Wall Street Opinion Journal August 11, 2006
A terror plot is exposed by the policies many American liberals oppose.
Friday, 12:01 a.m. EDT
Americans went to work yesterday to news of another astonishing terror plot against U.S. airlines, only this time the response was grateful relief. British authorities had busted the “very sophisticated” plan “to commit mass murder” and arrested 20-plus British-Pakistani suspects. As we approach the fifth anniversary of 9/11 without another major attack on U.S. soil, now is the right moment to consider the policies that have protected us–and those in public life who have fought those policies nearly every step of the way.
It’s not as if the “Islamic fascists”–to borrow President Bush’s description yesterday–haven’t been trying to hit us. They took more than 50 lives last year in London with the “7/7” subway bombings. There was the catastrophic attack in Madrid the year before
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JBL –
Don’t be obtuse. Prior to the war, no one inside the WH or the upper echelons of the Republican Party prepared the country for the fact that we were sending too few troops into a factionally riven nation with a religious character that was fundamentally unsuited for democratic self-rule.
What I love, just love, about guys like you is that you will jump up and down about Islamic fascism and how the Muslims are our to get us.
Then, you will turn around and sing the praises for the Democracy effort in Iraq, as if the Muslims who already can vote in Turkey and Europe are reaching out for liberty instead of the Sharia. Why on Earth would Iraq be any different? Why would the Muslims in Iraq be more freedom (Western sense) loving than the Muslims in the UK or France?
On this very site is an article about how the Islamists are running Turkey. That is occurring despite the previous almost 100 years of secularizing. Everywhere, Islamic identity is re-asserting itself, yet the WH is completely oblivious to this while they trumpet Democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Muslim nutcases aren’t afraid of Democracy – they welcome it.
They win the elections. Can’t you get that in your head? Get enough Muslims into the U.S., and they will vote in the Sharia and you and I will end up dead or paying the dhimmi. Terrorism isn’t have as scary as Muslim immigration.
While Bush deal with that? Our dear president who lectured the EU on not being a Christian only club?
Al Sadr roams the country of Iraq freely, even while cooking up an Iraqi Hezbollah. The Iraqi government can not field effective combat forces. The U.S military is short on manpower, and so relies on force multipliers such as CAS and artillery that kill civilians and make us look bad while generating more insurgents.
All the while, we continuously prosecute good Marines and soldiers who used the expansive ROE to engage too close to cameras. Or, who had the bad luck to be operating near where insurgents staged an atrocity.
Either way, Bush stays in the WH and the Marines/soldiers go to the stockade.
If a Democratic President were responsible for this giant cluster, then you would call for his impeachment.
You’d be right to do so, because this is just plain stupid. All of it.
Islam is the problem. Democracy is not the cure. Bush’s strategy is killing all of us.
Two years from now, good riddance to bad rubbish, and hopefully we will get a Republican that makes some sense.
Being a Republican doesn’t make Bush a good president. He’s a disaster. No, Kerry probably wouldn’t have been any better. I voted for the Constitution Party, because I hated both of the choices from the major parties.
Missourian writes: “As to “planning to invade Iraq” all along I don’t think there is enough definite proof from reliable sources to confirm that.”
Both Richard Clarke’s (anti-terrorism) and Paul O’Neill’s (Sec. Treasury) books — which I actually read — document a very early meeting in which military action against Iraq was — to the surprise of many in the meeting — discussed as a very high priority. Others have confirmed that. Early on, the focus was not on al-Qaeda, but on Iraq. Immediately after 9/11 action against Iraq was also discussed. And the administration subsequently spent a tremendous amount of energy and verbiage trying to link Iraq, al-Qaeda, and 9/11. It think it is very clear what their focus was. The Downing Street memo, and the other documentation certainly confirms all that.
Missourian: “Grumbling bureaucrats are a dime a dozen and they mean nothing. The buck stops with the executive, period.”
Yeah, they mean nothing unless they are right. Well, they were right, and the “decider” was wrong. Time and again.
JBL writes: “So Jim I would love to see the WH press release as evidence that everything would be accomplished in a few months?”
JBL, is that enough?
Glen writes: “Prior to the war, no one inside the WH or the upper echelons of the Republican Party prepared the country for the fact that we were sending too few troops into a factionally riven nation with a religious character that was fundamentally unsuited for democratic self-rule.”
People in the military knew that, but the administration shut them down.
Glen: “The U.S military is short on manpower, and so relies on force multipliers such as CAS and artillery that kill civilians and make us look bad while generating more insurgents.”
Dude, you got that right, unfortunately.
Glen, my point in asking the question is to counter this unfounded hyperbole that the left likes to claim that Bush said military operations in Iraq were going to be some kind of party. It was never stated. In fact the opposite was stated more by spokesman than anything else. So this “cake and ice cream” conflict Jim and others throw up is nothing but a carnard to justify the moral superiority.
And I’m so glad Karnac that you can read my mind. Wow, I didn’t realize what my opnions were until you just read my mind and made them public. Thanks, now I know what I’m thinking about or what the problems were.
Your continual responses are like the proverbial four year old crying when she spills her milk. The milks spilled we know there are problems. But what do you do now? Surrender? Give up on democracy? Because we all know “savages” are unable to govern themselves. The truth is I don’t think you have any better solution to offer either.
