Can It Turn Around?
In all the shouting about a lost presidency and the Bush disaster, few pay attention to actual facts, much less the always changing state of the union. In the last 30 days, federal revenues reached an all-time monthly high, gas prices keep heading down, interest rates and unemployment remain low, with the stock market, home ownership percentages, and economic growth strong.
The key is Iraq: stabilize it, curb American casualties, and shift regional and international attention onto Iran and Hezbollah, and everyone wishes to take credit for a bold, risky, and successful policy. Lose Iraq, and the “I told you so” opportunists will only become more shrill—all known to the jihadists who, though themselves increasingly tired, know that they can win only by dominating the daily headlines, the more gruesome and savage the attacks the better.
Democratic Traction
The Democrats are wising up: Sen. Webb—not shrill and shouting Sens. Boxer, Durbin, Kennedy, Kerry, or Rockefeller—was asked to respond to the State of the Union. Finally, they have begun to see that their best path in criticizing Bush and Iraq was never Michael Moorism (Iraqi terrorists praised as “Minutemen”) or Sheehanism (the American President as the “world’s greatest terrorist”), but a sort of ‘those tribal people over there are not worth another dead American’—hence the Democratic trashing of the Maliki government.
In other words, Americans were not so fearful that we might be imperialists (they knew we had taken no one’s oil), but rather we were not winning quickly enough, and cowardly terrorists were killing brave Americans, who were restrained by the very government we helped to create. That new formula of criticism, post Abu-Ghraib, ironically will force the administration to expand the rules of engagement and give them greater leeway in doing what they must to win.
McClellanism
If you are a Democratic candidate like a Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, or Joe Biden and voted for the war, or one like Chris Dodd who advocated more troops, or ones like all of them who demanded Rumsfeld’s resignation and new leadership in Baghdad, what do you do now as the campaign heats up and 70% of the electorate are upset about Iraq?
Insist, of course, that you were misled by the devious Bush/Cheney cabal into thinking WMD in droves were in Iraq. Ignore the other 20-something counts you threw in on October 11, 2002 as insurance to justify going to war. Pontificate you were for sending more troops when it counted, but now it’s too little, too late. Ignore now the Secretary of Defense, past or present, as irrelevant. Stop praising the liberal Princeton educated Gen. Petraeus as one of your own, as was done from 2003-6. Stay mum and watch the surge, ready to offer “I warned you” if fatalities mount—or if it works, “I warned you to do this long ago.”
McClellan did almost all of this a century-and-half ago—and it would have worked had Sherman not taken Atlanta.
Does this mean that Bush, like Lincoln did not, has a mandate to continue indefinitely? Hardly. Like Lincoln in August 1864, Bush needs good news that the war is on the descent and can be won. In 2003 it was wise of the Pentagon to warn that “counter-insurgency takes years;” but entering the fifth year hence, the voters are saying “Yep, about five years.”
The Odd Couple
As a sidelight, it is hard to recall a more remarkable congruence between extreme left and right than the current symbiosis of the ideas of, say, the Nation Magazine and the American Conservative, as the paleo/libertarian right agrees with the radical left in alleging all sorts of baser motives–or sheer stupidity—in continuing the effort to secure Iraq.
For the first six months of 1941 the far-left wing of the Democratic Party sounded a lot like the Lindberg Right. The former were alleging that reactionaries were pushing the United States into an imperialistic war against a mostly benign Germany that had won the confidence of the progressive Soviets, the latter that Jews and pro-British agents were intent on spending American blood and treasure in Europe’s internecine wars that were none of our business. Of course, the German surprise invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 and Pearl Harbor half a year later ended this first manifestation of that strange commonality for decades. Today something like a US intervention to stop genocide in Darfur or an elected Democratic President sending more troops to save Afghanistan would do the same to its current resurrection.
Kerryism: Laugh or Cry?
Let me get this straight: John Kerry goes to Davos, at the World Economic Forum, where Eason Jordan once alleged that the US military targeted journalists in Iraq, and Bill Clinton praised Iranian “democracy” as more liberal than our own.
