Will the Next Attack Get Our Attention?

American Thinker ^ | January 17, 2007 | J. Peter Mulhern

[neverdem]

What will our politics look like the day after the next time jihad comes home to America?

Ever since September 11, 2001 political leaders of every stripe have been telling us that another catastrophic attack is inevitable. Consensus regarding terrorism begins and ends with the cliché "when not if."

Our leaders speak as if they can avoid responsibility for the next attack by predicting it. They don't seem aware that a grieving and enraged public isn't likely to get much satisfaction from a chorus of "I told you so."

Let's suppose that conventional wisdom is uncharacteristically correct about the prospects for more terrorism in the United States. How will the American public deal with the political class that saw attacks coming years ahead and frittered away the opportunity to deter them?

The whole relevant political spectrum from Nancy Pelosi to George W. Bush has misled the American public about our enemies. Nobody who matters has been willing to identify the people we need to fight, describe their motivations accurately and explain how we can defeat them.

Instead we remain embroiled in a sterile debate about how to control the violence in Iraq. President Bush has just unveiled his "new way forward" which involves more troops and more aggressive and tenacious tactics in trouble spots. He hasn't announced any plans to engineer regime change in either Syria or Iran.

Democrats are gearing up to make a lot of noise in support of ignominious withdrawal from Iraq before gracelessly accepting the inevitable reality that the Commander in Chief calls the shots in wartime. This way they hope to appease their defeatist constituency without having to take the fall for yet another surrender and the blood bath that would certainly ensue.

The entire discussion is surreal.

The public debate gives very little indication that our troubles in Iraq are just one part of a much larger strategic problem. It is as if the allies, having conquered Sicily in August 1943, agreed that the troops should all come home without bothering to invade the mainland of Europe, either in Italy or France.

Try to imagine Franklin Roosevelt reduced to arguing with congressional critics over whether American forces should leave the Sicilian quagmire immediately or stick around long enough to eradicate the Mafia and teach the Sicilians to rise above traditional vendettas. When a war leader has to engage in that sort of debate, things aren't going well.

Pacifying Iraq is not now and never has been an important end in its own right. A peaceful and cooperative Iraq might be useful in our ongoing struggle against the terror masters in Damascus, Riyadh and Tehran. But, apart from George Bush's insubstantial notion that Iraq can be a democratic inspiration to the rest of the Arab world, our leaders don't seem to have any idea how we can use the conquest of Iraq to undermine our enemies in the surrounding countries. They have no apparent intention of doing so.

President Bush doesn't talk about using the conquest of Iraq as a weapon against Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Instead he never misses an opportunity to claim that our goal in Iraq is to create the conditions that will make it possible to bring our forces home. But the idea that we have a job to do in Iraq that will come to an end any time in the foreseeable future is absurd.

We may establish a political equilibrium in Iraq that looks very much like peace but that equilibrium will last only as long as we have significant forces there to maintain it. When we insisted on a democratic Iraq we ensured that Iraq would remain dependent on American troops indefinitely. Apparently, the Bush administration either forgot or never learned that most "democracies" look a lot like two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

Without our supervision any elected Iraqi government will rapidly degenerate into an extraordinarily well-equipped sectarian militia serving the interests of the Shiite majority. Sunnis, with the support of friendly neighboring governments, will fight to resist Shiite domination. Kurds will seize whatever advantage they can from the resulting chaos as will Iraq's neighbors, in particular Iran.

The result will be a humanitarian disaster. It will also be a fatal blow to our war against militant Islam. It doesn't matter whether we leave Iraq in chaos or leave after order is established and then watch it lapse back into chaos. Either way we will suffer a catastrophic defeat.

We have taken on an imperial role in Iraq and Great Britain's imperial history is instructive. When you assume the task of running a foreign country there is no tidy way to disengage. The British East India Company conquered India starting in 1757. After the Sepoy Mutiny a hundred years later, the British Government took over and ran India for 89 years. It began trying to establish Indian home rule in the 1890's.

Nonetheless, when the British left India in 1947, their former colony dissolved in an orgy of sectarian cleansing and divided into warring nations which now threaten each other with nuclear weapons.

If we decamp for North America and let the house of cards we constructed in Iraq collapse we will be utterly discredited in the Middle East and around the world. Then we can hunker down and wait for the next terrorist attack to give us yet another opportunity to demonstrate our impotence.

