I’ve been watching the upcoming election with some amusement – I wish I could muster enthusiasm instead – and thinking about how to decide who I’m likely to support.
On a range of domestic issues, I ought to be clearly an Obama supporter; but issues are one thing and competence, experience, and judgment another. And, as ought to be clear to most of the folks who read me with any interest at all, I’ve been willing to put my domestic agenda on hold while we deal with the problem of a hostile movement within a newly powerful Islamic world.
So I sat down and tried to map out the conditions for making a decision based on that one issue. And I came to an interesting hypothesis that I’d like to try out on the hawkish readers here.
It just may be the case that hawkish folks like me would see our policies better off – far better off – with a Democratic president in 2009.OK, go pop a few blood pressure pills and come back so I can explain why.
It starts with my belief that we’re in for a long war. Like the Cold War, I’m hopeful that it will be resolved with few people dying in combat. Very hopeful…
…and like the Cold War, I believe that our opponent both needs to expand for internal reasons, and will ultimately collapse – absent being nuked into oblivion for doing something foolishly violent – for internal reasons. The issue is hanging on long enough for that to happen.
Today, that’s not going to happen; it’s not going to happen because in our toxic political environment, the war has become a Republican war. The Democrats – for domestic political reasons as much as for ideological ones, I believe – see the very real (and typical) fatigue with the war as well as the litany of problems that any war brings with it as a club they can use to beat the Republicans with, and they fully intend to keep using it. The unintended consequence of that division is that the very real enemies we have, both the core of the violent Islamist movement, and more important the larger body of those who are sympathetic or blackmailed into supporting them, see that division and are confident that they are backing the stronger horse.
The recent moves by the Gulf Council to patch things up with Iran are, in this model, largely a product of the bet by the Gulf states that US domestic policy will preclude any aggressive effort to check Iranian power, and that the Iranians see an uncertain US leadership as unable to press them without reckless escalation on their part.
So first, and foremost, we need to be clear that in this contest we are united as we are not today. How best to do that? I’ll get back to that.
There’s another reason that goes with this.
If you’re a hawk, ask yourself – what if we’re wrong?
There’s a problem in interpersonal violence that I think scales well to interstate violence; you usually don’t know for sure in the real world when you’re in a fight until it’s too late. And in making the decision to fight in most circumstances, the risk you take is that you start a fight when there wouldn’t have been one if you’d acted otherwise.
A long time ago, I talked about ‘threat assessment‘:
The best class I have ever seen (although I did not take it) in dealing with this issue is the IMPACT/Model Mugging series. They teach their students to actively interact with potential threats, which allows you to make the determination of risk at a range you select. When I walk up, the IMPACT student is taught to say “Excuse me, but you’re coming too close to me,” and then escalate from there depending on the response. If this were directed at me (affable, but sometimes irritable), I’d back up, and probably shake my head at the oversensitivity and lack of trust in the modern world. The Bad Guy won’t, and that difference in behavior lets you know what you are dealing with.
My role model Clint Smith puts it pretty well: “You better learn to communicate real well, because when you’re out there on the street, you’ll have to talk to a lot more people than you’ll have to shoot, or at least that’s the way I think it’s supposed to work.“
I’ve consistently said that we aren’t – yet – in a real war with the nations of the Middle East, and that it would be a profound error to act as if we were. In response to a post here on why we needed to immediately act against Iran, I responded:
Why are we talking in the face of a ticking bomb?
Well, because to quote someone smarter than me, “Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice doggie’ while reaching for a stick.”
While we’re doing that, a few things may happen. The dog may stop growling. We may get a stick.
Or we may get bitten.
I don’t want to get bitten by a dog. But my willingness to risk a dog bite goes up when I’m carrying a gun.
Because I can say with a lot of confidence that the dog will only get one bite.
I’ll add to that some history, from Michael Oren’s ‘Power, Faith and Fantasy,’ which suggests that we’ve had intermittent, low-level conflict with the nations of the Middle East as long as we’ve been around. Clearly it’s a different game today, with higher risks and more connections for both sides. But a level of discomfort and conflict isn’t new. And if it isn’t new, maybe it’s something that we live with, within boundaries – just as we lived with the depredations of the Soviet and Chinese states during the 50’s and 60’s.
So in the face of those who say that Rudy G is in “his prime terrorist-killing years” or that John McCain may be a little old but will still kick some ass, I’d ask this:
First, wouldn’t it be good to have the whole country – or at least much of both parties – lined up on one side when it comes to this conflict? And second, isn’t it reasonable to try to see if we’re really at war or if – note that this isn’t a position I believe in, but it’s one I can see believing in – we’re at risk of causing one?
Obama’s article in Foreign Affairs was, to me, a mess. His faith in negotiation and persuasion is touching, but in my experience negotiation where one side doesn’t see any downside to no negotiated outcome is typically not successful; and the histories of wars past are full of those who – whether negotiating with the Barbary Pirates, the Ottoman Empire, the Nazis, or the Soviets – felt that as long as negotiations were ongoing, regardless of what was happening outside, things were going well. But I believe that even Obama loves this country and is certainly smart enough to change his stance if facts prove him wrong. I cite Obama here not because I’ve decided to support him – I haven’t – but because it’ll be him or Hillary for the D’s, and he is certainly more dovish than she is.
So let’s take a moment and discuss whether – in the context of a generational conflict – we’d be better off strategically if the Democrats won next year.
On even numbered days, I agree with you. On odd numbered days, I do not.
I have been thinking long and hard about this for years, and I haven’t been able to resolve it yet. The reason I cannot resolve it is because I can’t see the future. Maybe it will work out for the reasons you state, and maybe it won’t. It could go either way. There is no way to know in advance. War is like that. There will be no resolution to your theory unless it works, and it won’t know until we have hindsight.
Come up to Oregon again and we can talk about it over beers and at least get a nice buzz out of it, if nothing else.
I’ve been thinking and saying this for over a year now. My thinking is similar – both sides need to be in the fight. The problem with that to date is that no one on the Democrat side, with a few exceptions, have been speaking clearly about what we are facing and proposing acceptable actions for it. Thus they oppose the actions of the Republicans. This would change to some degree if the Dems took the Presidency. Give the Dems the responsibility and force them to enunciate what they are willing to do as well as act on the world’s stage. All need to participate in the overriding ideological war.
There is STILL the Iraq War. It still going on. If there was one Democrat (I remain a registered Democrat) that I didn’t think would precipitate a disaster in Iraq, then your proposition would have merit. As it is, I have zero confidence that we wouldn’t just end up completely yielding the field to the Mullahs and hoping for the best.
The idea that we have to be attacked first before we can legitimately confront our adversaries seems a bit quaint in the age of nuclear proliferation. Unfortunately, that seems to be the Dems foreign policy: sit back and wait for the shit to hit the fan.
I took my first trip to New York, in part, to see Ground Zero. If that hasn’t cleared the Dems mind, I’m not sure it’s possible.
I agree with the other posters here at least enough to say that I would be absolutely convinced to vote for a genuinely hawkish Democrat instead of any Republican if that were an option. For the reasons AL states.
And by hawkish I do not mean “wants to invade Iran.”
The problem is that I do not want a catastrophe in Iraq (as if it isn’t already bad enough over there) to be a part of the Democratic Party’s learning experience.
But I will withhold final judgement on this until after the primary. Primaries are distorting. Let’s see what the nominee says when the political center is prized rather than the activist base.
OK, I’ll raise my hand as a ‘hawk’ of sorts, though I’m not ready to roll tanks on Tehran either. I find this an interesting theoretical excursion, but one with zero persuasive power in any practical sense.
From the perspective of a libertarian-leaning independent pushed into the R column by the events of the last six years, I’ve got the following issues when I mark the (paper!) ballot this year:
1. Prosecute the war with Islamist terrorism
2. No nannyism, either PC leftist or Christian rightist
3. A determined effort on energy independence (see 1 above)
4. Everything else
I will readily acknowledge that I’m not going to get my full wish list from anyone on either side, but what do I see when I look on the D list? All three of the leading candidates have taken the ‘cut and run pledge’, and can’t seem to back off from it, or even acknowledge that we’ve finally made some progress on a decent outcome in Iraq. Yes, Hillary has been backing and filling (continually), but I look over her shoulder and who do I see? Madeline Albright and erstwhile Gen. Clark, some of the authors of the strategic drift and kick-the-can foreign policy that helped us into a situation where I have to put #1 up there (and believe me that doesn’t make me happy).
You’re asking me to believe that if I help one of the D candidates into office that they will then steady down and pursue something I’d recognize as a responsible strategy for winning a war that has a long, but not indefinite (at most one generation) timeline. To buy that for two of the candidates, I have to also believe they are complete panderers. In the last case, I have to believe that eight years of (ahem!) experience are going to be reversed. Come on – doesn’t even pass the grin test.
You can reasonably object that I’m using stance on Iraq as a proxy for the entire Islamist war. Partly true, but I see the character of response to Iraq as a Litmus test. I’m looking for principled opposition. As an example, McCain (NOT my favorite R) raised hell about Bush and Rummy’s execution, put forward an alternative, and then acknowledged that it had been adopted in part and was looking good. In contrast we get Harry Reid, and a set of candidates and a large related constituency that more or less told the enemy that they could wait us out.
We can and will argue about how we got into Iraq until we are blue in the face. But that’s history now. GWB will be leaving office, we’re in Iraq, and the enemy chose to engage us there. How to deal with that, with the problem of Pakistani sanctuaries and nukes, and Iranian trouble making and nuclear ambitions will be some of the joyous tasks facing the next commander-in-chief. A history of responsible opposition would give me some hope of a cohesive strategy once in office. You tell me where to find it.
I appreciate what the other two posters have written, but I would take the next step and say that a more dovish Democrat is desirable in the White House.
Obama is the likely candidate for the most dovish contender and I would assert that he is sufficiently hawkish to address the threat, from Afghanistan and Pakistan, through Iraq and including Iran. Most importantly, he would be in a position to espouse active involvement in ongoing events, thus pulling the Democratic side of the house into more alignment with hawkish sentiment.
Clinton is the likely winner, of both the primary and general elections, and she is considerably more hawkish than Obama.
It is impossible to maintain this bias in foreign policy with so much of the country opposed to it. It must naturally cycle back to the other pole. Best to accept and acknowledge that, then formulate strategy from that eventuality.
bq. The Democrats – for domestic political reasons as much as for ideological ones, I believe – see the very real (and typical) fatigue with the war as well as the litany of problems that any war brings with it as a club they can use to beat the Republicans with, and they fully intend to keep using it.
This assertion seems to be central to your idea–and I don’t see it, at all. Blog after Op-Ed after conversation, I see liberal and left wing Democrats who oppose the war in Iraq because they see it as being not only misdirected, but fundamentally immoral. In the left-mainstream, I don’t see a countervailing sensibility that sees the overall issues with MENA nations and the Muslim world in a different light. In this broader arena, too, it is the US’s evil and confrontational policies that are at the heart of the root-cause analysis.