Once there he called the United States a pariah, among other things, while chatting along side former Iranian President Khatami, whose government is sponsoring terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon, while racing ahead to match its boast to wipe out Israel with the reality of nukes. And all this follows his deserved past chastisement for deriding those supposedly without education as “stuck in Iraq” and American soldiers as “terrorists” entering Iraqi homes.
What must be the irresistible urges that drive someone into such self-destructive pronouncements?
The List of Motives or Urges Is Endless.
Is it an elitism that is out of touch with what constitutes America? Or perhaps fear that Europeans might find even the American elite mere flag-waving bible thumpers like George Bush? Or a simpler partisanship that seeks to blame George Bush & Co. for things that go bad while attributing no credit for the positive. Or is it simply “I can’t believe I am losing to this guy” hurt after losing the election? Or a growing sense of self-realization—cf. his gaffes, his sad trips abroad to remedy lost stature, and the “I love you John Kerry (i.e., please go away)” homilies of Sen. Reid et al.?—that the game is over and he will never be President, much less a serious American politician and statesman respected abroad and honored at home?
Bipartisanship in War
Only once in American history did oppositional opportunism during a war reach such a degree that we lost a war—as we know from Vietnam, 1973-5. Usually the out-party tried to score points by ankle-biting the President, but not to the degree that demoralization set in.
Instead, usually the opposition kept the administration on its toes. We forget that most Republicans by 1943 were on the attack against the wartime Roosevelt administration. They condemned not only the escalating costs, but also the continued aid to the Soviet Union and the Roosevelt administration’s growing wartime powers at home. But when it came to fundamental changes, the out-of-power Republicans had few to offer.
Korea
During the election of 1952, Dwight Eisenhower pilloried outgoing Democratic President Harry Truman for the Korean War. He promised to visit the front and bring a general’s non-nonsense approach to fixing things—seeking victory rather than the quagmire of 1950-52. Yet after the Republican Ike was elected, the fighting still slogged on as before. Eventually, Eisenhower settled for a negotiated truce along the 38th parallel—about what the Truman administration had envisioned might be enough to contain communism in Korea.
Vietnam
Richard Nixon ran in 1968 against the six-year-long Kennedy-Johnson Democratic mess in Vietnam. He got elected in part on rumors of a “secret” plan of enticing Russia and China—through trade incentives and détente—to pressure their North Vietnamese client to be content with half, not the whole of the Vietnamese peninsula. But when in office, Nixon faced the same intractable problems that Kennedy and Johnson had. And so the war continued from 1969 through the end of his abbreviated governance in 1973.
Gerald Ford tried to win the Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon war he inherited, but his Democratic opposition cut off funds and ended it by 1975—the first defeat in American history, and one increasingly looked back upon as avoidable.
Clinton
Bill Clinton neither consulted the Congress nor the United Nations in bombing and sending occupation troops to the Balkans. Republicans in the Senate protested and a few threatened to cut off funds. Democrats were unable to get a resolution passed expressing support for the President’s action. But Republicans offered no better way to stop the genocide in Kosovo and Bosnia.
No Nation-building
Even so, in 2000 George Bush ran on a platform of no-more expensive peace-keeping or nation-building, which Clinton had apparently decided—without Congressional sanction—was the proper new role of the American military in Haiti, Somalia, and the Balkans. Yet after Bush took office, American troops stayed in the Balkans. And they are now deployed by the tens of thousands nation building in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Rarely, then, in American history are wars the sole property of one particular party. Given our consensual system, they usually originate and continue from some sort of consensus. True, when things go bad, the out-party harps. And it always then takes credit when matters improve. Rarely, however, has one party been able to convince the public that the war was simply dreamed up by the war-hungry other.
And Now Iraq…
So too it is in Iraq. Right now we are in our fifth phase of a long Iraqi war. The first war of 1991 led by the senior Bush was supported by Democrats in the Senate, who were happy to see Saddam evicted from Kuwait. The second—the twelve years of no-fly zones and United Nations sanctions—kept Saddam “in his box.” It was overseen in bipartisan fashion by four consecutive administration. The third Iraqi war of 2003 lasted three weeks, ending with the removal of Saddam. It was authorized by Congress with Democratic approval, and the victory earned a 70% approval rating of the American people.
