Mark Steyn points out that the world sees that the U.S. as once again afraid to us its power to win:
What’s the difference between September 2001 and now? It’s not that anyone “liked” America or that, as the Democrats like to suggest, the country had the world’s “sympathy.” Pakistani generals and the Kremlin don’t cave to your demands because they “sympathize.” They go along because you’ve succeeded in impressing upon them that they’ve no choice. Musharraf and Co. weren’t scared by America’s power but by the fact that America, in the rubble of 9/11, had belatedly found the will to use that power. It is notionally at least as powerful today, but in terms of will we’re back to Sept. 10: Nobody thinks America is prepared to use its power. And so Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad and wannabe “strong horses” like Baby Assad cock their snooks with impunity.
I happened to be in the Australian Parliament for Question Time last week. The matter of Iraq came up, and the foreign minister, Alexander Downer, thwacked the subject across the floor and over the opposition benches in a magnificent bravura display of political confidence culminating with the gleefully low jibe that “the Leader of the Opposition’s constant companion is the white flag.” The Iraq war is unpopular in Australia, as it is in America and in Britain. But the Aussie government is happy for the opposition to bring up the subject as often as they want because Downer and his prime minister understand very clearly that wanting to “cut and run” is even more unpopular. So in the broader narrative it’s a political plus for them: Unlike Bush and Blair, they’ve succeeded in making the issue not whether the nation should have gone to war but whether the nation should lose the war.
That’s not just good politics, but it’s actually the heart of the question. Of course, if Bush sneered that John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi’s constant companion is the white flag, they’d huff about how dare he question their patriotism. But, if you can’t question their patriotism when they want to lose a war, when can you? [Emphasis mine.]
Because it’s Mark Steyn there is, of course, more and it would be a shame if you didn’t read it all.
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Bush has yet to unleash the dogs of war, and because of that, we have lots and lots of people saying Bush is doing too much surveillaince and invasions.
It’s an inverse relationship.
If someone knows you’re not going to do something, they’ll keep taunting you with your helplessness and telling you to give up. If you are not helpless and you are able to do something, then your enemies are too busy fighting you to say anything.
Diplomacy is much easier when you have made examples of terroists, leaders like Chirac, and nations. When you have no examples of what happens to people that oppose your will, except the example of Iran winning, then people are not going to do what you want. People do what you want because you have either paid them a bribe, you threaten to take away something of theirs, or you use intimidation.
The Democrats believe the world will follow them, in America, because the Democrats believe they are destined to lead the world and they believe they are the best to do that job. They act this way because of their personal self-righteous belief that America has higher standards than the rest of the world. They are the anointed, because they are the purest. This isn’t exactly going to convice a lot of people in the real world, however. In the real world, there are only two kinds of purities people pay attention to. Money and Allah.
That must have been quite the phone call he’d got from Washington a day or two earlier. And all within a week of Sept. 11.
I think I mentioned this before here or at Synova’s blog, but in the beginning Bush pushed his domestic presidency past his limits. In the beginning, Bush refused to be limited by “talks”, the “Un”, “diplomacy”, or anything craptastic jazz like “approval” or “international concensus” or whatever.
It was only after Afghanistan, during 2003 in the UN, that Bush allowed himself to be limited by the world. He lost faith, he tried to go it slower, he wanted diplomacy, and what he got was the opposite of what he desired. Not only was the Iraq War longer, not shorter, because of the UN, but also Saddam had time to galvanize world support through more bribes.
Bush allowed himself to be shackled. The past Presidents in Lincoln and Andrew Jackson gave Bush all the power he needed, but Bush didn’t want to use his powers to streamline things because he seemed to not want to be a bully or something. When the leadership lacks will and ruthlessness, then it doesn’t really matter what public opinion is if the leaders don’t even desire to use more force.
