Posted on 05/16/2004 10:34:23 PM PDT by 68skylark
The Democrats are guilty of ideological confusion and the Republicans of disdain for reflection.
Though America has condemned the cruelties of Abu Ghraib, they remain nonetheless a symbol of the inescapable fact that the war has been run incompetently, with an apparently deliberate contempt for history, strategy, and thought, and with too little regard for the American soldier, whose mounting casualties seem to have no effect on the boastfulness of the civilian leadership.
Before the war's inception, and even after September 11, the Bush administration, having promised to correct its predecessor's depredations of the military, failed to do so. The president failed to go to Congress on September 12 to ask for a declaration of war, failed to ask Congress when he did go before it for the tools with which to fight, and has failed consistently to ask the American people for sacrifice. And yet their sons, mainly, are sacrificed in Iraq day by day.
When soldiers are killed because they do not have equipment (in the words of a returning officer, "not enough vehicles, not enough munitions, not enough medical supplies, not enough water"), when reservists are retained for years, and rotations canceled, it is the consequence of a fiscal policy that seems more attuned to the electoral landscape of 2004 than to the national security of the United States. Were the U.S. to devote the same percentage of its GNP to defense as it did during the peacetime years of the last half-century, and the military budget return to this unremarkable level, we would be spending (apart from the purely operational costs of the war) almost twice what we are spending now.
The year-and-a-half delay between action in Afghanistan and Iraq mobilized the Arabs and the international left, weakened the connection with September 11, and prompted allies who would have been with us to fall away. The delay was especially unconscionable because it was due not merely to normal difficulties but to the aforementioned military insufficiencies and to indecision masquerading as circumspection. Once the Army and Marines were rolling, their supply lines were left deliberately unprotected, and are vulnerable to this day. Why? Why do the generals, in patently identifiable top-down-speak, repeatedly state that they need nothing more than the small number of troops (for occupying such a large country) that they are assigned? Why do they and the administration steadfastly hold this line even as one event cascading into another should make them recoil in piggy-eyed wonder at the lameness of their policy?
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
None of me thinks he might be right.
BTTT
I was more than a little surprised at Helprin and this piece. He must have been in some cranky mood when he wrote it. The prose is really not up to his usual level, and the needless sarcasm is particularly irritating. Saying that cops in NYC "live off the land at Dunkin Donuts" is just stupid and sneering.
This same sneering tone pervades the entire piece, and to my mind, calls into question any good points the author may have to make.
This article is nothing more than carping. He's got no read advice to offer, other than to find another wannabe Sadam (quick!) and install him in Iraq, than run like the desert wind back to Saudi Arabia. I, for one, don't think that's a good plan at all.
Yes, we should be taking a harder line in Iraq, and yes, we should be really building up our military, if this is what Helprin is saying I agree. I'm not sure Bush's plan for Iraq will work, but despite everything it is far too soon to call it a failure.
And now I really, really, really want a Dunkin Donuts donut! I must get one this morning, for sure.
He certainly is right about the Dims.
Lazy journalism at its best.
Military tactical convention calls for massing forces. We are diluting forces in Iraq by diverting military force to civilian policing and "nation building". Helprin is not so much saying that "nation building is bad", as he is stating, quite accurately in my military opinion, that nation building is detrimental to winning the war. It dulls the "tip" of our spear. Quite obviously, we do not have the men (and women) under arms to sustain the tempo of operations now ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The "nation building" in Iraq is bleeding us to death, economically, militarily, and in Bush's case, politically. If the USA can better accomplish our mission with expenditures of fewer casualties and less national treasure by removing our troops from the midst of warring factions, and supporting those factions who will support our interests, then we ought to persue that strategy. How 'bout leaving the "nation building" to the Iraqi's, and mass our forces where they can be most effectively employed, be it Saudi Arabian bases, Iraqi bases, or new U.S. bases in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran. I don't care, as long as we win the war, and the body bags no longer carry American or coalition bodies.
On the other hand, the Democrat's partisanship have made it impossible for Bush to persue any other approach. Bush cannot propose a WWII type of war effort, doubling the size of the sitting U.S. Armed forces, ceasing "nation building", or expanding the war to countries who are NOW providing the RPG's, AK's, mortars, and other supplies to the Muslim "insurgents". In my opinion, from the Democrat's perspective, every dead American soldier is worth a half-dozen or so votes for Kerry. The Dem's love dead American military personnel; they always have since I've been..."of age" (1970's).