But the fourth—from 2003 to 2005—was the messy effort to oversee elections, and stop ex-Baathists, al Qaeda, and Sunni jihadists from destroying the newfound Iraqi democracy. As American losses climbed, public support eroded. As in the past, the opposition harped about mismanagement, but did little else.
For much of 2006 a fifth war of sorts evolved between Sunni and Shiite militias who both killed Americans in hopes of carving out their own spheres of influence. The Democrats are now vocal in their furor over the costs and the incessant violence, but so far have neither cut off funds nor quite written off Iraq as hopeless.
Why?
Despite the partisan rhetoric, sober Democrats know that Iraq won’t go away. Its strategic location, its natural oil wealth and importance to the world economy, worries over Iran, regional nuclear proliferation, proximity to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, and the pan-Arabic factional fighting—all that and more explain why, whether governed by Democrats or Republicans, the United States was engaged fighting in or over Iraq in some fashion for the last 17 years. Both parties worried about an Iraqi dictatorship that attacked its neighbors, used its vast oil wealth to purchase deadly weapons, and promoted terrorists.
Now the Democrats are at a crossroads. They can continue to play the traditional role of demanding wiser tactics in the use of American military force to win the war—as the opposition did in 1944, 1952, 1968, and 2000. Or, as was true in 1974-5, they can cut off funds and abandon a nearly two-decade, bipartisan effort to solve the nearly unsolvable problem of Iraq.
Not Quite So Fast?
It’s their call, but they must make up their minds rather soon, because there is another wild card: the surge/change in tactics could work, and Iraq could settle down by autumn.
If that happened, then we would see a re-triangulation of the original triangulation: after professing to being misled by Bush into a failed war, after insisting that their call for more troops was heeded “too late”, they would then have to apply the breaks, quit the talk of pulling out, neo-con conspiracies, etc., and instead reconfigure for the 2008 elections: Hillary, Edwards, Dodd, Biden etc. all rightly voted for the war, endured Rumsfeld/Cheney errors, then through their own brave critiques brought a change of course, and therefore at last “won” the war. So they still need about 6 months of wriggle room to adjust to the perceived verdict of the battlefield.
Letters
I hope next posting to reply to issues raised by various comments, which I read carefully. The surge and its politics sort of took over this time.
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23 Comments
1. Bud Rudder:I am convinced McClellan was a democrat. His tactic and reports were the stuff of today’s majorities. They find squeak-by counter logic in every move Pres. Bush makes. Lincoln received the same value in his advice from Gen. McClellan. Had Lincoln faced the media storm of today, I wonder if the Union could have prevailed.
Today’s “grab your heart” story was not of men giving their lives for our nation but instead they swooned over the death of a horse. Any mention of the new center for rehab of badly wounded soldiers in San Antonio failed to mention it was the product of donations from a grateful nation - not built with taxes. Our media and democrats are not in step with success in Iraq or anywhere else Bush chooses to try and plant his flag.
I am sick of them.
Keep up your good works. You are needed now more than ever.
Jan 29, 2007 - 5:04 pm 2. DEAN JONES:Once again I find the analysis of the lessons of history by VDH correct and cogent. I have said this before; I consider him a national treasure.
Jan 29, 2007 - 5:36 pm 3. MarkP:Dear professor,
I am deeply ambivalent over the war because one question remains unanswered: Can the Iraqi people create a civil society? I don’t see that America can answer the question for them. When Rousseau coined the term “social contract”, he based it on the premise that man gives up his “natural rights” voluntarily, and by so doing secures his life, liberty, and property. I try to make this point with my own students. Voluntary compliance with the law is the very basis of a civil society. We all stop at red lights in the recognition that voluntary compliance gets everyone through the intersection faster and safer. The result is an orderly society that can enjoy liberty and material abundance. Where compliance with the law can only be enforced by coercion, the opposite is true: witness a society mired in chaos, poverty, and more often than not ruled by the iron boot of tyranny. The Iraqi people have to make a choice. Civil society based on voluntary compliance with the law, or . . . the current situation: tribalism, fratricide, murder, chaos and mayhem. I would like to see someone make the case that the Iraqi people are capable of making the rational choice, because I just don’t see it.
