{"id":513,"date":"2007-01-18T07:22:49","date_gmt":"2007-01-18T13:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=513"},"modified":"2022-01-02T07:38:46","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T12:38:46","slug":"im-glad-im-just-an-optometrist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=513","title":{"rendered":"I’m Glad I’m Just An Optometrist"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t recall having written much, if anything, in this blog about Iraq. I tend to keep my peace on things about which I know little. But against my better judgment, I hereby break my silence.<\/p>\n

These days it’s hard to find many insightful pieces about Iraq that aren’t leaden down with emotionalism and bile. However, I ran across one written by James Wiser<\/a>, a librarian at Pepperdine University with whom I’ve recently had a playful verbal joust regarding Alabama’s hiring of Nick Saban.<\/p>\n

On the heels of that comes a very scholarly and even-handed piece on Iraq and just-war doctrine<\/a> written by former Navy officer Chris Dowd which appeared recently in Commonweal<\/em><\/a>. Since I’m neither of the non-violence come-what-may stripe nor a pre-Constantinian romanticist, Dowd’s bona fides as a Christian, reluctant warrior and believer in just-war doctrine grabbed my attention.<\/p>\n

Basically, he makes a compelling case that when it comes to the tenets of classical just-war theory<\/a>, the Iraq invasion fails on nearly every count. I highly recommend printing out the article and taking time to digest it in full, but here’s a money quote that really hit home with me:<\/p>\n

\n

Writing this essay has been a difficult task. I supported Bush in the 2000 election. In the days after 9\/11, I fully supported our military action in Afghanistan, and still do. Moreover, I was inclined to believe the Bush administration\u2019s assertions about Iraq in 2002 and early 2003 and to trust its case for war. Though I never thought the criterion of last resort was met, Colin Powell\u2019s appearance before the UN on February 5, 2003, did much to convince me that the time had come for military action. I believed there must be intelligence, too secret to share with the world, that justified it. I trusted that the administration was making morally responsible decisions, even as I wept over what would ensue when the bombs began to fall.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dowd’s thinking during that period of late 2002 and early 2003 eerily reflects my own during that same time. I felt that our actions in Afghanistan were clearly justified under just-war doctrine, but I had serious misgivings regarding the plans to invade Iraq. Still, I wanted to give the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt, figuring that they had access to information that they couldn’t fully share.<\/p>\n

It would appear to me that my trust was misplaced. Still, like James, I recognize there are no easy answers to this quagmire–neither 20,000 more troops nor complete and immediate withdrawal would seem appropriate solutions to the problem at this point. When it comes to Iraq, there never were, presently aren’t, and never will be any easy and tidy answers.<\/p>\n

James put it this way: “I still have no idea what I’d do. I’m glad I’m a librarian.”<\/p>\n

I hear you, Malibu Librarian. I’m glad I’m just an optometrist.\n<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t recall having written much, if anything, in this blog about Iraq. I tend to keep my peace on things about which I know little. But against my better judgment, I hereby break my silence.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,31,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-military","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9812,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions\/9812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}