Sunday, February 26, 2006

Support Our Cooler Heads.

The article: Commanders: Iraqi army can quell serious spike in violence Had an interesting quotes from Gen Kimmit:

“This is more than a bump in the road, it’s a pothole,” said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of plans and strategy for Central Command, in a Thursday interview at a hotel near the Pentagon. Kimmitt said the ability of Iraqi security forces to address the violence occurring now is a major test of Iraqi forces’ competence, but that he remains confident they can do what is needed.
“We believe cooler heads are going to prevail,” said Kimmitt. “There are enough shock absorbers in the system that this is not going to lead to increasing sectarian violence,” he said, continuing the road metaphor.


Hmmm... “cooler heads are going to prevail”. May be one can hope. The problem is the batting average of the cooler heads sucks. Even in US cooler heads haven't been able to prevail how can one expect they would in Iraq. Heck, if the “cooler heads” were successful, the general would not have been in Iraq in the first place.

There is something interesting in the arguments by military folks, religious fanatics, or the right wingers (aka neocons). They believe their offensive would end the hostilities. For instance, they would advocate “Shock and Awe” to bring peace and democracy to a middle east. Same thing with likes of Bin Ladin, they believe if they bring down the World Trade Center towers Americans in their shock and grief would end hostilities in the middle east.

Fundamental in their thinking is that the other side has ample supply of “cooler heads” that somehow are not in the driver seat but with a high dosage of “Shock and Awe” or destruction they would be able to wrestle control from the crazies. In a way they believe in an elixir formula. In their magical world if you bring enough insanity, and at high dosages, to a conflict you can get long lasting sanity out of it.

Rather strange argument. There is a positive though, the fact that even advocates of insanity believe the solution would be in the “cooler heads” (albeit on the other side) is the good news. All we need now is to listen to our own “cooler heads”, rather than banking on other side's “cooler heads”.

I look forward to see bumper stickers that say: Support Our Cooler Heads.

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