Jan 29, 2007 - 6:07 pm 4. Bill Millan:Thanks for blogging. I know how much time it takes. I don’t remember you commenting on Thomas P.M. Barnett or his POV. His books are very influential with the Military, and Hugh Hewitt is so impressed with him that he is having him on every Tuesday to review his first book, The Pentagon’s New Map, chapter by chapter. He was for going into Iraq, but is derisive of how the Admin has handled it. He voted for Kerry, and is a Democrat, but is disliked by the left because of his long term optimism on Globalism.
I don’t always agree with his tactical thinking on Iran and China, but his strategic viewpoint on Asia and the Middle East has had a profound influence on my outlook.
Jan 29, 2007 - 6:31 pm 5. GCA:I thought from the outset, and continue to believe, that only we could beat ourselves in Iraq. And so it may come to be. The Democrats, Warners, Hagels and Brownbacks depress me. They would be easier to take if they hadn’t gained so much traction with the public. That they place their political interest above national security leaves me cold. That the Democrats in particular have fanned the flames of mindless opposition as though it matters not whether we win or lose in Iraq, purely for political gain, is unforgivable.
The Bush administration bears some responsibility for this sorry state of affairs on the home front. They are politically tone deaf and have not only failed to make their case for this war to the people, they have for lengthy periods of time failed to even try to make their case. Though I dislike Bill and Hillary Clinton intensely, the Bushies would do well to study the way they play politics. When attacked, the Clintons turn the debate back on their attackers. Bush and company could have done this, and could still do this, by artfully making the naysayers put forth and defend alternative proposals. If those who have so gleefully played domestic politics with this war are so smart, let them put forth with some concrete proposals. And,while they are at it, they can tell us what they envision accomplishing when their proposals are implemented.
Jan 29, 2007 - 11:30 pm 6. Ed:What an embarrassement it will be to so many if Iraqis stop exterminating each other in such large numbers. It will be difficult for the anti-war crowd to “retriangulate” if this occurs. The Orwellian calculus of this war dictates that attempting to slow down the slaughter of Iraqis by committing more troops is “pro-war” while getting U.S. troops out and letting the Iraqis hang is “anti-war” and will create “peace”. Few will admit that a U.S. defeat in Iraq is actually desirable to many as a way of discrediting Bush and the Republicans while a significant and sustained decrease in the violence in Iraq would actually be a nightmare to those claiming to be “against the war”.
You’ve gotta laugh.
Otherwise you’ll cry.
Jan 30, 2007 - 8:57 am 7. Anonymous:Kerry is one of the least intelligent members of a segment of the left that’s been repeating to itself for 30 years that “America is an evil capitalist society full of racist sexist red-neck nazi homophobes that cannot do anything right, should not be allowed to try, and must be seen to fail if it does try”.
They’ve brainwashed themselves into being complete bigots — and it’s incurable.
Hillary, et al, are at least cynically smart enough to maintain a convenient awareness of a non-bigoted point of view — so that they can say the right thing when necessary.
Not Kerry. He says these things because otherwise he’d have nothing to say at all.
Jan 30, 2007 - 10:18 am 8. Ritchie Emmons:I have a general query. If the US military and or the Iraqi govt vowed to take the body of a suicide bomber or of a killed al-Qaeda terrorist and bury it (or all of it that could be found) in a grave with a pig carcass, would that be a viable deterrent? This may seem like an outrageous question, but I ask it in all seriousness.
I’d guess that there would be howls of protest from the American Left and part of the Muslim world if the US military was to partake in such an activity, but would it be worth it? Would terrified would be terrorists actually refrain from some of their abhorrent tactics for fear of such treatment? One could argue that the jihadists would be so outraged that they would do dreadful things. But what could they do that’s more dreadful than what they’re doing now?
In short, would the PR hit (for either Maliki or Bush) be worse than the possible reduction in violence and the backpedaling of terrorists? If someone with more intricate knowledge surrounding this question has an opinion, I’d sure be interested to hear it.
Jan 30, 2007 - 12:29 pm 9. Eric Mendoza:Judging from Dr. Hanson’s profound insights on matters of war and politics, I’m sorry that I didn’t attend CS Fresno when I had the chance; I probably would have loved–and learned much–from both Dr. Hanson and his friend and colleague, Dr. Bruce Thornton.