The diverse concerns raised by writers like Bruce Bawer, Theodore Dalrymple, Ibn Warraq, Melanie Philips, Fouad Ajami, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christopher Hitchins, and Robert Spencer–they simply don’t resonate with most of the Left.
If I’m right and much of the core of the Democratic Party is sincere in looking at foreign policy in this way–and not mainly using it as a stick with which to beat domestic opponents–where does this leave the Hawkish Case? Looks indistinguishable from a Dovish Case.
As other commenters may hasten to add, the Dovish Case may indeed be the proper approach; we won’t know the future until we get there (if then). But that’s a different argument.
Your premise is intriguing. Even though I’d classify myself as a Republican hawk, I’m not quite at ease with the preemptive just war doctrine. But for sure, the whole country would be lined up on one side if we were attacked by any WMD. Absent this, I just can’t see our two parties or country as a whole agree to line up on one side, no matter the facts. And even your IMPACT threat assessment does require some interpretation of behavior. Inevitably, even in the best of circumstances this leads to some non-zero risk of avoidable war. So it boils down to which is worse, to take that first dog-bite, then blow away the dog, or shoot the dog that merely “snarls at you” to later find out that he was snarling at what was behind you. And he happens to be recently purchased by your best friend. Who now hates you.
The analogy only caries so far. Morally, I may be justified in preemptively shooting in self-defense, but knowing that some day I will be judged for my actions, I would rather take the hit first. ‘Cause I just can’t be sure. As a hawk, however, I’d really like to minimize the bite and make sure my big stick was ready, a la Teddy Roosevelt.
AL- Please go read this if you have never done so before. Reread it if you have. But, I think that you need a reminder. I think THIS is a distinct possibility if we elect one of those feckless Democrats.
“December 7, 2008”:http://www.therant.us/staff/kraft/10242006.htm
It has been a long full day and I am too tired to properly discuss your post but I will read it and sleep on the reply.
The Hobo
BTW, welcome back!
Only if we are all on the same side no matter who wields executive power. Not if executive power is someone’s price for loyalty.
Yes, I used the word loyalty, because I can think of no other word. I’d like to see one of your Democratic candidates define it. Without breaking down in tears.
Seriously, all of you serious-minded Democrats must face the fact that the Democratic party does not have a foreign policy at all, and is in fact an anti-foreign policy party. To put it more or less in John Kerry’s exact words, “We need to take this money we’re spending in Iraq and build more fire stations.”
If you believe (as these “progressives” who burble about “change” believe) that the United States is a noxious influence in the world, which needs to “regain its moral authority” by repenting itself in dust and ashes, then either Clinton or Obama will do fine. If you don’t believe that, you’ve got a problem.
I am a Republican by habit but have subscribed to the contrarian theory that Republicans tend to want to show their tender side (at least the Bush’s have shown this) and the Democrats, not wanting to seem soft may just as well institute a draft, raise taxes, and open up a can of whoop ass if the circumstances warrant it. At least their constituency will go along with the program. Once upon a time I thought that our efforts in Iraq would prove to the world that the US should be respected because if you screwed with us, we just might send in our military and kick your ass. I thought that future Saddam Hussein’s would think twice about inciting us to action. But after all the pissing and moaning by the Democrats I am afraid that that message became garbled. Too bad, we shall certainly have to make that message again and again until the Jihadi’s either pack up their tents or we are forced to destroy them.
Tim:
Energy independence is on the way:
WB-7 First Plasma
The world has just changed. Cheap fusion is on the way. About 5 years.
“So first, and foremost, we need to be clear that in this contest we are united as we are not today. How best to do that? I’ll get back to that.”
I think you failed to get back to that, and so I don’t see any argument that we’d be better off. In fact, given their behavior over the last half decade, where have the Democrats earned better treatment in a Democratic administration than they’ve given?
AL I think you’re wrong on every account.
First off, Clinton’s desire to not do anything in 1997 (the CIA that year predicted Pakistan would be decades from nukes) led to Pakistan going nuclear in 1998. Now, perhaps we could not have prevented it.
But Pakistan’s nuclear shield is Osama’s. And Osama may soon control Pakistan.
NOT rolling on Tehran could end up costing NYC and DC. Perhaps more. All gone in a blinding nuclear flash. Asymmetric warfare means tin-pot nuclear states that can’t pick up trash in the streets and keep sewage off them either can calculate they can use proxies to nuke the US like a giant carbomb. Given Iran’s habit of using truck bombs to good effect: Beirut, Buenos Aires, Khobar Towers this is not a trivial concern.
No Dem at any time or any place will do anything other than appease. Delay. At most fire off a few impotent missiles. Until we lose cities and we are FORCED to respond by wiping out whole cities. Or lose more cities and cities until we do it anyway.
My concern is avoiding that. Wishful thinking and Obama’s granny in a mud hut in Africa won’t cut it.
Obama is of course a total disaster. The BBC reports Obama’s cousin, Odinga, has been in phone contact to “resolve” the Presidential Election in Kenya. Odinga is a Luo of course and the President is a Kikuyu.
What is interesting is that the BBC also reports that Odinga has agreed with the Muslim League to revise the Kenyan Constitution and make Islam the only allowed religion, institute Sharia.
Dems abjure Iraq and all the human intel sources gotten at great cost, they’d rather be morally pure and have variations of Obama’s “World Apology Tour for America” even Hillary.
Given Iranian provocations in the Gulf (if Peters is right we will lose at least one ship) and then what? Obama wants to “negotiate” as if life was an episode of the West Wing. Hillary is not much better.
Like it or not, Dems are not serious and never will be about National Security. Any of them in office it will be Jimmy Carter vs. Khomeni. Only this time Khomeni will have nukes.
If we see this more as a generational conflict than a sudden threat, then yes – a Democrat in the White House would surely help. Reforming the UN so that it can actually be a force for good(instead of near useless), building allies, spending money on 20 years of building international schools and backing moderate Islamic voices.
I’ll also hold out for them making more progress with Israel, and finding a way to back Democracy in Lebanon – of which Condi has done an awful job with, and missed completely, respectively. Maybe at some point they can get around to not handing out money to dictators who happen to support our needs.
And since I’m dreaming, start to wear down Syria as the destabilizing force it is. Again, since we’re looking longer term, while Iran is more of a current problem.
I don’t see the capability of this in any of the Republicans. It may be there, but it’s hidden under the bravado they need to push in order to be considered serious in the primaries.
For a sudden threat? Going with either D or R will not increase or decrease the likelihood of being attacked, or will make those that believe that we are weakened change their minds, or give anyone less of a reason to attack us. Not when they have the past 6 years to go on as fuel, let alone 30 years and more of hostility.
As long as we can go without blaming that next President when an attack comes(unlikely), or the same when however long it takes to draw down the Iraq forces to only be defending their borders. Be it 4 years or 10.
Maybe it would help to review the rationalizations of four years ago, from my files:
DANIEL DREZNER: “I still have doubts about Kerry. Massive, Herculean doubts. His plan to internationalize the Iraq conflict is a pipe dream. However, here’s the one thing I am confident about – a Kerry administration is likely to recognize, once the multilateral diplomacy fails, that it will actually have to come up with a viable alternative.”
ANDREW SULLIVAN: “Much of the hard work has now been done. Nobody seriously believes that Bush will start another war. And in some ways Kerry may be better suited to the difficult task of nation building than Bush … Kerry may be the right man — and the conservative choice — for a difficult and perilous time.”
MICKEY KAUS: “I’m voting for Kerry, mainly because I think Bush is prosecuting the fight against terrorism in a way that will make us dramatically less safe unless we have a conspicuous change at the top. Even if you supported the war in Iraq, now is the time to a) try to preserve our gains in that country and Afghanistan while we b) let the world calm down so that fewer people hate us (and hence fewer people try to come and kill us). I don’t expect Kerry to be a successful president in any other respect. It doesn’t matter.”
Let me start with my most unpopular opinion first and work my way to a more favorable stance to many of your readers.
I support the Republican Party at this time because they are committed to fighting the War on Terror. However, once they become the opposition party I have little confidence that the WOT will remain their number one priority.
They will shift their priorities to unseating a Democratic Party president and will do that through dirty politics without regard for our national security, much like the Democrats are doing now.
So we will have a Democratic Party president under attack from Conservatives and the extremist leftwing faction of his or her own party. A president from the Democratic Party will have no support base to count on. Both the Left and Right will sandwich this president into a state of paralysis.
As it now stands President Bush can count on the Republican Party to support his policy in Iraq. That is why the Democratic controlled Congress is a lame duck who cannot force a withdrawal.
1. A president from the Democratic Party will not be able to win support from the Republican Party without abandoning his or own Democratic Party.
2. A president from the Democratic Party cannot win the support of his or her own party unless this president gives in to the powerful “antiwar” faction that controls it. Thus dooming the WOT.
This is a no-go!!!
OK, a few responses at a time…
Lurker (#3). Yes, there is still an Iraq war – and will be for some time. But it’s a battle in a larger war, and it’s a serious mistake to look at it in isolation. Winning it is far better than losing it, but winning the battle while destroying our ability to prosecute the rest of the war may be worse than losing. Personally I’d rather win both, and to do that requires some significant political change in order for us to get our act together internally.
Tim O (#5) No ‘nannyism’? That’s a critical decision point in a war situation? Yes, I believe we need to make prosecuting the conflict – it’s not an open war – with the Islamist movement and the Muslim world our #1 priority. Unless we’re willing to just push the button now, that’s going to require the kind of generational commitment – bilateral generational commitment – that we saw in the Cold War. Generating that commitment is the goal, and one possible solution is to hand the keys to the Democrats and let them take some ownership. Because without that unitied political will, the most effective and belligerent executive is going to be handcuffed (possibly literally) in prosecuting the conflict.
AMac (#7) Two things – don’t mistake the ‘vocal left’ with the ‘elected left’; the progblogs would like you to, but note that Hillary is the most likely D candidate, and she’s not someone who’s going to stand next to the Kossacks for any longer than it takes to snap a picture. And very few elected D officials have made a case that the war is deeply immoral; elements of the D leadership have made statements like that – driven by the naive political belief that the foreign policy progressives were their core – but look at how the votes actually came down.
Glen (#10) I’d like to believe that, but the reality is that your perception is colored a bit too much by WW II and to a lesser extent, the early chapters of the Cold War. Reading Oren’s history of our conflicts with the ME, and Niall Ferguson on WW I and the runup to WW II tells me that the US and UK politicians were just as craven and shortsighted as they are now. It’s nothing new. Reading ‘What’s Left’ about the prewar Bloomsbury attitudes toward England convinced me that the anti-American progressives are pussies; elements of the British intellectual left explicitly looked forward to the destruction of England as it existed.
A.L.
A.L.,
I don’t think those are our two options. The real choice is between A) abandoning Iraq AND returning to a law enforcement model, with terrorists having all the attendant legal rights of US citizens and B) not abandoning Iraq and continuing some kind of proactive prosecution of the war.