Very few politicians of any party will ever be willing to take responsibility for this result. At some level they all know that any person or party that gets blamed for defeat in Iraq will also get blamed for the next terrorist attack. President Bush will talk about bringing troops home and, with luck, he may preside over some troop reductions. But he will bequeath a substantial American presence in Iraq to his successor.

Democrats may get some short term political advantage from arguing that we should turn or backs on Iraq and disengage from the effort to detoxify the Middle East. Dogs get a short term kick out of chasing cars, but the smart ones know enough to avoid catching one. Every time the issue of our commitments in Iraq comes up Democrats will huff and puff and point fingers. Then they will participate in perpetuating those commitments. That's what the new Democrat majority in Congress is about to do. That's what the next Democrat president will do. World without end, amen.

The surreal debate about Iraq is a thin veil covering the real political preoccupation of our time - the competition to assign blame for the next terrorist attack to somebody else. Democrats are setting themselves up to argue that the Republican administration is at fault because it hasn't been diligent enough about homeland security and because it has fanned the flames of Islamofascism by fighting in Iraq. Republicans are setting themselves up to argue that Democrats are at fault for refusing to take militant Islam seriously and working to frustrate our every effort to confront it.

Who wins this cat fight? Probably nobody.

The next terrorist attack should give us a relatively lucid moment. It will strike us like a bolt of lightening and illuminate the geopolitical landscape. Even without leadership the American people might see Iraq in context, if only for a moment They may suddenly see that our entire political class has been indulging itself in meaningless partisan disputes when it should have been teaching our Arab and Persian enemies a bitter lesson about the consequences of messing with the eagle.

It isn't a forgone conclusion that any attack, no matter how savage, would make most Americans understand that we are fighting for our lives and doing so blindfolded with our hands in our pockets. Many, perhaps most, of us would react to another assault by redoubling their already heroic efforts to ignore unpleasant realities. But it is also possible that most of us might suddenly see just how feckless and irresponsible America's politicians have been since 9/11.

If we wake up one morning to find that one of our great cities is a smoking ruin or that our children are dying by the million from some mysterious disease, the odds are that America's contempt for its leaders of both parties will know no bounds.

What then?

Something similar happened to Britain at the outset of World War II when the people woke up to discover that their leaders had blundered into a war which they were utterly unprepared to fight. Most of Britain's leaders were thoroughly discredited by the events leading up to the war, but there was one important exception. Winston Churchill had spent a decade warning that war was coming and urging his country to head it off or, failing that, to be ready. When war came, he was the logical person to lead the government.

Where is our Churchill?

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

Political correctness will prevent the USA from finally resolving the problem once and for all. PC will prevent the media and most politicians from admitting who is the source of the problem and getting them the heck out of the USA.

[Cincinna]

A while back, Mort Kondracke stated that it will take a "second Pearl Harbor" for America to really wake up.

Unfortunately, I think Mort is right.

[neverdem]

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[Clintonfatigued]

It's impressive that there hasn't been one already, in spite of a few inept attempts.

[dmw]

"Will the Next Attack Get Our Attention?"

Maybe for about ten minutes, until the PC police come along and tell everyone to behave again. Sad to say, the greatest enemy we have is not the Islamic terrorists, it's the liberals who are trying to destroy our great nation.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Yep. The reason we haven't had another successful one is because our guys are doing the job, which creates the mental feeling that all this vigilance isn't necessary...nasty cycle.

[The Mayor]

I'll be back..

[Quix]

I'm skeptical that the next attack will do anything overly constructive unless our beloved President is enabled to do the right thing AND he ignores the orders of the puppet masters.

1. The DIMRATS AND RINOS are so entrenched with the puppet masters and their traitorous globalism goals . . . little else seems likely

2. There is the possibility of a huge slapdown response which would be quite welcome from a number of perspectives . . . but which also would somehow be manipulated toward globalist goals.

3. There are so many catch 22's which seem cocked and loaded with our way of life in the sights.

I hope I'm wrong.

[takenoprisoner]

Everytime I tried to kill a poisonous snake with my hoe, the only thing that worked was chopping off it's head.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[takenoprisoner]

"3. There are so many catch 22's which seem cocked and loaded with our way of life in the sights. "

Brave and patriotic young men and women by the thousands have signed up to fight the war against terror since we were attacked on 911. They have a right to expect their leadership to identify the enemy. To date, that has not occured. Since their CIC continues to assert that "islam is a religion of peace."