That's the main area where I differ with Helprin. He's a bit tough on the one guy who took action, i.e. Bush, holding Democrat and Republican "partisanship" to be a equal thing. It's moral relativism. The Democrats have been deceptive, unpatriotic, and even treasonous in their partisanship; the GOP have been at most, cowardly in the face of their enemy, which is as much the Democrats as Al Queda, i.e. both groups have similar goals in common, i.e. tearing down Bush to punish American for pursuing war against the terrorists and their sponsors. Both Kerry Democrats and Al Queda hope that dead American soldiers will eventually result in a change of government in the U.S., and then total capitulation of U.S. forces to the Arab-Muslim nationalists.
SFS
Part of me agrees with you.
Halprin would have better served us, I think, if he had preceded his criticism of the Republicans with his indictment of the left, instead of the other way around. That is because the part of me which agrees with his critique of the administration s conduct of the war also believes that the administration has been constrained by realities shaped in part by democrats who have limited the administration s options at every turn.
It is all very well to say we should have spent enough of defence to have both light and heavy, boots and smart bombs, but the author should not forget that we have nearly a fifty fifty country, a fifty fifty Senate and a putative nominee of the Democrat party who is going to get that nomination in part because he voted against funding the military in time of actual war!
This criticism of Helprin also applies to his critique of the administration s delay in commencing the war in Iraq. He says:
The year-and-a-half delay between action in Afghanistan and Iraq mobilized the Arabs and the international left, weakened the connection with September 11, and prompted allies who would have been with us to fall away. The delay was especially unconscionable because it was due not merely to normal difficulties but to the aforementioned military insufficiencies and to indecision masquerading as circumspection.
Here again the author ignores the realities of world, this time international as well as domestic, which the left has created. To suggest that Bush could have commenced this war without first submitting to the adagio dance at the citadel of corruption, the UN, is to ignore a basic reality of modern politics.
In addition to criticising this administration when the blame really lies with the left, the author makes some just plain silly complaints about the republican s conduct of the war:
Before the war's inception, and even after September 11, the Bush administration, having promised to correct its predecessor's depredations of the military, failed to do so. The president failed to go to Congress on September 12 to ask for a declaration of war, failed to ask Congress when he did go before it for the tools with which to fight, and has failed consistently to ask the American people for sacrifice. And yet their sons, mainly, are sacrificed in Iraq day by day.
We have dealt with the obstacles presented by Democrats to increasing defence spending. The complaint of a failure to ask for a declaration of war is just plain silly in the modern era. The complaint of a failure to ask the people for sacrifice is equally silly. What does he want, rationing, aluminium drives and victory gardens? The purpose if terrorism is to change policy by disrupting the enemy. Bush is quite right not to do that for the enemy. I understand that we have lost fewer than 600 lives to hostile fire in conquering and occupying a nation of 25 million. I understand the murder rate in Chicago is worse than it is in all of Iraq. While tragic, these losses to a nation of 280 million are statistically trivial and somebody ought to say it out loud. They are so trivial that they put the lie to Mr. Helprin s claim that our force in Iraq is undermanned and therefore vulnerable.
Now it is time to move on to a criticism, which is worthy of our concern, that the administration in proclaiming its goal of democracy has gone a bridge too far:
From the beginning, the scale of the war was based on the fundamental strategic misconception that the primary objective was Iraq rather than the imagination of the Arab World, which, if sufficiently stunned, would tip itself back into the heretofore easily induced fatalism that makes it hesitate to war against the West.
I have previously posted the observation that the administration has treated Iraq as a different model from Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the warlords were co opted and set against each other. Our writ was not extended beyond Kabul for a long time. We did not proclaim that we were building an Athenian democracy in Afghanistan but rather some sort of a nation, which would not sponsor or harbor terrorists. We are obviously willing to cut deals with unsavoury characters so long as those deals advanced our overall objectives in the general war against terrorists. It is worth noting that the model in Afghanistan has been conducted successfully, that is, the enemy has been routed, and it has been done on the cheap. We have not lost enough Americans to excite Ted Koppel.
