Posted on 03/02/2007 6:13:38 AM PST by Tolik
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/
NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
New Link! http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
I think VDH underestimates support for Bush's Mideast policy if conservatives at FreeRepublic are any indication. Also, I'd never call myself a McCain conservative... ouch
Simply put, VDH nailed it...again.
BTTT
I think he oversimplifies the base of support for Bush on this. Most conservatives (save for the Buchanans) do support this war and for reasons of national security, not nation building. Furthermore, the paleos are a very distinct minority.
Otherwise, a great analysis of the problem and especially so since he points out (perhaps a bit too understated) the mistakes made by the administration.
Fixed it for you. Just because someone screams they are a "Conservative" does not make it so.
A one-word answer: liberalism.
We only killed the guy who did it. Gee Dr Hanson, so sorry the world does not work on the 2 hour Action Movie time frame you Arm Chair Rambos think it should.
In any war or conflict there are mistakes made. It's what allows us to learn and improve for the next battle. I think it is fair to say that the American people for the most part, do not understand that side of the world and what it takes to stay on top. It requires a degree of force and attitude that the Arab street would respect. Also, the trouble makers in Iraq are not all morons, they knew how to play the left's hatred of GWB like a fiddle and turn support for this conflict into outright treason in some instances.
And a large number of us still support the President in what he's trying to do in Iraq.
The thing is (and a lot of people don't like to hear this) "Nation Building" and "Hearts & Minds" plays a huge role in the GWOT.
First, George Bush ran for president as a realist, who turned Wilsonian only after 9/11, in the belief that removing Saddam and leaving democracy in his wake could break up the nexus between Middle Eastern terrorism and autocracy.
Second, after the relatively easy victories in Grenada, Panama, the Gulf War, Serbia, and Afghanistan, the American public became accustomed to removing thugs in weeks and mostly by air and light ground-support. All during the 1990s, the more we made use of the military the more we cut it, until things came to a head in Iraq in a postwar effort that has been both long and confined largely to the ground.
He's touching here on what I think is the real reason our nation turned against the war - the Administration set us up with completely unrealistic expectations.
The Administration should have treated 9/11 like Pearl Harbor. The country was united behind W, and we all would gladly have sacrificed for a major and prolonged war effort. We should have turned our manufacturing into the war effort, pulling together, everyone working daily to give our boys the tools they needed. But instead of asking for that sacrifice, we were told that our contribution to the war effort was to keep on shopping.
The American public should have been braced for a long but worthwhile fight. Instead, the Administration went on talk shows to reassure us that it would be relatively quick and easy, and we certainly wouldn't have to actually sacrifice anything or change our lifestyles in any way.
Had they been realistic at the beginning, the hearts of Americans would still be with the Administration today. That's the shame of it, that's the wasted opportunity.
W's legacy will not that he started an unjust war, no matter how much the leftists cry. The real legacy is that he didn't prepare us to win a very legitimate one.
He's only obliquely and very tangentially including the "small picture" in his issue of "will". We have been fighting house to house, block by block, for months or maybe even years now. We aren't blowing things up wholesale like in the good old days.
We are in a stalemate and there is no sense that we are "turning a corner" when nearly every day brings a new report of dozens of people killed by yet another marketplace bombing.
VDH breaks it down again.
VDH breaks it down again.
Who? What talk shows?
I remember warnings that the war would be "unlike any other war", "long and arduous", "with no clear indications of victory". If anything, the administration had to respond in some way to those who predicted 50,000 dead just to take Baghdad, but I don't remember anyone in the administration saying that taking Saddam down would be easy.
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