Anticipating Evil

Dennis Prager's latest article has a simple thesis. Nobody could have anticipated how bloodthirsty the Iraqi people were therefore we should all get off of President Bush's case for failing to plan sufficiently for the insurgency.

Of course, for sheer cruelty, one cannot outdo the Nazis; no depiction of hell ever matched the reality of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. But while Islamists and Baathists in Iraq have not devised new forms of torture -- there probably are no new ways left -- they have devised a new form of evil: murdering, maiming and torturing as many innocents among their own people as possible.

This statement refers, of course, to the Iraqi insurgency, which, according to some accounts, has started using children to lull suspicions at check points (which they then blow up, along with the children). He also condemns them for targeting those he considers innocent, people trying to get a job for example.

Some of this is pretty phony. Even in American history we have the example of the Klan who targeted innocent countrymen including blacks and northern whites, during reconstruction. Of course you would argue that the Klan didn't consider those people fellow countrymen. I could submit that the insurgents in Iraq might feel the same about the people they are killing.

At any rate the main fallacy in this article is Prager's contention that Bush should be let off the hook because we couldn't anticipate this depth of resistance. I could buy this argument if the Bush Administration had shown a great deal of effort in trying to prepare for any insurgency, but they failed to. Quite the opposite; they and their cronies in the press told us that there was no need to plan for after the invasion. We'd be greeted as liberators, get paid, and come home. The Bush administration purposefully hid the potential cost of this war, because if they had told the American people we would be in Iraq for the rest of the decade the American people would no have supported this war.

Incidentally I condemn those Iraqis using children to plant bombs more efficiently. But I don't consider such people reachable, so I choose to write to my fellow Americans, which is why I am scolding Prager a bit more than the Iraqi Insurgents.