Posted on 11/08/2004 9:37:29 AM PST by tpaine
The Antiwar Right Is Ready to Rumble
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/weekinreview/07kirk.html? ex=1100877650&ei=1&en=1003a79efbe25be2
November 7, 2004 The Antiwar Right Is Ready to Rumble By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
ROUND 8 p.m. Tuesday, a gloomy mood was settling over the dozen conservative stalwarts gathered with martinis and glasses of red wine in an office in Arlington, Va., to watch the returns. Early exit polls showed President Bush trailing, and Richard Viguerie, dean of conservative direct mail, thought he knew who was to blame: the neoconservatives, the group associated with making the case for the invasion of Iraq.
"If he loses, they are going to have a bull's-eye on their back," Mr. Viguerie said.
Ronald Godwin, a top aide to Dr. Jerry Falwell, agreed. "I see a real battle for the Republican Party starting about Nov. 3," he said.
The euphoria of Mr. Bush's victory postponed the battle, but not for long. Now that Mr. Bush has secured re-election, some conservatives who say they held their tongues through the campaign season are speaking out against the neoconservatives, against the war and in favor of a speedy exit.
They argue that the war is a political liability to the Republican Party, but also that it runs counter to traditional conservatives' disdain for altruist interventions to make far-off parts of the world safe for American-style democracy. Their growing outspokenness recalls the dynamics of American politics before Vietnam, when Democrats first became identified as doves and Republicans hawks, suggesting to some the complicated political pressures facing the foreign policy of the second Bush administration.
"Clearly, the war in Iraq was a drag on votes, and it is threatening to the Bush coalition," said Grover Norquist president of Americans for Tax Reform and a strategist close to the administration who had not spoken up about the war's political costs before. He contended that the war reduced Mr. Bush's majority by 6 percentage points to 51 percent of the vote. Mr. Bush now has two years to "solve Iraq" to protect Republican candidates at the midterm elections, he said. His suggestions: withdrawing United States troops to safe citadels within Iraq or by "handing Falluja over to the Iraqis and saying, 'It's your headache.' "
On Thursday, Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, issued a call to conservatives for a serious debate about the administration's foreign policy. "The consequences of the neocons' adventure in Iraq are now all too clear," he said. "America is stuck in a guerrilla war with no end in sight. Our military is stretched too thin to respond to other threats. And our real enemies, nonstate organizations such as Al Qaeda, are benefiting from the Arab and Islamic backlash against our occupation of an Islamic country."
Proponents of the war, however, argued that Mr. Bush would not have won re-election without it because Americans did not want to change the commander in chief. "Bush's foreign policy decisions seem to have been exactly why he won this huge victory that he did," said the neoconservative David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He argued that candidates who opposed the war - Gov. Howard Dean the most, and Senator John Kerry to a lesser extent - suffered the biggest losses. IF the Democrats have silenced some of their loudest complaints about the war, however, some on the right said they were turning up the volume on their own previously muted objections.
"A lot of the antiwar conservatives had to hold their tongue during the campaign because the No. 1 goal was to get Bush re-elected," said Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and an important conservative fund-raiser.
Even on the eve of the election, William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the National Review, was decorously edging closer to full-throated opposition to the war. "At War With What or Whom?'' was the headline of his column on Oct. 19.
A few months ago, Donald Devine, a vice chairman of the American Conservative Union, publicly apologized to Mr. Bush after it was reported that in disgust at the war he had failed to applaud a presidential speech. But in a column shortly before the election, Mr. Devine wrote that conservatives should vote for Mr. Bush precisely because he was likely to withdraw from Iraq sooner than Senator Kerry would.
Arguing that the president had dropped hints like a quickly retracted statement in a television interview about the impossibility of winning a war against terror, Mr. Devine argued that "the president's maddening repetition of slogans" about the war was the "only politically possible tactic for a candidate who has already made up his mind to leave at the earliest reasonable moment." He added: "The neoconservatives will be devastated."
But Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, dismissed those theories, pointing to the president's statement in his post-election news conference that troops would stay in Iraq as long as needed: "Our commanders will have that which they need to complete their missions," the president said.
Withdrawing from Iraq by way of Syria and the Bekaa Valley holds some attraction.
Old scores to settle -- and Iranian-supplied printing presses, paper, and supplies churning out counterfeit U.S. currency to destroy.
The war has gone into 'second term, terrorist meat grinder' stage.
Now we can wantonly kill insurgent terrorists with abandon there. Pulling back to safe citadels flies into the face of the overall strategy in Iraq.
The strategy in Iraq is to draw every nutball terrorist into a battle on the other guy's soil for as long as humanly possible. I hope we kill a thousand idiots a day in Fallujah, just so long as Ahab the whackjob sees fit to send more of his brethern to face our efficient methods of destruction.
