I started blogging post 9/11, and much of my early blogging was centered on my view that we face a major conflict with ideologically-driven terrorism, and that the broad state support and wealth behind the Islamist wave of that ideologically-driven terrorism is especially dangerous.
It’s not, I believe, dangerous in that they are likely to succeed; the real power of these forces is extremely limited. But it is dangerous in two ways: First, that the exposure to terrorist violence does erode the legitimacy of governments if unchecked, and the means that governments use to combat terrorism typically erode the legitimacy of democratic republics such as ours. Second, that our reaction to a massive wave of Islamist violence is – if no other path to victory becomes clear – likely to be hard to distinguish from genocide.
Because I want to steer us off that path, I supported and continue to support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I don’t things there are going incredibly well. Neither do I think they are a disaster. I think they are going credibly well.I believe that we are making progress, and that the nature of our scrutiny of individual bad events in part keeps us from being able to see any overall pattern beyond the small disasters they recount. Instapundit published an email from a journalist:
It’s frankly impossible to imagine what might have happened to FDR’s presidency if WWII was covered the way the various news media do the job right now. Someone in the blogosphere recently pointed out that 750 American troops died in a training accident during preparations for D-Day. Can you imagine that? Today such an occurrence would have an almost apocalyptic impact in this country, if you consider the way it would be conveyed to the public through television. (Bear in mind that I’m part of the MSM, so I think I speak with a modicum of authority here.)
I’m hard-pressed to imagine a Churchill, today, surviving the disaster in the Norwegian Operation Sickle.
Commenter Pierre Legrand reposted a letter that included this point:
One thing the Marine Corps taught me is that a 70% solution acted on immediately and violently is better than a perfect solution acted on later. My experience has proven this true time and again. The sad fact is however, that a 70% solution is a 30% mistake. And those mistakes can be hard to take. In WWII for example, 700 soldiers drowned in a training accident in preparation for D-Day (that is about how many combat deaths we’ve experienced so far in Iraq).
Every day, the MSM shows us the 30%. But the 70% continues to go on, and slowly, painfully, we will make progress if we keep doing it.
But the psychological cost of the 30% is always there; and part of why I believe Bush’s apparent determination is so important is because that’s what powers us through the inevitable pause that the real cost of the 30% brings.
I think that Kerry wants, more than anything, to return to normalcy through winning the war, as opposed to winning the war so that we can go back to normalcy. Note that the emphasis in each clause is different – in one case, the focus is on normalcy, in the other, on victory.
I think that’s why, in his speech in Cincinnati in September, he blasted the war for wasting valuable money that could otherwise be spent on vital programs that would benefit Americans.
George W. Bush’s wrong choices have led America in the wrong direction in Iraq and left America without the resources we need here at home. The cost of the President’s go-it-alone policy in Iraq is now $200 billion and counting. $200 billion for Iraq, but they tell us we can’t afford after-school programs for our children. $200 billion for Iraq, but they tell us we can’t afford health care for our veterans. $200 billion for Iraq, but they tell us we can’t afford to keep the 100,000 new police we put on the streets during the 1990s.
Well we’re here today to tell them: they’re wrong. And it’s time to lead America in a new direction.
When it comes to Iraq, it’s not that I would have done one thing differently from the President, I would’ve done almost everything differently. I would have given the inspectors the time they needed before rushing to war. I would have built a genuine coalition of our allies around the world. I would’ve made sure that every soldier put in harm’s way had the equipment and body armor they needed. I would’ve listened to the senior military leaders of this country and the bipartisan advice of Congress. And, if there’s one thing I learned from my own service, I would never have gone to war without a plan to win the peace.
I would not have made the wrong choices that are forcing us to pay nearly the entire cost of this war – $200 billion that we’re not investing in education, health care, and job creation here at home.
$200 billion for going-it-alone in Iraq. That’s the wrong choice; that’s the wrong direction; and that’s the wrong leadership for America.
