As good as it gets...How good does it have to be?

On one of my frequent visits to the shrine of all blogs, Instapundit, I was reminded of a puzzle that continues to perplex me. It hit me again on a visit to the Minute Man. This is the key sentence that cought my attention at Instapundit:

I know that some people in the blogosphere think we're not taking a tough enough line in Fallujah, but reports like this suggest that we may just have a better plan.(emphasis mine)

And at Just One Minute, it is this one:

We have questioned the extent to which John Kerry, if elected, will commit political capital to redeem George Bush's mistakes in Iraq. (emphasis mine)

Three questions:

Why do seemingly very intelligent people presume to know more, know better, what to do in Iraq, than the administration team that has at its disposal, full weight of the U.S. Federal government, the virtually unlimited resources of the U.S. Treasury, and the most sophisticated military minds in world history?

Second, What mistakes in particular are we talking about? It sort of reminds me of all those people who made charges of dishonesty on the part of George Bush because his economic projections disagreed with theirs.

Finally, how good does it have to get for a guy to get any credit?

Comments

[sf]

Tom writes, "Why do seemingly very intelligent people presume to know more [about] what [we should] do in Iraq
than the administration team that has at its disposal [the] full weight of the U.S. Federal government, the virtually
unlimited resources of the U.S. Treasury, and the most sophisticated military minds in world history?"

Tom, you win the prize for today's Most Intricate And Overlooked Question.

Suppose you and I are examining the same situation--say, Iraq--but we reach diametrically opposed conclusions on any aspect of the topic. There are at least three possible reasons:

> 1. Your value system is radically different from mine; or
> 2. One of us has access to 'information' (whether factual or not) that the other doesn't have; or
> 3. Even if we share the same values and agree on the same set of inputs, we simply interpret these differently.

If we are earnestly trying to resolve our conflicting conclusions, problems of the second type are the easiest: If we have a calm, rational discussion *and truly want to resolve things*, eventually we'll find the bit of information that explains the variance.

Disagreements stemming from the first reason are typically the most strident, and it's almost impossible to arrive at a successful compromise. If I believe X is a basic human right, and you don't (or vice versa), neither of us is likely to persuade the other. More seriously, if you insist on trying to *force* your worldview on me, I will almost certainly fight--literally.

Unfortunately, in the last decade or so about half of Americans seem to have quietly adopted "rights for me but not for thee." About half would have backed the Dems' call to use American troops and money to restore Aristide to his de facto dictatorship of Haiti, while simultaneously wailing about the evilness of GWB for intervening in affairs in Iraq.

About half seem to favor abolishing private ownership of guns, and private enterprise generally. If you can believe the polls (!), about half believe our nation need not believe in God, nor model our laws on His teachings.

This all seems to be one hellofa problem, and one that's not likely to be eased by *any* good outcome in Ir

[Tom Bowler]

SF, A well reasoned comment you've posted. I'm picking your option 2 as my reason for questioning the folks who are so pessimistic about our chances in Iraq. I think Dubya has a lot better and a lot more information than we have, and for some odd reason I'm willing to have a little more faith in the direction he is leading us. I surprise myself. Blind trust is in my nature.