If you think that withdraw is the answer then your poorly misguided because all you leave is a power vacuum for the Syrians and Iranians to fill. And you think there’s a potential for a civil war now then can you imagine the war that would start if the US leaves? Can you conceive what would happen if the Kurds were forced to defend their territory?
Yeah it’s easy to stand on the sidelines with a superior moralization about the situation. But in the end that’s all it is. So, we get it Glen yeah there are problems most of here posting are not simpletons.
Also you can get off the pablum about “too small of force” and do some research about force transformation and the question if enough “violence” was used.
JBL writes: “Glen, my point in asking the question is to counter this unfounded hyperbole that the left likes to claim that Bush said military operations in Iraq were going to be some kind of party. It was never stated. In fact the opposite was stated more by spokesman than anything else. So this “cake and ice cream” conflict Jim and others throw up is nothing but a carnard to justify the moral superiority.'”
Actually, the “cakewalk” term to which I think you refer wasn’t from Bush, but from Ken Adelman, employee of previous Republican administrations. He said that “I believe demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they’ve become much weaker; (3) we’ve become much stronger; and (4) now we’re playing for keeps.”
The problem, of course, was that we actually had to occupy the place after the cakewalk. But not to worry, that’s only what the Army thought. The great military genius Paul Wolfowitz knew better:
“Shinseki has been, through his career, a real by-the-book guy. So he would not go out of his way to make public disagreements that were clearly going on inside the Pentagon. But in the hearing where Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan was sort of drawing him out on what he expected the troop levels to be, Shinseki finally said, based on his own past experience, that he thought it would be several hundred thousand troops. This became a real arcane term about, what did several hundred thousand mean? But let’s say 300,000 and up. His real level, internally, had been in the 400,000 range.
“Several days later, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, appeared before a different committee. [He] went out of his way essentially to slap Shinseki in the face, to say there had been some recent estimates that had been wildly off the mark — using the term, “wildly off the mark.” Then he went on to say that it was almost impossible to imagine that it would be harder, and take more troops, to occupy Iraq than it had taken to conquer them; whereas that point, that it would be harder to occupy than conquer, was in fact the central theme the Army had been advancing before the war.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/invasion/interviews/fallows.html
It was almost impossible for Wolfowitz to imagine, but easy for Iraqi insurgents to imagine.
Here’s the view of the situation from “ANTULIO J. ECHEVARRIA II, an Army lieutenant colonel, currently is assigned as the Director of National Security Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute” in his paper published by the Army War College:
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB374.pdf
But see, to you and Missourian, none of this means anything. It is always dismissed as “liberal,” or when the source is from the U.S. military it is dismissed as “just someone’s opinion.” What the Bush administration did is reprehensible not because they turned out to be wrong. What they did is reprehensible because they intentionally turned a deaf ear to expert information, eliminated or sidelined people with contrary opinions, preferring instead to exist in a fantasy world of their own creation. Again, if you like them, you deserve them.
“Don’t be obtuse. ”
Glenn, your bad attitude toward those who disagree with you is showing again.
“Islam is the problem. Democracy is not the cure. Bush’s strategy is killing all of us.”
As someone who knows something of world/US history, it’s “obtuse” to call this “Bush’s strategy” is it not? What is “obtuse” is putting forward the idea that America is simply going to change course mid stream and reject freedom of religion and free elections as a foundation for dealing with all sorts of problems.
I happen to agree with you – Islam is the problem, but why don’t you lay off your bad attitude for a while. Better yet, why don’t you start your own blog and you can spread spill your bad attitude to your hearts content….
“The truth is I don’t think you have any better solution to offer either.”
His solution is classic dictatorship and repression. This from the man who defines anyone who disagrees with his “obtuse” version of Just war as either a Christian Zionist or someone who expounds “total war”…
Christopher –
I have a blog. I specifically don’t deal with politics on it, because the goal of that discussion forum site is to promote Orthodoxy. This, of course, doesn’t do it. As for promoting my vision of things, when I publish an article it gets a half million hits and normally gets reposted on 30 or more sites.
Do you have that kind of audience? or JBL for that matter?
No. Didn’t think so.
The solution to Iraq is to leave it to the Iraqis. If they choose to fight this thing out, and it falls apart at the seams then it is their house they are burning. In the end, they will either live together or not.
I am betting that the answer is not. It is way, way too late at this juncture to worry about Iranian influence. That horse left the barn when Saddam was overthrown. We kicked over the regime because we claimed we could improve the situation.
Anyone looking at this objectively should have known that wouldn’t happen. It was a dumb idea.
Yes, I advocate working with friendly authoritarian regimes. Yes, I am against the forcible spreading of Democracy into the Muslim world when the likeliest casualties of that are regimes friendly to us, and the likeliest beneficiaries of that are Muslim fanatics. In the Muslim world, authoritarian regimes have a much better history of acheiving progress and social stability than any kind of democracy.
Remember that one of the reasons we were told that Iraq had a good chance to succeed was because it was relatively advanced and secular?
How did it get that way? The Ba’ath built that, but not under the rubric of democracy.
Freedom of religion, JBL? If that were only true in our little Iraqi experiment. I’ve written time and again that the Assyrians have seen a decline in their freedom. That is why so many are in exile now.
Did you catch the sniping attack on the Shia this past weekend?
