Victor Davis Hanson: Our New Sort of War. It might be the most dangerous of all

NRO ^ | April 16, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Tolik]

President Obama proclaims no more of George W. Bush’s “War on Terror,” even as he silently keeps most of it in place. The result is as confusing as it soon will be dangerous.

In these first 100 days of his presidency, Barack Obama has promised that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility will be closed within a year. He has assured us wiretapping and overseas rendition are under re-examination.

The Obama administration has also been busy tweaking terminology in an effort to put a kinder, gentler face to the war. There is no longer a “Global War on Terror”: It has been replaced by “overseas contingency operations.”

Nor are there any longer “unlawful enemy combatants” in Guantanamo Bay. Apparently, the terrorists there are now merely “detainees.” According to Janet Napolitano, the new secretary of Homeland Security, there is not even “terrorism” but “man-caused disasters.” At least that’s the term she used in recent testimony before Congress.

By the removal of words like “war,” “enemy,” and “terror” from official usage, perhaps Americans will be convinced there are no such unpleasant realities.

President Obama has also made an effort to apologize to key allies, rivals, and enemies. He has told receptive Europeans that we have been arrogant and dismissive. The Turks were encouraged to hear that America “still struggles with the legacy of our past treatment of Native Americans.” The Russians were assured that we were pushing a “reset” button in our foreign policy.

The president has also sent envoys to reach out to a hostile Syria and a video expressing past American culpability in hopes of starting afresh with Iran.

At various times in interviews and lectures, Obama has reminded the world that the United States alone has dropped an atomic bomb, that it has been unnecessarily provocative to Muslims, that it has a shameful record of slavery and racial discrimination, and that almost everything George W. Bush did was wrong.

There is a problem with all this. While our well-meaning president is apologizing, employing euphemisms, and promising not to be Bush, his government is still also blowing apart suspected jihadists in Pakistan.

We are sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in efforts to destroy Taliban insurgents. The Obama administration has dropped the earlier rhetoric of a quick, unilateral withdrawal from Iraq. Instead, the president has embraced Gen. David Petraeus’s plan of leaving slowly as events on the ground dictate.

In other words, our new “overseas contingency operations” seem similar to Bush’s old “War on Terror.” Guantanamo Bay will still be open for at least a year. The Obama administration cannot find a country that wants back its expatriate terrorists — nor a legal solution to try terrorists caught without uniforms on the battlefield who may not be fully protected under the Geneva Convention.

The new administration has even gone to court to protect the Bush-era wiretapping policies. And it has specifically retained the right to use overseas renditions of suspected terrorists. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

More important, those who commit “man-caused disasters” are still busy. Iran brags that it has stepped up weapons-grade nuclear enrichment. The Taliban has promised a new offensive. Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Taliban in Pakistan — who is suspected of engineering the assassination of Benazir Bhutto — just boasted, “Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world.”

Despite American apologies and softer language, radical Islamists still think we are at war — and that they can defeat us. In short, we are in a new, surreal, and dangerous phase of the old war, doing enough killing to enrage our enemies even as we act sometimes as if we are not.

George W. Bush may have railed against “Islamic terrorists” and been ridiculed as a cowboy, but at least he prevented another September 11 attack. Plus, we knew we were in some sort of war.

Fighting a clear war against enemies is dangerous. Clearly not fighting a war against enemies may be more dangerous. But sort of fighting a war, while acting as if we are sort of not, may be the most dangerous thing of all.

 

[Tolik]

Obama Rhetoric and Reality   [Victor Davis Hanson]

Obama's decision to allow the SEALs to use force was a good one, and he should be congratulated. But the situation will escalate, and the odds are that U.S. warships won't be in perpetual patrol in the area. Thus, an American ship will be attacked and hijacked in the future — which will require a far more systematic approach of dealing with the pirates before they go to sea, which in turn will demand, at some point, some unpopular decision-making.

Obama is also right to send troops to Afghanistan, to follow the Petraeus plan in Iraq, to continue the Predator attacks in Waziristan, to go back on promises about wiretaps and renditions, and to drag out his plan to close Guantánamo. That said, all that is masked by the "I'm not Bush" rhetoric; overseas apologies; the use of euphemisms to eliminate words like "terror," "war," and "enemy" from the vocabulary of the ongoing war; and multipolar, multicultural, and multilateral easy sloganeering.

So far, such dissimulation has some advantages, since the therapeutic mode allows more latitude with the use of the force than the "smoke 'em out" lingo. But such a Janus-approach to national security has a brief shelf life. Soon everyone will tire of Obama doing one thing while saying another (think campaign finance, FISA, NAFTA, drilling, nuclear power, coal, etc.).

On the one hand, Obama has to be careful that those on the Right won't give him credit when credit is due, given his prior serial criticism of the U.S. while abroad, coupled with his tiring false contrasts with Bush to make himself the constant hero.

On the other hand, Obama has to be careful that the Left won't feel it's been had and finally come to the conclusion they are getting Bush with a charismatic facade designed purposefully to appease or mislead them.

Bottom line — it is usually better simply to allow rhetoric to reflect reality and keep the two harmonious rather than constantly trying to have it both ways. One can keep quiet and carry a big stick without claiming that one is not carrying a stick at all, or would probably never use it — right before striking.