The facts are that islam is a religon of hate, intolerance, bigotry and pedophiles. Forget that it's stated goals are to rule the world. Forget that it's founding prophet "married" a nine year old girl. Forget that they blow up buildings, buses, airplanes, trains, and subways murdering untold thousands in the name of their almighty allah.

When President Bush publically acknowledges that islam may not be "a religion of peace," then, and only then, will he regain the confidence of the troops and the american people.

The troops and the american people are not stupid. We can recognize our enemy. Now all we need is for our leadership to do the same and profess same so we can get busy liquidating this pest once and for all.

If islam is undefeatable, and we must all eventually submit as they pray for, and expect us to do, then I think we have a right to know so we can consider some adjustments in our future.

[Quix]

I'm fairly certain that President Bush agrees with you, as do I.

The only explanation I have for his statements on it is that the puppet masters demand it of him.

I figure he chooses to endure . . . in this life long enough to do as much good as he can in spite of the puppet masters.

But what do I know from this distance.

Certainly Islam is a major enemy. But I think it's one the puppet masters are playing like a piano--toward our destruction--at least our harm--in favor of traitorous globalism.

[Gator113]

"There's always the chance the next hit will be in Washington while congress is in session..."



Let us pray......

[TigersEye]

Everytime I tried to kill a poisonous snake with my hoe, the only thing that worked was chopping off it's head.

When the snake is a religion that means you have to kill its god. With Islam that's easy. Turn Mecca and Medina into 10,000 year high radiation zones.

[TigersEye]

There's always the chance the next hit will be in Washington while congress is in session...

It's always possible that that would provide enough motivation for the U.S. to get serious about the WOT.

[sheik yerbouty]

For starters, re-open Manzanar and use it judiciously. The burden of proof, in this time of war, regarding their loyalties to America is on TROP.

[airborne]

No.

Liberals and media will be too busy blaming Bush.

Instead of investigating an attack, they will be investigating the White House.

[Cicero]

Try to imagine Franklin Roosevelt reduced to arguing with congressional critics over whether American forces should leave the Sicilian quagmire immediately or stick around long enough to eradicate the Mafia and teach the Sicilians to rise above traditional vendettas. When a war leader has to engage in that sort of debate, things aren't going well.

This article is well written and amusing, but the writer doesn't entirely understand what we are faced with. We are not faced with an occupied Europe and conventional forces that must be driven back or swept around. We are faced with an amorphous group of terrorists, and one necessity is to cut them off from their bases. So, we need to control Iraq. There's also the oil. We could leave Sicily to rot under the Mafia, but we can't leave Iraq to rot because it has the second largest oil reserves in the world.

The author is correct that we are not explaining the war well to the American people, a difficult task because of the fifth column in every western country. But frankly we are barely even trying to explain it.

My wife tends to be influenced by the TV talking heads, but I gave her Marc Steyn to read, and now she understands the basic problem. I think that if President Bush won't educate the American people, then somebody else has to.

[SuziQ]

Bush will never be vindicated -- he'll go down in history as the architect of a disaster. He has spent the entire last three years fighting a limited war and giving the democrats complete leeway to oppose this war and create an opposition that is now completely entrenched across economic, ethnic, and political divisions.

It doesn't matter HOW the President has conducted the war. The Dems and the MSM are gonna bitch no matter what he does, because they just don't like him! It hasn't helped that some on the right are biting at his ankles, too.

The President is trying to encourage folks to fight for their own freedoms, because he knows that unless they WANT it, they won't get it, no matter now much help we try to give them. He knew that Sadaam was a threat to stability in the Middle East, and when he had the opportunity, and the support of many of the countries at the UN, he took that chance, and got rid of that madman.

Yes, we're likely to be in Iraq a long time, just as we were in Japan and Germany, after WWII. Heck, we're STILL in both those countries because we know they are strategic locations, just as is Iraq.

NOT killing indiscrimately in Iraq has helped our position there, and I'm sure most soldiers know that, even though they desperately want to fight against the terrorists as much as they can. NOT bombing villages just to kill a few terrorists who might be there is a lot better in the long run, but most folks can't see past next week, so they can figure that out. They want things to be concluded right away, but it doesn't work that way in real life when you're dealing with a culture that is opposite of what we accept as normal.

The President is also trying to work with those Muslims who want to modernize their faith, and yes, there ARE some who want to do that. He is trying to appeal to the majority of Muslims who do NOT want to kill others, simply because they don't share their faith, while he's working to incapacitate or destroy those who hate anyone who is different.

[SLB]

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