Again, JBL and Christopher, where are the Muslims governing themselves and exercising religious and political freedom? In every country in which they vote, they choose the Sharia and radical candidates. This happens in the UK, France, it happens in Iraq, it happens in Dearborn, MI, it happens in the Palestinian territories, it happens in Lebanon, and it will happen in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and will happen anywhere else you hold an election.
You can put ‘savages’ in scare quotes all you want, JBL, but the truth is in your face. Feel free to embrace it.
But you won’t. As I said, you’ll carp about the Muslim threat, the Islamization of Europe, and all of that, only to then back Bush’s vision that somehow free elections will be the cure to the problems of the Middle East.
Repression does not cause terrorism. Freedom does not end terrorism. The feeling of worldwide Muslim solidarity that feeds a Jihadist mentality does that.
How do you combat that with democracy?
You can’t. And you can’t make Iraqis live together peacefully. Nor can you undercut Iranian influence among the Shia.
This thing is lost. It was lost before Bush ever began it. I stated that years ago, and in the end, I’ll be right.
And you’ll be wrong, but you probably will never admit it.
You can argue all day long that Bush didn’t mislead the United States with false promises. Jim Holman will be able to bring up quotes to the cows come home that the Republican establishment did exactly that. And you won’t deal with those quotes, either.
If Iraq were a success, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I’d have bowed to the President’s handling and stated that, “Hey, I was wrong.” I am a Republican who has never voted for a Democrat, for any office, after all.
But I wasn’t wrong, and neither was Pat Buchanan or any number of other conservatives. I can recognize facts when I see them.
Can any of you?
Glen do you really believe that by surrendering to anarchy in Iraq it will stay in the Middle East?
JBL –
Do you really believe at this stage you can build a viable state in Iraq, even if they Iraqis themselves don’t agree?
Glen when I was in university I was taught that answering a question with a question was never an answer. I guess you missed that lecture.
So do you really believe anarchy is a solution?
Glen,
You are right.
We have a tiger by the tail. If we withdraw a blood bath will ensue and it is quite possible that Iran will literally gain control of at least the Shia south.
We could have controlled and redirected Iraq but we would have had to unabashedly used the same kind of comprehensive control that we did with Japan. I believe that Japan was virtually controlled by MacArthur for a full seven years while he wrote a constitution for them and told them “here is your constitution.” MacArthur issued decrees on all sorts of things in Japan and he fully enforced them. American was effectively in control of Japan for about 15 years after the war. Secondly, we also would have to been prepared to effectively confront Iran and Syria. That confrontation may not have taken the form of war but it certainly wouldn’t consist of allowing the Wild West to take shape on Iraq’s borders and allowing an unlimited number of guerillas to come into Iraq to attack our interests.
Given the lack of support from Europe and from the American Left there is no way we could do that. No one would agree to the money, time and loss of life involved in what it would take. No one would have voted for a 10 year occupation with 400,000 troops to transform an Islamic culture into something else.
We haven’t controlled the situation allowing the biggest barbarians the latitude to run rampant.
Probably the best we could have done was promote our own strong man and use him to keep things under control. At this point, I think the Iraqi people want a strong man to come in and create order. In Iraq creating order does not mean setting up Western style courts based on the English common law and giving terrorists “civil rights.” It means rounding them up and imprisoning them for life, period.
Sigh, I fear a terrible confrontation coming with the West starting off on the back foot. So unnecessary.
Democrats can take no credit. They are already following the example of the British Labor Party and cowtowing to the American Muslim vote. The Democrats are promoting the candidacy of a stealth jihadi Muslim candidate for Congress from Michigan. The Democrats will not confront Islam as a cultural enemy and anti-thesis because they have embraced an anti-Western multiculturalism and have committed themselves to the destruction of the culture which gave birth to America. No hope there. For evidence see Senator Lieberman.
JBL –
Don’t get snarky. You do that all the time. You ask questions, but seem to rarely put your own ideas out there.
There won’t be anarchy. The Shia have the guns. I’ve said that a million times. The future of Iraq is either partition or a Shia-dominated state with the Kurds doing their own thing either way. If Iran is going to dominate, then it will not matter if the Shia government comes to power via the ballot box or via gun battles in the streets.
But wait – I remember so many ‘conservatives’ arguing prior to the Iraq war that the Iraqi Shia were different. They weren’t interested in the ‘Iranian Model.’ They were pro-American and weren’t going to become Iranian puppets.
I then distinctly remember that we had to stay in Iraq to keep the Sunni terrorists from taking over. I have said over and over again that the Sunnis can’t take over. Remember? The Shia have the numbers and in street battles, the superior force wins.
Well, I guess that has sunk in now. It is also clear from the anti-Israel and anti-American demostrations among the Shia and the current ascendency of Al Sadr that the Iraqi Shia aren’t that different from Hezbollah (also Shia) or Iran (also Shia).
It seems that the whole apolyptic bunch are quite similiar.
So now we are supposed to stay in Iraq to prevent the Shia from coming under Iranian domination. Too late, that already happened.
We are also supposed to stay in Iraq to stop the civil war. Too late, its underway and we can’t stop it with the forces in place. That is why loopy Republicans have been talking about allying with the Sunni against the Shia to stop Iran.
