Worldview Item of the Day
I made the mistake of reading Col (USA, Ret.) David Hunt’s latest opinion piece on Fox News. While I appreciate that Col Hunt is an experienced and decorated military officer, I resent his shallow approach to the fact that 4,000 U.S. Military personnel have died in Iraq since 19 March 2003.
In fact, I resent the opinions of Col Hunt and many, many people like him who choose to distill the conflict in Iraq down to convenient individual points that also conveniently ignore the very broad and very complex depth of points that the conflict in Iraq represents. This is not to say that such people do not have a right to their opinions, rather it is to say that their opinions are shallow, inaccurate, and ignore many, many facts that contradict their opinions.
What causes me to resent Col Hunt’s opinion even more is that he should know better. He, as with many military officers that have decided that bobbling their heads against the war is good business, should know better than most exactly why we are in Iraq and exactly why we had to and have to see Iraq through to its completion. Col Hunt, in my view, knows what he is saying is not true and says it because people read.
He does make some good points at the end of his diatribe about mistakes and the uselessness of the sacrifices that have been made over the past five years, but those points are tarnished beyond use by his shallow rhetoric.
On A Host of Contributing Factors, I have been asked repeatedly by fellow writers on that blog who disagree with my positions why I do not spend more time trying to articulate positions everyone can agree with instead of defending positions they cannot. In a way, that point is well made and one I would like to share with Col Hunt if he would listen.
Frankly, Col Hunt, war is hell. Mistakes have been made. People have died, and such deaths are always a tragedy. Such deaths also do not invalidate the mission we have undertaken in Iraq. Such deaths do not mean we should quit. Col Hunt, you are right that the effort in Iraq should have always included more than the Department of Defense, but what has been done has been done. Instead of bitching about the past, write about the future. Help Americans see what needs to happen so that Iraq can be finished instead of trying to convince them of what went wrong. You know that is the right way, and you know better than taking the approach you do.
And I will take my own advice too. I will be part of the effort to explain to Americans what we need to be doing right now. I know better, and I will do something about it, Col Hunt. Will you?
Matthew Janson wrote,
Lets hope he reads this
He needs too!
Link | April 4th, 2008 at 941
David wrote,
A slight correction is in order. Dennis claims that “On A Host of Contributing Factors, I have been asked repeatedly by fellow writers on that blog who disagree with my positions why I do not spend more time trying to articulate positions everyone can agree with instead of defending positions they cannot.”
This is untrue. He has been asked repeatedly to stop defending the administration’s attempts to justify illegal actions and put forth an agenda for correcting flaws in our intelligence strategy he has claimed make warrantless surveillance a necessary evil.
While it is quite possible that we are more likely to agree with his proposals, it is wrong to imply that we seek only to hear ideas we agree with and seek to quell ideas to which we do not agree. Our requests are motivated by a desire to see Dennis use his considerable talents to propose positive actions than to defend ethically unsound actions taken by our government. Defense of these actions diminishes Dennis and our nation’s principles.
Link | April 4th, 2008 at 2100
dlhitzeman wrote,
A very semantical and one-sided attempt to cast my statements and my views as everything but what I intend them to be.
I support warrantless wiretapping because I believe it is the best method we have available. I do not conclude such methods are illegal or unethical in the way that has been suggested.
The only diminishment that I have suffered is in some people’s opinion of my view. This diminishment is neither emperical nor universal, in spite of the attempt to cast it as such.
The point being that, just because someone has come to a certain conclusion does not make their conclusion absolute. David, just because you think I am wrong does not make your view right, thereby casting your charactarization of my statement into doubt.
Link | April 4th, 2008 at 2154
David wrote,
Dennis, my response needed to be semantical because you derived the wrong meaning from our words on AHOCF, or at the very least you implied the wrong meaning. Either way, I tried to clarify for you and your audience here what we were actually trying to get you to do.
As for your stance on the issue, I did not intend to mischaracterize your own view of the subject, but rather presented our characterization of it by way of explaining what we were attempting to do. It would not make sense to get you to do that if we thought what you were saying was on the mark.
In short, there was no attempt on my part to cast your statements in any light, only to clarify the intent of certain writers at AHOCF.
Link | April 7th, 2008 at 1056
Scott wrote,
David’s right to a point… this post does shade your description of what’s been going on over at Contributing Factors. You have woefully mischaracterized the entirety of the ongoing discussions. I am disappointed to see that.
Wasn’t it you that asked us to start working toward finding common ground rather than dwelling on our differences, Denny?
http://thecontributingfactor.blogspot.com/2008/03/politics-of-everythi ng-but-point.html
Link | April 8th, 2008 at 012
Worldview - Blog Archive » Woefully Mischaracterized wrote,
[...] recent commenter on a post here on Worldview claimed that I had “woefully mischaracterized” the ongoing debate [...]
Link | April 8th, 2008 at 1543
col hunt wrote,
[...] is an experienced and decorated military officer, I resent his shallow approach to the fact that 4http://dennis.hitzeman.com/worldview/2008/04/02/the-opinions-of-colon els-and-otherwise/Training day at the Depot Savannah Morning News PARRIS ISLAND - Terri Collins was poring over [...]
Link | April 24th, 2008 at 425