I have been watching the PBS history movie, The War that made America. As someone that disliked history in school, I find these modern retellings to be wonderful and fascinating. (The short story: George Washington (on the cover) wasnt all that great of a guy and we totally screwed the Indians and native peoples after they helped us.) It makes me think about how little most of us know of our own history and how much we could learn from history.
"History" really seems to be the history of war. Wars are the tumultuous force that shapes human society and it always has been that way.
This week the President has been talking non-stop about Iraq and his "War on Terror." Based on how things have gone right from the start, I find myself wishing that he and his staff would have watched some of these history movies first.
I know the President and his supporters publicly disdain PBS and "liberal" things like education, but their legacy is one colossal screw up after another and his speeches indicate that he hasnt learned a thing in the past 5 years. Three years into Bush's nation-building imbroglio, we are spending $150M per day on Iraq and $5 says the country will fly apart in civil war within a year.
Of course, the real question is what to do now. Last night I heard a great interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former Secretary of State, (one who seems a lot more competent than Condi Rice), who pointed out that Democrats need to do more than complain about Iraq, they need a plan.
He has a plan, and it is starting to make a lot of sense.
All Things Considered
March 21, 2006
Zbigniew Brzezinski, professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, thinks that Iraq is not yet in a civil war. But he wonders whether the consequences of civil war would be worse than staying the course. He talks with Robert Siegel about why he favors pulling troops out by the end of the year.
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