Our man, Len, has, as usual, some sensible advice about trust.

……………………………………….No Reason to Base Trust on Ignorance

Speaking about President Bush in the Asheville Citizen-Times (Jan 28), syndicated columnist Chuck Raasch claims that we can’t “honestly judge the consequences of what might come to Iraq if we don’t know what he knows.” That makes it sound as if Mr. Bush is a seer who actually has a well researched policy. But this notion has been disproved over and over again for the past three years. Surely, one doesn’t have to recite all the “light at the end of the tunnel” speeches he and Mr. Cheney have made since then, only to have more death and destruction follow?
I believe we can make a reasonable estimate of what will happen if we follow the president’s latest tactic: more of the same. The members of the Iraq Study Plan group, headed by Baker and Hamilton, know more than Bush knows, and yet he rejected their advice. I also think we can make a reasonable guess about the consequences of withdrawing our troops: things will get better. What’s my evidence for this? The great majority of Iraqis believe that the presence of our troops is a catalyst for violence. They ought to know. They’re living there.
Here is something everyone can be reasonably sure of by now. President Bush invaded Iraq for the purpose of regime change; and he wanted regime change because he wanted control of Iraq’s strategic resources: oil, water, and farmland. He also wanted permanent military bases there to protect these resources and to bring stability to the Middle East. He thought that a compliant Iraqi government would get him all of this, but things didn’t go as planned. What he should have known is that an occupier cannot easily impose a government unless the people cooperate.
There have been many bad arguments advanced for keeping our troops in Iraq. Raasch’s seems to say there will be some sort of disaster following our departure—something only the president knows about. This is called argumentum ad ignorantium: i.e, since we’re ignorant of what might ensue, and ignorant of what the president knows, there’s some reason to trust him. There is no reason to base trust on ignorance. That’s something we all should know.