Although Dr. Hanson has stated his dislike of the current state of the Cal State University system, I’m sure that eager students–like me–would tolerate the decrepit Cal State system in order to learn from these masters of war, classics, and history, these men who highly regard Veritas (Truth).
“Veritas,” coincidently, is the motto of Harvard University–a motto that may now be an anachronism for the university.
Jan 30, 2007 - 3:00 pm 10. Robert Spahr:Sir:
I want to thank you for your superb commentaries. Your reporting of events, more recent as well as from far in the past, has encouraged me to speak of historical events as influencing current events to citizens in my town and county through letters to the editor and with guest columns. I marvel at comments uttered by otherwise intelligent people (e.g. lawyers, CPAs, college grads)who care not at all for “how we got to this point” and simply blame Bush. Their attitudes won’t keep me from speaking. I will not surrender to their foolishness. God bless you and your work!
Rob
Jan 30, 2007 - 8:56 pm 11. Jack Marcotte:Essential vdh
The politics of the American Dem’s is not tit for tat. It is do anything say anything to support political victory–for them.
They are incompetent revolutionaries playing out deadly games within the American cocoon of democratic liberties protected by an irrational and self destructive political correctness.
Leave it to the left wing Dem’s to turn American politics and make it sinister, deadly, at the seat of American Power and oblivious to the consequences to America. American politics and the MSM is now the undisputed center of irrationality in the world. The epi center of this retarded thought burps out of John Kerry’s mouth when not on US soil.
This deadly political farce of talk and comment of blatant and factual lies and misrepresentations by Carter, Kennedy, Clinton, Durbin, Kerry, et al to a parroting MSM is played out in full view of a resurgent, psychotic Islamic population that has as its goal the destruction of America and Israel. These Muslim elements do not represent a religion of peace and light.
Our deadly enemies use Dem’s talking points to support their cause of destroying America and killing Americans and Israelis.
That the Dem’s could cause the killing of Iraqis in the thousands if they ‘defunded” Bush’s war is the replay of Vietnam.
“This is another Vietnam” we can agree with the MSM. It is Vietnam all over again with the Dem’s now in power due to a weak Republican President and the “mandate” to defund the war.
In Indochina millions lost their lives, when America stopped supporting their South Vietnamese allies. The Dem’s broke America’s promise to do this knowing full well the consequences. The communists still lost in the end. America’s left wing communist elements gave it a good try, including John Kerry.
With loss of American support, thousands of Iraqis could lose their lives because they “voted” women included. It will make the grossly exaggerated “civilian” casualties as reported by the MSM look like a Baker’s dozen. It will not be reported. So it did not happen.
Bush is weak, his effort to “win” the war on terrorism is undermined by his own PC rules of engagement. He is closer to his dad and the east cost Ivy league PC left wing idiots out of Yale than to a tough west Texas farmer rancher.
A rancher knows that if a spotted dog is raiding the hen house he goes after spotted dogs. Not a PC construct that can not even be identified as a spotted dog. Any rational rancher would know that under the Bush rules his chickens are gone.
The rules of engagement for America’s troops are similar to our border patrol NG troops. Except played out in a real war zone where the enemy is allowed to take the first shot.
The soldier can only shoot back if the enemy missed, his buddies can only shoot back if whoever took the shot is still carrying a weapon.
Any idiot could fight and kill Americans under those rules of engagement. If American soldiers break the rules they can and will be tried for murder. That is not the way to win the war. That is not the way to field an all volunteer military.
The existing rules of engagement coupled with the Dem’s comments make an already psychotic Muslim, killing Americans, think that it must be an act of God (Allah)in favor of his side. No sane country would send troops into battle with these rules of engagement and expect to win against terrorists dressed as civilians, using civilians as cover.
In the Muslim’s view it shows their view of the World to be correct. Americans are weak, corrupt, and mentally unstable to send soldiers into battle under such conditions. We confirm it every day.
To Win all they have to do is pick off American soldiers walking the streets, put their guns (hide)down and walk away. Bush and the MSM and the Dem’s have created this irrational psychotic dance.
This psychedelic off key music will stop only when the first American cities go up in smoke. If at that time we still have a volunteer army hell will be unleashed to preserve America (that will be an act of God) and the world will eventually right itself.