While we’re spending that $200 billion in Iraq, 8 million Americans are looking for work – 2 million more than when George W. Bush took office – and we’re told that we can’t afford to invest in job training and job creation here at home.
…
Because of this President’s wrong choices, we’re spending $200 billion in Iraq while the costs of health care have gone through the roof and we’re told we don’t have the resources to make health care affordable and available for all Americans. Today, 45 million Americans have no health insurance at all – 5 million more than the day George W. Bush took office.
…and so on. I believe him when he talks. I believe that his priorities are as he says them, and I believe that Bush’s are where he says they are as well.
The New Republic came out with an editorial yesterday that endorsed John Kerry as a wartime leader; in fact, I think that the editorial itself undercuts the case for Kerry as a wartime leader in this war. TNR says:
Kerry’s apparent willingness to act within states is particularly important because the U.N.’s obsession with sovereignty renders it impotent in such circumstances. His support for the Kosovo war, waged without U.N. approval, is encouraging in this regard, as is his openness to using U.S. troops–presumably without the Security Council’s blessing–in Darfur, Sudan. These encouraging signs counterbalance his worrying tendency to describe multilateralism–and U.N. support–as an end in itself rather than instrument of American power. If elected, this tension will likely be a theme of his presidency, as it was of Clinton’s.
Kerry is far more connected in his policy history and in his explicit policy statements to a commitment to re-engage other countries and international organizations in order to use multilateral pressure (except, of course, in Korea). TNR cites Kerry’s willingness to ‘go it alone’ in Darfur – but the official statement reads:
And because there is no guarantee that the Sudanese government will relent, we must also start planning now for the possibility that the international community, acting through the United Nations, will be forced to intervene urgently to save the lives of the innocent.
Key word: “through”. The core of Kerry’s foreign policy is re-engagement with the United Nations.
One reason I’ve rejected the ‘law enforcement’ model of fighting terrorism is that, simply, to engage and combat terrorists abroad means that you will be conducting military actions in other countries. Many of those other countries won’t support those actions.
What do we do then?
Many on the left have spoken romantically of covert ‘hit squads’; that prospect is both unrealistic and intensely frightening to me. I can think of few worse or more un-American principle to base our foreign policy on than the notion that we will build a force of trained covert killers and use them to assassinate those opposed to us.
There is also the issue of Sen. Kerry’s relationship with the military.
It isn’t good. This is both a matter of personal history (“Winter Soldier”) and record as a legislator, where he was certainly not percieved – as many Democrats are not percieved – as a friend of the military.
Our military is professional, and honorable, and I believe they will serve whoever we elect in November ably. But I also believe that the doubt raised by Kerry’s history and his unfortunate tone in criticizing the war will make it very difficult for the military to maintain morale in the face of sustained engagement; which in turn will be another arhument for cutting short the engagement and ‘returning to normalcy’.
In a way, I’m supporting Bush today because I believe that Kerry is fundamentally a legislator; that in his personal experience, victory is a matter of negotiation and working toward consensus.
I don’t believe enough in the UN to see that as valuable. I don’t believe that the mad Wahabbist cults that we have allowed to spring up are going to be open to reasoning together between cutting their hostage’s throats.
I don’t think we need constructive negotiation and consensus right now. That time will come, but history’s stage is not yet set for it.
And I also believe that the surest means to reduce the effectiveness of these nonstate actors to the point that we can treat them as a ‘law-enforcement’ problem is to deprive them of their state sponsors. Kerry doesn’t.
Will the violence and disaster I forsee absolutely happen if Kerry is elected? Of course not. Sen. Kerry is, I eblieve, a good and honorable man who will do his best. And Kerry’s choices will be limited. But I do believe that his priority will be to meet those domestic needs, and that – like everyone else – he’ll work hardest on his priorities.
And I believe he’s been clear as to what they are, and they aren’t mine.