Bush reminds me of a certain type of ruler. That ruler has the best of intentions, but he either doesn’t know enough about palace intrigue or is ignorant of certain policy decisions. Because of the ruler’s lack of knowledge, he is not confident in his abilities, so he allows his advisers to rule the kingdom in his place. Those advisers start carving up fiefdoms and start fighting each other, instead of looking out for the interest of the kingdom’s people. Bush is a domestic president, he did not set out to be a war president, nor does he seem to act like Lincoln after the first year. When he became a war president, he listened to himself and did the right things. As time went on, he started listening to people like Tenet and Richard Clark and other bureacrats with their own agendas.
This is a mirror example of when Bush allowed the State Dep and CIA and the Pentagon to argue forever about the plan for Iraq. He wanted a final plan, so he just told his people to get together and come up with one, then talk to him. But the Pentagon and the State and the CIA could never agree, because they were too busy fighting each other. If you have to delegate things, you have to delegate it to one or the other, you just can’t spread it around and have them fight for territory and power after Iraq.
A lot of time was not only wasted in useless planning, but that actually harmed the administration’s policy and the nation’s vision.
Quick decisive action is required. During the time, of course, we were arguing that Bush was decisive, and based upon the events after 9/11 and what we saw soon after, he was decisive. But the more time passed, Bush got more and more diplomatic, UN based, and negotiation bogged. The Quagmire wasn’t a military problem, it was an administrative, political, and international one.
This is why America needed a two party system. So if Bush made a mistake, he would have help from the Democrats. But instead of helping, the Democrats lead the country down WMDs and MORE negotiations, which caused more problems.
The Republicans were toobusy after 2003 trying to defend Bush against Democrat charges, that nobody was planning for the future. Since the Democrats weren’t going to plan for the future, sabotaging everyone else’s plans seemed to them to be a right idea for victory.
Bush doesn’t listen to public opinions, which is a good idea. He however does listen to his advisers, too much, which is a bad thing. If I had to choose between a ruler that listens to the people too much or his advisers too much, then that would be a very hard choice to make.
There will be a lot of fake liberals and people on the Left that will claim to “criticize” Bush and “thus fullfill a more balanced debate”, but they’re just playing a game that they don’t care who it hurts.
These are the people, if you recall, that said Bush was too “unilateral”, “invading too many countries”, “isn’t building coalitions”, and so on. If Bush built more coalitions and was more multilateral than he is now, he would become mist. The first thing that tipped me off was how the Left kept goading Bush to to go more diplomatic and multilateral. I don’t know what happened, but Bush seems to be listening to somebody telling him that this is the right way to appease the opposition. Bush likes to cooperate too much.
So when the Left started saying Bush was too unilateral, I looked at the UN and North Korea in 2004, and I was like “Bush ain’t unilateral, he’s pretty multilateral atm”. And that is still true.
I love Steyn, but I don’t give a darn what anybody in the world thinks of us.
erp, I’m with you!
bw, glad to see you’re still at it…I’m just back from a summer of army fun and will be checking in from Korea now.
Patriotism is the American equivalent of jihad. Our hope is to learn to make rational as opposed to emotional decisions. One civilization acting on faith is quite enough.
Okay, J, you lost me again. Patriotism is pride in and love for one’s country. Jihad is an effort to destroy someone else’s country. One does not logically follow from, lead to or equate with the other. I agree with you about making rational decisions, though. Let’s have a rational discussion about what decisions we should be making. What decisions would you have us make and why are they the rationally correct decisions?
P.S. I’m on vacation and only have access to the Internet off and on until next Saturday, but I’ll check in and discuss with you as much as I can and I’m sure others will engage in the discussion. You’ll certainly find more rational discussion and less emoting at this site than most site on the left or right.
Jihad at its base meaning is a struggle. A religious struggle, an inner struggle, etc.
In this struggle, there are ethical means to do things in a successful way, and unethical things that will only end in self-destructive ends.