All this was in keeping with Bush s doctrine. In Iraq we have gone another bridge. We want to build a democracy, which will serve as a model to the Arab and Muslim world. The author says this is a rationalization hastily contrived in the wake of the surprise at not finding WMDs. I rather think this has been a motivation of the neo cons for some time but I do not make the allegation that this was done as an extension of Israeli defence policy. Not yet. At any rate the author says that in attempting this larger goal in Iraq we have only shown the Arab world that they can cope with us, and, I would add, just as they are coping with the Israelis.
In this observation, the author raises issues about the dominant strategy in the war against terrorism, which are legitimate.
The problem is that they are framed by photos of fraternity hi jinks in prison, or worse, and by photos of decapitation of Americans. What happened to the international war against terrorism? To those who answer, it is being fought in Iraq, I ask what is the PERCEPTION in this election year of where and how the war is being fought? Unquestionably, the administration is losing the contest for perception, and so it is in grave peril of losing the election and that means the ultimate loss of the war on terrorism.
Yes, we should be taking a harder line in Iraq, and yes, we should be really building up our military, if this is what Helprin is saying I agree. I'm not sure Bush's plan for Iraq will work, but despite everything it is far too soon to call it a failure.I think you've extracted the best of this article and set it straight. We've got to get tougher in Iraq, and we've got to beef up our military.
I would offer one other correction to this article: Once the time comes for us to pull our forces out of Baghdad, and pull back to bases in the region, I suggest that at least one of those bases be in Kurdish Iraq, where we will surely be welcome.
I was one of those (really we all are) and a poster took me to task on the Neo-con plan. I know the plan and end run and the dirty tricks involved in applying it. HOWEVER, we must choose alliances in this war. To understand that a small cabal of forward thinkers has a plan to oust radical islamists from nipping at society's heels is one thing. To deny it because of morality is ignorant and disastrous to the immediate task at hand. To support the destruction of the Jihadis and help America's empirical desires in the process is ridding the world of evil. Conservative difference can be settled later...we have some mujahid to slaughter!
...In the Middle East, our original purpose, since perverted by carelessness of estimation, was self-defense. To return to it would take advantage of the facts that the countries in the area do not have to be democracies before we require of them that they refrain from attacking us; that a regime with a firm hold upon a nation has much at stake and can be coerced to eradicate the terrorist apparatus within its frontiers; and that the ideal instrument for this is a remounted and properly supported U.S. military, released from nation building and counterinsurgency, its ability to make war, when called upon, nonpareil.
The Kurds and Shia of Iraq could within days assert control in their areas. We already have ceded part of Sunni Iraq: What remains is to pick a strongman, see him along, arrange a federation, hope for the best, remount the army, and retire, with or without Saudi permission, to the Saudi bases roughly equidistant to Damascus, Baghdad, and Riyadh. There, protected by the desert, with modern infrastructure, and our backs to the sea, which is our metier, we would command the center of gravity of the Middle East, and with the ability to strike hard, fast and at will, could enforce responsible behavior upon regimes that have been the citadel of our enemies...
>>nothing but politics keeps them from correcting their deficiencies
How would the last three years been different is the Democratic party was not far-left whack-o and instead along the lines of Lieberman and Miller?
If the country could unite and think as one?
For the Dems - any Bush stumble, is worthy of the NY Times front page. A united country would consider the stumble as one, show resolve and batten down the hatches.
ALL of our problems today are because of the TECHNIQUE the left uses to gain power. The constant carping and group-think.
Thanks for posting this article. IMHO, the pubbies have half a clue, but the none of the requisite media support. The rats have a surfeit of major media support, but are clueless or treasonous.
And what better evidence than this very thread? Helprin is right now as he was right then: War in the Absence of Strategic Clarity
Not sure if I agree with everything he says here, partly because I think it possible that GW could establish a friendly democracy in Iraq.
But otherwise I think Helprin is on the money, particularly with reference to his remarks that we don't have enough people over there (or anywhere, these days).
And this paragraph makes sense:
From the beginning, the scale of the war was based on the fundamental strategic misconception that the primary objective was Iraq rather than the imagination of the Arab World, which, if sufficiently stunned, would tip itself back into the heretofore easily induced fatalism that makes it hesitate to war against the West. After the true shock and awe of a campaign of massive surplus, as in the Gulf War, no regime would have risked its survival by failing to go after the terrorists within its purview. But a campaign of bare sufficiency, that had trouble punching through even ragtag irregulars, taught the Arabs that we could be effectively opposed.
'Course Helprin is being very critical of GW, so naturally he is taking some heat on FR, even though he gives the Dems even more hell.
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