Failing the Test of September 11

wsj ^ | 16 sep 02 | MARK HELPRIN

[white trash redneck]

Last Wednesday, the president was everywhere. But on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, FDR worked quietly in the White House as America battled Japan on Guadalcanal, U-boats on the Atlantic, and Rommel in Tunisia. In the previous 365 days we had quadrupled defense spending and military production, doubled military manpower, turned the Battle of the Atlantic, invaded North Africa in history's then largest amphibious assault, begun the Burma Road, engaged Hirohito's air force, bombed Tokyo, checked the expansion of the Japanese Empire, and triumphed at Midway and in the Coral Sea.

[white trash redneck]

We'll know that we're serious about fighting Islamic fascism when W fires Powell, Mineta, and the other 5th columnists in his administration.

[Taliesan]

Wow! Steyn and Helprin on Bush's case in one day.

[Jim Noble]

Every word is true.

The war metaphor only works if you're serious. If you're not, it's exceedingly dangerous.

[hflynn]

A little bit on Mark Helprin: Raised on the Hudson and in the British West Indies, Helprin holds degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and did postgraduate work at the University of Oxford. He served in the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli infantry, and the Israeli Air Force.

[jjm2111]

I agree with this article 100%

If we do not decimate radical Islam we WILL suffer more attacks of this magnitude.

[SEGUET]

"He did not ask America to sacrifice or fight, but to shop."

Now that is the finest analysis of GW's leadership I have read anywhere -

I truly expect that we will get 75% of the world's approval for our little entre' into IRAQ -

BUT - we will not get 5% of the world's financial or military support in doing so -

"Riceroni" - says don't worry about putting it back after the war - rebuilding an infrastructure, rule of law, civilian casualties, cleaning up the Depleted Uranium munitions, putting out the oil well fires, decontaminating areas exposed to sirin, mustard gases and bioological weapons - that is no big thing.

We will get stuck with that task and that bill on top of trying to bring Afganistan into the 21st century..


Take it to the bank - all the approval but none of the support. This $1 Trillion e-ticket is coming right out of our pocket.

[jjm2111]

Where does steyn write? Also, I wonder why more people do not take this seriously?

[Cicero]

It's still too early to say whether this is basically true.

Some of the details are already proven false. As it happens, the Saudis and other ARE providing us with staging support.

Also, keep in mind that clinton seriously depleted our cruise missile supplies, aircraft spare parts, and probably other items necessary for a war on Iraq. We don't KNOW this, but there may have been reasons for the lengthy delay.

Finally, I agree with Helprin that we need to take on Syria, Iran, and above all Saudi Arabia, but we need to do it on our own schedule. It's too soon to say whether Bush understands that, but it's also too soon to write him off.

The one area where we have notably failed is domestic security. Immigration is as big a problem as ever; airport security is a laugh; and the CIA and FBI are still run by corrupt clintonoid incompetents. But let's see what happens next before we fault Bush for moving too slow on the military front.

I'm a fan of Mark Helprin's. But even the good guys can get it wrong sometimes.

[Linda Liberty]

Helprin has the strong view that we should take war with terrorism seriously enough to refocus our spending priorities in a major way. This is a reasonable view, although I think people could reasonably differ-- arguing instead that we should try to maintain a strong economy and deal with terrorism effectively but economically.

However, even by this weaker standard Bush has been a total failure. His administrations idea of airport security: bothering the passengers without doing much useful to increase security, preventing pilots from carrying guns, refusing to do any profiling, federalizing airport security etc. is a total disaster. It is nothing but big government bureaucracy run amok in the most politically correct manner possible. It isn't the slightest exaggeration to say that a Gore administration would likely have done a better job and at any rate could not have done worse.

[MI_too]

Ever since he came on the scene as a serious presidential contender, Bush has "talked the talk," but not "walked the walk." Pick a topic -- (not) fighting for his judicial nominees, (not) opposing the Kennedy education bill fiasco, promoting diversity and political correctness in every venue, letting the abortion issie die right along with the thousands of babies claimed as victims by horrific methods such as partial birth abortion, covering up every single vestige of criminal behavior by the Clintons and their pals, failing to build back our military with alacrity and commitment (see Mark Helprin's article for the discouraging statistics!), palsy-walsy politics praising the Muslims -- yes, all those religious souls who can't bring themselves to condemn the actions of the suicide-murderers -- so that the biggest winner in the last year has been the Muslim religion (with converts galore right here in the US of A)-- these and so many more things have brought me to puzzlement and then, despair. And I was one who fervently worked, paid, phoned, walked the precincts, prayed, and rallied weekly in our city for Bush in 2000!! Even more discouraging to me than the Bush disappointment(s) is the fact that the majority of Republicans, conservatives included, are apparently befogged by the same kind of denial that we criticized so vociferously when it was the Democrats defending Clinton. Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 42 -- it is beginning to look as though history will not show many major political differences between them, once it gets past the personal peccadilloes and the impeachment over Monica. How very sad are the lost opportunities.

[rogue yam]

Can we really say that Bush has failed? When he took office we were in deep trouble, worse than almost anyone knew. He had little mandate to make big changes in the security situation and the Democrats and media were all over him.

Since then Afghanistan has been greatly improved and we're still working on it. Also Pakistan, Yemen, and others. This fall Iraq gets the treatment. How fast should Bush be going on all this?

I figure that if he drains one Islamist snake-pit every year for Ramadan, then by the time he's finished his second term we'll be living in a very different world.

Steady on, lads.

[glorygirl]

I am quite surprised there are not more posts to this thread. It's almost as though people don't want to hear the truth.

This article is a very cogent explanation of that uneasy, somewhat confused feeling many Americans who support Bush have about the supposedly pending invasion of Iraq.

Imho, the conflict within the administration is at the root of this. Bush is going to have some major decisions very soon about whose advice he is going to follow.

What he really needs to do, though, is to follow his own heart,and head, and DISREGARD the advice of some of the people he respects. Not always an easy thing to do.

But he better make up his mind soon, or he's going to lose whatever edge he possesses.

[gcruse]

I am quite surprised there are not more posts to this thread.

Well, there were 11 replies when this article was posted back here,
and 46 when it was posted back here.   Redundancy catches
up with itself after a while.