Tom Petz, the secondary personell director for Kansas City, Kansas schools wrote me this morning...I talked with him as soon as I got off work...and I go in this afternoon to fill out paperwork:):):)...
Very exciting:):):)...I finally get to do the thing I love doing more than anything else:):):)...teach:):):)...and working with kids:):)...
I was very impressed with both this principal and with the special education director for the district:):)...I've worked with enough principals and teachers, at this point, to know who's good and who's not, generally...and these are two very good teachers/administrators:):)...and it will be a great experience working with these kinds of folks...I've learned a lot being outside of schools, generally, and about working with people, specifically, for this time:):)...
But it's time for me to teach, again:):):)...
I've never felt so confident about my abilities to work with kids and students, at this point...I know more about people...about them and their abilities and interests...and, important to me...I know better when they're bullshitting me...and themselves...
And I am very much looking forward to teaching again...and working with top notch people...
By the way...it finally happened...
The Right Way in Iraq...John Edwards...
A politician finally apologized for rushing into war...
John still doesn't seem to have recognized the good that came from an invasion of Iraq...and this apology may be politically calculated as much as anything...but it is nice, I have to say, to hear one person who voted to rush into this war without thoughtfully considering the best way to do so and persuading the American people and our international partners to do so on its merits, and not preying on their fears, to apologize for doing so...
As John writes...
"I was wrong.
Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda."
John and other Democrats have been much criticized for the sentiment in that last line...that the intelligence was manipulated to fit a political agenda...
But there is some truth to this...
Most of the international community knew that Saddam had biological weapons...he had used them on the Kurds following the first Persian Guld War...
What was unknown...and only suspected -- by many liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats...Judith Miller and Bill Clinton being only two of them -- was whether Saddam had nuclear capabilities...
There was no evidence that I knew, at the time, that Saddam had nuclear capabilities...like many people, I would not have put it past Saddam, knowing his track record...but there was no evidence, that I knew of, to support that suspicion...
But John and Democrats are right that the President sounded the nuclear rallying cry with far more certainty than we actually had of that capability...
Which is why Joe Wilson's criticism of that claim -- a piece of which...whether Saddam was pursuing uranium yellow-cake in Niger...Wilson was sent to investigate -- is important...
Wilson was arguing that we had no evidence of Saddam having nuclear capability...and that the President exaggerated those claims despite his efforts to dispel the idea that we had evidence that Saddam was pursuing uranium usable for a nuclear weapon in Niger...
Wilson claims that Administration officials sought to distance themselves from his intelligence-gathering and to discredit his wife, Valerie Plame, by indicating that she, in her capacity as a CIA administrative official, sent him to Niger to investigate the claim...in naming Valerie, if they did so before the Vanity Fair cover piece or any other public airing of her name, which I'm unclear about, at this point, Lewis Libby, Karl Rove, and the numerous reporters -- Robert Novack, Judith Miller, Matthew Cooper, at least -- who named her publicly, blew her undercover status with the CIA...which caused a lot of damage to an undercover career built on making contacts based on that undercover status...
Libby and Rove claim that they did so to clarify the discussion...that Administration officials were not responsible for sending Wilson to Niger...
Wilson claims that it was an effort to discredit him...and to seek political revenge on his wife...
If Wilson is right...it is a much more serious situation...since it involved disrupting Valerie Plame's undercover career -- if other sources, like the Vanity Fair cover story on Plame, did not beat them to the punch -- and if it was political revenge...meaning it was done intentionally to torpedo Plame's career...it is a much more serious situation...
If Libby and Rove are right...as I give them the benefit of the doubt on, at this point...then this is a much more innocent situation, I think, of two officials giving up a CIA undercover officer's name as a part of an on-going debate about the war, without understanding the consequences of doing so...but in good faith...as a part of a larger discussion...
The perjury charge against Libby, to my mind, only sticks if it can be proved that Libby had intentionally acted in bad faith...which would have to be proven...and that he lied to cover his tracks...if Libby acted more innocently...and misremembered the trail along the way...then he's not guilty of anything, that we know of...and because of presumption of innocence...which I and everyone should take seriously in every case, frankly...then I give him much leeway on this...
But the original hub-bub in this case was whether the Administration exaggerated the nuclear threat that Saddam posed...I believe that they did...it is entirely possible that Saddam had nuclear capabilities that he and/or his minions were able to hide before anyone could investigate as freely as we can today...but that would have to be demonstrated to become evidence...and not just speculation exaggerated into evidence, which, I agree, it appears at this point that the Administration engaged in...
I do believe that the Administration believed that this kind of threat was posed...
But I think they believed that out of sloppy speculation...rather than out of a more serious, reasoned consideration of what evidence we had and what evidence we didn't have of those capabilities...
So John is right, on that point, I believe...even as I believe that the Administration worked in good faith...just with sloppy reasoning on the matter...