We are in a war losing soldiers and the only way we can win is to lose thousands of civilians on American soil. That is what it will take to eliminate the current political atmosphere in our Capital. That is what it will take to eliminate America’s left wing elements.
We now have met the enemy and it is us.
Jan 30, 2007 - 10:26 pm 12. Franklin Oliveira:What makes you think that the jihadis are “increasingly tired”?
Jan 30, 2007 - 10:35 pm 13. dearieme:“Genocide” may be a fair description of events in Bosnia, but surely not in Kosovo? Even the exodus of Kosovan Albanians occurred after the American bombing started, not before. A charge of genocide requires evidence: where are the bodies?
Jan 30, 2007 - 11:59 pm 14. Harry LIme:What nonsense.
Jan 31, 2007 - 6:12 am 15. TBranin:Hanson needs to devote more of his bunkered patriotism to the Republican epidemic of cheering endlessly about war but refusing by the tens of millions to help fight it.
Dear Professor Hanson:
I love your blogs, essays, and op eds, and I have praised you greatly. But, have you considered that maybe Islam and democracy are inherently incompatible? Have you considered that Maliki might cooperate long enough to get us out of Iraq and then allow the Iranians to come in? I have read and read the works of Robert Spencer such as “The Truth About Muhammad,” etc. I have read Serge Trifkovic’s, “The Sword of the Prophet.” I have read parts of the Koran. I really believe that Islam and democracy will not work. Especially when the Koran permits lying to infidels for the sake of supposed gain for the spread of Islam. Unless Bush had tried what we are doing in Iraq, we would never know. If America gets the idea that Islam and Western Civilization are on a collision course, too bad for them.
Might it be that history shows that pacifism and appeasement are the natural default states for democracies? If so then one should not be hard on liberals for lacking any intellectual rigor. To keep up the fight until the goal is reached is essentially Christian in nature and unnatural.
I notice also that National Review Online has taken a distinct turn to the left. They are advertising Dinesh D’Souza’s book which is about as wrong about Islam as could be. At any rate, I notice that Professor Hanson did not publish there this past week.
God bless!
Jan 31, 2007 - 7:20 am 16. jimbo:Regarding the following quote from the current post,
“For the first six months of 1941 the far-left wing of the Democratic Party sounded a lot like the Lindberg Right. The former were alleging that reactionaries were pushing the United States into an imperialistic war against a mostly benign Germany that had won the confidence of the progressive Soviets…”
Can VDH and/or one of the readers point me in the right direction for further research on this topic? I believe that the only reason we didn’t have an “anti-war” movement in WWII is that we were allied with Joe Stalin. However, I have not been able to come up with actual documentation about the actions of the left during the period of WWII prior to Hitler’s invasion of the USSR.
Thanks.
Jan 31, 2007 - 11:33 am 17. jimbo:Historical note from “The Spanish Ulcer” by David Gates. A similar instance to Sherman’s capture of Atlanta as an example of how the right leader at the right time can turn things around:
In 1809, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British were forced into a Dunkirk-like evacuation from Corunna, Spain. After this defeat, pressure was exerted on the British gov’t to evacuate all remaining forces from the Iberian Peninsula. Those advocating withdrawal included the commander of British forces still in Portugal (Gen. Craddock), other senior military personnel, many statesmen and large numbers of the public.
Furtunately, Sir Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington, victor of Waterloo) had a radically different approach. ” ‘I have always been of the opinion that Portugal might be defended, whatever might be the result of the contest in Spain.’ Wellesley believed that a British force of 30,000 and support for the Portugese Army should both safeguard Portugal from invasion and ‘as long as the contest should continue in Spain… would be highly useful to the Spaniards, and might eventually decide the contest’.
The British gov’t followed Wellesley’s recommendations. The result was a disaster - not for the British, but for Napoleon.
Jan 31, 2007 - 11:53 am 18. Samuel H:Thanks again for an insightful article. I hope that the change to the rules of engagement and the additional troups can stabilize the region.
However, even if this does not work for whatever reason, do you foresee us leaving such a vital area to the rule of the mob?