There are long term goals that can be accomplished through doing things a certain way, and there are short term goals that can replace long term goals if you do things a certain way. Islamic Jihad focuses on self-destruction, worship of a death cult, and relying upon short term goals of Annihilation and Armageddon. Because they beleive God wil take care of the long term things, they don’t plan for that.
One of the prerequisites to making rational decisions is to have a rational grasp of facts. Equating patriotism — love of country — with jihad, the requirement to do battle on behalf of absolutist religious principles — doesn’t indicate any astute grasp of analogy; it is a huge and rather silly generalization.
thanks, jg. There’s plenty of room here in the sanity zone.
BW – Sorry to take up so much of your bandwidth below. Please edit or remove should you think it over long. However, I think it’s critical to our safety that we to try to inform those who don’t seem to remember how we got to this point or have relied on the media for their information.
J.
J. Are you implying that not caring what those who wish us harm aka world opinion think about us is an emotional decision and a rational one would be to pander to the hate-America crowd?
Sorry. We’ve been the adults on the planet for all of our existence. Pouring out men and materiel to help in every corner of the globe. For our troubles, we are roundly hated, so please don’t describe us as irrational and emotional because we don’t embrace your philosophy of appeasement and thralldom to the U.N. In fact, were we to accept Einstein definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, a reasonable person might think the left has parted from reason.
BTW – You should check this out for yourself, it was in all the papers, in case you think I’m being irrational for mentioning it. Almost five years ago, New York City, arguably the culmination of civilization on earth, was attacked by irrational atavists. They killed thousands of our fellows as they innocently went about their day and destroyed two of the great symbols of our capitalist system located in the heart of the world’s greatest financial district, known to all as Wall Street.
They also tried to, but couldn’t destroy the great symbol of American military strength, far greater, I might add, than the military might of all the combined ages of man, the Pentagon. Why this portion of the Jihadist program was so unsuccessful isn’t known. Perhaps there is an advance warning system, whatever it is, it hasn’t been made public, nor should it be. The atavists didn’t succeed in destroying the Pentagon, but they did kill many patriots as they went about their daily task of keeping us safe from those who wish us harm.
Because of our private enterprise and free trade policies, the most advanced technology is easily affordable to the ordinary Americans who were passengers on the third plane. They used their cell phones and onboard telephones to find out about the other of Allah’s triumphs that morning, so the third target, our national home, the greatest symbol of the United States of America, the White House wasn’t in danger. These real patriots forced the real Jihadisst to crash the plane into a field, not far from Gettysburg where tens of thousands of other real patriots who saved our country, are buried.
Getting back to the rational response you speak of . . . We, The People of United States of America and our elected leader, President George W. Bush, have the capacity to wreak the most devastating destruction ever seen on the face of the earth, but we didn’t do it, did we?
The president’s statement wasn’t emotional. It was calm and rational, You’re either with us or with the terrorists. Every unemotional and rational person hearing that should be to see these are the only two positions possible in a war with an amorphous entity created by generations of left-wingers who through their pacifism have given Islamic terrorists hope they can succeed in their stated goal of the destruction of the state of Israel, the death of all Jews and conversion or death of everyone else on the earth. I didn’t make that up because I’m emotional and irrational. Check the internet for pictures of the the pro-terrorist demonstrations and you will see these sentiments and worse. Listen to and watch the videos widely available on the net to hear what Islamic leaders are saying in public. The ones in London are largely in English.
After what seemed a very long time and only when it was apparent that in the U.N. et al., it was business as usual, we and those countries who supported us, launched a very successful effort to destroy the viper nests in Afghanistan and Iraq and lay down plans for a peaceful Middle East.
Obviously, the job is far from over. The current killing and violence and false or misleading media reports are giving aid and comfort to the terrorists who are trying the affect American voters and waiting out the next election in hopes that, paraphrasing the words of the great Tom Lehrer, “Somebody they like can be elected.”
The emotional anti-Americanism of the rest-of-the-world isn’t too rational is it? It’s our will and military that keep the peace and without them, we and the “rest of the world” would be speaking, German, Russian, Arabic, insert your favorite rest-of-the-world country here.
