Posted on 11/12/2006 2:42:23 AM PST by goldstategop
On the radio a couple of weeks ago, Hugh Hewitt suggested to me the terrorists might try to pull a Spain on the U.S. elections. You'll recall (though evidently many Americans don't) that in 2004 hundreds of commuters were slaughtered in multiple train bombings in Madrid. The Spaniards responded with a huge street demonstration of supposed solidarity with the dead, all teary passivity and signs saying "Basta!" -- "Enough!" By which they meant not "enough!" of these murderers but "enough!" of the government of Prime Minister Aznar, and of Bush and Blair, and troops in Iraq. A couple of days later, they voted in a socialist government, which immediately withdrew Spanish forces from the Middle East. A profitable couple of hours' work for the jihad. I said to Hugh I didn't think that would happen this time round. The enemy aren't a bunch of simpleton Pushtun yakherds, but relatively sophisticated at least in their understanding of us. We're all infidels, but not all infidels crack the same way. If they'd done a Spain -- blown up a bunch of subway cars in New York or vaporized the Empire State Building -- they'd have re-awoken the primal anger of September 2001. With another mound of corpses piled sky-high, the electorate would have stampeded into the Republican column and demanded the U.S. fly somewhere and bomb someone.
The jihad crowd know that. So instead they employed a craftier strategy. Their view of America is roughly that of the British historian Niall Ferguson -- that the Great Satan is the first superpower with ADHD. They reasoned that if you could subject Americans to the drip-drip-drip of remorseless water torture in the deserts of Mesopotamia -- a couple of deaths here, a market bombing there, cars burning, smoke over the city on the evening news, day after day after day, and ratcheted up a notch or two for the weeks before the election -- you could grind down enough of the electorate and persuade them to vote like Spaniards, without even realizing it. And it worked. You can rationalize what happened on Tuesday in the context of previous sixth-year elections -- 1986, 1958, 1938, yada yada -- but that's not how it was seen around the world, either in the chancelleries of Europe, where they're dancing conga lines, or in the caves of the Hindu Kush, where they would also be dancing conga lines if Mullah Omar hadn't made it a beheading offense. And, as if to confirm that Tuesday wasn't merely 1986 or 1938, the president responded to the results by firing the Cabinet officer most closely identified with the prosecution of the war and replacing him with a man associated with James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and the other "stability" fetishists of the unreal realpolitik crowd.
Whether or not Rumsfeld should have been tossed overboard long ago, he certainly shouldn't have been tossed on Wednesday morning. For one thing, it's a startlingly brazen confirmation of the politicization of the war, and a particularly unworthy one: It's difficult to conceive of any more public diminution of a noble cause than to make its leadership contingent on Lincoln Chafee's Senate seat. The president's firing of Rumsfeld was small and graceless.
Still, we are all Spaniards now. The incoming speaker says Iraq is not a war to be won but a problem to be solved. The incoming defense secretary belongs to a commission charged with doing just that. A nostalgic boomer columnist in the Boston Globe argues that honor requires the United States to "accept defeat," as it did in Vietnam. Didn't work out so swell for the natives, but to hell with them.
What does it mean when the world's hyperpower, responsible for 40 percent of the planet's military spending, decides that it cannot withstand a guerrilla war with historically low casualties against a ragbag of local insurgents and imported terrorists? You can call it "redeployment" or "exit strategy" or "peace with honor" but, by the time it's announced on al-Jazeera, you can pretty much bet that whatever official euphemism was agreed on back in Washington will have been lost in translation. Likewise, when it's announced on "Good Morning Pyongyang" and the Khartoum Network and, come to that, the BBC.
For the rest of the world, the Iraq war isn't about Iraq; it's about America, and American will. I'm told that deep in the bowels of the Pentagon there are strategists wargaming for the big showdown with China circa 2030/2040. Well, it's steady work, I guess. But, as things stand, by the time China's powerful enough to challenge the United States it won't need to. Meanwhile, the guys who are challenging us right now -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and elsewhere -- are regarded by the American electorate like a reality show we're bored with. Sorry, we don't want to stick around to see if we win; we'd rather vote ourselves off the island.
Two weeks ago, you may remember, I reported on a meeting with the president, in which I'd asked him the following: "You say you need to be on the offense all the time and stay on the offense. Isn't the problem that the American people were solidly behind this when you went in and you toppled the Taliban, when you go in and you topple Saddam. But when it just seems to be a kind of thankless semi-colonial policing defensive operation with no end . . . I mean, where is the offense in this?"
On Tuesday, the national security vote evaporated, and, without it, what's left for the GOP? Congressional Republicans wound up running on the worst of all worlds -- big bloated porked-up entitlements-a-go-go government at home and a fainthearted tentative policing operation abroad. As it happens, my new book argues for the opposite: small lean efficient government at home and muscular assertiveness abroad. It does a superb job, if I do say so myself, of connecting war and foreign policy with the domestic issues. Of course, it doesn't have to be that superb if the GOP's incoherent inversion is the only alternative on offer.