And I have to say that it is quite refreshing to hear at least one politician apologize for rushing to war in Iraq...when a more thoughtful, and openly debated and engaged discussion of all alternatives --including diplomacy...but not limited there...and a more engaged and thoughtful discussion of what alternatives to a U.S. led, far-too-unilateral war in Iraq might be available...including a multilateral war that included our European and democratic neighbors...democratic, less democratic and non democratic partners in the Middle East, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, Iran (possibly...though there are serious reasons to consider what role Iran could play in such a coalition when they have/had been a serious adversary for the Iraq people for many years), and Israel (who contributed to the effort quietly and openly, but who was not included by the Administration as a coalition partner, for reasons I am unclear about, at this point)...and U.N. Security Council members like China and Russia...
And much more importantly to me...a war led by the Iraqi people, and Iraqi opposition parties and militias, and backed with overwhelming power by these other multilateral partners...
But none of that could be considered with the lack of open and constructive discussion and debate about how to handle Iraq and with the kind of rush to war that the Administration, in particular, was so insistent on...
Is it totally clear, at this point, why being thoughtful...and why facilitating a more thoughtful, open, and free discussion of whatever important decisions that have to be made...why that is so important, especially around matters as serious as war?...
Obviously, sometimes, we have to act before we think...and sometimes we must act before putting a more ideal amount of thought into a situation...and we obviously need to give people as much slack around this as possible...
While also expecting that they think...
The Administration believed and led others to believe that the situation in Iraq was life or death...it wasn't...and a lot of mistakes got made as a consequence...that cost a lot of lives and misery, unnecessarily...
They were in good faith, I believe...
Just not thoughtful enough...
And we are dealing with the consequences of that now...
Having said that...
Those decisions have been made...
And the decisions to make now...
Are how to improve the effort in Iraq...
Not how to run away...
Or how to play twenty-twenty hindsight...
But how to make the situation in Iraq better...
And to recognize all the good that has come and is coming from a free and more democratic Iraq...
John Edwards' apology is a welcome departure from the politics of blame and presure and hindsight and black-and-white outlooks on the situation in Iraq that dominates far too much of the discussion, right now...including John's editorial piece, here...
He, like many Democrats and liberals, still does not recognize all of the good that has come from this war...even as it has been engaged far from ideally...
But it would be nice to see a lot more politicians say they were sorry...or that they were wrong...or whatever public recognition they could make that they've figured out that this thing could have gone a lot better...had we taken time to think about how to engage it better...
To be fair to John and President Bush and the Administration and everyone who favored this war...
One of smartest international policy scholars in America...and perhaps in the world (though Joe does have too much of an America-focus, I believe, to make stronger claims in that latter category)...Joe Nye...the Dean of the JFK Harvard School of Government...favored this war, upfront, as well...as did former President Bill Clinton, who, with all of the policy disagreements that I have with Bill...which are many...I believe was the smartest and best President that this country has seen in its too brief history...
I did not...I was both concerned about the lack of engagement with the international policy community about the best ways to conduct this war...and with the lack of recognition, on the part of the Administration, of the very serious and good faith concerns that his critics had of the war...including and especially our European allies, whose lack of support should have been a serious check on Administration hubris...
And I was more pessimistic than seems warranted, now, with twenty-twenty hindsight, about whether the Iraqi people would support such an effort...which, to me, was the fundamental issue that needed to be different to prevent another Vietnam...Vietnam did not fail because the American people did not believe in it, fundamentally...fundamentally it failed because -- as irrational as it may seem to us -- the people of Vietnam did not favor it, seeing us as outsiders and imperialists, the French likes of which they had just expelled in earlier conflicts...and for whatever reasons...their Communist oppressors looked more appealing to them...
Certainly a foolish choice, I and most freedom-loving people would agree, I think...
But a choice for them to make, fundamentally, regardless...
And had Iraqis made a similar choice -- and it appears that some of them would have and would still today -- then this would have been a war very similar to Vietnam...
But it's not...largely because Iraqis are leading the effort to bring democracy to their country, at this point...as haphazardly as that process is occurring, right now...
But I do appreciate at least one American politician having enough courage to admit that the original decision to go to war was not as thought out as it should have been...
None of America's politicians are the brightest bulbs in the box...
Folks like Joe Nye and David Gergen and Paul Peterson and Catherine Minter Hoxby and Benjamin Barber and Robert Kagan and a whole host of America's smartest folks don't go into politics for all kinds of reasons, I imagine...but a pretty important one, in my books, is because the process is so goddamned irrational...the American people, like most citizens of the world, want the world...on demand...at no cost...and they don't want to take any responsibility for it...and they expect all kinds of perfection from people in politics, in the meantime, that just isn't possible, I don't think...
So, until Americans and others learn to engage the process with more decency and genuine responsibility and a constructive outlook and more thoughtfulness...and as and until smarter folks choose to be a part of the insane on-going soap-opera that is American politics...
These are the folks we got...
And it's refreshing to hear/read one them take responsibility for their leadership...rather than passing the blame like a bunch of schoolchildren...
Thank you, John...though if you're going to admit when you're wrong, John...the least you can do is take and give some credit for what's gone right in Iraq...
And here's to a generation of politicians that thinks and admits when they fuck up...and a generation of Americans who contributes to a democratic environment that makes that more possible...
Gotta go:):)...I've got a teaching job to go accept:):):)...
Love,
Ben
