Posted by
The Proud Liberal on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 1:49:23 PM
This is actually a companion piece to my blog on atheism. As I was musing on my morning walk I was observing the dogs and their humans and delighting in the enthusiasm of the dogs, their absolute joy at seeing and moving and sniffing, especially sniffing, poking their noses into the grasses, just having a wonderful time.
It occurred to me, however, that none of the dogs had actually asked to be a dog and to have all that innate joy of their senses. It just comes with the territory of being a dog.
It wasn't long till I was musing that their humans didn't ask to be human either, didn't ask to be born with the characteristics that all humans possess. Whatever we are it just comes with the territory. We didn't make the world we live in. Most of what happens in totally beyond our control. We don't make the situations in which we find outselves.
Which led me to Petraeus and the portent of the Moveon ad. It's clear that Petraeus didn't make the war in Iraq. He didn't make the surge. He didn't make the context of the surge, i.e., the Iraqi people and history. He was given the surge and told to make it work. He set about to make it work. The metrics he uses come from the task he was given. Given the task he was given he didn't have any choice in the metrics he would use. He didn't have any choice in what the metrics were to be used to measure, i.e., he was to measure progress, success or failure in certain terms. Petraeus had almost no choice in what he was to report on. That is what the MoveOn ad said.
Like the joyful dogs I saw this morning, Petraeus didn't choose to be who he is and what he is doing.