It’s only been a week since our troops entered Baghdad and five days ago we were starting to hear people complaining about lawlessness and looting and how our vaunted war plan didn’t include a contigency to “win the peace” and deal with this situation and, oh, how awful. It’s been a week, people. Our troops are fighting for their lives against Fedayeen and foreign irregulars. Yes, they’re starting to bring order to the cities and re-establish civil order, but give them some time. Don’t they ever learn?
We’ve become a sitcom nation. If it doesn’t happen in a half-hour we get antsy and start to worry. In a way, the fact that the war reached its climactic point so quickly since so many in the Pentagon said it might take months. People are becoming accustomed to quick and easy wars (as if any war were easy). Vietnam went on for 10 years and was called a quagmire. Now if a war goes on for six months it will be a disaster.
But back to my original point: Just all the doomsayers were given their comeuppance when their moanings of disaster in the second week of the war were proven for naught, so too will their semi-triumphant finger-pointing now be shown to be premature and just plain wrong. In a week, civil disorder in the major cities will be old news.