We can’t do a blessed thing about any of this, unless we ourselves are willing to spill massive amounts of blood. If we had knocked over Saddam, left his state terror apparatus in place, and then put in our own dictator – then that would have had a chance.
But we didn’t. Instead, we went into Iraq and proclaimed we were there to help launch a democracy.
A democracy whose Constitution enshrines Muslim law. A Constitution that lays down a government that will dominated by Shia, the same nutcases that are trying to kill us in Lebanon and Iran.
JBL – pretend what you want, but this whole policy of Shia empowerment was doomed to fail. I predicted as much.
What have you been right about? You or Christopher – what have either of you said that actually panned out on the ground?
The Shia are the same in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and in the West. Anyone who pretends otherwise is simply kidding himself.
Here is a case in point from Redstate.com The resident ‘military affairs’ writer over there is called Streiff. He’s a retired 0-5 who had a staff billet. He’s a heap big Bush fan. Here’s his take:
Now, I would mightily dispute the contention that SCIIRI and Maliki are at odds with Iran, but whatever. The bottom line is that the spectre of Al Queda and Sunni pan-Islamic fascists taking over Iraq was so much hokum. Every single military analyst knew that. The Bush line about fighting the central front on terror against Al Queda in Iraq so that they won’t take over the place was so much garbage.
Now, of course, even big time Bush supporters admit as much. The primary rationale for continuing our occupation was that the fledgling government needed help against Sunni Islamofascists was never valid. Once the military was smashed and the secret police put out of work, Shia power was the only valid option.
So now everyone is starting to worry about the Shia. Which they should have been worried about in 2003 when everybody thought Saddam was the big threat.
Surprise. Anyway, now these guys are saying that sure, the Shia are the problem but only some of the Shia. Maliki is our man, according to them. Funny thing though, without our military keeping him alive there is a 100% chance he wouldn’t live out the day.
So analysts, like Streiff, are pushing for us to stay in Iraq and to help Maliki pacify the South and Sadr City. Which will bring us into direct conflict with the Shia, and kick start a Shia insurgency to match the Sunni insurgency. Of course, we could also get into a war with Iran without a secure base of ops, since most of our supplies come into the South and are trucked north.
Even Streiff understands that each of those convoys will be a sitting duck when we end up fighting the Shia.
So we either let the Shia run things their way, or we go to war with them. That would put us on the side of the Sunni, which is our current enemy.
Does your head hurt, yet? These are the musings of the administration’s supporters for the love of God.
My solution is to let this go the way it will go, withdraw our troops from harm’s way, and re-focus on the Iranians nutcases who don’t seem the least bit chastened by our little adventure in Iraq. What is going to happen in Iraq is going to happen, all we can decide is how much American blood and treasure we will lose in the process.
Or we could just stay and start fighting the Shia, followed by Iran perhaps with an extended supply line that we can’t defend and forward-positioned troops within a stone’s throw of the border who are arrayed in a counter-insurgency manner, not in anti-conventional arms defensive positions.
Is that a good idea, JBL?
If you are wondering how the situation in Iraq could even worse, consider the posibility of a hostile Shiites majority in Southern Iraq attacking supply lines for US military forces from the Persian Gulf. This would make every resupply mission a combat mission and leave our forces encircled, like the Germans at Stalingrad.
Resupply by air would be much more expensive and risky and ultimately untenable. We would have to fight our way out at that point, but it wouldn’t be an orderly retreat, we would have to leave billions of dollars in equipment behind. Unlike Viet Nam the trip from the embassy rooftop in the Green Zone to the waiting aircraft carriers is too far to make by helicopter. Our embassy personnel would have to evacuate from Baghdad airport, under constant threat of missile or mortor attack, or in truck convoys through the Shiite Heartland to Kuwait, also under constant attack.
Then there is the issue of how actively Iran chooses to support them. Iranian surface-to-sea missile technology proved itself capable of taking out an Israeli naval vessel off the coast of Lebanon last month. I wonder how our aircraft carriers and oil tanker fleet would fare trying to get past the Straits of Hormuz under a barrage of Exocet missiles?
Yes, George W. Bush may not be done writing his place in history just yet.
Glen,
Your school yard bully attitude is the problem. Let me quote from your last post:
“I have a blog…. As for promoting my vision of things, when I publish an article it gets a half million hits and normally gets reposted on 30 or more sites.”
“Do you have that kind of audience? or JBL for that matter? No. Didn’t think so.”
“You can put ’savages’ in scare quotes all you want, JBL, but the truth is in your face. Feel free to embrace it.”
” I can recognize facts when I see them. Can any of you? ”
I don’t care what you are talking about I won’t listen with a style/attitude like that. You have moved from habitual crankiness to being a simple jack-ass. Dean is a hysterical lefty, but I am not sure what your problem is. I suppose you are a good example of a hysterical righty. Don’t bother responding to anything I post because note 57 is the last thing I bother to read from your person…
Wow, Christopher, I’m all broken up about that.
No, really, I’ll lay awake at night choked up. Oh, wait, I’m wasting my time because you won’t read this.
Oh well, I’m not really talking to you when I post anyway. That’s a lost cause.
Christopher: Maybe you haven’t noticed but there are a lot of conservatives these days refusing to drink the Bush Kool-aid. What are they – hysterical righties?