Look around. There are no Scoop Jackson type Democrats running for President. You mentioned Hillary Clinton, but she is much more interested in her domestic agenda. All the Democrats are. The War is a fake, ginned up by Republicans in their world view. I’m willing to re-evaluate for the general election, but it’s looking pretty grim from here.
lurker, this isn’t 1999 and we’re not going to party that way. Everyone had their eyes opened on 9/11, and everyone knows we’re in a different world. You suggest the alternatives are law enforcement and war; I’ll suggest a third possible alternative – containment.
A.L.
In terms of grand strategy, the closest thing we had during the 90’s was, globalization is the answer. Free trade, free ideas, etc. would gradually liberate the rest of the world, and all we had to do was keep the process from derailing.
After that horrible day in September, most people sensibly concluded that the status quo had to go.
Looking around, the only grand strategy being offered was President Bush’s Democracy agenda.
An the obvious alternative, some form of containment based on real politique, was not seriously talked about by the Dems.
To the extent the Dems had a strategy, it was introspection, followed by negotiations. Even then, they lacked any proposal to, for example, transform the US State Department from the Cold War relic it is, to the world-class force for information superiority and persuasion it ought to be. Probably, they didn’t even perceive the need.
Even now we see prominent Dems saying that terrorism is a “nuisance”. I still see no evidence the Dems have gotten past the ante-bellum status quo.
Is these a hint of something that might come to pass? This might be a ticket I could support. It could improve bipartisanship, while marginalizing the worst of the Blame America First(tm) crowd.
bq. Everyone had their eyes opened on 9/11, and everyone knows we’re in a different world.
You don’t believe that, as is clear from your original post in which you note that the Democratic Party leadership is playing politics with precisely this issue to the detriment of the country.
What strikes me as counter productive, though, is your desire to _reward_ this disloyal behavior with the Presidency. I think such a result would be far more likely to create “Freedom Now’s scenario”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/a_hawkish_case_for_a_democrat_any_democrat.php#c17 precisely because it will demonstrate that the way to power is to do whatever short sighted, craven thing polls well today. The Democratic Party will continue with their winning strategy of no foreign policy and the GOP will adapt the same, because it wins elections. If you honestly think successfully prosecuting the Long War is the number one priority you shouldn’t openly support rewarding those who have adopted defeat in that war as their guiding foreign policy principle.
AOG – how did the Democrats vote on funding last month? What substantive positions are Obama and Hillary taking on the larger conflict – ignore the editorializing, look at the positions.
And again, look at the history of politics around wartime in the US and the UK; what we’re seeing is exactly the norm except in existential wars. People aren’t convinced – hell, I’m not convinced – that we’re IN an existential war (as opposed to dangerously close to one). So why shouldn’t the politics be the same?
Again – someone answer my objection: we can’t win the war without the support of the Democratic 40% of the electorate and their officials. We cannot sustain a prolonged, expensive, low-intensity conflict while engaged in internal battles of the kinds we’ve seen in the last four years. So, other than magic dust that will convert half the Democrats to Republicans, what’s the proposal?
A.L.
I just can’t get past the fact that Hillary’s divisive and corrosive effect on the country will have a detrimental effect on any policy she happens to pursue. For this reason, I think it doesn’t matter very much what policy she she says she will pursue. Then of course their is the matter of whether one can believe anything she says.
I do not think you can simply look at this through a single issue in isolation from the total package. As a total package, Clinton is a catastrophe.
#20 from Armed Liberal at 1:28 pm on Jan 10, 2008
lurker, this isn’t 1999 and we’re not going to party that way. Everyone had their eyes opened on 9/11, and everyone knows we’re in a different world. You suggest the alternatives are law enforcement and war; *I’ll suggest a third possible alternative – containment.*
I am shocked! Does this mean that you are coming over to my way of thinking concerning the Invasion and overthrow of Saddam and are rejecting the naive and disastrous Neo-Con View?
I was going to write a comment about the cost-benefit analysis of the probable short-term costs of a Dem Presidency (given the current candidates) vs the potential long-term gains of questionable probability. However, I realized there is a much simpler way to approach this.
We can be relatively certain that giving the Dems the White House will produce the opposite of your intended effect. We already have corollary evidence of this, the 2006 Congressional elections. The Dems were given power and Congress’s responsibility for the GWOT. They took their majority as a mandate for opposing US combat efforts, principally in Iraq, but to a lesser extent elsewhere as well. Blocking their attempts took repeated and wasteful rear-guard actions and may well have given our enemies several propaganda victories and perceived momentum that may have extended the war fighting and associated costs.
Given the current positions of all the Dem candidates, I see no rational reason to believe anything different would happen if they won the White House.
StargazerA5
Armed Liberal said:
bq. Again – someone answer my objection: we can’t win the war without the support of the Democratic 40% of the electorate and their officials. We cannot sustain a prolonged, expensive, low-intensity conflict while engaged in internal battles of the kinds we’ve seen in the last four years. So, other than magic dust that will convert half the Democrats to Republicans, what’s the proposal?
I see only a few ways this could happen:
1. The war moves existential
2. A mass tragedy on US soil of the level of 9/11 or worse happens while a Dem is in the Presidency
3. We lose an entire city, regardless of who is in the WH (see #1)
4. A generation or two of politicians leaves office and a more hawkish generation follows them.
5. The public either doesn’t vote or doesn’t look like they will vote for Dem or Rep candidates who aren’t hawkish.
I would like to see 5, but it is currently unlikely. I see 4 as the most likely non-tragic scenario, particularly since this is a long war. 1, 2, and 3 are things to avoid, obviously.
StargazerA5
Armed Liberal,
You will note that neither I or AOG said anything remotely similar to your statement that he believes that there will be some magic dust turning the Democrats into Republicans if they win the presidency.
AOG said,
“The Democratic Party will continue with their winning strategy of no foreign policy and the GOP will adapt the same, because it wins elections.”
I have pointed out the difficulty that Democrats would have pursuing a hawkish foreign policy because their support base relies too heavily on “antiwar” sentiment.
Furthermore, while the Democrats are committed to a withdrawal from Iraq, the party leadership, like Pelosi and Reid, are committed (at least publicly) to our efforts in Afghanistan.
Yet over the last year radical elements of the “antiwar” movement (CODEPINK) have been protesting outside of Pelosi’s house in the Bay Area to protest the Democrat’s lack of success in forcing a withdrawal from Iraq. The same group has stated that they also want a withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The Democrats have tied themselves to a movement that they cannot control. Even if a Democrat is elected president and they withdraw our troops from Iraq, they will still face internal dissent from those seeking a complete military withdrawal from the Middle East. If you thought a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party was ineffective, wait to you see how feeble a president from the Democratic Party would be.
Freedom – Sorry, I never said you did say that; I did say that creating unity is a prerequisite for winning the war, and that short of magic dust I don’t see any ideas on how to do that.
You’re falling for the progblog hype. If CodePink really owned Pelosi – if she was willing to do their bidding instead of just do photo ops – they wouldn’t be picketing, would they?
A.L.
First of all, AL glad to see you’re still writing some.
I really haven’t spent as much time as usual on the issues this election. Still, I see only two candidates with ANY foreign policy experience: McCain + Clinton. I think most of the other candidates are relying on domestic experience at this point.
Giuliani only has 9/11, (and pissed off the first responders), skipped Iraq Study group meetings, and then was part of a legal firm that worked for Qutar, an Al-Queda haven. I think these things are more of a noose than a boon.
While democrats seem to have a plan for Iraq (ie reducing footprint), I have not heard any republican plan for Iraq, other than the status quo. While the status quo appears to be working on a basic containment level (for now), we need someone to deal with the Iraqi political problem.
I haven’t heard anyone talk about that yet.
Unfortunately, the last few presidential elections have responded to smart, critical thinking exercises with out of context quotes. If the electorate doesn’t get smarter, we’re in a lot of trouble.
Yes, AL, ‘nannyism’ is my #2 (it’s a strict ordering). Or maybe I could call it ‘freedom’, the thing that’s worth fighting for in the first place? Just as I don’t want Islamists killing or dhimmifying my fellow countryman, I don’t want my country wandering down the path of imposing other’s views upon us.
That said, that you can serious suggest in #20 that ‘containment’ is a valid strategy erases any appeal this post might have had. You represent yourself as part of the responsible wing of the Democratic party – and can show the virtual battle wounds to back it – and that’s all you’ve got?
Containment failed with regard to Islamism. To the extent there was any strategy during the Clinton years, that was it, and it led straight to 9/11. Al Qaeda and the Taliban were ‘contained’ in Afghanistan – but that turned out to be a synonym for ‘sanctuary’.
You say ‘generational war’. I’m hearing ‘kick the can’. This is a low intensity conflict, yes, but we don’t have forever. We might just have this week, if the Pakistani state falls. Get past the nuclear risks from there, Iran and NK, and we get to face new dangers. We have a limited time before the inevitable biological revolution gets to the point of creating viable biowar threats that can be cooked up in junior college labs. Maybe 15 years, maybe 30, but not generations.
You can’t play defense forever against a threat like that. Sometime before, there’s got to be a reckoning with those who think a holocaust would be a just peachy way to spread their views. The notion that you can play that game and remain connected to the networks and benefits of the modern world has got to go.
We can affirmatively show the benefits of live-and-let-live, but we’re also going to need to wield the sword enough to show there’s imminent danger in taking the benefits of global society and trying to turn them back as a mortal threat. Otherwise, we will wake up some other bright, blue morning half-way into Wretchard’s conjectures, and neither of us want to go there.
No, I’m not buying it.
If A.L. wants to unite people in common cause in a long war, then we have to elect leaders that (a) believe we are at war. They need to (b) explain what that war is and (c) what we need to do. If they so (d) candidly and logically, yes, I think a Democrat would be superior to a Republican on WOT issues.
Tim, containment – in the Kennan sense – hasn’t been tried vis a vis Islam since the 18th century. The 80’s and 90’s were some version of police procedural – and as noted, we both did pretty well at it and it didn’t work worth a damn.
Yes, freedom’s what we’re fighting for; but it’s not a legalistic abstraction – it’s contained in the culture and society we live in, and defending that society is the highest value. We’ve shaded on freedom before – in pretty much every war we have fought – and we’ve seemed to come out OK.
So real, Cold War-style containment is to me – at the moment – the only option to war or surrender. I don’t see Islamist states surviving long, although their oil rents will prop them up in the short and intermediate term. Iran is bellicose toward us both for external and internal reasons – they need a rallying issue to justify the repression and sacrifices their own incompetence cause – and we’re it.
A.L.
alchemist: _While democrats seem to have a plan for Iraq (ie reducing footprint), I have not heard any republican plan for Iraq, other than the status quo._
The U.S. is currently beginning to draw down its troop strength in Iraq. I would not be surprised if the footprint is half of what it currently is by inauguration day. So between the leading candidates there is a convergence on the same practical outcomes, distinguished primarily by rhetoric.
