Perusing my blogroll, I found this post at BraveNewFilms which has an analogy representing what America has done. This post was in response to a video they showed where Bill O’Lielly and Rep. Jan Schakowsky were debating arguing whether or not the surge was working. It is not perfect, but pretty good…
It’s an amazing feat of selective amnesia to claim the surge escalation is working simply because violence in Iraq is down while ignoring the fact that the drop in violence is not clearly because of the surge (as opposed to ethnic cleansing or fighters laying low) and has not lead to the surge escalation’s primary objective, which is creating space for Sunni and Shia politicians to forget their centuries of conflict, create a fair and representative government, provide services and security, get the electricity, gas, and sanitation working, etc. etc. etc. So I came up with an analogy that might help explain it.
Imagine there’s a man, who we’ll call Irak. Irak has a sprained ankle. You claim that Irak’s sprained ankle has given him AIDS, which will lead to you and everyone you know being killed by AIDS. This makes no sense and you know it’s a lie, but you are able to convince your stupider/more trusting friends that this will surely happen so they won’t stop you from doing what you’re about to do.
You break into Irak’s house, trash the place, and attempt to heal Irak’s sprained ankle and alleged AIDS by breaking both his legs. Needless to say, Irak did not have AIDS, and it is revealed that there was never a link between sprained ankles and AIDS.
Now Irak is laying on his floor screaming in pain and writhing in agony with two broken legs and a wrecked house. Whenever you try to move Irak to try to help him, he screams even louder, and the coalition of willing friends who you’d lied into helping you either never showed up or have gone home. Irak’s screams are greatly agitating all of Irak’s neighbors, who never wanted you to go to Irak’s house in the first place.
So you come up with a plan to deal with this horrible situation you’ve created — you believe that if you give Irak enough of a painkiller called Serge, he’ll be able to get himself to Reconciliation Hospital to fix his broken legs. How will Irak get to the hospital if both his legs are broken? You don’t know, but you think giving him lots of Serge is the answer.
Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay for the Serge yourself, and Serge is very expensive. You don’t have much money and you were hoping to use what little you had to help your ailing parents, pay for healthcare and college tuition for your kids, donate to worthy causes, and secure your retirement, but you know you’re responsible for breaking Irak’s legs, and you’re also afraid that Irak’s family and neighbors will kill your whole family if you leave Irak, though you have no proof this would ever happen, and you’ve caused such a mess that everyone, including Irak, would prefer you leave anyway.
So you empty your bank account to buy Serge for Irak, though you can only afford a small amount of it. But Serge accomplishes its goal of deadening a significant amount of Irak’s pain, evidenced by the fact that Irak’s bloodcurdling screams have now diminished to a somewhat tolerable moan. That is, tolerable for you — Irak’s screams and moans, along with your presence, are still greatly upsetting his neighbors and everyone else who knows what you’re doing.
But you’ve succeeded in temporarily reducing Irak’s pain, so you tell Irak that he should seize this opportunity and rush immediately to Reconciliation Hospital. But there are a few major problems with this plan that you should have thought of before you bought all that Serge.
The first is that the Serge, while reducing Irak’s pain, has not fixed his two broken legs or his trashed house. Irak can’t drive with two broken legs or walk to the bus stop. You are unwilling to pay extra for a cab or to make expensive modifications to his car so he can drive it without using his legs, and you don’t want to drive him yourself. Irak could drag himself to the hospital, but this could take a very long time — he would run out of Serge before he got there, and there’s no guarantee that Irak would ever get there even if he had an endless supply of Serge.
Another problem is that Irak hates hospitals. His grandfather was murdered at a hospital, and Irak and his family have had a vendetta against the entire medical profession ever since. Until those who killed Irak’s grandfather are brought to justice, Irak will not set foot in a hospital.
And there are two more big problems. You don’t know where Reconciliation Hospital is — or if it exists at all. You just sort of hoped it existed and that Irak knew how to get there, not appreciating the fact that Irak wouldn’t want to go there even if it existed and he knew where it was. The other problem is that Irak now hates your guts for breaking his legs and trashing his house.
So Irak has thankfully and temporarily reduced his screaming because of all the Serge you gave him, but he is still lying on his floor with two broken legs and a trashed house. You’re starting to run out of Serge, and you don’t have the money to buy more. When you run out of Serge, Irak will start screaming again, making it impossible to get him to Reconciliation Hospital, which Irak would refuse to go to if it existed at all. And Irak’s neighbors will get even angrier.
Was your plan to cure Irak of AIDS, fix Irak’s sprained ankle, and fix Irak’s broken legs successful?
Any questions?
