[Industrialblog,
May 2, 2006]
Defense of the war
The Western Seminarian is a new blog run by a friend of mine. Today he has a nice, linked-filled essay defending the war.
One thing I've noted: The Left, for the most part, doesn't consider us in a war. I've had this discussion with many people online and offline. In general, the Right sees this as the beginning stages of a world war. The Left sees us as crazy and says this isn't a war.
I would say this isn't a war — yet. I would've thought that 9-11 would've been enough to trigger a national sense of purpose in taking out a series of nations that support terrorism, a World War II-sized effort. It wasn't, and the moment was squandered. Bush is largely at fault, but not entirely. His leadership was poor. His "go shopping" line about what Americans should do in the wake of the terrorist attacks, his declaration of an open-ended war on an abstraction, appearance of cozying up to the Saudi royal family all were disheartening, and his shortcuts in Afghanistan (Tora Bora, for example) cost us momentum and allowed our natural internal divisions to flare up and fester. Perhaps no leader could've prevented that; it's easy to second guess; and the Left certainly holds its share of the blame for failing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt, being as obstructionist as possible, and not allowing him to work his plan the best he could.
People will go along with some infringement of civil liberties, and even put up with some excesses — if there's a limit. But we have to know what the victory conditions will look like and thus when things will return to normal. Instead, Bush declared the war open-ended, saying it will last generations, like the Cold War. Realistically, we could've raised an army of a couple of million men and pounded every terrorist-sponsoring nation between Tripoli to Kabul to dust. In about three years. Instead, we're playing pattycake, as American Digest puts it.
Meanwhile, the left continues to hurt the War effort, almost guaranteeing things will get far worse, not better. (Our enemies are counting on the Left -- their entire strategy is based on strenghtening the anti-war movement, just as General Giap's was in Vietnam. Why the Left can't figure this out, I don't know.) And if things get really out of hand, that is, if Bush doesn't succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan and we get hit again, we could see the violent breaks between Right and Left you see in Latin American countries.
In every age, I think, and to every generation comes a challenge, or perhaps an opportunity to fight the dark, the evil that overtakes us. What is a continual su[r]prise, is that so many who live in the west who benefit from it[]s many freedoms and cultural advantages go over to the 'dark side' and fight against the West, undermine its efforts, ultimately seeking to destroy it, although they certainly don't necessarily see their actions in this way.
The ongoing discovery of traitors in the CIA is a case in point. (Yes, I said traitors, yes, I know the punishment for treason.) Here individual after individual is turning up who is willing to undermine the country, its military, and its efforts, in p[u]rsuit of political ideals that are ultimately destructive to the country, and in what ends up being support of terrorists and dictators. But our media and the left have trouble calling someone a 'Traitor' even when they directly spill top secret information during time of war.
One thing I've noted: The Left, for the most part, doesn't consider us in a war. I've had this discussion with many people online and offline. In general, the Right sees this as the beginning stages of a world war. The Left sees us as crazy and says this isn't a war.
I would say this isn't a war — yet. I would've thought that 9-11 would've been enough to trigger a national sense of purpose in taking out a series of nations that support terrorism, a World War II-sized effort. It wasn't, and the moment was squandered. Bush is largely at fault, but not entirely. His leadership was poor. His "go shopping" line about what Americans should do in the wake of the terrorist attacks, his declaration of an open-ended war on an abstraction, appearance of cozying up to the Saudi royal family all were disheartening, and his shortcuts in Afghanistan (Tora Bora, for example) cost us momentum and allowed our natural internal divisions to flare up and fester. Perhaps no leader could've prevented that; it's easy to second guess; and the Left certainly holds its share of the blame for failing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt, being as obstructionist as possible, and not allowing him to work his plan the best he could.
People will go along with some infringement of civil liberties, and even put up with some excesses — if there's a limit. But we have to know what the victory conditions will look like and thus when things will return to normal. Instead, Bush declared the war open-ended, saying it will last generations, like the Cold War. Realistically, we could've raised an army of a couple of million men and pounded every terrorist-sponsoring nation between Tripoli to Kabul to dust. In about three years. Instead, we're playing pattycake, as American Digest puts it.
Meanwhile, the left continues to hurt the War effort, almost guaranteeing things will get far worse, not better. (Our enemies are counting on the Left -- their entire strategy is based on strenghtening the anti-war movement, just as General Giap's was in Vietnam. Why the Left can't figure this out, I don't know.) And if things get really out of hand, that is, if Bush doesn't succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan and we get hit again, we could see the violent breaks between Right and Left you see in Latin American countries.
On the plus side, only the Right is armed.
I wonder what leftists think will happen to the rest of the world if a nuclear bomb ever goes off in an American city.
First - sweeping statements like "the Left is against the war" are so broad as to be meaningless. Your argument would be much more relevant if you cited specific articles or individuals you were responding to. Generalities make for great stump speeches and sermons. Not so much for convincing logical arguments.
I might as well say "All of those on the Right are for lynching and the subjugation of African-Americans". Now - while it is true that all KKK members who vote invariably vote Republican - it doesn't mean that you all share that point of view.
Bush had complete national support after 911.
