Iraq 2009

This blog-article from “Winds of Change.Net” sums up many of my feelings on the subject:

Most wars have to be sold. Seldom is the perceived need for war strong enough overcome people’s reluctance to fight until the enemy is at the gates…at which point it is often too late. Much of Thucydides is about the efforts of various Greek leaders to rally the reluctant city-states to support the Persian war.

This is damn hard to do in the modern era, because the ways wars are seen…unfiltered, raw, live on television, tends to focus our attention intently on the costs of war.

The Bush administration badly failed the public relations war, and it very nearly cost us the whole deal.