Dodge City
Reader comment on item: Iraq: "Could a New Strongman Help?"

Submitted by Joe (United States), Nov 16, 2006 at 14:44

Iraq reminds me of American westerns: Scared town folk look to strong sheriff to restore order only to find they must kill him because he's gone too far. They find a proxy to do the dirty work, usually a moral man with a criminal past...It's a struggle between the rule of law and the practicalites involved in enforcing the rule of law on groups that don't abide within the law of the larger group.

The trouble today is the sheriff is afraid of the newspaper which is always printing alarmist stories of the sheriff's own outlaw behavior on the slimist of evidence and in fact mostly gened up charges. The townies become more afraid of the sheriff before he can take on the outlaws. They grow because their strategy is profitable and the sheriff takes on the blame. He cant stop them. But he doesn't have the power and sanctions he needs from the townie to get the job done. And so you have a disfunctional society. The lawful group's opinion makers are mostly at fault. They don't see thier part. They aren't responsible.

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