‘Patriotism is the American equivalent of jihad.’
No, J. Were you an American, you would scorn those words. Far too many of our ancestors died for patriotism for any American to employ such terms. I suspect there is not a family in America who has not sacrificed during the last hundred years for patriotism. Please take these comments to the front lines in Baghdad, among the brave, caring volunteers that are fighting for us everyday. Tell THEM– You are that BRAVE?
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Muslims send their young to their deaths with the notion of jihad. Muslims condone war, just or not, in the name of jihad. (Jihad probably prevents them from digging deeply enough into issues to determine if the war really is justified. Maybe some Muslims believe it’s alright to murder, disparage, whatever, anyone who disagrees with them. A lot of Americans, both liberal and neo-cons, agree, at least about the disparaging).
Americans send their young to their deaths in the name of God and country. Many Americans, apparently a hardcore 33%, will support a war no matter how poorly planned or executed it is. The death, the impossibility of any semblance of success, is irrelevant, although they deny it. It’s the idea, belief really, that inspite of all evidence to the contrary, the war is a good thing, that keeps the cycle going.
I’m for winning. I’m for not winning. I’m not for wasting and/or losing.
“Americans send their young to their deaths in the name of God and country.”
No, J. Again I doubt that you are American. You would know that American history unequivocally bears witness to the sacrifices of patriots.
AS for those who protect the world in Iraq: A lot of our troops in Iraq/Afghanistan are certainly far from young. And most have families.
All volunteer. Yep, volunteer. They CHOSE to put their lives on the line for you. You can’t comprehend someone willing to die for you, can you?
You should.
For all the hundreds of thousands who have put their lives on the line so that you and most of the world live with a chance of freedom today.
YOU carry that burden of being WORTH what they gave with their lives.
You need to spend time in the veterans section of your local town cemetery, if you are American. Or check the fine memorials grateful citizens have erected to the determination of those who said America will stand free. You–American or not– should be one of those who is willing to fight for that, too.
Or are you going to let “young.. (and) their deaths in the name of God and country,” (the way you disparage American free fighting men and women)– do it for for you?
Maybe some Muslims believe it’s alright to murder, disparage, whatever, anyone who disagrees with them.
If that was true, why aren’t people criticizing me instead of J? Or rather, in addition to J.
Americans send their young to their deaths in the name of God and country.
While Arabs brainwash their children into the self-destructive jihad, Americans join the service based upon honest virtues and a look at the hardcore reality.
Hi J,
Thanks for the comment, but you lost me again. You appear to equate Islamic approval of murder (of innocent civilians) with American approval of disparagement (of people with whom they disagree). The two are not at all comparable. The difference is a matter of kind, not of degree.
I agree with you on the Iraq war, at least to some extent. I opposed it from the beginning, as Bookworm can testify. However, what are our alternatives now that we are there? Instead of generalized criticism, how about some constructive descussion. What would you have us do in Iraq that you believe would be better for ourselves and better for the Iraqis than what we are doing now? I’m open to suggestion. For example, what do you think would happend to the Iraqis if America cut her losses and ran home, abandoning her allies in Iraq? I believe that Iraq would launch into full-scale civil war. I believe that Iran would be emboldened to not only develop a nuclear weapon, but use it. I believe that terrorists everywhere would be emboldened and attacks on American soil would quickly resume (especially since resources now being used to terrorize Iraq could be shifted to attacking Americans, both around the world and, as quickly as they could be infiltrated, in America itself). I believe that America would be viewed again by the entire world as a paper tiger, without the stomach or the courage to finish what it starts, one who cuts and runs away when the going gets tough. I don’t believe this is good for Iraq or for America. Much as I think it was a mistake to go into Iraq, I think it would be an even bigger mistake to leave now. Personally, I favor a three-state solution, even with the political consequences in Turkey and elsewhere. The Iraqis themselves should at least be allowed to vote on a three-state solution. But one way or another we should help them find a solution and not just run away and hide. I look forward to your comments, though I may not see them for a while since I’m continuing my vacation & probably won’t have access to a computer for a while.