As it is, we're in a very dark place right now. It has been a long time since America unambiguously won a war, and to choose to lose Iraq would be an act of such parochial self-indulgence that the American moment would not endure, and would not deserve to. Europe is becoming semi-Muslim, Third World basket-case states are going nuclear, and, for all that 40 percent of planetary military spending, America can't muster the will to take on pipsqueak enemies. We think we can just call off the game early, and go back home and watch TV.
It doesn't work like that. Whatever it started out as, Iraq is a test of American seriousness. And, if the Great Satan can't win in Vietnam or Iraq, where can it win? That's how China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela and a whole lot of others look at it. "These Colors Don't Run" is a fine T-shirt slogan, but in reality these colors have spent 40 years running from the jungles of Southeast Asia, the helicopters in the Persian desert, the streets of Mogadishu. ... To add the sands of Mesopotamia to the list will be an act of weakness from which America will never recover.
If we are too stupid to know what is at stake we cannot put that blame on the President.
Please post a plausible military-political-economic program to "win in Iraq".
Don't bother (for now) with the "acceptable to Congress and the electorate" part - just tell us what, in your opinion, our national will would have to summon up in terms of force to win.
I think the point is, the terrorists prefer to achieve their short term goals without inducing a revival of the spirit of 9/11. The wisest general is the one who wins without having to fight. Given the poor powers of persistence among the tv-addled US electorate, AlQaeda would be foolish to launch a terror attack right now. They are steaming full speed ahead without losing a soul over here while letting the giant fall back asleep.
It is not easy for me to say he did not do a good enough job. I don't no if anyone could have done a good ENOUGH job. The president must gain and maintain the support of the electorate. His effectiveness is tested in elections. We have a soft culture that seems to lack endurance. Can anyone do a good enough job educating and motivating the people?
We simply must continue to do our part.
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. You seem to think that there is some magical phrase or Hollywood moment the President could have uttered or arranged that would have turned the election. That only exists in movies.
One more thing... He did make clear his agenda. That is what got the democrats out in force to vote for dems to stop the Bush agenda. We, conservatives, republicans, whatever we call ourselves today, were too busy figuring the best to punish our wayward members. Well, there punished.
Unfortunately, Americans in general have become addicted to the one-eyed monster sitting in the corner of their living rooms. The "talking heads" of the MSM are still riding on the coat tails of Eric Severeid (sp?) and Walter Cronkite (sp?), the voices of authority, knowledge and respect of the past generation. When mild propaganda doesn't work, the MSM just increases the volume of the drumbeat . . and voila! . . "peace" comes . . but not an honorable peace . . the Bill Clintons are exalted . . but not an honorable exaltation . .
We still have soldiers killed in Afghanistan on a weekly basis, yet nobody ever talks about pulling out from there or having a time table.We should treat Iraq the same way.
Very well said. You have characterized the MSM perfectly. Thank you. Jan
From 1975 onward the media never heard of Vietnam, never did one story about the mass murders they had promoted. When PolPot's genocide came to light later on, the media never once connected it to the policies of abandonment and betrayal they had promulgated, nor did they ever once question the 'rat betrayers in the government.
If we pull out of Iraq precipitously, and the Iraqis degenerate into full blown civil chaos, the drive-by media will have driven on and you will never hear or see a story from Iraq after that. It will be as if the Iraq War never happened. The 'rats are fully confident, and with good reason, that they will not be blamed if the MSM can help it.
The only difference between now and 1975 will be the internet and other alternative news sources that did not exist back then.
I'm with you. I need no reminder. When I'm tired, I just remember that September morning, and I am revigorated.
It's funny that we get on the people for their short attention span, etc. etc. But it exists in this forum.
The Bush bashing here was just heartbreaking. We added to his burden and we abandoned our troops.
Now, you are saying that we are facing an immense political challenge and you are not optimistic about the results.
My disagreement was with your first argument and not your second.
It was heartbreaking. He deserved better of us.
No. The President repeatedly has told the people that this war will be for a generation. Only the rats and media undermine the nation by pushing for instant gratification. We fought the Cold War for forty years, losing 100,000 men in Korea and VN, but we can't fight this one for even four years at a tiny fraction of the cost?
The president has explained plainly his concept of victory in Iraq, a key battle in the greater war. If people don't know what that is, they just aren't listening or don't want to hear it.
'Hollywood has influenced too many, including conservatives. I like a plain speaker, especially when I know he means what he says and is a good man. I thank God we have Pres. Bush as our leader rather those slick talking heads I see on TV every day.'
When I hear the usual "he's too stupid to govern, listen to him SPEAK!" I prod the person to tell me where he has heard that last...just as the MSM tried to influence the voters into thinking Reagan was an old fool, Pres. Bush is 'ignorant' because he is a plain speaker. Fools are manipulated every day by the MSM, and I live to point this out to them. "Where did you hear that" is my favorite question......
I use the same question. They usually don't know, but the sad part is they don't care that they are ignorant. Sometimes, I do fear for the republic.
And things are just great in Mogadishu¿?
How about Les Aspin, was tarred, feathered and wears a scarlet letter. Right?
Would you believe I see this in the papers all the time???
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