*how I learned to stop worrying and love the war*
Preventive War isn’t quite as bizarre as it seems at first sight. It is a doctrine designed to prevent the US from getting nuked by terrorists who have home bases in a state that either sponsors or neglects them (an existential threat). Mutually Assured Destruction was also bizarre at first sight, was also a doctrine designed to stop an existential threat (getting nuked by the USSR), and was widely accepted by both left and right. Both of them depend psychologically on caricaturing the USA as violent and unreasonable. The problem comes with believing the pose is real, rather than a pretense.
It seems the big problem with the preventive war doctrine is that it came from Dubya. Some of the Democrats remain falsely convinced that Dubya stole the 2000 election from Gore (despite even the NY Times concluding that Bush won fair and square in Florida). They claim that Bush isn’t _their_ president, and refuse to be _loyal_ to their own country (thanks to Glen Wishard for the loan of the word) because they dislike the occupant of the President’s office.
Will replacing a Bush with a Clinton, again, fix this? Doubtful. And if it does, can we afford to let Jamie Gorelick (author of the wall that prevented the CIA and FBI from sharing data) and people who think like her into another administration?
Maybe our best shot is to change the terms. From Preventive War to Prophylactic War, and from the Bush Doctrine to the Choice Doctrine. This would also fit in with the Democrat phrase book. For more on this line of lunacy see “here.”:http://wolfpangloss.wordpress.com/2008/01/06/prophylactic-war-and-the-choice-doctrine-hmmm-could-it-work/
bq. we can’t win the war without the support of the Democratic 40% of the electorate and their officials.
If that’s true, then we’re going to not win. As others have noted in this response thread, the evidence is strongly that giving more political power to the Democratic Party will increase their resistance to fighting the Long War.
But there’s another reason, which goes to your containment argument. Again, as noted earlier, it’s not containment unless one exerts pressure against one’s opponent. With regard to Communism, we made a real propaganda effort against it, “called it out” so to speak. Former President Reagan was most notable for exactly this. Yet we don’t do that today against our enemies and the single biggest reason for that is the political correctness / multi-culturalism of the Modern American Left and their proxies in the Democratic Party. Unless you can explain why that would change, voting for a Democratic Party candidate for President would make it even worse.
You might consider the gun control issue. That is turning not because any had their eyes opened, but because it became too punishing at election time. The same thing with welfare reform. What do you think would have happened to the 1986 welfare reform if Democratic Party candidates, running on the issue of repealing it, had swept in to power? Do you expect different for prosecuting the Long War?
As for over estimating the “progressive” weblogs, I think not. One need only look at the bizarrely huge number of votes on funding the war in Iraq to see that it’s actually a big deal for the Democratic Party politicians. It is only the general but weak concensus against losing and respect for the troops that’s prevented them from stopping the funding.
Since Kennan apparently backed various interpretations of ‘containment’ during his career, I’ll address what appears to have been the de facto implementation of the doctrine in the Cold War. To lay out my view of that, as a baseline and for those who didn’t live through (part) of it:
What started as a ‘thus far and no further’ US doctrine slowly turned into a mutual doctrine of dealing with ideological and power conflict through a series of proxy wars and insurrections in the third world, meanwhile trying to sap the domestic will and economy of the opponent. Organized units of the opposing forces were never to meet in battle, lest the unmentionable occur, though special forces, ‘technical advisors’ and the odd false-flagged pilot were to be tolerated.
Any thrust that was Too Close to the opponent could be met with direct force or its threat. So Cuban missiles were Too Close, and were removed at the threat of invasion or nuclear war (and we quietly removed our own missiles from Turkey). We left the Hungarians of 1956 and the Czechs of 1968 to their fate, and the Soviet Union accepted the defeat of revolutionary attempts by their Cuban satellite.
And it worked. At least the combination of containment and MAD led to a present in which the Soviet Union is gone, we’re still here, the Chinese are moving to something that certainly isn’t Marx’s notion of communism, and the world didn’t blow up. Along the line we suffered moral and ethical dilemmas related to MAD, propped up regimes that might have been better off in jail than office, and the Communists slaughtered or systematically starved tens of millions of their own citizens before ‘internal contradictions’ led to collapse. But it worked.
It’s also an irrelevant comparison. There have been plenty of discussions around the blogosphere re the problems of deterring (a la MAD) an enemy that seems to welcome homicidal martyrdom. To the extent that MAD and containment were inextricably linked doctrines, that criticism is apt here, so take it as given.
I take another issue. Containment and MAD were appropriate for a more-or-less symmetric standoff between nation states and alliances. That’s not at all what we’re dealing with now. The jihadis ignore the sanctity of national boundaries while we (at least publicly) give them respect, even when they contain failed states with no monopoly on force. Economies and social systems that create negative value float on a sea of oil revenue, paid only due to our own scruples and defended the same way, meanwhile slipping part of the proceeds to those who would murder us and destroy our country.
The notion that we are in an asymmetric ‘4th generation’ fight at the military level has been much belabored. But it applies at the foreign policy doctrinal level as well. Dragging in a Cold War doctrine from a symmetric past is no more appropriate than talking about mass as the primary issue in the fight in Afghanistan.
Perhaps you mean something else by containment. If so, please elucidate. I see no reason to grant this enemy the breathing room and respect implied by its historic version.
_”Dragging in a Cold War doctrine from a symmetric past is no more appropriate than talking about mass as the primary issue in the fight in Afghanistan.”_
This is a good point. Its especially suspect when being voiced by the the same people who opposed the Cold War containment tooth and nail at the time.
Sorry guys, writing for work for a bit…stay tuned.
A.L.
I may be wrong about this, but in listening to the major Presidential candidates following the assisination of Bhutto, it appeared to be that each of them assumed expressly or implicitly that democracy in Pakistan was in the national interest of the United States. They may have differed as to what to do now, but the idealogical framework looked awfully similar. And that’s odd because its not a given that democracy in Pakistan would necessarily make America safer.
Is democracy promotion a form of containment?
I can actually see that the neo-con view of creating a viable Democracy in Iraq will never work. How do I know this? I read Michael Totten avidly.
\sarc off
From what I see the leadership at the top in Iraq is incompetent. Maybe they have been taking lessons from us. Bottom up it seems to be working. Unless you consider Compton a place America should withdraw from.
As to positions? The Democrats are seen as the withdrawal party. You can’t make babies or win wars by withdrawing.
The #1 signal for me on where the Dems are at is Joe Lieberman. Nice Jewish boy. Kicked out of the party. Real confidence builder there.
A.L.,
Your views (generally) prevailed in the Rhineland crisis of 1936 – you know strong military, containment, no preemption. Ask the survivors in 1945 how well that worked out.
Some times you have to kick a$$.
pour l’encourager les autres
A.L., I think you gotten yourself lost with this idea of a Cold War analogy. In the Cold War, containment was a strategy against a political ideology that had as its purpose the revolution of Western capitalism into its political successor. Containment had to prevent the wholesale conversion of nation-states’ governments. The most common form of attack on peripheral states were large scale, hierarchical guerrilla armies. While we use the term “insurgent” for the enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq, they do not present the same strategic or operational problem at all.
In the Cold War, we were attempting to prevent the spread of a political ideology. So we fought in the peripheral states – Greece, Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc. – in conflicts that stayed confined to those particular states. (Indeed, Afghanistan can be argued to be the Soviet Union’s attempt at containment.) Today, there is no real threat that additional nation-states will become Islamic, we are not trying to prevent the spread of a political ideology. We are attempting a different thing with intervention – the destruction of bases of support for terrorist groups that cross borders to states where they are not going to convert a government but rather create terror in the West.
We actually tried containment from the ’80’s onward. We spent two decades trying to shore up the stability of the Middle East – only to find that the states we were shoring up like Saudi Arabia were funding a large part of the problem. Bases were created whose purpose was to create terrorist forces to strike at the West, rather than gain control of a new nation-state for islam.
9/11 was the signal that Containment had already failed. 3/11 was a signal that Containment failed. And Beslan was a signal that Containment failed.
I am not sure that the Cold War was a containment victory, unless you think allowing three generations of Russians (and others) to live under the Gulag is a victory. We really ought to be ashamed of ourselves. So much for my “realist” cred in foreign policy
AL, I think you are channeling that comment at NRO awhile back, which Instapundit recently recalled – about how the Dems will not support the GWOT until they have the entire enchilada – White House, House and Senate.
Sadly, I suspect you are correct. But I understand BDS – I felt that way about Clinton.
All of that said, I am extremely uncomfortable betting that the Dems will “cut and run” from all of their campaign promises and suddenly find a back bone to defend America. It would be nice to think they would, but I tend to believe politicians when they tell me things.
I think Barack Obama has much potential to become “hawkish” in the sense of willingness to deploy the military. He talks an awful lot about “repairing” and “changing” the world in a rather aggressive Wilsonian liberal fashion. Our largest ops in the War on Terror right now are in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are essentially Wilsonian ops at this point. Once he’s in office, and has to make serious decisions, I believe his core values won’t allow for a precipitous withdrawal in the WOT, which would lead to an anti-Wilsonian disaster that would set the opposite precedent of what he wants his Presidency to be on the world stage. In other words, if we fail Iraq, we can’t help Darfur. Re-orientation and drawdown under Obama, yes, but I believe that would be coming anyway, regardless of the new President.
Obama could ‘sell’ the liberal nature of the War on Terror far better than the current President.
AL,
I am not saying that CODEPINK tells Pelosi what to do (or vice-a-versa), my point is that she cannot control the “antiwar” movement that she feeds with her crazy rhetoric. A president from the Democratic Party will be sandwiched between vengeful Republicans and rabid leftwing “antiwar” radicals. This president will have no reliable support base unless he or she gives in to one side.
(Appeasement of Al Qaeda wont work, just like appeasement of the appeasers wont work.)
Lets face it; the political division was not created by the Republicans, it was created by the Democrats looking to take back the White House. The 2004 Presidential Campaign was the powder keg that started this war of words. President Bush had nothing to gain from it. This is the work of the Democrats, who profit immensely by creating dissent and division. The Dems benefit from saying everything is bad and the Republicans benefit by saying everything is great. That’s how things work when there is a Republican president.
So I support President Bush for the same reason I supported President Bill Clinton. The partisan attack machine is disgusting.
Anyways, to discuss what some other commentators are saying, there is no way that a president from the Democratic Party could maintain a significant troop presence in Iraq… even if he or she wanted to. There is no support for such an effort from his or her own party. And the Democrats have absolutely no plan beyond withdrawing from Iraq. It is incredulous to believe that surgical strikes from over-the-horizon bases are going to be more effective than surgical strikes from Iraqi bases.
Besides the minor fact that it will be more difficult due to the distances involved, think of our Iraqi allies. There are about 400,000 Security forces serving side-by-side with our troops, numerous government officials, community leaders, reconstruction workers and base support staff. They will consider us to be flakes for deserting them. Their morale will plummet and the Sunnis COULD go back to supporting Al Qaeda, while the Shiites are forced to cast their lot with the militias.
Since Islamists and their leftwing allies are adept at propagandizing against air strikes, the Iraqi government will find it politically expedient to cut-off surgical air strikes by U.S. forces… shortly before the government collapses, Vietnam-style. (Thanks Ted Kennedy! One more for the road?)