Pundits Renounce The President; Among Conservative Voices, Discord
Pat Buchanan, in particular, has been more scathing than even any Democrat I’ve heard:
Judgment Day Coming — For the Neocons
Glen writes: “Or we could just stay and start fighting the Shia, followed by Iran perhaps with an extended supply line that we can’t defend . . . . ”
Attacks on military convoys mean not only a denial of material to U.S. troops, but diversion of supplies, weapons, and ammunition to the insurgents — if they even need them.
Also, what happens when a few too many convoys get hit, and the contracted drivers and companies decide to pull out?
” . . . Kellogg, Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, and its civilian army. KBR has 50,000 employees in Iraq and Kuwait that run U.S. military supply lines and operate U.S. military bases.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/view/#lower
Glen: “Wow, Christopher, I’m all broken up about that.”
Welcome to the club. I’ve been on Christopher’s no-respond list for a long time. It was really tough at first, but somehow I’ve managed to survive.
Dean and Jim –
Save the pixels. Well, okay, you guys are using Christopher as a foil really. Same as I am, I suppose. You don’t really expect to get through to him, you are really talking to whomever might be lurking on the site reading through the posts.
To me, Christopher and JBL collectively represent everything that is currently wrong with conservatives in this country. For example, you two publish 10 paragraphs of analysis and commentary buttressed by research.
The conservatives on this site then ignore everything and respond, “You liberal!”
As if that is supposed to end this argument. Well, liberals have been right before. Just because a person is a liberal doesn’t mean they are eternally wrong about all things. I may disagree with you guys, but I at least read your stuff first.
Then I try to attack it on points. I have lost the ability to do that with Christopher and JBL, however. I have tried reason, and it is lost on them. I have quoted the fathers, church doctrine, Archbishops, Popes, and Patriarchs. None of that seems to really make much impact on then. That has reduced me to angry denunciation at this stage. I can’t debate them without verbally strangling them, because in reality it is impossible to debate them. They won’t actually debate. If they entered into reasoned debate, they’d realize that reason isn’t on their side.
Which is the major thing that irks me about conservatives right now. So many of them are so blindly partisan that they can’t begin to fathom how illogical they are.
Right now, on this site, there are articles about the Islamization of Europe and the increasing Islamization of Turkey. When given the choice, large numbers of Muslim voters tend to go for radical candidates. Well, that is a problem, since the Bush Doctrine is to spread Democracy to the Middle East. If that process replaces friendly or at least manageable regimes with fanatical Muslims bent on our destruction, well that is a pickle isn’t it?
But, conservatives (with major name exceptions like Buckley and Will) are still on-board with Iraq, even as they lament the French riots, the Muslim demands in Britain, and the increasing power of Islamic identity in Turkey. In short, Democracy is destined to work in Iraq, when it is miserably failing to moderate Islamic behavior in Turkey and the rest of the world. We have to be panicked about Muslims in Europe, the possible penetration of the U.S. by Muslim radicals, the threat from Muslim Iran, and Muslim Hezbollah. But, we aren’t supposed to be worried about Iraq, which is going to be the first true Arab democracy where the voters will choose nice people who like us.
Illogical? Of course, but Republicans today are just as blindly partisan, just as immune to logic as the hated Democrats have ever been. In fact, they mirror all the worst features they criticize in Democrats.
Sad really, to see conservatism, which was supposed to be the negation of ideology, itself turned into an ideological vehicle. This extremism has rendered many Republicans incapable of seeing anything other than black and white. For example, it escapes them that I could be for an Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon, but against bombing Northern Lebanon. As if combat ops in the South against local guerillas was contingent on bombing Christian neighborhoods in Beirut.
The other thing that irks me about conservatives at this point is how thin-skinned they are. They can dish it, but they can’t take it. JBL compared me to a four-year-old. Christopher told me to get my own blog so that I can spew poison.
Ouch.
They routinely call Dean names, and Jim too. But, if you slam back, they get all huffy and act like a pristine maid whose honor has been insulted. Republicans at all levels are like this. Their own sins are invisible to them, but they clearly see the moat in their brother’s eye while ignoring the beam in their own.
To hear them talk, the reason that the Bush Administration has been running a politically correct, largely ineffective war on terrorism is because of the evil Dems and the evil MSM. Well, the evil leftists weren’t responsible for this little nugget:
The leftists aren’t in charge. The Republicans are. And the above idiocy keeps happening, which really brings the Republican sense of victimization into serious doubt. But that won’t stop them from complaining about being misrepresented, etc.
One last thing, Republicans seem to have lost any sense of irony at all. Many religious Republicans will argue that fetal stem cell research is wrong, because you can’t take innocent life at any stage of its existance in order to save the lives of others. Such a choice is immoral.
I agree. It is immoral. But many of the same Republicans who take that absolutist stance on domestic issues will then turn around and argue in favor of bombing civilians for the greater good.
And they will see no irony in that. None at all. Hard to deal with that. It reminds one of Orwell’s ‘double think.’ Republicans have mastered the old trick of the left to keep two contradictory thoughts in their head at one and not let them clash.
Welcome to Clintonian compartmentalism, Republican style.
