America Can Be Better

Once again, Tom Friedman hits the nail on the head in his New York Times column: "One thing that has always baffled me about the Bush team’s war effort in Iraq and against Al Qaeda is this: How could an administration that was so good at Swift-boating its political opponents at home be so inept at Swift-boating its geopolitical opponents abroad?" How, as Friedman has asked repeatedly, do you lose a popularity contest to a genocidal monster? Excellent question.

Referring, as bafflingly few journalists do, to the daily slaughter of civilians across Iraq, Friedman asks, with justified exasperation, "Excuse me, but what exactly are we fighting for in Iraq, or in this wider war against Islamist extremism, if the murder of 500 civilians can be shrugged off? Even if we don’t know the exact perpetrators, we know who is inspiring this sort of genocide — Al Qaeda and bin Laden — and we need to say that every day."

Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri manage to keep their Arab-world press credentials in order as "the resistance". Why do we allow that? We should be on the radio and tv and news pages every single day pointing out that the intellectual and spiritual sons of these two are targeting civilians by the hundreds daily. They are not occasionally killing a few as they fight the "invading Americans" (as they would call them). They are deliberately, purposely, unconscionably targeting any and everybody they feel like.

Why is there no outrage against this that shows up in the major news outlets? I haven't kept a close tally myself, but on a quick review of such articles as I could find I would expect to see a banner headline every single day of the week:

MURDEROUS MAYHEM CONTINUES

Extremists Kill (insert number) Innocent Civilians Again Today

When will the killing stop?

So, where are the screaming headlines? Why aren't there bulletins from the White House every day? Why should it take bulletins from the White House? Why aren't the U. S. and world press aghast at the slaughter? What is going on?

How do our fighting men and women keep any perspective and remember that what they are doing is not only worth doing but noble and historic? I cannot imagine how they function in the environment that finds a single American mistake grounds for insulting everything American, while the daily, literally daily, slaughter of innocents by madmen is barely worth a comment.

If anything good comes out of the decision to go into Iraq, it will be because of George Bush's understanding of the threat, but almost entirely in spite of his incompetence and that of his team at communicating that threat to anyone who doesn't already understand it.

Leadership means actually leading. Leading is not just telling people what to do or doing whatever you think is right in spite of everyone else's opinion. That may qualify as command, but to lead people sooner or later you have to imagine that it might actually be worth your precious time to find out how to say a thing in a way that will hit home with the people you want to lead.

America Can Be Better