The country will splinter into three parts as some armchair generals already advocate. This will mean total war between the Sunnis, Turkmen and Kurds over the cities of Mosul, Kirkuk and the oil that comes with it. The Shiite/Sunni mixed regions of the central provinces will turn into a killing zone unequalled during this conflict or that of Saddam Hussein’s reign. Turkey will be liable to intervene to stop the establishment of a Kurdish state (as they have already declared they would) and to protect the Turkmen. Iran will most likely be sucked into the conflict through its militia proxies and Saudi Arabia will feel the need to protect its Sunni brethren from growing Shia power. Al Qaeda and Iran are likely to be the big winners in this split. In any case, someone will benefit from the power vacuum.
Then my point about CODEPINK comes into play. After the Democrats force a withdrawal from Iraq, the radical elements of the “antiwar†movement will demand a withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Dems have not thought that far in advance. They would be caught unawares and stuck in a vice. After the Democrats behavior for all of these years the Republicans aren’t going to be very sympathetic and meanwhile the protests will continue in front of Pelosi’s home for a long time.
There are a few possibilities as I see it:
The first one is for current business as usual – PC and multiculturalism means that eventually the Islamists within our own countries in the West get control – by outbreeding everyone else, if in no other way. If you are under 30 and female, get used to the idea of wearing a burkha; if you are under 30 and male, get used to the idea of being a dhimmi slave, or converting.
Second: our own societies wake up somewhat and start doing the necessary things to discourage the first scenario – making Western countries less attractive, in many ways, to Moslems and keeping out any further intake. This leads to low-intensity war that will erode our freedoms (for security reasons) and last most of the century.
Third: added to the measures in option 2, we start doing something about cutting down the money tree for Islam – going all-out for energy independence and when it’s done removing the oil revenue from Islamic hands – permanently. This is similar to option 2, but the war is shorter and the effect on our own societies less.
The fourth option is open only to the other side – it’s inconceivable, at the moment, that the West will initiate it. This scenario involves the Islamofascists using some form of WMD on a Western city, probably an American one. The response to this will probably be swift, massive, decisive, and final – and the war will be over, and the lands of Islam will be unhabitable for centuries, and their most unholy place will be a smoking hole.
Have I missed out any possibilities? And which scenario do you all prefer?
Fletcher,
How about 3b: we do what are loony critics are always accusing us of, and go to war to take over the oil fields. Pretty hard to do with Iran, but Saudi would be a piece of cake, militarily at least. Note I said just the oil fields; what do we care of the House of Saud rules Mecca and Medina?
Note I’m not advocating this (nor is it politically feasible for any number of reasons) but it does fill out a cell in your grid of possibilities.
Oh, and just to show my cards: I prefer your option 3, provided that the “energy independence” stuff isn’t just financial boondoggles for the well-connected. If so, then we have to fall back to #2.
I possibly ought to have added to #3 the sub-option of confiscating the unearned money and assets, sitting in Western banks or on Western soil, legally held by people who want to kill us. Even if they get not another cent, they probably have enough to pay for explosives and weapons for half a century – already.
As for energy independence being a boondoggle; well, the early news in the polywell fusion project is good, ocean thermal is known to work (pilot plant in 1932!) and SPS will work – but this last involves a degree of space colonisation and industrialisation that will eventually make the problems of those left on this little mudball pretty trivial. The Solar System has the resources to support ten thousand trillion people at present-day US levels of comfort. The stakes are astronomical – literally.
Sorry to be late getting back to everyone – let me take a second and respond to the newer posts…
TOC – (#26) no, sorry – part of containment is making sure that there are existential consequences for the folks helping those you want to contain. We have a religious movement backed by state powers. the states need to know that we’re serious about stopping the movement. Iraq was a pretty clear statement of that; (note: strategic failure, etc.) now the question is what our next stance will be.
Tim (#38) – we face two linked opponents; one is our enemy – a suicidal/homicidal movement that is relatively small and weak, but loud and highly visible (kind of like the progressive blogs…) and an opponent which are the larger number of Muslims who aren’t in that camp but could be, and who have more traditional IR-type issues with us and deal with them in more typical ways.
The key objective is to split them, or at minimum to isolate the smaller group from the larger to the extent we can to keep them from tipping the larger group into their camp, at which point we are at war and have to kill them. If we can split the groups, and work actively to kill the smaller groups when they step out – (think Philippines) we can deal with the larger group in more traditional diplomatic ways.
We’re also in the position England was in 1938; we don’t have a military strong enough to do what it needs to do – but it could have done some of it – met the Germans in the Rhineland and chased them back, for example – and the time between 1938 and 1940 could have been used to build and modernize the British military. We need to be doing just that – judiciously using our military to push back Islamist expansion and building the hell out of it in case the larger opponent becomes a military problem.
Robin #44 – no, I don’t think we tried containment. I think we assumed that a criminal justice approach would work, and that the Arab kleptocrats we supported were our allies. Neither was true, apparently…I still think the tyrannies in the ME need to come down, but they’ve been around in one form or another for a long time, so it’s not clear how fast that’s going to happen.
A.L.
bq. We have a religious movement backed by state powers. the states need to know that we’re serious about stopping the movement. Iraq was a pretty clear statement of that;
A pretty clear statement of what? Saddam did not support the jihadist movement nor was Iraq the home base for the most radical Islamic sects that have historically produced the lion’s share of terrorists…they were barely a bit player; if anything, the Iraq of Saddam was a small pocket of relative secularism…of course, present day Iraq doesn’t quite fit that bill anymore, thanks to the invasion.
Nor was Iraq a model of stability under Saddam. Although there are still a few deadenders left, the Baathists are mostly defeated and Al Qaeda has suffered some serious blows.
Blaming the U.S. for the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe would be as short-sided as this statement.
Sometimes you have to make a mess to clean a mess. Iraq has something it has never had in modern history. Hope. You cant put a price tag on that.
AL: I’m still left wondering just what the heck you mean by ‘containment’. Perhaps you’d better spell it out in a more specific post. What, concretely, would your suggested policy say we do about – say – Waziristani sanctuaries, Iranian enrichment projects, the Muslim Brotherhood and the nominally ‘democratic’ government of Egypt, just to pick a few? And what general principle lies behind those specifics?
And, if you really want to support the original thesis of this post, it would be nice to have some evidence that a real – not hypothetical – Democratic candidate would share some of those views and seek to implement them. Right now, this sort of feels like Kerry-esque “I’ll do better” hand waving. Not very satisfying when we Rs or independents may have alternatives like McCain (again, NOT my fave) who can legitimately say they raised principled objections to Bush’s course and supported the mission at the same time.
In the meantime, I agree with your statement of two parties – one a virulent enemy, which is a subset of a second, larger Muslim population that could go either way. I having trouble with the notion that a more tentative engagement with either leads to a solution.
For all its flaws, the advance into Iraq responded to one principle of conflict: “Engage the enemy more closely.” In the retrospective of nearly five years, it’s pretty obvious that we knew not-so-much about real Arabs and real Muslims in the ME, and that the Iraqis had about the same level of knowledge of us. We’ve both paid for that knowledge in blood, and perhaps most to the point, the Iraqis and to some extent Arabs and Muslims in general now have real knowledge of the murderous program of Al Qaeda and its allies. That last might end up being the strategic win you dismiss (Inshallah), and we would never have gotten there without engaging closely.
I’m quite willing to stipulate that another Iraq-style occupation is not on the cards, barring further Islamist atrocities. We don’t have the collective will, the military resources nor the time to build them, and it’s unclear what incremental benefit might accrue that persevering in Iraq would not yield. To the extent that any coercive action can be a ‘carrot’, showing a possible better future, we’ve shot our bolt – Afghanistan and Iraq are it. I have trouble seeing why that suggests we should put away the stick – we may well need it.
Alan: It’s 2008. We’re in Iraq now. Al Qaeda is in Iraq now. We’re killing them there. Some of the Iraqis are helping.
You’ve made a convincing case for your BDS. Well done. Hey, guess what? Bush isn’t running this year. AL here is trying to convince a skeptical audience that we’d be better off voting for a D as Dubya’s successor. How about you knock off the drive-bys and give him a hand with something that talks about 2009, not 2003?
bq. You’ve made a convincing case for your BDS.
We need a name for people like Tim who roll out this tired old canard at the slightest hint of opposition to the policies of the current administration…even in cases where absolutely ZERO evidence for direct, personal association to Bush is provided, as in my case.
You’re arguing against an irrelevant tangent to my question, by the way…
Tim, I’m not suggesting a more tentative engagement with the virulent enemies; I’m suggesting that – where we can – we find and kill them. The ‘where we can’ part makes it hard, because we don’t have the wherewithal to invade enough countries (Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia) to cut to the roots of the problem, and so our options are limited. We may have to do something like that, and so we should be using the time we have now building – which we aren’t.
I’m thinking through the longer post. But meanwhile, let me toss out – again – my core question:
A.L.
AL: Well, if we grant your premise (I don’t), then AOG #23 above is correct. The question is why the rest of us should submit to implicit blackmail, because that’s what you’re talking.
To put it at a trivial level, what do you do with a petulant child that refuses to do the chores before playing games? Stick him at the head of the table with a slice of chocolate cake?
To put it at a more serious level, we’ve had experience before with times when an American faction refused to participate in the business of government unless a key question was always decided their way. Those years were the 1840s and 1850s.
I don’t think that’s where we’re at. I think AOG (#37) is again right, that even political parties can learn if they are kicked hard enough, frequently enough. Now it could be that those with my and similar views will be the ones kicked instead. I’ll stand that risk, that’s what a republic is all about. I see no reason to kowtow to whining and avoid that trial.
Re your specifics: We agree on strengthening the armed forces. It’s the one thing that I think justifies raised revenues, though I’d take an equal amount from cuts in other expenses. I’m convinced the Ds would like to raise my taxes. I’m having more than a little problem seeing that we share priorities on expenditures.
We agree re going after the jihadis. Given your containment framework, we likely disagree on ‘where we can’ and what constitutes ‘invade’.
Our opponents don’t respect borders, and many of their voluntary or involuntary hosts won’t or can’t control their borders. UN niceties aside, I see no reason to respect the boundaries of an entity that doesn’t have a monopoly on force in its territory, or allows its territory to be used by terrorist forces. We may have good tactical reasons for proceeding cautiously and quietly, but we’re already learned the hard way about allowing sanctuaries. Asymmetry means Westphalia is out the window.
‘Invade’ needs to get some more nuance as well. It needn’t equate to ‘you broke it, you bought it’ occupations. The Middle East is quite familiar with the notion of a raid with limited objectives.
We traded away a large amount of our force multipliers when we ‘dismounted’ and turned into occupiers in Iraq. A choice made in the perhaps phantasmal hopes of a strategic benefit from ‘democratization’ or a countervailing multiplier from a friendly population. Since you didn’t object to my “shot the bolt” statement above, perhaps we agree that we’re done with that.
