Hugh Hewitt Mega-Ping!!
Posted on 06/26/2002 12:15:52 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
The United States has faced the totalitarian threat three times in the past 60 years. It defeated fascism directly, crushing Hitler and Japanese imperialism with controlled fury, American productivity and the courage of millions of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. The United States wore down Soviet communism, refusing to relax its expensive and exhausting vigil, even when some of the battles of the Cold War went against the West.
Now the third challenge in the form of Islamic extremism has risen up. Does the United States have the staying power to meet this latest manifestation of the evil impulse to dominate and control the world and to destroy any who oppose that ambition?
Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake jointly oversee the "Battleground Poll," which is produced by the Tarrance Company. The Goeas-Lake takes on the extensive data are usually pure heroin to political junkies as these are opinions that are based on data sets much more specific than the "horse-race" polls of most news organizations.
Yesterday's release of the latest numbers met the need for political analysis, but there was also a very troubling note sounded, one that extends beyond partisan takes on the ever-shifting outlines of public approval for Republicans and Democrats.
An astonishing 53 percent of those polled agreed that President Bush "is getting too involved in other countries without a clearly defined goal." Lake's analysis continues: "This is a feeling we are also seeing in focus groups. As voters see domestic concerns going un-addressed and budget surpluses turn to deficits, they are looking for sources of money. Expanding involvement abroad is seen as too much focus abroad when things like education reform and a Medicare prescription drug benefit go unfunded and Congress dips into the Social Security Trust Fund."
"Too involved"? What are these people thinking and where have they been? Is it their belief that because al-Qaida has changed addresses that we ought not to pursue its members to Indonesia, the Philippines or Yemen?
The Goeas analysis gives us a clue as to what is going on in the collective American psyche: "[C]oncern over terrorism had been put on the back burner of voters' issue concerns over recent months [but] in the wake of renewed reports of a 'dirty bomb,' however, the threat of terrorism/national defense popped from the low single digits to 23 percent in a matter of days." There is no "good news" here. It is remarkable that there exists a "back burner," much less that the threat of terrorism has been on it.
At the time of the attack on America on 9-11, the president and many others warned that the war ahead would not be one of months, but one of years and possibly even decades. President Bush repeatedly attempted to underscore that there would be no clear boundaries, no capitol cities to seize or armies to destroy.
The attack on the Taliban was in some ways a false first battle as it fit nicely into the American paradigm of war. But the commitment of troops to Georgia and the Philippines, though far less dramatic than the picture of a special forces operative on horseback, is every bit as crucial to American security as the destruction of the Tora Bora cave complex.
If Goeas-Lake are correct, however, the American attention span is not up to the task of staying focused on the enemy as it shifts from country to country. A strike against Iraq might well re-focus the public, but that is only because we know Saddam well and recall his brutality and understand the menace he presents.
The difficulty is that, even after Saddam is removed, the war will continue. It will continue for as long as any significant portion of the radical Islamic movement is given succor anywhere in the world by any regime. Nine months into the effort and a large portion of the American population is already exhausted. What will the numbers look like in 9 years?
In his book "Carnage and Culture," classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson argued that democracies like their wars short and sharp – a brutal, frontal assault on the bad guys, followed by a rapid demobilization and return to normalcy. That is not what America is in for this time. There will be no burned-out Führer's bunker, no signing ceremony on the Missouri, no destruction of a Berlin Wall.
The last generation had the stomach for the Cold War, though, toward the end, even that generation began to falter and only Reagan's leadership kept the course long enough to force the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Now, a new generation makes up the heart of the American population, and if these poll numbers are to be believed, there's a world of difference between the folks who went before them and those that are in charge today. The American military is as capable as ever of fighting and winning this latest conflict, and still prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to do so.
The key question is whether the public will demand or even allow its elected leaders to fight these battles in the absence of casualties among the citizens. If it took only three-quarters of a year to forget the carnage of last September, it is hard to be an optimist about American resolve.
The November elections will be a clear referendum on American resolve. And it will be understood as such by our enemies as well as by our friends.
The attack on the Taliban was in some ways a false first battle as it fit nicely into the American paradigm of war. But the commitment of troops to Georgia and the Philippines, though far less dramatic than the picture of a special forces operative on horseback, is every bit as crucial to American security as the destruction of the Tora Bora cave complex.
If Goeas-Lake are correct, however, the American attention span is not up to the task of staying focused on the enemy as it shifts from country to country.
Hewitt is blaming the American attention span, but I think he misses the mark.
President Bush has made several errors in his approach to this war, and the resulting vagaries are the reason Americans are unclear on its course.
1. The President has not properly identified our adversary. This is not a "War on Terror," it is a war against radical Islam. His "Islam means peace" nonsense hasn't helped.
2. The President did not ask for a formal declaration of war. Stopping short of a formal declaration is not the same thing, and everyone but the spinners knows it. A formal declaration underscores just the sense of urgency that Hewitt is complaining that the American public lacks.
3. The President failed to take advantage of the mood to volunteer after 9/11. The country was primed to kick ass, and many men wanted to volunteer in some way, whether for the military, or to bolster the Coast Guard in a reserve capacity. Take a few million volunteers, and then extrapolate their family and friends, and suddenly you have a lot more Americans who are rather directly affected by the war. Not to mention greater security and flexibility in the prosecution of the war.
4. The President did not have the Arab Moslem non-citizens currently in the United States expelled after 9/11. There is no other reason than political correctness for this. Also for reasons of political correctness, the President has been slack in securing our borders and doing something about all of the foreign nationals Illegally in our country. This despite many polls showing the American people favoring just that. When the President puts these obvious security issues on the back burner, where does Hugh Hewitt expect the American people to put the war as a whole?
All of that said, however, there'll be urgency-a-plenty very shortly, when we move on Iraq.
Thought you might like this.
An astonishing 53% do not know who is the Vice-President of the United States, or much else that they do not learn from Leno, Oprah, or MTV.
Molon Labe !!
Excellent read. Thanks, King John. : )
When the President looks into the camera and says "Everything possible is being done to protect you", and you suspect he is lying in his teeth, all doubt is removed when the Sec. of Defense, and the Vice President say, "Another attack is inevitable, there is nothing we can do".
The fact is nothing is being done, zip, nadda, zero, to protect us. Other than throughly rousting 80 year old grandmothers and famous politicans at the airport, nothing will be done to protect us, and we are not stupid enough to believe otherwise, much less give a free rein to vague plans that we are not allowed to be informed of.
Bush, by his reeling to and fro in his commitment, has shown himself unworthy and untrustworthy of such blind commitment as is being asked for.
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