Friday, October 08, 2004

 
National Remedial Review:

I'd read only a brief reference or two on NR regarding Kerry and the rules o' war in Vietnam and Iraq, so it was good to see the piece by Rivkin&Casey on the digital version today. As noted earlier, many of those who "disapprove" of Bush's conduct of the war do so from the "right" and one hopes that not too many will be deceived by phony bluster from the Very Swift Tour Turncoat.(yep, I do come up with these gems while I type)
Before going on further, it would be inexcusable for Bush not to work in sometime tonight the magnitude of deficits during WW II and also to the magnitude of casualities(as tirelessly noted by VDH in particular)during that time.
I've probably lost the old emails, but am pretty sure I wrote before Gulf War II. that the WMD threat was something of a "pretext." -chosen in part to garner domestic and international support. And that Iraq was, in part,chosen from a list of suitable targets for that reason. And now for some, as it has become clear that the terrorist are inflicting more casualities and controlling more cities than some anticipated, the failure to find WMDs has become something of a "pretext" for withdrawing support from GWB if not our presence in Iraq. This pretext gives cover to weasels who say that they are changing their position(if they admit to having had a pro-war position at all)because they were "lied to." As noted by many, Kerry and others have seized upon the missing WMD issue primarily because of the strength of the "insurgency."
(Digression: Who remembers what was in the "Pentagon Papers" anyway? LBJ could not conceal from the public that the Viet Cong were numerous and highly motivated and that ARVN and the South Vietnamese government were weak. Or that absent invasion or credible threat of invasion(with attendant risks of a truly major land war in Asia) the North Vietnamese were prepared to make war indefinitely. As a young man of draftable age, I loathed what seemed to be an old man's war of containment of "standing up" to, communism, and hoped that we would decide to no longer "stand up" on such unfavorable ground -live again to fight another day and so on. The "living room war," the Ellsbergs to the contrary, was fought under conditions of extreme transparency(even if that term was not in widespread use yet). To some extent the U.S. fought the war in ways that might be expected from a democracy -gradual response to escalation, fits, starts, pauses, negotiations, withful thinking regarding an implaccable enemy and so on. It would too much to say, that far from being "lied to," America got the war that it deserved.(excepting those arguments along the lines of the story of Job) And as much as I hated the containment(as opposed to the "liberation doctrine")doctrine and some of its advocates(some of whom went over to the commies), the ultimate *blame* for the death and destruction,(and much of the blame for atrocities by our forces)in Souteast Asia lay not with those whose errors were not so different from those of Dieppe or Gallipoli, but for the adherents of the cruel faith of messianic Marxism. I favored withdrawal from Vietnam without denying that this would confirm a defeat of enormous magnitude and likely be followed horrific acts and policies of the communist victors. Kerry's "opposition to the War" was altogether different.)
Where was I? The overriding reason(even if not admitted by GWB and not stressed *enough* on NRO)was to *punish and deter Islamofascism*. The choice of Iraq, as noted above, had its merits, although a decision by the President to appear on television with a hopper containing say, the names of 22(or is it 23?-and should we have left off say, Morroco or shoe-horned in Iran)Arab countries, and then going on to choose the target of our wrath and example by *lot*, while perhaps absurd at first thought, would have had some appeal. And even if OBL or his minions and Saddam and his er, cohurts, had never exchanged so much as a "Get Well!" or "Congratulations!" card, they were both West-hating Islamofascists-even if they differed on the roles of clerics and bureaucrats.
As argued before, the threat of regime change may cause some enemy leaders to act against terrorists. This may not be enough to defeat the terrorists and the possibility that aiding or at least not defeating terrorists could lead to installation of a regime which brings freedom, prosperity, democracy and so on in their countries can hardly be much of a deterrent to the *people* of enemy states. I'm not sure why a case for what I think is a truth, even if unpleasant, hasn't been noted elsewhere(at least to my knowledge or recollection)-even if it at first glance, it may have some of the unreality of "The Mouse That Roared." The Big Hairy Nasty Truth underlying all of this is that it may be that the *only* credible deterrent to mass slaughter of our civilian population is a threat(made credible by examples which we have not yet set)to inflict a much, much, much greater slaughter of Muslims. That, and perhaps that alone, might be what will not only deter leaders of Islamic states, but also their *people*, and not necessarily lastly the *terrorists themselves*. As argued(perhaps ad nauseum, and perhaps in old emails)even, or perhaps *especially* those terrorist(some of whom are probably U.S. citizens) willing to give their lives in suicide missions in order to inflict disproportionate damage on the infidel West, would *not* be willing to carry out their missions if this meant annihilation of much or all of the Islamic world. And if I'm wrong, the outcome, at least at this time, would or should be UAD(unilateral assured destruction -in relatively happy contrast to the MAD doctrine that prevented war between the West and the USSR). Also as argued much earlier, Islamoterrorist, however much they may be frustrated by what is in some instances the relative and prudent cautiouness of leaders of Muslim states, do *not* wish for all-out war against the West. OBL calls for war on the West and waves the bloody(or crispy)shirt of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only because he suspects(ed)that the United States is now a far different country that used nuclear weapons on Japan.
Before giving this a rest, will note that while Republicans carped about "waving the dog" and "bombing an aspirin factory" during the Clinton administration, this had nothing of the intensity or character of those Democrats whose criticism of GWB and the war itself shows a pathological loathing of Bush and an unconcern for the welfare of the country as a whole. (will grant that much of the blame lies with Clinton, whose flagrant missuse of power in his dalliances was hard to ignore-and am sure that some Republicans now feel a little guilty about some of their criticisms of Clinton's efforts apart from those arguments along the lines of doing too little against terrorism) While it might have made winning the nomination more difficult(if not impossible), Kerry might be doing far *better* in the polls if he had stuck(or after the nomination, returned)to positions taken also by GWB. If he had *defended* Bush on many issues, from the missing WMDs to Abu Ghraib, voters might have concluded that Kerry was being patriotic, if more than fair, and that Bush *was* incompetent, if fundamentally honest and well-meaning, and that a President Kerry might very well do a better job, unite us, etc. etc.