But we’re the world’s best at smashing things up and deposing regimes. All of our multipliers come back in force. I don’t think our enemies have really absorbed the implications of a ‘reverse neutron bomb’ that can smash up infrastructure and leave the vast majority of the people alive. ‘Pour encourager les autres’ as someone said backthread.
(BTW, if you think this is drifting the topic too much, I’ll desist. Doctrinal details may be too far from your premise. Since I and others reject that out of hand as blackmail, it seemed reasonable to see how close to an agreement on a framework hawks that stand near the aisle from either side might come.)
Alan: If you’ve got another succinct name for those who want to bang on about how we got into Iraq, not the current situation, bring it on. The facts remain: We’re there now. Al Qaeda is there now. Do you think they will magically go away if we do before defeating them? You might ask some Anbaris about that. Who do you think wins in that case?
AL here is trying to convince us (he addressed this to the ‘hawks’ in the crowd) that putting a Democratic party that seems dominated by the left into the executive office will result in a security situation we can live with. You’re not helping his case.
bq. AL here is trying to convince us (he addressed this to the ‘hawks’ in the crowd) that putting a Democratic party that seems dominated by the left into the executive office will result in a security situation we can live with. You’re not helping his case.
Tim, you don’t seem to realize that in order to “help” AL with his case I must first understand whether I agree with him or not. If he is of the opinion that the War in Iraq proves something important about national security policy WRT terrorism, then that is certainly something to explore…and of course it seems to have escaped your notice that he himself raised this issue as an argument in precisely the format I am attempting to engage him.
And AL wonders why the conversations around here tend to devolve so rapidly….my informal survey, including some interesting new data points from just the past couple of days, reveals an interesting correlation between his utterances and the numerous frustrating efforts that seem necessary to figure out what it is, exactly, that he is trying to say.
Alan if it’s too bothersome to decipher me, the url window is at the top of your browser; there are many other interesting sites out there, you know…
Tim, we submit to blackmail every time we try and build a coalition. You do it every time you have to balance your judgment of what a portfolio company should do with the need to keep core staff who may disagree with you on board. At some point a parting of the ways makes sense – we’re a long way from there, no matter what Orson Scott Card may think. Until then, we have to build coalitions By Any Means Necessary.
From my POV, Bush’s unforgivable mistake was to think he could combine a serious war with domestic politics as usual. He had to pick one, didn’t, and we’re suffering for it.
Alan, in my model of containment – like the 50’s version – organized violence definitely plays a role – as it did in Korea, Central America, and Vietnam (note that I still think the unforgivable error in Vietnam was not just coopting Ho Chi Minh when we had the chance). But just as we were (rationally, I think) unwilling to follow Patton’s advice and just keep heading East from the Elbe and invade Russia, or to trigger a shooting war with the Soviets, I think we’re unwilling to bear the costs of a real war with (Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia).
And I don’t think we need to. I’m beginning to think all those countries are unstable enough that in a generational context there will be changes – the trick is doing what we can to maximize the odds of those being changes we like, and to protect ourselves against the consequences of them being changes we don’t.
Now I need to try and make that case.
A.L.
No, AL, you’re abusing the term ‘blackmail’. What you’re talking just above is compromise, and that’s not what’s on offer. All you’ve got is a weak ‘trust us’, when as far as I can tell, your own party is ready to read you out as a heretic for being a hawk. I admire and trust you and folks like Joe Lieberman, but you’re not the Democratic party any more.
And I’ve always liked Gibson better than Card.
Freedom Now: So I support President Bush for the same reason I supported President Bill Clinton. The partisan attack machine is disgusting.
I can sure relate to that. I, too, supported President Clinton (for the most part, even though I got tired of him and his bullshit) because the Republican Attack Machine was more repulsive by at least an order of magnitude. If I have to choose between Bill Clinton and Ken Starr, and I’ll take Bill every time.
I feel the same way about President Bush now. I don’t really like him and never did, but yeeesh, the opposition is a lot uglier.
I won’t be the slightest bit surprised if I find myself gravitating toward a Presidnet Obama whether I vote for him or not (assuming he wins) for the exact same reason. Same goes with a possible President Hillary Clinton. I’m not joining the vicious “I Hate Hillary” club no matter how bad a job she does as president. I am not going to be one of the Ugly People. I’m just not.
I’m not saying no one should criticize the president. That is ridiculous, and this is a democracy. But the screaming hysteria I’ve been listening to for the last 15 years from both the right and the left is too frigging much.
Fletcher Christian: If you are under 30 and female, get used to the idea of wearing a burkha
Dude. Are you serious?
You don’t even know what a burkha is. They are not worn anywhere in the entire world outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
As far as the far less enveloping headscarf goes, only two countries in the entire world (Iran and Saudi Arabia) require women to wear it.
Not even Hezbollah mandates the headscarf in the areas they control.
Michael, you think burkhas are only worn in those two countries? Try walking around in Blackburn or Preston, Lancashire. I do in fact know what one is – I’ve seen them worn, in what used to be my own country. It makes me want to throw up. Headscarves are pretty well universal among Moslem women here, too. Niqabs are pretty common, too.
The point is that if Islam takes over the West it will probably be the extremist version.
Just an observation or two from a quasi-non-hawk (i.e. quasi because I think our effort in Afghanistan should have been orders of magnitude more powerful and I think we had no business invading and occupying Iraq).
Everyone here seems to agree that we are going to be engaged in a long term costly effort to defend ourselves and our interests against Islamic terrorism regardless of whether the primary the thrust of the effort is containment or direct large scale miltary intervention or some level of mix of both approaches.
What everyone seems to ignore is the *cost*and how we will pay it and the ramifications of paying it.
It doesn’t matter what your opinion is on the value of prosecuting a GWOT in the manner that you deem most appropriate; you still must consider the question of how you will pay the cost, who will pay the cost, what sacrifices will be made/what opportunities will be foregone in order to do so.
One of the main components of victory in a war is the ability to continually infuse resources into the effort.
Thus, I do not see how domestic policies can be separated out from foreign policies. The source of payment will have to come from our domestic economy, the human resources come from our domestic communities, etc. There are huge imapcts on our economy and civil society.
And the manner by which the GWOT payments are extracted from our domestic resources and the decision as to who will bear the burden of those payments ties into the sustainability of the effort.
While neither party is addressing this reality very well – if at all – it can hardly be denied that they would have very different ideas about how to go about extracting taxes, etc.
So I reject the premise that the domestic can be parsed from the foreign policy arena.
I would be happy to vote for a candidate that would speak clearly and honestly to the issue of the economic impacts of the GWOT and his/her plan to make it all work out.
Or, more concisely – having now infused myself with coffee – No viable, sustainable and effective domestic plan to collect $ and other resources for war funding = failure of war plan (regardless of the elements of that plan).
Which candidate is addressing this critical aspect of the GWOT?
AL,
We need to foster a non-partisan collaborative effort against our enemies. Unfortunately, partisan politics defines the Democratic Party’s approach to these conflicts.
While I have very little in common with Republicans on domestic issues and I’m more of a Wilsonian Democrat than anything else, I find that the Republicans approach these conflicts with a sincere desire to beat our enemies.
Even after the Surge has proven without a doubt to have helped many Iraqis, the Democrats still PROPAGANDIZE that it is a failure.
Just like we need to foster moderate Muslims as we have done with Iraq’s Sunni tribes, we need to foster moderate Democrats. Loyal Democrats who have been kicked out or sidelined by prominent radicals in their own party like Joe Lieberman come to mind (ironically I used to think that he was too Conservative years ago).
The weakest front in the War on Terror is here domestically in our own country. This leftwing propaganda machine spews the most divisive and hateful partisan politics since the Civil War.
I long for the day that the Democratic Party starts making sense so I can go back to supporting them.
avedis – two things…
First, I strongly disagree re Afghanistan. A bigger footprint there would have been a disaster – we would have been invaders, and the locals don’t much like invaders, so our opposition would have been far bigger.
Second, you’re right about resources – which is one reason why we need some bipartisan alignment in the next 8 years(which was,after all, the point of the post). As a % of GDP, we can afford a bigger defense budget (we will have more serious fiscal issues) – but it will take political commitment.
A.L.
There are no moderate Muslims. There are Muslims who realise that they need to keep their heads down until they’ve won, and those who don’t.
The latest skirmish between civilisation and the Dark Ages is about to be fought in the British courts. A Muslim organisation in one of the bigger towns is mounting a legal case to be allowed to broadcast the “call to the faithful” from loudspeakers attached to mosques, at all the prayer times starting at 5:30 AM.
This in a country where the ringing of church bells, in some places, has already been banned.
Little by little…
bq. As a % of GDP, we can afford a bigger defense budget (we will have more serious fiscal issues) – but it will take political commitment.
Funny….the drastic increases in the defense budget that have occurred over the last 10 years certainly didn’t need any special “political commitment”, just the right President and some well-placed lobbyists.
In my view we need to cut the military budget in half, at least. What a money pit.
AL,
The current Iraqi government has been branded as a creation of the Republican, George W Bush. It will be the enemy of the Democratic Party for a long time, unless a terrible act of terrorism in the United States (or some other major event) changes their opinion. Even something like that could have the opposite effect.
It is possible that if things improve enough by 2009 and U.S. troops are no longer as vital as they are today, then all of this will become irrelevant so even a newly elected president from the Democratic Party couldnt destroy the Iraqi government if he or she attempted to… But thats a gamble.
I would rather see someone elected who will enthusiastically work with the Iraqis and realizes that their best interests are also ours. Letting loose the modern-day Morgenthau Boys of the Democratic Party would be Al Qaeda’s last chance in Iraq.
bq. World military expenditure in 2006 is estimated at $1204 billion in current prices. This represents an increase of 3.5 per cent in real terms since 2005 and of 37 per cent over the 10-year period since 1997. Average spending per capita has increased from $173 in 2005 to $177 in 2006 at constant (2005) prices and exchange rates and to $184 at current prices.
bq. World military expenditure is extremely unevenly distributed. In 2006 the 15 countries with the highest spending accounted for 83 per cent of the total. The USA is responsible for 46 per cent of the world total, distantly followed by the UK, France, Japan and China with 4-5 per cent each.
bq. The rapid increase in the United States’ military spending is to a large extent due to continued costly military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of the increase resulted from supplementary allocations in addition to the regular budget. Between September 2001 and June 2006, the US Government provided a total of $432 billion in annual and supplemental appropriations under the heading ‘global war on terrorism’. This massive increase in US military spending has been one of the factors contributing to the deterioration of the US economy since 2001. In addition to its direct impact of high military expenditure, there are also indirect and more long-term effects. According to one study taking these factors into account, the overall past and future costs until year 2016 to the USA for the war in Iraq have been estimated to $2267 billion.
You’d think we live in the world’s most dangerous country, by FAR, in terms of foreign threats…
Gosh, Alan – I must have missed all those Democratic legislators standing up and demanding huge cuts in the defense budget over the last 7 years…
A.L.
For what it’s worth, most of the comments here are absolutely bonkers.
Truly bonkers. Not even worth serious discussion.
The Middle East world, has India, China, Japan, even Indonesia, to worry about.
In Pakistan itself, the Islamists types are a small percentage of the population.