He has squandered this by
a) choosing not to pursue bin Landen
b) engaging in the campaign in Iraq that is (at best) tangential to 911.
c) not properly planning for the occupation of Iraq - discarding the 10 years of strategizing/simulations/planning that had gone into that very scenario (this is the stated opinion of the head of Central Command at the time that invasion planning began, the head of Joint Chiefs at that time, and Colin Powell)
Much of the backlash you're seeing now was
a) avoidable
b) in direct response to the poor leadership displayed in Iraq.
c) not coming soley from the Left (neither is all of the Left ready to cut-and-run - but thats a different argument). Its very easy to overlook the Conservatives, Republicans and military commanders who are speaking out against Bush and his war leadership. Pinning it all on the left - is simply and plainly inaccurate.
He had unprecedented levels of public support after 9/11 and through the Afghanistan campaign.
He lost that by choosing not to pursue bin Laden (even up to the point of denying that he'd vowed to bring him to justice during the last election - it takes balls to lie like that when CNN has you on tape.) and through poor leadership in Iraq - as pull as a marked inability to rally his own party.
I must've missed the pro-war left. Except for Christopher Hitchens, who?
The Left started its opposition well before the war, almost immediately post-9/11. Afghanistan was declared a quagmire in its first week. And the Left has been relentlessly obstructionist and second-guessing ever since. Did you catch the part where Bin Laden mentions "My Pet Goat." He's picking up Michael Moore's talking points. That's giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Thus, traitorous.
The right disagrees with Bush sometimes. But there's a difference between loyal disagreement and calling Bush Chimpy McHitler. The internal divisions are not on the right--that's a debate. The divisions are the anti-war left and the cultural institutions they control and the rest of us. I think it's fair to say the anti-war Left may just cost us this war. If that happens, they should be held accountable. Not like Vietnam.
And I'm pretty sure American troops are pursuing Bin Laden ... where did you get that Bush wasn't? Bush said the War on Terror is more than Bin Laden. That's about priorities. But I'm not sure what you're referring to.
TWS:
The Left's relationship to the Right is like Howard Stern to the FCC. Just gotta have it or he's not a victim.
But I'm not sure at all this backlash was avoidable. The NY Times and ANSWER and all the Baby Boomer-Lefties were going to be against any action, or declare it futile. I was in a press room in Atlanta on 9-11 and 9-12. I heard journalists call Congress, "jingoistic" and Nazis merely for singing God Bless America on the Capitol steps. Other journalists declared there was nothing to be done ... anything we tried to do was doomed to fail. And there were a few European journalists who were amused by the whole thing.
Dude, let's be realistic here. The Left, in this case, includes the 2004 presidential candidate, a wide swath of hollywood liberals including Michael Moore whose propaganda movie got great reviews from many democrats in congress, Howard Dean, the chairman (or some other president-like equivalent) of the DNC, etc. Heck in 2004 the only guy who wasn't rampantly opposed to the war in Iraq were Liberman. Well, Ok, maybe I'm a little over-hasty in mentioning Kerry. He was for the war some weeks.
As Lileks put it, during the invasion of Iraq Fox News were the only people who could report something good happening to the US without sounding like they had a pound of wet sand in their underwear.
The KKK is a fringe group of no significance any more besides serving as a good example of bad people. The anti-war left is incredibly prominent and is constantly pulling democratic politicians into all sort of anti-war quasi-stances. Democratic politicians have floated bills to pull the troups out NOW. "Support Our Troops, Bring Them Home NOW" yellow ribbons and other bumper stickers were very popular. You'll have trouble pointing to a popular leftish blog that was honestly in favor of the war.
I mean, hell, did you miss all of those anti-war demonstrations? The No Blood For Oil posters? All of the posters saying that Bush is so right wing he's indistinguishable from the leader of Germany's National Socialist party circa 1935? Did you not notice the immense coverage that this got?
And as for "Bush Had Complete National Support" after 9/11. Yes, in the sense that all of America would have been willing to send a Get Well Soon card. In the completely vapid sense that so many people "support" causes nowadays, sure. But this purely polite sense of the word "support" is meaningless. Support that consists entirely of the emotion to say, "I support you" and goes no farther accomplishes nothing, and squandering that causes no damage.
Besides, supporting a person means supporting them in anything that they do. That didn't happen at all, and shouldn't for a president. Supporting someone for a cause means being willing to back them in that cause, come good times and bad. That didn't exist at all. All of that support was just vague generalized sympathy. There was no complete support of the country for any plan, any action, or even any direction. Maybe, I guess, there instantly appeared complete support for building a monument.
The world flooded good intentions and nice feelings to our door after 9/11. Those feelings and intentions might have been worth more than a warm bucket of spit — some of them may have sent flowers — but emotions are only worth something if they produce action. Are you really trying to claim that there was any useful action that the world was couched and waiting to do immediately after 9/11? I mean, any real action. Not "get Bin Laden", but "invade afghanistan and level every building if necessary to get Bin Laden, then level the mountains and Pakistan and beyond if we need to". You know, action that stands some chance of being effective. Effective in the real, messy, unpredictable world, I mean.