04/14 09:46 AM

[Tolik]

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/victordavishanson/index:

Victor Davis Hanson: President of the World ...deeply pessimistic view of what America was and is

The Politics Of Blame

Victor Davis Hanson: The Postnational, Postmodern, Post-everything Presidential Trip

Victor Davis Hanson: President Obama’s First 70 Days. It really does all make sense

Victor Davis Hanson: G-20 Outtakes. Europe Got Obama, Now What? Obama is moving to the left of Europe

Victor Davis Hanson: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly —Part Three of Three [The Good]

Victor Davis Hanson: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly —Part Two of Three [The Ugly]

Victor Davis Hanson: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly —Part One of Three

Victor Davis Hanson: American Mob Rule. We need a Socrates in Washington right now

Victor Davis Hanson: Thoughts About Depressed Americans

Victor Davis Hanson: Bush Did It. What a difference an election makes [Brilliant Parody]

Victor Davis Hanson: Dr. Obama: First, Do No Harm. Let nature do its work

Now You Tell Us, Mr. President!

Victor Davis Hanson: The "Depression" for Us Idiots

HANSON: Maxing out a crisis card

Now, Obama Tells Us?

Victor Davis Hanson: Europeanizing Europe. They may have got more than they bargained for [Obama]

Victor Davis Hanson: Fast and Thick in the Age of Obama

NOW OBAMA TELLS US?

The "They Did It" Presidency (Victor Davis Hanson, Mark Steyn, Andy McCarthy)

Oh, the Debts We Will See! (What's in store for us and our children after this Stimulus/Budget)

5 Reasons Wall Street Is Worried

Have-It-All Californians Squander Blessings In Era Of Complacency

Victor Davis Hanson: Obamafusion [Why is Wall Street Worried? — Let us count the ways]

Accounting for California's suicide

Obama: The Great Divider

Victor Davis Hanson: More on Rush

Accounting for California’s Suicide

Victor Davis Hanson: The Great Divider? [five modest recommendations to Obama - that he won't use]

Victor Davis Hanson: The Triumph of Banality [Obama's talent for dishonesty in political discourse]

Victor Davis Hanson: Our Battered American [gets angrier - Must Read Rant]

[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

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[eclecticEel]

George W. Bush may have railed against “Islamic terrorists”

Bush never said the two words in the same sentence. Islam was the "Religion of Peace" and terrorists were some areligious anomaly disconnected from any body of belief. Even the name "War on Terror" is a euphemism which names the specific tactic Islamists thugs use rather than the thugs themselves.

[SwankyC]

He has assured us wiretapping and overseas rendition are under re-examination.

Only because he's decided to make the program focus on right wing extremists here in Amerika.

[ClearCase_guy]

sort of fighting a war, while acting as if we are sort of not

The recent pirate hostage incident set the tone -- Obama will vote present, do as little as possible, wait for a situation to resolve itself, and if it turns out well he will say, "I take the credit" and if it turns out badly, he will say "America is to blame".

[milwguy]

One of my favorite writers and thinkers! He is able to distill issues, and his clear headed analysis is usually spot on. He and the Thomas Sowells of the world are the face of conservative America, not the talking heads on Fox, or the blowhard Republican politicians.

[scottinoc]

The war on terror is like an antibiotic. You either take the full course or risk making things worse. We saw the result of half-measures during the Clinton administration. Pin-pricks just piss off the enemy. They need to be exterminated. I fear for this country.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The war on terror is like an antibiotic. You either take the full course or risk making things worse.

Apt analogy.

[MrB]

The current admin has signalled that they’re more worried about conservatives and veterans

than they are about Islamic Jihadi Terrorists.

In fact, I assert that they have goals in common with the IJT’s.

[Right Wing Assault]

The Kinder, Gentler War.

[PfromHoGro]

Big Time- The enemy of the Administration’s enemy (Rush Limbaught, Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin, prosperity, liberty, et. al.,) is their friend.

[Blind Eye Jones]

Obama is a serial liar and after a while people in America will see through the lies.

[r9etb]

But sort of fighting a war, while acting as if we are sort of not, may be the most dangerous thing of all.

Aaaaaargh! I don't often take issue with Mr. Hanson, but I do this time. He should have spent a lot less time complaining about Obama's naivete, and a whole lot more time discussing this, which he treats merely as a throw-away line.

Why is it "the most dangerous thing of all?" What are the possible consequences of "sort of fighting a war?"

There is plenty of historical precedent against which to compare Obama's decisions -- his fecklessness echoes that of Britain and France during the '20s and '30s, for example.

The consequences of failing to understand the seriousness of the situation, and the mixed signals it sends, and the consequences of delay, are great. I wish Mr. Hanson had dwelt more on that aspect.

[opus86]

fecklessness

Excellent word to describe it.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

“The war on terror is like an antibiotic. You either take the full course or risk making things worse.”

Well said.

[DrDeb]

I recommend you read the following article and its referenced speech:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/wm778.cfm

FYI: President Bush was the first (and currently last) American president to actually FIGHT Islamic terrorists . . . He deserves your thanks, not your derision!

[Chgogal]

To be more precise:

“Bush correctly pointed out that "We're not facing a set of grievances that can be soothed and addressed. We’re facing a radical ideology with inalterable objectives: to enslave whole nations and intimidate the world.” He ruled out any attempt at appeasement and prepared the nation for a long ideological struggle against the militant network and its enablers, including Iran and Syria. However, the outcome of this struggle is not in doubt because “Islamic radicalism, like the ideology of communism, contains inherent contradictions that doom it to failure.” He noted, “Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation, decline, and collapse. Because free peoples believe in the future, free peoples will own the future.”

[AZLiberty]

Threatening to get rid of our nuclear arsenal only increases the likelihood that we’ll have to use it.