Even looking at Iraq. Al Queda got themselves turned on by the Sunnis, because no one could stand them.
And THIS is a world war?? Existential??
There is no denying that there are issues here.
Mainly, the more technology advances, the more potential small groups have to Frack up more stuff than they ever have had before. This is what gives future Al Queda groups their power.
This is a risk that we have to live with. And this risk, means actually working MORE with other countries, finding win-wins. Bringing countries into a liberal economic model, while encouraging transformation internally, by a good example.
The risk of interfering with another country, as we are doing, is that you end up inflaming the natural passions of independence and identification with that country, and thus “create 1000 Bin Ladens” because of that resentment.
If you are working up ‘FUTURE HORRORS’, then that one has to be in the queue. A Pakistani religious general, fed up with what he sees as the U.S.’s depredations on “his” land, smuggles a bomb out to newly radicalized inhabitants of Pakistan/Iraq/Afghanistan, newly radicalized, BECAUSE of the US in their area.
(Who knows, maybe they’ll take on the cry, “Wolverines!!”)
Whomever says this is an existential struggle, you really need to read some history, about real existential struggles.
Now, can Islam work with modernity? Clearly, there is something in Islam which makes it harder, than any other religion. But history is an arrow moving forward. If we have the right values, values of freedom, practicality, productivity, like Vietnam, or even Russia, inevitably, there will be a modernizing wave.
We have to do everything we can do to encourage that modernizing wave. And degrading the economic power, for those countries that are NOT modern, and are Islamic (which is why shifting energy from oil is so important. Like Africa, if ME oil didn’t make a difference, we would simply say about Sadamm, Iran, et all, “oh, isnt’ that a tragedy).
I don’t know where Alan cut and pasted that paragraph, but this line was especially ridiculous in the quoted paragraph:
“This massive increase in US military spending has been one of the factors contributing to the deterioration of the US economy since 2001. “
The rate of GDP growth since 2001, the low rate of unemployment, as well as a host of other economic indicators show no “deterioration”.
#73 from Armed Liberal at 2:28 am on Jan 13, 2008
Gosh, Alan – I must have missed all those Democratic legislators standing up and demanding huge cuts in the defense budget over the last 7 years…
A.L.
Why would you expect anything different? I seem to remember fiscal responsibility being a Republican virtue. I, as a Republican, couldn’t see the justification Iraq invasion on political grounds which only magnifies the useless and unnecessary waste of money during the occupation.
hypo – shockingly, I agree with you in substance – watch for the post.
A.L.
Hypo,
I agree with you 100% on everything you said in #74.
Despite what the bigots and otherwise disturbed personalities commenting here have locked in their warped brains, Islamic extremists willing to actually harm the US remain a miniscule minority of the total muslim population.
Yes, yes, yes there is news footage of Iranians or Palistinians burning US flags or an uncle Sam scarecrow and dancing in the streets, but this can hardly be considered as anything more than a socially structured way to vent frustrations, albeit bizzarre and counterproductive. Few, if any, of these people would actually kill an American even given the chance. An extremely tiny minority have ever killed anyone for religious/political reasons.
A few more would be motivated to actually do the deed if we invaded their country – and *AL* I just have to say, on that note, that your, “….we would have been invaders, and the locals don’t much like invaders, so our opposition would have been far bigger.” is a pretty frickin’ hilarious response to my suggestion that we should have gone in bigger and tougher in Afghanistan. What? The Iraqis like to be invaded and occupied? Ho ho ho your own inability to see your own inconsistencies always stuns me…….here you recognize that a US invasion/occupation can actually create a violent reactive insurgency, yet elsewhere you utterly fail to see that that is exactly what we have done in Iraq for the same reason that you note could happen in Afghanistan……wow…but the lack of logical consistency gets even worse…..as Hypo points out, the only threat from these tiny groups of fanatics is if they should acquire real WMD (and I’m not talking about chemical weapons because they aren’t WMD in my book) and that is a big “if” – the odds of obtaining and then being able to deliver effectively on target are very very slim. The only group that appears to have the demonstrated will and wherewithall to actually pull off an attack in the US was sitting in Afghanistan on the border of a somewhat unstable country that does have nuclear weapons. However, AL, you don’t want to go in strong and wipe them out completely because…..because why? Oh yes, it might upset the locals……so we have this, in your mind, existential multigenerational war that merits top priority consideration for all domestic and foreign policy for the foreseeable future – and huge sacrifices to our economy, civil society, military personnel and their families – and yet you are not willing to make a decisive decapitation of the biggest and most threatening enemy group in that war??!!??!? You are satisfied to let Bin Laden run amock in Pakistan/Waziristan because killing him would have been too difficult?
So instead we go and upset the locals in Iraq chasing mirage WMD that we Knew were mirages before we went in because the expert inspectors said so.
The pretzel logic is, again, stunning. Unfortunately it is the same pretzel logic demonstrated by the Republicans and at least permitted by the spineless Democrat sheep in Congress. A candidate also could gain my support by flying against this sorry excuse for a thought pattern. Obama and Edwards are such candidates this year. Hillary is at best a sheep and more likely a Republican wolf in sheep’s clothing. Either way no good.
avedis – how much Afghan history have you read? Comparing the tribes of Afghanistan to those of Iraq is apples to oranges…the Iraqs were colonized by the Ottomans successfully, and then by the British somewhat successfully. Afghanistan? Ask Elphinstone.
A.L.
Avedis makes a lot of good points. I, too, do not understand the infatuation with the Iraq invasion and occupation. Nor do I understand why we went after Saddam. No WMD. No immediate threat to the U.S. A counter balance to Iran. A ruthless enemy of anyone who threatened his power, Al Queda included.
Please spare me the Democracy nonsense. Even if it were possible to *instill* (not install, mind you) a lasting Democracy in Iraq, which I believe is impossible, at a minimum, for generations, how is that worth the cost to the American people.
#79 from Armed Liberal at 2:54 pm on Jan 13, 2008
avedis – how much Afghan history have you read? Comparing the tribes of Afghanistan to those of Iraq is apples to oranges…the Iraqs were colonized by the Ottomans successfully, and then by the British somewhat successfully. Afghanistan? Ask Elphinstone.
A.L.
AL
The British got their tushes kicked royally in Iraq during the 20s. Can you cite any history that states the opposite?
AL, yes, I have read the history of the region and am aware of the more intense difficulties involved in incursions into Afghanistan.
So what?
The military that accomplished the truly awesome task of defeating, simultaneously, the Nazi and Imperial Japanese is now too shy to accomplish the mission of killing a few thousand lightly armed radicals?
Again, AL, it is incumbent on you to address whether or not you *really* believe that we are engaged in an existential war. If “yes” then no sacrifice is too great and you simply deal with whatever the Afghanis throw back at you. If, “no” then the risk/benefit analysis allows you to let Bin Laden run free rather than deal with the consequences of going into Afghanistan strong enough to ensure his destruction.
#82 from avedis at 3:16 pm on Jan 13, 2008
Good Post. Moving back to Iraq, the situation before the invasion was in no way shape or form existential, nor was Saddam a credible threat to anyone other than his own people. Which, bluntly, was their problem, not ours.
avedis, you’re kidding, right? Ask the Soviets how easy it was in Afghanistan. We’re doing, I believe, pretty much the only thing that can be done there, and a bigger footprint would be massively counterproductive.
No, I’ve said since 2002 that we’re not in an existential war – for us.
A.L.
TOC, the British WON in Iraq in 1920…they left in 1932, keeping bases and the oil concession.
A.L.
“No, I’ve said since 2002 that we’re not in an existential war – for us.
A.L.”
Thank you for the answer. I agree, BTW.
I will drop the Afghanistan line of discussion because it is off topic and we are simply going to disagree. However, a final comment would be that I do not have in mind that we should have invaded and occupied Afghanistan. I think we should have invaded, killed everyone, and then left. That is different than what the Soviets attempted. Additionally, you can not compare the Soviet Army’s capablities circa 1980s with our miltary of the 21st century; different in every aspect. Also, the Soviets were actually doing fairly well against the resistance despite their serious military issues which included every conceivable handicap right down to low troop morale; that is until the US began arming Bin Laden’s resistance and assisting in funding projects (see Missile, Stinger).
At any rate, so we agree that we are not ingaged in an existential war. Then I’m having trouble understanding the premise of your post,
“I’ve been willing to put my domestic agenda on hold while we deal with the problem of a hostile movement within a newly powerful Islamic world.” Why then are you considering allowing our domestic needs to languish?
Because, while the conflict isn’t existential – now – it has the potential to be, in that the Islamists could do things damaging enough to make us react strongly (think Cologne) or that they could tip the balance within the Muslim world and we’d face a more serious, and closer to existential problem.
Look, “here’s my 2002 quote”:http://www.armedliberal.com/2002/06/fear.html :
Nothing’s really changed from there.
A.L.
Hypocrite and Avedis,
Those are exactly the partisan attacks during a time of conflict with fascist enemies like the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Baathists that convinced me to abandon my very leftwing perceptions of international politics.
To call me a bigot simply for stating that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are our enemies is nothing but your own prejudices shining through.
Such cheap tactics define the problem with the debate over these issues. When your arguments become visibly weak, such name calling becomes a crutch to small minded people like you.
Actually, Freedom Now, while I can’t speak for Hypo. I can say that I was refering to sentiments exemplified by the below.
“There are no moderate Muslims. There are Muslims who realise that they need to keep their heads down until they’ve won, and those who don’t.”
I think it is hard to see such a thing as otherwise, don’t you?
AL, I certainly appreciate and agree with what you copied from your 2002 piece. Hard not to. No decent person wants to go there.
However, it seems to me that you are willing to make enormous sacrifices in the domestic arena – perhaps economically fatal sacrifices – to attempt to ward off a hypothetical scenario of which the probability of actual materialization is undetermined and possibly very low to nil and for which the underlying premises are shakey at best, IMHO.
For example, one assumption that must be present for your scenario to occur, is that the state leaders of the Islamic world are either not rational actors or are ignorant fools, thereby allowing the development of events that would lead us to anhilate them and their people. I do not accept this as a given.
Avedis,
You quoted this comment, _”There are no moderate Muslims. There are Muslims who realise that they need to keep their heads down until they’ve won, and those who don’t.”_
Fletcher is the only person in this entire thread who has expressed this viewpoint.
When you support a statement like Hypo’s saying that _”Hypo, I agree with you 100% on everything you said in #74.”_ when the premise of Hypo’s comment was that, _”most of the comments here are absolutely bonkers. Truly bonkers. Not even worth serious discussion.”_… You should do the majority of us a favor and not quote one person’s opinion to represent the majority.
This is a minority opinion that neither I nor AL nor most of the commentators here advocate. As I have stated, he is the only person to advocate such an opinion.
Fletcher’s comment is a defeatist diatribe from someone who has been discouraged by the propaganda machine that assaults us. I hope that he sees the error of his ways, but he in no way represents most of the comments in this thread. Taking such comments out of context represents poor judgment on your part.