I forward a gambit that J might like the US forces to stay inside their bases, and restrict patrolling to avoid the IEDs.
The 3 way state would be suicide for Iraq, it would just take longer for it to shatter. You either work things out through Union, exile the losers like in the US Revolutionary War, or you get endless civil war where no one wins.
The US Could have gone the two state solution in the Civil War. It’s not a good idea.
Don Quixote,
You’ve got me on the weak analogy. While you were getting educated and learning to think critically, I was consuming mass quantities and trying to catch social diseaes. It seemed like a good idea back in the day.
If and when I put my thinking about the run up to the war, and where Bush lost me, to paper, I’ll let you know. Originally I was for the war. I still think the invasion was the right thing, in lieu of a “we’ll incinerate every last one of you people” policy. I think everybody thought Sadaam had WMD. Sadaam may have thought he had them. And who is to say he didn’t?
The three state solution you suggest is probably the last/best hope for any sort of stability there. Always has been, at least according to what I make of what I’ve read and seen on television. It’s still a very, very long shot. Maybe I have a strong sense of the obvious, but the people inhabiting that slice of hell have no problem killing and will almost certainly settle their differences that way.
My case against the way things are going is this: Americans are never going to support a protracted military conflict, much less say a peace-keeping or police role. The neo-cons knew this going in, just like anybody else who thought about it knew it. I have no opinion on whether this is good or bad. I believe it to be a fact.
I think it’s inevitable that we’ll cut and run. Maybe in 2007. Maybe in 2020. Whenever, Iraq will disintegrate even further. The Iraqis who’ve helped us will be slaughtered. Kind of like in Vietnam. Since it is inevitable, or so I believe, what’s to be gained by postponing the inevitable?
Since I believe it to be inevitable, I believe sending more Americans to their death there to be not only unpatriotic, but criminal.
I also believe we’ll have a nuclear Iran, and probably on Bush’s watch. That’s criminal too. Maybe when they use them, we’ll settle the matter, once and for all.
Half measures will get us nowhere. Reduce them to civility. Or placate them. Provoking them will prove disastrous.
That’s what I believe.
Ymarsakar, I’m not sure your US Civil War comment is much smarter than my jihad suggestion, but I guess at least you got the kinds right.
It’s not the kind where breaking a country into 3 warring factions is going to solve any future problems. Some of you believe that factionalism is the solution to current civil strife, but all it will do is to create an endless state of conflict where no one will have enough power to impose stability and long term reconciliation. Endless clan and border warfare. If that’s the status quo you seek, then that will obviously put you at odds with me, my end goals are different. Nor are they as set in stone as the list of inevitabilities J listed currently.
It is not an adequate excuse to fail because you justify it as inevitable. The fake liberals have soothed their consciences for decades concerning the inevitability of Vietnam, I do not believe it wise for anyone to repeat that mistake for their own purposes. Simply because it is not in the long term interests of the United States, even if it does sooth the personal consciences of individuals facing a challenge.
I’ll reverse the status quo argument and describe how what J has written about what he believes validates the opposite of his beliefs, instead of supporting his beliefs. Meaning, psychology and mental preparation has a lot to do with the chances of ultimate success. If you believe defeat to be inevitable, that will soon become a self-fullfilling prophecy. In this sense, then, victory and defeat comes about from convincing people of accomplishing what you seek to accomplish. If you can convince people to believe as J, does, that defeat is inevitable, why postone it, then you have categorically won. Because the highest level of skill in warfare is not to have 300 sieges and win all of them, but to take a fortification without a siege at all. You do this by breaking the will of the enemy, prevent them from fighting not by killing them, but by demoralizing them and making them not want to fight. Once you accomplish that, what is possible or impossible is determined by the beliefs and willingness of people to work towards a goal or not work towards a goal.
