Flirting With SpringThe cold air's arrived and Boston's flirtation with warm, spring-like weather has ended. Cold tonight, and tomorrow, and perhaps some sleet and freezing rain on into Friday. This after a chilling-to-the-bone snow whipped winter. This after days of nonstop rain and only day or so of ice-cream weather. And you know, I really think that whiplash change of elements is kind of cool, maybe a bit psychically cruel, especially if one leaves the house in warm weather clothing and then has to shiver their way home at night.
As much as I really want to see a string of days where it's possible to walk comfortably barefoot in the squishy-cool damp grass of a newly green spring lawn, the kind you get on that day when suddenly the trees have budded and the crocuses and tulips startle your vision, as much as I want that, I don't mind these flirtations with warmth followed by the return of cold and dreary skys.
Weather should be coy. It's one of New England's charms, that weather changes by the minute.
And too, there's something not-dreary about otherwise dreary weather. There's beauty in the gray and fog of rain, the drenching cold of sleet, especially if you're dressed right for it and are out it in the weather on foot. And really especially if you can walk in the woods, or across an open field, away from sidewalks that hug traffic, away from sidewalks where the pedestrian is so easily beseiged by walls of water when cars speed through those long thick puddles that collect at the road's edge.
Carpe CarpingThe political right has wasted no time in seizing the carping. They're primarily carping and complaining that those on the left who opposed the war won't admit they were wrong. They're carping that left won't apologize for questioning the military strategy. I heard one commentator carp the other day that the New York Times didn't have front page coverage of PFC Jessica Lynch flying home; instead, the commentator biled, the
Times covered the looting and lawlessness in Iraq. Even President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld play the carping game, complaining about any coverage that deviates from the press releases and rose-colored slide shows that are the CentCom briefings.
And that's what all the carping comes down to -- any instance of anyone in the media anywhere not towing the party line (the FoxNews Republican T.V. party line), is carped and mau-maued.
But look. The war strategy was questioned when commanders in the field remarked that they hadn't "war gamed" for the Fedayeem attacks on the supply line they were seeing. It was the chimera that doesn't exist, the so-called "media elite" that drove this story. To a large degree it was driven by ex-generals who, in their best imitation of retired NFL coaches second-guessing the call on the field of the coach actually in the game, raised the issue and picked at it. And it was the artificiality of CentCom "press conferences" as news, and the maw of 24 hour news cycles that really mean two minutes of actual and verifiable news, surrounded by three hours of hot air and speculation, that drove the battle plan questioning.
And sure, many liberals, as well as conservatives, were concerned that the war might go badly. And all sides, from the Office of Homeland security which raised us up a color on their terror alert scale, to the Pentagon, to the FBI, to the CIA, are still worried about continued side effects. No one was wrong per se to be concerned about this stuff.
But conservative pundits now have spun this illusion that antiwar types and liberals predicted bad things would happen, and that they won't now admit they were wrong, and admit now that everything's hunky dory. Well not everything is hunky dory, of course; and everyone knew we'd win this war. But the future is still in doubt, Iraq's between governments, which is not quite the same thing as being liberated.
Personally, I'm glad the war was not protracted. I only wish the forces could move more quickly and assuredly to the humanitarian part of the mission, to getting water and electricity to people, to restocking hospitals, and more. Some movement has been made, but there's so much more to do. One question, on the hospital side -- why not set up MASH units (or whatever the military these days calls mobile hospitals deployed in war) in Bosra, Baghdad, and other cities where doctors and hospitals are struggling?
I also wish the Bush team had a plan for helping Iraq become an open and democratic society. They don' t appear to, beyond the vague statment that Iraqi's will control Iraq. It seems to be a time of winging it.
I also worry that we'll turn our sights to the next conflict, and lose sight of what is, or isn't, happening in Iraq. That will settle for the illusion that Iraq has been liberated and made democratic, just as we settle for the illusion that those things have happened in Afghanistan.
I hope every fear I have is unrealized and that things turn out as rosy as the Bush group keeps telling us it will. But so far, I'm skeptical, and I don't think it's wrong to be skeptical or to voice that skepticism or to question the White House and the Pentagon and the State Department forcibly and directly.
