not knowing which expert is correct is indicative of the problem

Via Andrew, Andrew Exum complains that Glenn Greenwald cherry picks which experts on the ground to listen to about the conditions in Afghanistan. Fair enough. But this is actually an argument against foreign occupation by democratic countries. As I have argued for some time, it is impossible for the members of a democratic polity to have even a rudimentary understanding of the realities on the ground in foreign countries. Exum is correct to say that we can’t know which experts to trust– which means that, perhaps, we shouldn’t put ourselves in this position in the first place. It asks too much of democracy to include the reality of foreign politics and foreign problem within the responsibility of a culturally, geographically and politically separate people.