing the President and forcing sound-bite gaffs -- the gotcha school of journalism we've too damn much of.  The WTF encounter is  a model interview: thoughtful, disarming conversation drawing out inner thoughts and reflections.  Listen to the whole -- and not just for the use of "nigger", which was purposeful and pointed and appropriate -- and see if you don't begin to ask, as have I, what is a reasonable expectation of a POTUS?  Progress in faltering steps.  Glasses half full: the typical condition of our democratic republic.  (Click here.)

A President's task, then, is to manage the size of the glass.  A conservative might set out to downsize it; a progressive, to enlarge it.

Obama's eulogy for Rev. Pinckney is the second "event" that leads me to reassess and dial down my impatience.  His words and earnest delivery were as eloquent a call to action and attitude adjustment as any I have heard.  Worth listening to again: click here.

American ninnies will continue to disparage, decry, deny what is being done by this pragmatic progressive.  And every reasonable person will find something not to their liking; mine is his willingness to re-enter Iraq.  But, overall, Obama is proving right for these times of ambiguity and complexity.  Nothing is simple; there are no good choices.  The glass will remain half full, and that's perhaps as it should be; the glass just needs to get bigger.

Not Until You Tell Me Why? Why!?

Mr. President:

More troops?  I'm sorry, more "advisers" into Iraq? -- advisers who they would not dare shoot at, of course.   More bases set up in Iraq? -- guaranteed to win us everlasting gratitude, I'm sure.  Arms to Sunni militia -- yet another private, sectarian army not under central command and control of Iraq's government -- which will happily cooperate with Shiite militia, each of whom will politely refrain from cutting each others' throats? -- of course.  More Special Ops incursions into Syria -- which will overawe and subdue apocalyptic terrorists despite their culture of revenge -- I'm sure. 

What the hell are we thinking?  Why?!    

What does victory over ISIS look like?  How will we know it when (and if) we achieve it?  And the Sunni tribes that have opted for horrific ISIS over hateful Shiites, who will they opt for next? 

The only rationales offered for us re-entering Iraq are that ISIS is truly Satanic, deserving to be killed, and that they will stir up even more trouble in the region if they succeed in carving out a Sunni kleptocracy.  Really?  More trouble than has been brewing off and on since 1920?  Since 1750?  Since 1000? More Satanic than the Saudis who have beheaded 88 people so far this year?   Is defeat of ISIS going to mollify the Ayatollahs, the Kings, the Generals, the Sheiks, the Emirs -- and get them all to behave as we wish them to? 

What is it we want to achieve?  To buoy up a Shiite regime in Iraq that hates Saudis and the Emirates, that Iran controls, that supports Assad, and that spits on their own Sunni and Kurdish citizens?

Somebody tell me exactly what we buy by putting more American lives at risk, by putting American arms into the hands of Baathist Sunni militia.  What do we gain by adding fuel to the fires of civil wars in Iraq and Syria, wars that if fueled by outsiders will likely merge into a great sectarian war engulfing the entire Gulf?

Advisers: the military likes to take ground and count kills.  When advisers moved into the field with their Iraqi units in Anbar, ground was taken, kills went up.  Ergo, get more into the field.  Pretty soon, advisers are coaching, then leading, then getting shot and calling for more "advisers."  I recall, it was 1963 or '64, when I wept looking at pictures in Life of the first adviser deaths in Viet Nam, two GIs airlifted out of their advisee ARVN unit who died in the copter enroute to a MASH.  Go back and read  Frances Fitzgerald's Fire in the Lake about Kennedy's well intentioned "advisers" and what that led to. 

Today, we've been de-sensitized by 12 years of seeing GI's dying in deserts; we have no more tears to shed -- unless it's our own kin sacrificed there, and of course, with no national service, few of us have that skin in the game.  But we all do have a stake in calling a halt.

For God's sake, for our sake, just say NO!  No more dollars and blood.  No more blundering in to take sides in ancient feuds which we do not, cannot understand.  No!  Leave the bloody Near East to blood-thirsty, self-destructive near easterners.  Step back and let them play out their history until, exhausted, the survivors decide on their own to co-exist.  That's what Christians had to do between 1600 and 1648, yes, at frightful cost.  And that's what the Muslims will have to do -- on their own, and yes, no doubt at frightful cost.  Our role is to stand aside, not to take sides; to avoid stirring up more hatreds and resentments; and when possible, to provide succor and support to refugees and survivors.  But now, just say NO.  No mas; no mas.

If you agree at all with this plea, please pass it on.  Let a deluge of No!'s begin.