Victor Davis Hanson : Finish It or Forget It

VDH ^ | April 11, 2004 | Victor Davis Hanson

[quidnunc]

This is a War – not terrorism, insurgency, or uprising

For about a year now, a baby-faced grotesque thug, Sadr, dressed up in a cleric's robes and backed by two or three thousand gangsters has held world-wide televised press conferences as he pompously boasted about his promised imposition of Iranian-style theocracy upon 26 million other Iraqis.

Forget that in most municipal elections in the first year of the reconstruction Iraqis had shown not much interest in his crackpot Shiite paradise on earth. Forget that this criminal was not a holy-man at all, but a murderer who shortly after the liberation of Iraq, had systematically put out hits on various rivals. Forget that he was a coward who was a mouse under Saddam's fascist police, and roared as a lion only after the Americans, whom he daily slurred, at the cost of their lives and treasure had freed him and his Chicago-style Costa Nostra. And forget that he was hardly a nationalist, but an Iranian toady who did the bidding of Teheran and wished to ruin southern Iraq in the same manner that his kindred self-appointed mullahs had wrecked Iran.

But do not forget that for some strange reason the most powerful military in the history of civilization was not allowed to move on this latter-day Jugurtha before his venom infected thousands beyond his immediate Mafia. The moment there was good proof in the days following the toppling of Saddam that Sadr had ordered and killed various rival Shiites, he should have been arrested, tried, and, if found guilty, hanged — at a time when the United States military was fresh from victory and still in a combat mode.

There is a lesson in the saga of Sadr here that we really must relearn about this entire war. The United States, because it is militarily powerful and humane in the way that it exercises that force, usually can pretty much do what it wishes in this war against terrorists. In every single engagement since October 2001 it has not merely defeated but obliterated jihadists in Afghanistan and Iraq. The only check on its power has been self induced: out of a misplaced sense of clemency it has often ceased prematurely the punishment it has inflicted on enemies — at Tora Bora, in the Sunni Triangle, during the looting of Baghdad, and now perhaps at Fallujah — and relented to enter into peace parleys, reconciliation, and reconstruction too early.

-snip-

[quidnunc]

FYI

[mercy]

Maybe you Bushbots will listen to VDH. Bush is screwing the pooch in Iraq. He needs to understand that he does not have our blind stupid unquestioning loyalty. He needs to hear some criticism that matters. The man is blowing it. He already blew it domesticly. Bigtime. Big gubmint is bigger than ever. By quantum leaps. He has done pretty well on the War on Terrorism. But now this war in Iraq, which I support, is going out of control and unless he radically shapes up he will hand us eight years of rat debauchery EXACTLY like his father before him.

[kabar]

Another home run.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

You are wrong!

We are fight Iranians right now!

Read this :

Belmont Club
History and history in the making

Thread here:

The Wider War (with Iran?) (Belmont Club, best war blog)

And:

Militia Pulling Back in Najaf, Kufa & Karbala (Out of Government Buildings into Mosques-Surrender?)

[omega4412]

He says, regarding the Palestinian Authority... "If we are at war, surely we do not wish normal relations with a people and their quasi leaders who cheer our deaths and threaten more."

And we ought to be ready to launch an immediate air strike on Palestinian, Iraqi, or other crowds cheering our deaths and chanting "Death to America." The AC-130 -- one of the ultimate party poopers.

[Enterprise]

It's tough not to have the whole story, but it worries me a bit about what is happening in Fallujah. It is a time honored formula of our enemies: ask for a cease fire, we give it to them, they rest and rearm, and come at us again. I hope this is not what our military and political leaders are practicing. To me the message should be: Surrender or die. Your choice.

[Stentor]

It is a time honored formula of our enemies: ask for a cease fire, we give it to them, they rest and rearm, and come at us again.

Since it's "time honored", could you whip off four or five examples for me. Thanking you in advance.

[nothingnew]

Freeper tolik does an excellent job of posting all VDH material without needlessly excerpting them. Even has a ping list. Why not leave VDH to tolik, and continue to concentrate on needlessly excerpting Mark Steyn articles?

Just a thought.

FMCDH

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

VDH leaves out some things. Standing with the terrorists is 1) the rest of the world and 2) 90% of the US media and 99% of global media and, most importantly, 3) 48% of the "American" people who are for "anybody but Bush" because (and ONLY because) Bush isn't a cheerleader for abortion, gay marriage and benefits and infinite handouts, American security meaning nothing by comparison.

And with a slight misstep, the media can turn 52-48 pro into 52-48 against Bush for a day or two around the election.

[goldstategop]

Its not that we can't do it, its that we feel the need to be politically correct. And if we give the terrorists in Iraq what they want, the perception will be that we have lost. Regardless of what happens on the ground. Either the politicians at home understand this is a war and allow our troops to fight to the finish or if they can't stomach the sight of casualties and bloodshed, its time to bring the boys home. No one wants to be the last American to die in a war that has lost of the support of the politicians and the American people at home. So its time for Washington to put up and shut up: give our military the latitude and resources it needs to win or if we're paralyzed by our fear of offending the Religion Of Peace, TM its time to go home. Its really that simple.

