No one seems to be writing opinion pieces quite the way I would, so I decided to do it myself.

The name? Taverns are places where one goes to discuss the interesting events and things in the world, so this is my tavern.

I will offer my views on politics, economics, and whatever else strikes my fancy.
I will occasionally publish the entire article from another journal for purposes of causing discussion.

 

Interview with an Embedded Reporter

Someone finally wrote what I have felt since the beginning of this Iraq mess.

GS: What's struck me is that for a lot of the conservatives who supported this war, validation seems to be in the victory. We prosecute it successfully, we win, and the fact that we win validates us being there in the first place. That makes no rational sense at all. The purpose of our entrance was not to defeat another army but to accomplish a lot of more difficult tasks, none of which have been accomplished, save getting rid of some of the Ba'ath party of Saddam Hussein.

Still, I think what I thought before. I never thought the U.S. was going to lose the military conflict, but I thought that we were getting ourselves into a situation we would find incredibly difficult to resolve. I think few people are accepting the reservations on what American military power can accomplish in terms of the construction of a democratic society. There are great limits on the types of systems we can impose on other people.

This is from Mother Jones, an interview with Gareth Schweitzer by Michelle Chihara. There are also some interesting details on Schweitzer's view of what he embedding process did to reporting, but nothing that I found especially surprising.

Our use of military power has had rather unsurprising results. The really interesting part is what happens now and going forward. That's "interesting" as in the old Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times."
posted by Richard at 11:12 AM