Things Change

WHENEVER I TALK to people who are against the war in Iraq, they justify their position with statements indicating that the U.S. government cannot be trusted. They say things like, "the U.S. sets up puppet regimes around the world and the U.S. government only looks out for U.S. interests."

In other words, what I hear is a bias against the U.S. government based on the past actions of a previous administration. This is prejudice. The fact that opinions in the U.S. population seem so polarized (and unnecessarily so) seems to parallel very closely something I read in a book called Life among the Apaches, which is essentially the diary of a Cavalry commander on the frontier of the "wild west" in the 1800's.

The leaders of the Cavalry met several times with the chiefs of the Apaches. The Cavalry was there to make sure the Apaches didn't kill settlers who were passing through Apache territory. The leaders established friendly relations. The chiefs recognized the Cavalry was powerful and accepted that the world was changing, and they were willing to cooperate.

But then three young Apache warriors who didn't like the arrangement ambushed and killed a couple of American soldiers. They were acting independently, with no authorization from their leaders. Apache culture was not authoritarian. Each person was free to do as he wished.

What the Cavalry saw was a deliberate attack on their forces by "Apaches." So they retaliated: They attacked the Apache camp (rather than the three specific Apaches who killed the soldiers). Many Apaches were killed, most of whom had nothing to do with the attack on the Calvary.

Of course, most of the Apache warriors were enraged at this unprovoked attack on their people by the "white man," so they retaliated by attacking white settlers (rather than the military men who attacked them).

What was the mistake here? Each side is making the same mistake: Assuming that each individual of a group is representing the intentions of the whole group.

And that's what I hear from anti-war people. What I see is a very honorable action: Removing a brutal dictator and helping a new country create a free and democratic government. The U.S. is one of the few powers on the planet right now that could accomplish this. It is like an expert in Karate seeing a bully terrorizing little kids and coming over and stopping the bully. It is the right thing to do.

If the Karate expert then enslaves the kids, that would be wrong, but the U.S. clearly and demonstrably has no intention of doing so. The U.S. will free them, help them set up their own government, and go home.

This is an amazing, wonderful, thing. The U.S. should have done it when Pol Pot came to power in Cambodia. Maybe the U.S. administration of that time had very good reasons for not doing it (like trying to avoid a war with China), but I don't think anyone could argue that watching such horrible historical events take place and not intervening when you have the power to stop it is (or ever was) the right thing to do.

The U.S. probably should have done it with Stalin too. But that's all water under the bridge. It was a different time with different people and different circumstances.

Now we are seeing something new. People change. Governments change. They form new policies. They learn from the past. I don't think we can judge what the U.S. government is doing now by what they did in the war of 1812 or the Vietnam war. That's a very similar cognitive mistake to the Calvary attacking the Apache village. They didn't do it.

Ironically, one of the criticisms liberals hurl against the U.S. government is: The government is hypocritical. That is, the government says the U.S. wants to promote democracies, but then it supports cruel dictatorships (providing weapons to Saddam during the war against Iran, for example).

And yet here is an administration that is finally changing the long-standing "containment" policy. The Bush administration went after two very undemocratic countries, and toppled the regimes in power. And then stayed to help those countries put a free government in place.

And yet, because of a prejudice against U.S. politicians, many people are not seeing the difference between this administration and previous administrations, even refusing to see the difference, and seeing everything wrong with what they're doing and deliberately overlooking the most glaring thing: This is a good and right thing to do.

Read more: The Impression Most of Us Have About Iraq Doesn't Match This Story.