Here is an interesting take on the Hezzbo/Isreal crises. Not sure I find it convincing because the index should have stayed down after Israel’s failure…:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=M2NlN2M5YWIxNDE4MmE1YTQxMTBjYWIzZWQ1MmZjZWY=
Glen, I’m not sure why you are surprised and frustrated that your well constructed, logical arguments don’t change the minds of others on the blog who do not already share your point of view. Have you ever seen any one-on-one political debate change anyone’s mind? I never have. Such debate merely serves to strengthen already held views, already existing belief.
Since politics is all about belief, it is not subject to rational, logical dismantling or even significant modification from an outside source. You shouldn’t be frustrated that other people with strong political belief contrary to yours don’t immediately change just because your facts and logic are superior. Belief is used to both select and evaluate facts that are true and significant as well as provide the foundational assumptions for logic.
As such even political belief is part on one’s personal identity. The more strongly it is held, the more integral the belief is to the person’s identity. Therefore when you challenge a person’s political belief, you are also challenging that person on very intimate level and their defense mechanisms kick in.
Even so, politics is in the realm of effects, not of causes. All hues of political belief share at least some level of truth, even Islam, Communism, and Fascism. All hues of political belief have huge flaws that appeal to our passions rather than our virtue. It would be much more substantial, instructive, productive, and even fun if we could actually work to identify the virtues inherent in political approaches, identify how they are congruent with the Church’s understanding of man in community and see how such virtue can be built upon. The first step, IMO, is to lay aside our own political convictions and delve more deeply into our understanding of the truth revealed through the Church.
Here are a couple of questions: Can we love our enemies and protect ourselves at the same time individually and as a nation/culture?
Is there a way to embody the answer in a political and military strategy?
A similar approach: How do we identify real evil in political situations rather than just normal falleness, bad judgment, and everyday sinfulness? What is the best political response to such evil when identified?
For a Christian, which is more important, political philosophy or the virtue and character of a particular candidate?
Does democracy really reflect the Orthodox understanding of man in community?
When we degenerate into trying to prove a point rather than find answers that are congruent with our calling to follow Christ and be in communion with Him, frustration will always follow. Divisiveness will be exacerbated. Understanding will take a back seat to correctness. Embodiment of truth will suffer.
Missorian raises hand and says “Glen changed my mind”
Hey, Glen, you changed my mind. The old thing (my mind) is somewhat creeky but it does eventually respond. 😉
Note 71. Actually, debate has changed my mind. Sometimes people have better ideas than I do.
And yes, Glen has changed my mind on some things as well.
Michael,
All good questions. Here’s my take:
Yes, absolutely. Take the Israeli situation. Attacking Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon was perfectly moral, and exactly the right thing to do. A sworn enemy is sitting over the border, and has attacked you by violating your territorial sovereignty. Response is the right thing. That is a Just Cause for War. The war then must be carried out in a just manner. That is where I parted company with the Israeli government, because their air campaign was wrongly conceived, and as it turned out, not even effective. There is no substitute for boots on the ground. Okay, I know that I’m former infantry, but I think that airpower has clearly shown that it is great at destroying massed formations of conventional military but very poor at striking down guerillas.
From the American perspective, there is a ton that we can do to protect ourselves. We can aggressively pursue border enforcement. We should have and did destroy the Taliban regime. We should end Muslim immigration to the United States. We should close Mosques that preach hate against us. We should stop allowing Muslim chaplains into the prison system or the military. We should arrest members of Muslim charities who raise money for terrorist organizations. We should racially profile.
On a more expansive note, we need to be more concerned about the Christians who live under the Muslim yoke. They are the greatest Trojan horse ever. No, really, hear me out. Every year some unknown number of Muslims actually convert to Christianity, knowing the risks and knowing that they are probably going to suffer.
Why do they do this? Because the call of Christ is irresistable. It is truth. Well, if we could lower the costs of conversion, then why wouldn’t even more Muslims convert? Hence, in my mind, one of the greatest methods of combatting terrorism is to encourage conversion to Christianity. That means, of course, tying aid money and other goodies to a regime’s protection of its Christian population. If the status of Christians is raised, then you will see more conversions, greater progress and stability, and less influence of the nutcases.
As you can see, we can do a lot. One of my biggest complaints is that most of the commonsense measures on this list are undone while we focus on Iraq.
Absolutely. See above.
Confrontation of evil is the best. The form of that confrontation is debatable. Domestically, for example, the President’s approval of the ‘Plan B’ abortion drug is abysmal. No Christian, no matter how true-blue Republican, can abide this monstrousity. It must be opposed.
Internationally, I think you have to be prudent. The greatest evil we face is Islam. Therefore, our allies should be those regimes which are opposed to Islamic rule. That would include many dictatorships, whose likely replacement would be an Islamist regime. Dictatorship may be evil or it may be for the good. For most of history man lived under one authoritarian regime or another, and most people still do.
Tough one. I can abide personal sin more than bad policy, the same as the church is more forgiving to the sinner than the heretic. If a man who votes pro-life in the Senate has an affair with a secretary, I’ll probably still vote for him over the pro-abortion candidate with a squeakey clean marriage.
Probably not. I am not so sure that within 100 years that the democratic experiment won’t be over, assuming Jesus tarries. Look at the number of Senators who hold the seats vacated by their fathers. Ditto the representatives. Right now, we are looking at possibly (Heaven forbid) possibly electing another Clinton. Jeb Bush will eventually run as well, which will give the following possible scenario Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton-Bush. It would appear that we are descending towards oligarchy, all that is left is to crown the top with a king.