The war in Iraq was politicized by morons for essentially very short term gain, sort of like in this particular instance.
No one said it would be all over nor that all the troops would be pulled out.
Your kidding, right? Democracy for Iraqis is great, but the bottom line is that every islamofacist we kill over there is one less that will kill us over here! A truly stupid article!
A Desert Storm Vet
I agree. It's nice to see how far you've come since you first advocated dispersing entire populations.
I think we need to be prepared--they are going to try and drive wedges between conservatives. No matter our differences--we need to stay united and focused like a laser on the only goal that matters (in the near term)--destroying them.
Well said! It has been adequately addressed by others, but the New York Times is obviously trying to cause dissent in the WINNING Republican Party! (That is when they are not making up "news" stories.)
The hunch I get, though, is that Bush won because Americans were optimistic about the situation in the Middle East, so antiwar sentiment takes a back seat. If things go awry over there, things will change over here as well.
Perhaps Norquist wants more fundraisers and events with members of CAIR and other terrorist-supporting groups?
Beats me what his agenda is, as I know little or nothing about the man.
I just happen to agree with his theory that Bush will soon be "withdrawing United States troops to safe citadels within Iraq" and/or handing Falluja over to the Iraqis and saying, "It's your headache."
This is the rational solution to the Iraqi political 'problem', -- and Bush is a rational man.
Why should we care if Iraqis kill each other in tribal squabbles? They've been doing it for centuries.
Grover, Viguerie and thier kind seem not to have learned the lesson of WW-II. "Never again" can we allow a murderous terrorist to begin an empire, especially in our age of technological powers. That is not "neo-conservatism" --whatever that means. It is only wisdom.
You'll get no argument from me on those points. I don't support the Nordquist 'kind'.
I posted the article, made a comment on the part of it that interested me, --- and ever since have been telling critics of the article that I'm not a defender of the NY Times, Kirkpatrick or Nordquist.
I agree with our real reasons for being in Iraq.
Whatever.
When we see something that doesn't sound like dribble from you, everyone at DU will stop in wonder.
Dribble?
What have I "dribbled", hotshot?
Is there a question in all that sneering?
Actually, the list is much longer that the Assyrians;....
No, it isn't. There was only one "first". They were the first.
... some were more brutal and indelicate while other regimes were quite clever and complicated--but they all share the qualities of rising powers. Better to strike a deal, but, failing that, the conclusion will follow other means.
If you think the United States should make a joke of American exceptionalism by behaving that way, why don't you just say so explicitly?
Reviled by humanity? What "humanity" are you referring to, a bespeckled English historian with the residue of Christian moral humbug hanging around his neck? LOL.
No, Laughing Boy, I'm referring to all the other peoples who knew the Assyrians well. Of course, if you're of another opinion, please state it. And of course, polymath that you are, you'll be able easily to direct me to the appropriate text that shows that the passing of the Assyrian Empire was mourned in the Four Directions.
You talk like the Secretary General of the United Nations or the guest speaker at St. John the Divine, lol.
LOL yourself. Was there something you wanted to contribute?
Next you're going to tell me what "world opinion" is on the matter at hand.
What matter? And of course you're going to tell me why I care.
As for that great barrier to power politics, the 19th century rejection of the nefarious "Ostend Manifesto," I'm sure that has Bush quaking in his boots should he cross the wishes of the great William Marcy, lol.
No, LOL, the wishes he wouldn't want to cross are those of the American People, who are still very much Wilsonian in their views.
My God, you can't possibly believe that, can you?
Oh, why not? But perhaps you'll tell me why I can't.
Really? Ah, but those were "old ideas," long since discarded by all thoughtful and just people, and now we live in a better, more "progressive" world of genuine moral action where just grabbing something can get you a very stern lecture at the Hague, or worse, an ineffective economic embargo.
Hague be damned, I'm talking about the American ballot box. And as far as "thoughtful and just", I suppose you will now tell me that Kuwaiti self-determination, and Saudi and Omani and Qatari self-determination had nothing to do with the Gulf War, that we were just as pleased to see someone really effectual assume the incumbency in the Persian Gulf and its vast reserves, trusting him to bring them to market in an orderly manner out of his self-interest. Or something like that.
I'm sure glad people like you weren't around in huge numbers during World War II.
IOW, you can't argue the merits of our foreign policy, so you behave like a typical Leftist who reaches for the racism card. Only instead of the racism card, you reach for the anti-Semitism card.
Whenever the Left can't answer an arguement, they scream racism, sexism or homophobia. It sickens me that "conservatives" are likewise opting for smears over rational debate.
Hitler and Stalin felt the same way about other countries. Conservatives, OTOH, are supposed to respect national sovereignty. Or so I thought.
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