This kind of fatigue is not unknown to the history of war. The key is not to attempt to convince people by words that things can be won or not, but to demonstrate with action that previous concerns about limitations were false. People will not believe you simply because they in their minds, impose certain limitations and beliefs upon what you can or cannot do. If you prove them wrong, that will do more to convince people than any number of oratory rhetoric.
Which gets back to the beginning, when I said that J’s statements are proof that things are not inevitable simply because things become what they are based upon how many people you can convice to do or not do. Logically, if you can get people to give up, then you can get people to not give up as well. Since the human mind is mercurial, you can do this many times over the course of a war, even with the same person.
The reason why I made the original gambit, is because I’ve encountered similar demoralized remnants of the war effort before. I don’t put too much effort into finding out why they are giving up, that requires too much research and intelligence sources. However, when J said that he doesn’t want to send Americans to die for a futile cause, then logically he would approve of the US forces staying inside their bases, where they would not be victim to IEDs and ambushes. The gambit paid off, as the situation I highlighted is consistent with the goals J claims to be for.
The reason for the gambit is to see how correct I was in terms of analyzing J’s mental status concerning the war. Given that he had not in the past written much for me to draw conclusions from, a gambit seemed to be worth it.
By determining what J wants and believes, I can determine the solutions. Which is why I tend to reverse engineer arguments to that purpose. So in the end, instead of giving J what he wants, I can change what he wants, to the items already on the negotiations table.
Everyone is vulnerable to psychological warfare. Just as everyone is vulnerable to a nuclear warhead being armed and set off. The limits for nuclear warheads are not the same limits for psychological warfare. I don’t care if you a lawyer, a soldier, a Democrat, a Republican, a fake liberal, or a true liberal. Everyone is vulnerable to psychological warfare and its effects. By recognizing this simple facet of foundational reality, you can plan for how to deal with the consequences.
Often times people do not know why they feel a certain way in a certain situation. This creates gaps in the mental defense of people, as they do not consider the possible threats or mistake current threats as something else.
No, J. Again I doubt that you are American. You would know that American history unequivocally bears witness to the sacrifices of patriots.
AS for those who protect the world in Iraq: A lot of our troops in Iraq/Afghanistan are certainly far from young. And most have families.
All volunteer. Yep, volunteer. They CHOSE to put their lives on the line for you. You can’t comprehend someone willing to die for you, can you?
jg wrote the above. In personal terms, I’m not entirely all that interested in whether someone is an American or not or whether they consider this that or the other. What JG said is rather irrelevant to me, because it is far more efficient to get to the core of J’s beliefs and mental facets than it is to have countless probes and arguments going no where.
I remember another person, someone who spent some time in the Marine Corps, who believed the same as J. Not in terms of concrete futility, but the concern over the waste of American lives. That person wanted the Marines to stay in their barracks and never go out, because it would put them in threatening situations.
So in the end, I create facets in order to make a situation where there is nothing to argue about. We only have to go through the motions. I don’t have to argue about whether Iraq will inevitably become another vietnam. All I have to know is that this is what J believes, and the counter will set in automatically. I suppose I did this entire post in order to collect the strategy in a way that is logical, clear, and makes better sense in a written format for me to read.
DQ – The UN and sanctions against Saddam Hussein were less than useless. That scenario allowed Kofi to enrich himself and his associates beyond their wildest dreams while tacitly approving Saddam Hussein’s cruel regime. He was financing Arafat et al. in the terrorist campaigns against Israel and so on and so forth. We all know the rest.
You say you were against the war, so my question is, what did you propose Bush do instead of waging a war on terror and do you believe as I do, that had Bush not waged this war, we would have had more attacks on our homeland?
If you’re willing to keep 100,000 US troops in Kuwaitt indefinitely and maintain the two no fly zones with US and Brit fighter planes doing 24/7 CAPs, then you can hedge a situation between sanctions and invasion.