From an Orthodox perspective, true freedom is the freedom to be Orthodox, not the freedom to vote in elections. We often say that our freedom of religions is guaranteed by the Constitution, but in Orthodox monarchies the Tsar’s/King’s most sacred duty is to safeguard the faith. As long as the monarchs stayed out of Theology, then being Orthodox was a freedom everyone enjoyed.
“Christopher: Maybe you haven’t noticed but there are a lot of conservatives these days refusing to drink the Bush Kool-aid. What are they – hysterical righties?”
Dean, I am not sure what Bush has to do with what I was saying. I am no Bush fan – I did not vote for him in 2004 (though I did in 2008). Your own reactionary posts and Bush hatred reveal at times just a bit histrionics (remember bush the psychotic which you recanted from and then resumed just a few days later)? As for Iraq, the heat is going up is it not. Perhaps a partitioning of the country is the way to go. Whatever the solution, not sure the Buchanan will have anything relevant to say. See Ramesh Ponnuru’s “A Conservative no more”
Missourian (note 61)
“Probably the best we could have done was promote our own strong man and use him to keep things under control. At this point, I think the Iraqi people want a strong man to come in and create order. In Iraq creating order does not mean setting up Western style courts based on the English common law and giving terrorists “civil rights.” It means rounding them up and imprisoning them for life, period.”
Boy, we are REALLY getting cynical here (about Iraq). Is this the limit of our moral and political imagination? Have we not already tried this tactic (the friendly dictator) and has it also not failed? Give me Bush’s “optimistic freedom” over this impoverished view any day. I don’t know what the solution in Iraq is (Buckley’s partitioning argument is looking better and better) but the friendly dictator who puts his people in mass graves is certainly not an acceptable solution Christianly speaking. Perhaps I am misreading what you mean by a “strong man”…
Christopher
Buckley’s idea of partition has a limitation. Turkey and Iran would be unwilling to accept an independent Kurdistan. The idea would be as welcome as a Jewish homeland is in the Middle East.
I don’t expect Christopher to answer, but I have to ask – where has this failed? We have friendly dictators in place in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere in the Muslim world. No one, I repeat, NO ONE is advocating free elections in any of those places. It isn’t that we’ve tried the friendly dictator thing and abanodoned it. That would at least be consistent, if suicidal.
Rather, we are still supporting dictators in the rest of the Middle East because we realize (belatedly) that having governments run by Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood is a very, very, very bad idea.
Christopher (I know you won’t answer, but this is fun anyway) – should we have an election in Pakistan? Should we risk a nuke being in the hands of Muslim radicals? Of course not, but then why are we trying so hard to build a democracy in Iraq when we all know the stakes are too high to risk that in Pakistan or Egypt?
You can’t argue that Islam is incompatible with modernity (which it is) and then argue that we are going to be able to make Iraqis live in a peaceful, democratic society. It is beyond our power, which is rapidly becoming apparent for anyone to see.
‘Conservatives’ like you may prefer the grandiose rhetoric of Bush to the reality of the world we live in, but that doesn’t help protect the U.S. or make the world safer.
Most authoritarian regimes do not fill up mass graves with their citizens. There are no mass killings in Egypt, nor in Jordan, nor in the Emirates. That is just plain hogwash. You could take your next vacation in Morrocco or Egypt, or even Tunisia. All of them have authoritarian regimes. All of them are friendly to the U.S., and none of them are supporting terrorism.
On the other hand, our current democratic experiments in the PA, Iraq, Afghanistan (not really our fault), and Lebanon are disaster zones.
Sure, if the dictator is Pol Pot or Mao, then I don’t think that we should be getting chummy with them. But if the dictator is a Mubarak or some other relatively low-key authoritarian leader who keeps a lid on the fundamentalists, then I am ALL in favor of living and letting live rather than trying to ‘spread democracy.’
Call it cynicism, but I consider a rational assessment of the Islamic world.
Christopher, “east is east, and west is west”
I think what I am expressing is that Iraq is a society which is built on a fundamentally different worldview. One of the things that I have been trying to convince Dean of, is that Islam is very, very different from Judaism and Christianity. It is a distinct and many times antithetical worldview when compared to Christianity. It is truly ignorant of the reality of the world to think that other cultures are “just like ours” they just involve different music, different costumes and different diets. No, they involve an entirely different worldview and set of value. Values can conflict. Western and Islamic value conflict. It is naive to expect the American Army to reform Islam in Iraq when Ataturk could barely do it in Turkey with his army. Ataturks reforms are fading and Turkey is falling into orthodox Islam.
Culture does matter when determining whether democracy will be a success. Do you think Hamas will now promote free and fair elections. Do you think Hamas will grant its opponents a peaceful opportunity to dislodge them from power? No, they won’t The “election” approved by Carter will give the reins of power to Hamas. Those reins will not be dislodges from the hands of Hamas without war. To believe otherwise, is absurd.
Missourian wrote:
Would it be beneficial for the US to foster civil war among the Palestinians?
Glen wrote:
Looking at your statement I have a question, then was Saddam okay or not in your view?
Glen, in #74 you said:
Wonderful idea, I think it really does embody the fundamental tenant of Christianity, to love your enemy. In concert with this, we should also have as an important part of our policy before we make any moves what the outcome will mean for Christians. I don’t believe anyone seriously considered the question before we invaded Iraq. Of course, we can’t possibly do that because it violates the separation of church and state, you know.
