Bradley Gitz teaches history at a small college in Arkansas and writes a column for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He calls himself a libertarian, but he is a rabid hawk. In today's column, “Time for Ruthlessness”, he says what surely many conservatives are thinking, so I thought it was worth bringing it to wider attention:

"The paradox inherent in the American occupation is that we may need to demonstrate some of the brutality characteristic of Saddam Hussein to ultimately make Iraq a different and better kind of place than it was under him.... Saddam ruled Iraq in harsh fashion, but that harshness also served a purpose in terms of maintaining order. America needs to maintain order there, too, and one suspects that tanks will prove more useful in the short term for achieving that crucial objective than simply getting the electricity going or providing job opportunities."

Postscript: Andrew Bacevich says the appropriate comparision for Iraq is not Vietnam but Algeria.

Robert L. Campbell - 4/9/2004

By the way, Tom Teepen is not exactly a Right-wing culture warrior. From 1993 to 2001 a large percentage of his columns were ferocious attacks on adversaries of Bill Clinton.

Keith Halderman - 4/9/2004

If the standard for good is order, then why is the order imposed by us any better than the order imposed by Hussein?

Jonathan Dresner - 4/8/2004

You're both right. My local rag gets syndicated columns from a pretty wide variety of sources, but does a lousy job of sourcing anything except author's name, so I never know.

Sheldon Richman - 4/8/2004

Isn't it Teepen?

Robert L. Campbell - 4/8/2004

Would the first pundit you mentioned be the guy who writes for the Atlanta Constitution?

Jonathan Dresner - 4/8/2004

My newspaper this morning had not one but two op-eds arguing exactly the same thing, by Tom Teppen and William Safire. I think we've figured out the Heritage Foundation's "talking point" for the day.