At any time we perceive only a tiny portion of our environment, and trick ourselves into thinking that the way we choose to name things is the true way, the best way. To doubt our functioning schemas too often would be to cripple ourselves: we trust our in the fragile worlds we delimit in order to function.
We talk about the size of the federal deficit, the cost of a cruise missle, or the population of England for a reason: these sets of data have a real impact in our world. To focus on the number of sleeping cats in Pennsylvania isn't particularly helpful.
Sometimes we have to step back, though...
Our words are grounded in the practical world in which we live. We consider some things, instead of other things, because the situations we negotiate every day stipulate certain sets of facts that we know match up with what we are facing. After putting on my socks, I think of my shoes, because I have somewhere to walk, and I like my shoes.
Our country faces situations in a similar manner, using all of its assets, wisely or foolishly, to deal with situations as they arise.
Our country is failing in Iraq, and with that failure comes the fracturing of all of those practical circumstances that make our government's decisions there coherent. When we think about what can be done, we think about our governments. We regret the stupidity, avarice, and blind hubris that lied us into involvement without consideration of consequence, and rightly so. We talk about what our government can do: pull out now, escalate, plan a phased withdrawal...
I'd like to ask if these are our only options; our only sort of options. If the shortcomings of structures of power in our government have gotten us into our present situation in Iraq, we should do more than just hope that those powers will be able to get us out without inciting the horrific.
Don't get me wrong... I'm glad that the democrats won, and we're all going to be better off for it. Limiting our thoughts, however, to the realm of our government may be looking past other things that we can do.
That's why I'd like you all to brainstorm with me. I've always believed that at any time there are an infinite number of possibilities immediately available to all of us at any time, and some of them are probably better than what we're doing now. Some of them are probably amazing. Miraculous even.
After reading RenaRF's excellent diary about her Iraqi friend, and thinking about the impending chaos in Iraq, the impending chaos that is waiting to take over after the current chaos, I started to think about what we could be doing.
Obviously, a president with foresight and a plan would have helped. Beyond regret and criticism, though, I'd like to have a discussion about what we're capable of. We're mostly a bunch of English speakers in front of computers, sure. We feel powerless. This is all quite naive, too. Sure.
But. Isn't this a conversation we should be having? What other options do we have, as individuals, and as a country? Shouldn't we at least try imagining what else we can do?
The war has cost 350 billion so far, and there are 26 million Iraqis. That means we've spent over $13,000 dollars per iraqi.
Holy shit. (excuse me.) *$13,000 per iraqi*.
Bush is looking for something like $100 billion more for the war this year. That's another $4,000 per Iraqi.
Dropping money out of planes wouldn't help. What else could we be doing, though?
A nation of such wealth and innovation and technology such as ours should be capable of finding other ways of dealing with collapsing states and impending civil wars than groups of Americans in trucks and planes with guns trying to change the way people act in an unfamiliar country. It isn't working. The current national discussion is silly and political in the worst way. Why aren't we analyzing the way that we go about influencing international events, analyzing the way that we can change neighborhoods?
Maybe it is silly to ask this, but are we missing something? Do we have other options? Is it really just "stay" or "go", with both options meaning terror?
After thinking about this for a while, I couldn't leave the question unasked. Please, take a second, and think about what you know, and about how nations are changed, and share your thoughts.