perfidy

Why else are we doing what we do here? 

A Canadian commentator, David Warren, makes a valid point here. Especially this:

It is the American way to stress optimism, and to be extremely empirical. They learn by doing, and did not have much experience governing demolished Arab countries. They make ghastly mistakes, and as often as not, turn around and fix them. They have, if I may make one of those generalizations about national character that aren't all the rage, a national disinclination to panic. The media are delegated to do the panicking on their behalf, the American people are fairly hard to scare.

While carping about mistakes is valuable, in that it calls attention to them; the real important thing is that they get fixed. We are making the attempt to fix things, and the constant whining of "blood for oil" and other canards is truly off base. If you judge a nation by its enemies, we are doing pretty well.