You make a very good point that the triangulation of the left has really enabled the executive to loosen the rules of engagement. I view this as a positive step and wish it would have been done sooner…knowing all the while the western media would only accept it if the US were basically at the point of knuckling under. How strange. Please comment on why we feel the need to defeat ourselves. It is clear that our enemy does not care if civilians die, in fact he targets them. Yet we continue to beat ourselves up for every last little mistake when we make every effort not to kill the innocent.
Lastly, please comment on whether Mr. al Sadr should be exempted from attack. In my view (a simplistic one), he is our enemy since his cohorts are targeting US soldiers.
Jan 31, 2007 - 3:21 pm 19. Ed:Jimbo,
In response to your question about the US anti-war movement prior to our involvement, read FDR’s Undeclared War 1939-1941 by T.R. Fehrenback. It’s out of print but can be found on Amazon and possibly your local library. It’s well worth tracking down.
Feb 1, 2007 - 11:33 am 20. Eric Mendoza:I agree with Tbranin: Islam and democracy are as antithetical as any two things can get.
I am also a big fan of Robert Spencer and his work.
I think Dr. Bruce Thornton, a colleague of Dr. Hanson at CSU Fresno, also would agree with TBranin, given Dr. Thornton’s views on radical Islam in his articles on Dr. Hanson’s Private Papers site.
Still, I think Dr. Hanson’s views are mostly correct, and I still consider him my favorite historian, but I think he is a bit too naive and idealistic about the prospects of a democratic Iraq. Mark Steyn, whom I also like, I will put in the same category–though I think he’s very funny and profound anyway, as G.K. Chesterton was in the 1910-30s.
I’m not saying that the Iraq War is lost; I’m saying that the idea of a truly democratic Iraq is lost. Iraq is doomed to chaos, but it won’t be because of us, but because of an imperialistic religion that, as TBranin said above, is “inherently incompatible” with democracy.
P.S. I’m not a neocon turncoat; I’ve been skeptical of the nation-building idea from the start.
–Eric
Feb 1, 2007 - 7:48 pm 21. Steve:The rationale for the Iraq War has evolved considerably since the beginning when finding Weapons of Mass Destruction was the Bush Administration’s main selling point. The current rationale for continuing the war, as stated by President Bush and various neoconservatives, rests on three propositions:
1. That a stable, pluralistic democracy can be created in Iraq with our help within a reasonable time, after which we can leave and the democracy will continue;
2. Once implanted in Iraq, democracy will tend to spread throughout the rest of the Muslim Middle East;
3. As democracy spreads throughout the Muslim Middle East, Muslims will have new hope for a bright peaceful future, and so the threat of Islamic terrorism will recede.
Each of those propositions is highly debatable. I see that some other posters have already cast doubt on proposition #1 and perhaps #2 as well. The new empowerment of Iran and the apparent formation of an Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis is casting further doubt on proposition #2. And the “democratic” victory of HAMAS in the Palestinian elections, even though HAMAS is a deadly anti-Western terrorist organization, certainly casts doubt on proposition #3. So does the rise of native-born jihadism in Western democracies. The London 7/7 bombers were not seduced by the trappings of democracy to abandon jihadism. Melanie Phillips’ book “Londonistan” suggests that even the world’s oldest democracy, Britain, can be an incubator of Islamic terrorism rather than an antidote to it.
Yet for the Iraq War to still be worth our commitment, all three of these propositions must be true.
Feb 2, 2007 - 12:28 pm 22. Jack Marcotte:“Steve” sounds like a typical liberal. Make up a simplified construct of the “real world” as he sees it. Declares it to be true. Concludes because of its “truth” the actions that must be taken to make it really “true”.
Only a arm chair liberal who does not operate in the real world could think like this.
Any farmer knows that if he is going to get the cow milked in the evening he must find the cow where it is. Not where he thinks it is.
Feb 3, 2007 - 7:22 am 23. jimbo:Ed,
Thanks for pointing me to
F. D. R.’s undeclared war, 1939-1941 by T. R Fehrenbach
I have located it thru our local library system and put in a hold request.
Modern America is rightly known for sex-drugs-rock & roll and materialism. It is less well known that a citizen (in rural Wisconsin, anyway) can locate virtually any publication via the internet and have it delivered to his local libary within a week or so. What a great country!
BTW - is this kind of library service available in most parts of the U.S.?
Feb 3, 2007 - 9:58 am