You know, I supported the invasion of Iraq initially in part because of all the really stupid and offensive reasons for opposing it. I still think there were good, cogent reasons to do it, but the planning for afterwards was horrible. It illustrates what the lack of a politically reasonable, intellectually astute opposition party gets us into.
Points to consider:
We have always had some type of oligarcy or other to rule us. It just hasn’t been so clearly familial as the current revolving door you suggest.
Take a look at these articles:
A History of Orthodox Missions Among the Muslims
Six Million African Muslims Convert to Christianity Each Year (This article includes an interview from the Al-Jazeerah website.)
JBL, NOte 80
JB….. If I may call you that instead of the more formal JBL.
I dunno. I don’t have a grand plan. I am merely stating that the U.S. set out to do what Kemal Ataturk only partially succeeded at in Turkey. Ataturk was willing to use methods that the U.S. normally would be loathe to use.
I have no grand plan for peace in the Middle East.
Fr. Daniel Byantoro whom the History artical mentions is himself a convert from Islam. In his labors, he uses the same basic technique of identifying certain aspects of the existing belief and then expounding the fulfillment of those core ideas in Jesus. Its pretty slim in Islam and requires a lot of re-interpretation, but he gets it done.
Abu Bakr Bashir explains Islam, will Dean read it?
This gentleman has a huge following in Islam. He tells it as it is. Will Dean even acknowledge that Abu Bakr Bashir speaks for millions and millions of Muslims?
Probably not. Dean will not hear what Islamic leaders are openly telling their followers and the world.
From Al-Jazeera:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C46DA5C1-D200-48E6-8B24-76EE739EC243,frameless.htm
This guy can’t be Islamophobe can he? He says Islam and democracy are incompatible. He must be a bigot and an Islamophobe.
“It is naive to expect the American Army to reform Islam in Iraq when Ataturk could barely do it in Turkey with his army. Ataturks reforms are fading and Turkey is falling into orthodox Islam.”
Good points about Turkey and Hamas. However, did not Ataturk preside over the first genocide of the twentieth centaury? This of course occurred within the context of the battles with France and the like, but still. I am still suspicious that Christianly speaking, we can support such “strong men”. Not sure how this is any better (or worse) than an unjust war – in that we would be supporting such men precisely because they would hold their Islamic populations in check and not wage war against us. This is where the vision of Bush and crowd goes further in that it at least is positing a solution – subvert Islamic values from within by the law written on the heart, the desire for basic human freedom (both physical and spiritual). I don’t think the return to support the Shah’s of the Islamic world will work out, in that the Islamic movements simply leverage this against the West (witness Iran)
“I think what I am expressing is that Iraq is a society which is built on a fundamentally different worldview….Culture does matter when determining whether democracy will be a success. ”
Agreed, so we are back to the basic question: What do we do?
1. After you win the war, then you have to either rule the newly defeated nation or allow it to rule itself. If you choose to rule it, then you have Iraq. If you let it rule itself, then you will get a Muslim dominated state such as the Taliban ruled. Attaturk’s nation should have been cut to pieces and the Christians freed. It survived only because the Brits feared the Russians more than the Turks. We’ve been making excuses for the Turks ever since, and have made them more powerful than they needed to be.
2. At the last all-night vigil, I chanted the Akathist to Tsar Nicholas the Royal Martyr. The last prayer was a petition to God for the restoration of Orthodox Monarchy. The idea that our Western notion of ‘freedom’ is universal is simply untrue. What Bush is doing is not subverting Islamic values from within. That is laughable. Didn’t you see Bush sputtering the other day that Hezbollah and Hamas were trying to subvert democracy?
Hezbollah and Hamas both run political parties. Hamas was freely elected. Hezbollah is the largest single party in parliament. Muslim fanatics love democracy. Far from undermining them, it gives them power.
You keep asking what to do? I’ve given you a list several times. Bush has already started executing on that list.
Where are the calls for elections in Egypt? That’s over. Where are the calls for elections in Jordan? Over. Saudi Arabia? Over. Pakistan? Well, the administration never called for free elections in Pakistan. We are about to go to war with Iran to stop Islamic nutcases from getting the bomb, we are certainly not going to insist on elections in Pakistan that would hand them one on a platter.
All over the Middle East, the Bush Doctrine is dead in any nation that is friendly to the United States. There will be no elections in Morocco, or Tunisia, or elsewhere due to pressue from Washington. Heck, even Moammar Khadafi is getting a pass at the moment.
This is not a bad thing. It’s a recognition of reality. The only nations still getting the Bush Doctrine are Afghanistan and Iraq.
We are leaving friendly governments in power. That is a good start, in my opinion.
Do you really think that we should force those regimes from power (like Bush seemed bent on doing before the Muslim Brotherhood started winning) or should we keep our friends around and hope for better days in the future?
Do you really want to take a chance on four or five more Irans in the region?
There are no regimes filling up mass graves. We’re dealing with authoritarian regimes, of course, but there is no mass slaughter among the likes of Egypt and Morrocco.
Now Sudan, on the other hand, is a different story. So is Nigeria. There we should be talking partition to create Christian homelands.
But we aren’t. Too bad.