Just a Thought

Back in 1981 - John Carpenter came out with the movie Escape from New York. The Premise of the movie is that crime had gotten so bad in the United States that in 1997 - New York City is turned into a high security prison.

Crime was seen as epidemic in the US and the premise of the movie was seen as highly believable when the movie was released. Then Ronald Reagan began to change things in this country.

Prior to Escape from New York - there was Death Wish. All through the 70's crime in New York City was seen as a fact of life. Then came Rudy Giuliani.

Now I am not saying that crime has been eradicated in either the US or New York City but I am saying that the reality of today is greatly different than the reality of when those movies were produced. I am also saying that these changes did not happen overnight.

I mention the above because I see parallels between the pessimistic views of those two movies and how many see crime, terrorism and kidnapping in Iraq today. Sure things are bad in pockets of Iraq but pessimism doesn't help. It's easy to be pessimistic.

One year in and things are already 1,000% better in Iraq. I fully expect that another year from now there will more marked improvements. We live in a fast food - instant gratification society. I don't know where the expectation that Iraq would be as settled as Canada after just one year came from but that is somehow the expectation many harbor.

Stay the course. Let the people who have to do the heavy lifting do their jobs.

Just as a reminder. At the beginning of Reagan's term - Escape from New York may have been how people viewed NYC but by the end of his term the accepted reality had turned into Wall Street.