[Enterprise]

Well, Viet Nam, and Korea come to mind.

[Tolik]

Avalanche of VDH articles today:

Apparently someone in the present administration thinks by waging war-Lite that it can split the difference with Mr. Kerry and win the election. That is fallacious in terms of military strategy, politics, and morality. We can defeat our enemies only by articulating what we stand for and why we are going to win the war. We have the force and imagination to succeed on the battlefield and the American people will accept sacrifices for victory. But they will—and should—turn on any leader who doesn't fight to win and thereby ensures that we will all pay a far higher price for defeat than we would have for victory.

So let us marshal the troops and will to take Fallujah, clean up the Sunni Triangle, eliminate the militias of Mr. Sadr, demonstrate to the Iranians and Syrians that a number of their sites they don't want touched may soon go up in smoke, and begin to fight this war as if we wished to win—or simply quit and unleash instead Mssrs Kerry, Kennedy, Clinton, Dean, Gore, and Carter to bring us home and apologize to the Middle East.

  Victor Davis Hanson moral clarity huge BUMP  

[please freepmail me if you want or don't want to be pinged to Victor Davis Hanson articles]

If you want to bookmark his articles discussed at FR: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-victordavishanson/browse

His NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

His blog: http://victorhanson.com/index.html     BIO: http://victorhanson.com/Author/index.html

Yes, he is listened by the Bush Administration; they like him maybe as much as we do: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085464/posts?page=6#6

[Dog]

Ernest I agree with VDH......we need to stop this nonsense......and allow the military to finish the job. Fallujah is a prime example......we announced to the world ...we were going to pacify that city......what happened?

Now .....the bad guys are using civilians as spotters to attack our positions....and terrorists are walking out in the open.....near Marine positions.....knowing full well our guys hands are tied....and won't shoot.

Now is this anyway to run a war?

[ex-snook]

It's too bad we can't return to the pre-Bush I era when the Arab countries were fighting each other. Since then we have united them against us.

[Ancesthntr]

Maybe you Bushbots will listen to VDH. Bush is screwing the pooch in Iraq. He needs to understand that he does not have our blind stupid unquestioning loyalty. He needs to hear some criticism that matters. The man is blowing it. He already blew it domesticly. Bigtime. Big gubmint is bigger than ever. By quantum leaps. He has done pretty well on the War on Terrorism. But now this war in Iraq, which I support, is going out of control and unless he radically shapes up he will hand us eight years of rat debauchery EXACTLY like his father before him.

I largely agree with you, and I'm certainly no Bushbot, but there is simply no better alternative in this election. Any vote against Bush (i.e. Libertarian, etc.) is 1/2 of a vote for Kerry (i.e. Bush loses your vote but Kerry doesn't get it). Kerry will simply be a lot worse than Bush, hands down. He'll be appointed judges and justices, writing executive orders, appointing the lefties that will be in charge of writing regulations, etc.

The point: the primaries are over. Once that is the case, conservatives of all stripes should support and vote for the more conservative (or less liberal) candidate from either of the 2 national parties with a chance to win, and liberal voters should do the opposite - regardless of the ideological purity (or lack thereof) of those candidates. Why? Because politics is the art of the practical, of what you can reasonably accomplish. At least with someone who is nominally conservative in charge, you're more able to affect policy. Spouting off against Bush as you have only makes a loss to Kerry that much more possible. It is, of course, a free country, and you have as much right to spout off 1 way as I do to spout off the (somewhat) opposite way.

Those of us who are more conservative than Bush has been will, regretfully, have to wait until 2008 to try to elect someone more to our liking. I don't like it, but I dislike this fact far less than the prospect of a Kerry presidency.

[Victoria Delsoul]

The man is blowing it. He already blew it domesticly. Bigtime. Big gubmint is bigger than ever. By quantum leaps. He has done pretty well on the War on Terrorism. But now this war in Iraq, which I support, is going out of control

Wow, talking like a real CNN expert. Give more credit to GW and our military, and less credit to the liberal media which is working overtime to defeat GW. I can't believe so many repeat everything they hear without doing much thinking.

[Victoria Delsoul]

By the way, regarding the economy, here is a good post to read:

The ranking for the average misery index for given periods in descending order are as follows:
George Herbert Walker's average misery index is a massively large 10.7 percent.
The Post WWII period's average is a rather large 9.5 percent.
The average for Clinton's first term weighs in at a moderate 8.8 percent.
George W.'s current misery index is 7.6 percent.
The average for Clinton's second term is 6.8 percent.

This means that George W.'s current misery index is roughly only two-thirds of his father's average. In other words, with the exception of the hyper-growth of Clinton's second term, the current misery index compares very favorably with every other time-period analyzed here. LINK