Context! Context! Context!

Everyone is familiar with the real estate maxim, "Location! Location! Location!" Well, location is important in more than real estate. I have in mind the context (which is a location of sorts) in which things take place. Context gives perspective, assigns importance, and provides the means for evaluation. A simple example should show this. Imagine a groundout to first with two out in the bottom of the ninth inning. What a stinker! Now, imagine the same groundout in the same inning, but with a runner on second base and no outs. Now we're talking! What a difference! Or what if your quarterback took the snap and knelt down three straight plays? In the first quarter you'd be ready to fire people! But if he did that running out the clock in the fourth quarter you'd be elated!

I have in mind not baseball or football, but the question of what to do in Iraq. Conventional wisdom believes that the President wants to enact "The Surge," a ramping up of troop levels to more effectively quash the current terrorist violence and to more rapidly accomplish the vitally important task of readying more of the Iraqi army. The opposing argument seems to be, "Get out of Dodge!" (as Tanya Roberts would say).

I don't pretend to know the best course of action. I just want Iraq and as many other countries as possible to be places that are inhospitable to Muslim radicals. The thing that we in the West fail to realize is that YOU CAN "LEAVE THEM ALONE," BUT THEY ARE NOT GOING TO GO AWAY! These folks have a looooooong view of things. Our leaders (and we) are stuck in these ridiculous two and four year election cycles! What a joke. Our enemeies (and that is exactly who they are) have a DECADES and CENTURIES view of this war. They know that it is as simple as demographics--the Western population is shrinking, and the Muslim population is exploding. They also know that one of these days they will have their hands on some sort of nukes. These things currently seem unavoidable, and the terrorists know all they have to do is outlast fools who worry only about the next election and the idiots that vote for them. Looking around I would say outlasting us is a rather simple thing to do.

Argue as you like for what to do about Iraq, but please give it some context! What is in the short run "best for our troops" may in fact be very much worse for them, and all of us, in the long run. I hate to imagine the context of these arguments in 50 years if we fail to put them in the proper context now.