Wednesday, October 06, 2004

 
Woulda' shoulda' coulda' and all that, but post-debate analysis is as useful as it is universal.(The Republicans still have not stressed enough that the Monday Morning Quarterbacking is for the most part is being done by Democrats who called the same plays as Bush.)
Cheney should have noted that we traded with the USSR and Red China throughout most or all of the Cold War. There were important debates on the merits of increasing or decreasing trade(and in some cases, outright aid)to win something like friendship and deter enemies within those countries. The Republicans, but not all of the Democrats, at least realized that there *was* and had to be a, Cold War. Ditto for what is, at best, the Democrat's law enforcement approach to Islamofascism. Cheney should have noted that is was Kerry, not Haliburton, who proposed giving nuclear fuel to the Mullahs -who have no more legitimate need for that than did Saddam have for Viagra in one of his "rape rooms."
That said, there seems to be no excuse for Cheney not explaining the gist of his legal insulation from the fortunes or misfortunes of Haliburton in 25 words or less. (Hell, even if he's corrupt, he should have been able to lie about it half-way convincingly.
The failure of the Bush administration to say much, if anything, about the "what ifs" or "Or elses" if a non-Islamofascist government in Iraq is defeated or faces defeat, is maddening. It seems to show, not just a contempt for the citizenry, an inability to think about it all. An argument that thinking and talking about such contigencies might demoralize our Iraqi allies has some merit but should not be decisive. And there is a difference between that, and the *fear* of many that non-fascist forces in Iraq aren't(and won't be)up to the enormous task, and the thinly disguised *contempt* for those forces exhibited by most Democrats.
Bush & Cheney should have the guts and integrity to ask the American public who they would rather have in power if the Allawis et al fall in Iraq. There are ample reasons to believe that a President Kerry, who has never repudiated his condemnation of our conduct of the war in Vietnam even in matters which did *not* involve what most of us would call atrocities(which of course, did occur). Kerry, in spite of noises made about backing down in Fallujah, essentially proposes that we *put more targets on the ground.*
Given the prospects of a ground war in Asia against the conventional(possibly nuclear) might of the USSR and Red China, it may be that we had little choice but to walk away from our weak South Vietnamese allies.(the Democrats *were* despicable in their actions to give those allies a stab in the back on our way out)We soon had no choice but to let the logic of Marxism play itself out in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, and it would have been pointlessly cruel to have say, bombed the Red River dikes in 1976.
The Bush administration is derelict in its duty to us by not stating that we would *not* have to be as helpless as was the case in 1975. (And if we decided to be that helpless, our situation would in some respects, *worse* than was the case in 1975, given that North Vietnam hadn't pulled off anything like a "9/11.")Cheney's defence of our Iraqi friends(or at least not implacable enemies)against the gleeful backstabbing Democrats was all well and good and all that, but leaves the public worried that our security is ultimately dependent upon those allies. We should wish those allies well, but we, our enemies, and the world should realize that even if the Allawis fall, our enemies will not prevail. As noted earlier, for little more than the cost of the sorties carried out over the decade-plus long Gulf War intermission, we can and should make an unfriendly Iraq hell on earth.-which might be much *more* of deterrent to Islamofascism than some shining example of peace, freedom and democracy in Iraq.
A young(but, sadly, fully formed in his outlook)Kerry accused Richard Nixon of not wanting to be the first American President who lost a war. Given that despite his faults, Nixon was a patriot, Kerry demonstrated that he(Kerry)was functionally treasonous in "saying that like it was a bad thing." -Seriously.
A case can be made that LBJ didn't want to be the first *Democrat* who "lost a war." (There was a scene(possibly apocryphal in a made-for-television series about LBJ in which LBJ (or perhaps one of his advisors)notes that if communists win in Vietnam it would result in electoral victories by those(from memory) "who are against everything we believe in." -not communists- Republicans)-Big, big, big difference then and now -between those who "respect" the U.S. and the "world."
And speaking of asking men to be the "last to die for a mistake," doubtless many of our troops are serving bravely, believing just that.(covering a retreat is heroic)However, as noted earlier, this is not something that leads many to *enlist*. And it may be more difficult to maintain support for suffering relatively small(small relative to other conflicts as noted time and time and time again by VDH, but sadly, rarely if ever, by Bush or his spokesmen)casualities when suffered under what must seem to be insane rules of engagement for those who must live and die with the consequences-than it is to suffer much larger casualities in the process of inflicting truly enormous losses(if not annihilation of) on the enemy.
Kerry & Edwards are justly derided for suggestions that say, the overtly hostile french would put their forces(targets)on the ground so that this would dilute our percentage of casualities suffered. Hell, I would discourage any of my children from serving in any of the armed services under a President Kerry under almost any circumstances. This, in spite of this going against the amber waves o' grain(o.k. attempts at (possibly graveyard)humor here probably come across more as malapropisms,unlike the free and easy and joyous fifth-columnism of many Democrats.