FN, I said the copied piece of comment was an example of a type.
There are indeed other comments and types of comments that lend themselves to Hypo’s description.
Then there are those that do not, such as Michael Totten’s, AL’s (to some extent)………….
So I will admit that Hypo is being more hyperbolic than I would be in his sweeping “bonkers” statement. My bad to say I agree 100%. I should have excepted out that part. So you got me there.
Now, FN, with that out of the way, let’s put your thinking up against the bonko-meter. How do you propose we pay the $4 trillion or more that it will cost to keep our troops occupying Iraq for the next decade or so? What domestic policies would be involved. Please spell out in detail. Please detail your related cost/benefit and risk/benefit analysis.
And Avedis what are these other examples of comments that you are talking about? In your comment on the post entitled, “The Media Does It Again” you denounce these types of misrepresentations.
You should be consistent.
Keep in mind that when denouncing most of the comments here, your use of the term “bigots” was plural. That is a smear and it is not appreciated.
I completely disagree with AL on this subject but I have not resorted to smearing him or anyone else that I have disagreed with. Its not too much to ask the same from others.
FN, how about addressing something of substance like the question I asked instead of being all schoolmarmish?
AL
Thanks for clarifying in #87 what was missing from #84–that little word “yet”:
I certainly agree with this, as far as the United States is concerned, and appreciate that you understand that keeping it that way isn’t likely to happen via our inattention.
However, whether Britain, France, The Netherlands, or Scandinavia is approaching the “existential” point is a somethat different question.
Fletcher Christian: There are no moderate Muslims.
You haven’t the faintest idea what in the hell you’re talking about. I have met literally hundreds of them. You are as likely to convince me that they don’t exist as you are likely to convince me that my neighbors do not exist. Which is pretty much what you’re saying as I have lived on the Sunni side of Beirut.
AL: I’ve said since 2002 that we’re not in an existential war – for us.
I agree. We are not going to be conquered or killed off by Islamists. The very idea is absolutely ridiculous.
But the worst of the Islamists will continue to blow shit up trying.
Avedis,
If you arent going to respond to my question, why should I respond when you change the subject?
Your misrepresentation still stands.
sheesh, I’m not changing the subject. I am trying, out of respect for AL, to maintain on the course of discusion he intended with his post.
If it is necessary for me to provide examples of lunacy on this thread for you to answer a much more material question then I will do so just this once. Take a look at the link on comment #9, comment #10, comment #14…..
In fact, I will even go so far as to say that AL’s proposition that Islamic leaders are so blindly fanatical that they would cause us to have to obliterate their own entire ethnic populations is an example of bigotted thinking.
Other than that I have already admitted that I overstepped on that one point.
OK?
Now will you answer my question? Or will your bobbing and weaving continue?
#9, #10 and #14?!!! Thats completely unsatisfactory. You cant just ignore what I said and avoid the reason that I was offended by your comment.
I said;
“And Avedis what are these other examples of comments that you are talking about? … Keep in mind that when denouncing most of the comments here, your use of the term “bigots” was plural. That is a smear and it is not appreciated.
I completely disagree with AL on this subject but I have not resorted to smearing him or anyone else that I have disagreed with. Its not too much to ask the same from others.”
I dont know the context of what you are taking about as far as AL’s comment that you cite about genocidal Islamic leaders, but if that is what you consider addressing my point then you are really grasping at straws.
You should address Fletcher directly like Totten and I have done. Dont try to rub it off on everyone else.
alright FN, I give. I sincerely regret for making a statement that was offensive to you and that I can’t seem to back up satisfactorily. Please accept my apology.
Now, pretty please with sugar on top will you answer my question?
Please?
avedis, come on a bit. It’s unfair to demand a rigorous analysis in this context. Back of the envelope data ought to suffice.
Let me take a stab (and then pack for my business trip tomorrow).
When I talk about deferring domestic issues while we deal with this international one, I’m talking about both political and fiscal capital.
I’m willing to defer winning on some of my domestic issues (gay marriage, for example) to get policies which I think will win internationally (make progress toward solving this problem). Ideally, I wouldn’t have to – there would be candidates who mirrored my views domestically and internationally – and I can assure you that if they existed, we’d all be better off…;^) – but absent that, the international trumps the domestic. So that’s one kind of cost.
Fiscally, the defense budget as proposed is about 4% of GDP; in 1990, it was about 5.5%, and we weren’t tanking the economy. The biggest conflicts here will be a) entitlements; b) public employee pension costs at the state & local level; and c) infrastructure investment.
We’re going to wind up screwing the public employees at some point; entitlements will be – at a minimum – means-tested. But we’re also probably going to have to raise taxes.
Personally, I’ve argued for some time that we ought to be taxing fuel more heavily. I’d start with Andrew Tobias’ notion of a $0.25/ga tax to cover basic auto insurance; I’d add $0.25/year for three or four years to be split between infrastructure and defense.
I don’t like chaniging behavior by fiat; but incenting people is just fine by me. If people want 500hp Mustangs, bless ’em. But it should be an economically significant decision. Let the market decide.
Cost/benefit? well, if we do nothing, there’s a significant change that the part of the world where our energy comes from – where a few hundred million people live – will a) blow it self up; b) be blown up by Israel; c) be blown up by us.
What’s it worth to you to avoid that?
A.L.
AL: there’s a significant change that the part of the world where our energy comes from – where a few hundred million people live – will a) blow it self up; b) be blown up by Israel; c) be blown up by us.
Pretty much. I personally walked through quite a lot of rubble caused by Arabs, rubble caused by Israelis, and rubble caused by Americans. You don’t have to convine me that this is a serious issue.
And some of the rubble I’ve walked through (or near, I should say) was in New York City.
Thank you Avedis. Your response is appreciated and I look forward to moving the conversation forward.
You asked, _“How do you propose we pay the $4 trillion or more that it will cost to keep our troops occupying Iraq for the next decade or so? What domestic policies would be involved. Please spell out in detail. Please detail your related cost/benefit and risk/benefit analysis.â€_
That’s a really heavy question to ask someone who has never done these types of analyses before. It is a bit over my head. While I have always mastered history courses, I have never enjoyed any study of economics.
I will try my best to talk intelligently on the subject, but it is too much to ask for my response in the format that you demanded.
As I mentioned above, on social domestic issues I line up more with the Democrats than Republicans so I have no problem raising taxes to help pay the cost. Yet I have developed an appreciation for the Bush tax cuts because I have personally benefited. Therefore I would like to see those tax cuts continue for the poor and middle class and increase the tax burden on the wealthy. I admit that this is slightly unfair because the wealthy already pay a larger percentage of taxes, but the truth is that they can afford it and Taxation with Representation is legitimate.
Another means of addressing this point would be to issue War Bonds. It worked wonders during World War II.
In any case, I would never put a price on freedom. The benefit of an Iraq that no longer represents a threat to its neighbors or its own people is priceless.
I have been a big champion of our military’s humanitarian efforts in Iraq. I have even donated and volunteered my time to assist “Spirit of Americaâ€:http://www.spiritofamerica.net/. It is a very worthy charity that contributes humanitarian aid to civilians in war zones and is distributed by our troops as a means of supporting both parties. So I have thought of your concern before and sought to personally contribute to our country’s war effort.
Our greatest weapon is not our military. Even though it is the world’s most powerful, experienced and efficient. The economy of the United States is the most powerful weapon that we have. When we wielded the Marshall Plan in the forties our government took full advantage of the leverage that we could gain from such an effort. The modern-day Morgenthau Boys who want to destroy Iraq by divesting from the country and splitting it apart cannot grasp this point.
#100 from Freedom Now at 1:02 am on Jan 14, 2008
Your tone is really offensive, at least to me. I doubt that anyone here wants to come under prosecutorial type demands from any other poster. So why not lighten up. You are on a website where people try to discuss things civilly. IMO, you are over the line.
Is this an attempt to entrap me into saying something nasty to you? If so, I’m not biting.
What exactly is it about my tone that offends you? Avedis already admitted his or her error and apologized.
_“Alright FN, I give. I sincerely regret for making a statement that was offensive to you and that I can’t seem to back up satisfactorily. Please accept my apology.â€_
You say that I am uncivil in this debate yet it was Hypo and Avedis that initiated indiscriminate attacks on the commentators in this post. See HypocrisyRules comment that, _“For what it’s worth, most of the comments here are absolutely bonkers. Truly bonkers. Not even worth serious discussion.â€_ -and- Avedis’ rant about “…bigots and otherwise disturbed personalities commenting here…â€_ So how exactly do pundits in these comments try to discuss things civilly while I ruin it for them?
Perhaps you would be better served arguing the issues instead of attacking me. Do you have anything worthwhile to contribute or will you continue slinging mud?
My apologies to you Avedis. I had hoped that we could move on without hard feelings after your apology, but TOC has insisted upon making things ugly.
#106 from Freedom Now at 3:29 am on Jan 15, 2008
_What exactly is it about my tone that offends you?_
Well, you might re read what you just wrote. Angry, accusatory, Self-Righteous, how is that for a start_
_You say that I am uncivil in this debate yet it was Hypo and Avedis that initiated indiscriminate attacks on the commentators in this post._
Two wrongs don’t make a right last time I heard.
_Perhaps you would be better served arguing the issues instead of attacking me._
I wasn’t attacking you. There is no reason to be so thin skinned.
_I had hoped that we could move on without hard feelings after your apology, but TOC has insisted upon making things ugly._
I think this statement is a bit overwrought. Upon re-reading it, don’t you? I don’t know how you can come up with the idea that I “insisted on making things ugly.” Trust me, I did not intend to persecute you.
Thats some nice Orwellian logic there.
Its fascinating that you say, _”Two wrongs don’t make a right last time I heard”_, in response to my comment that it was Hypo and Avedis who were acting uncivilly. If I was so uncivil then how did I get Avedis to apologize? He or she would have never apologized if I was unfair to him or her. Respect is always earned, not stolen as you are trying to do.
Then you say that I offended you, but tell me that I am thin skinned. This is classic doublespeak.
Despite this, your fabrications dont offend me because I can only pity someone as hateful as you.
I am compassionate enough to sympathize that you cannot compete in the realm of ideas and that is why you attack me instead.
Hopefully you feel better after getting some sleep.
I had a great night’s sleep and a real chuckle at your last missive. Thank you.
TOC, we’re on track to constructive discussion here – don’t be playing with the model railroad switches,OK?
avedis -any comment on my suggestions?
A.L.
Well, over the past few weeks, since before you left for the holidays, there had been some discussion about civility on the site. FN prosecutorial hammering I thought was pretty uncivil. The continuation of hyperbole like my turning the conversation into something ugly was more of the same.
My intent was to have him cool his jets.
Asking for civil discourse from other commentators does not make me uncivil. But in any case, the situation was settled when you came around TOC. See comment #104 where I said;
_“Thank you Avedis. Your response is appreciated and I look forward to moving the conversation forward.â€_
So your claim that you were only trying to get me to “cool my jets†is rather dubious.
Anyways, I am glad that you had a good night’s sleep. It really helps.
Cheers