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Americans should argue about this war. It has cost the lives of nearly 2,500 of the best of us. It has taken innocent life. It has imposed an enormous financial burden on our economy. At a minimum, it has complicated our ability to respond to other looming threats. Should we lose this war, our defeat will further destabilize an already volatile and dangerous region, strengthen the threat of terrorism, and unleash furies that will assail us for a very long time. I believe the benefits of success will justify the costs and risks we have incurred. But if an American feels the decision was unwise, then they should state their opposition, and argue for another course. It is your right and your obligation. I respect you for it. I would not respect you if you chose to ignore such an important responsibility. But I ask that you consider the possibility that I, too, am trying to meet my responsibilities, to follow my conscience, to do my duty as best as I can, as God has given me light to see that duty.

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Americans deserve more than tolerance from one another, we deserve each other's respect, whether we think each other right or wrong in our views, as long as our character and our sincerity merit respect, and as long as we share, for all our differences, for all the noisy debates that enliven our politics, a mutual devotion to the sublime idea that this nation was conceived in--that freedom is the inalienable right of mankind, and in accord with the laws of nature and nature's Creator.

We have so much more that unites us than divides us.

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Let us argue with each other then. By all means, let us argue. Our differences are not petty, they often involve cherished beliefs, and represent our best judgment about what is right for our country and humanity. Let us defend those beliefs. Let's do so sincerely and strenuously. It is our right and duty to do so. And let's not be too dismayed with the tenor and passion of our arguments, even when they wound us. We have fought among ourselves before in our history, over big things and small, with worse vitriol and bitterness than we experience today.

Let us exercise our responsibilities as free people. But let us remember, we are not enemies. We are compatriots defending ourselves from a real enemy. We have nothing to fear from each other. We are arguing over the means to better secure our freedom, promote the general welfare and defend our ideals. It should remain an argument among friends; each of us struggling to hear our conscience, and heed its demands; each of us, despite our differences, united in our great cause, and respectful of the goodness in each other. I have not always heeded this injunction myself, and I regret it very much.

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Originally posted by Bean Counter:


How Cowardly to appeal to the vanity of those who spike our spokes, calling them honest and true paragons of American virtue instead of blasting them for undermining our cause and slowing the resolution of our efforts, how hypocritical to call for dialogue that costs us lives by giving comfort and hope to the enemy, while talking of the losses of so many of the best America has to offer.
BC

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Ni!

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What nonsense! He says that abandonment or defeat will leave us worse off then before we started, so we must stay the course, but then defends us wasting the substance of our energy bickering about it after the course is set? Is he a complete fool?

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It is to be hoped that this is the best the Democrats can offer as a goat for the Right to sacrifice next election.

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Once the course of war is decided upon the time for discussion is at an end. Once the war is won then we can chat all we want about what we did right and what we did wrong and how to do better next time.

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How convenient then, for those in power to have entered an unwinnable war.
 

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Posted by Bean Counter (Member # 6001) on :
 
When the Iraqi's Democratically Elected Constitutional Government assumes control of its own security we will have won, what is unwinnable about that? Are the Iraqi's incapable of fielding police and military? I think that you have a very strange definition of unwinnable, We already have the Government, there are training facilities all over Iraq, my unit put a half dozen men into training slots when we arrived, we conducted operations side by side with the IP and IA to demonstrate tactics and ROE, the fact that the lines at recruiting stations still have hundreds of men despite focused attacks against them should tell you that the numbers are there. All they need is training and equipment.

So what you are calling "unwinnable" is for us to put men through boot-camp and supply them with uniforms and shoes. I think that your Grandparents would find that a pretty weak willed sentiment. Or perhaps you had not really thought about it since CNN is there to think for you.

BC
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 

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Originally posted by Xavier:

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Once the course of war is decided upon the time for discussion is at an end. Once the war is won then we can chat all we want about what we did right and what we did wrong and how to do better next time.

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How convenient then, for those in power to have entered an unwinnable war.

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When the Iraqi's Democratically Elected Constitutional Government assumes control of its own security we will have won, what is unwinnable about that?

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We have a war against terrorist, and I assure you that they can be found and killed very efficiently.

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if we can get one quarter of Islam on our side then the rest will hate them so much they will keep each other busy for decades. More important Iraqi's will live better; have more options and purpose then any time for two generations.

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Originally posted by Xavier:
[QUOTE]So what war are we waiting to have ended in order to criticize? I suppose that would have to be the war against "terror".

This war will never be won, because at its very nature it is unwinnable. Sort of like the war on crime, or the war on drugs, or the war on poverty. Wars against concepts are inherently unwinnable, because concepts cannot surrender.

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posted by Bean Counter:
If you mean, "When will our nation be so secure we need not keep our armed forces?" then the answer is now and always has been "Never."

If you are talking about specific military operations then my answer holds.

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Originally posted by fugu13:
Last I checked, the number of terror incidents around the world has generally increased since we started trying to crack down, and the size and complexity of the terrorist organizations we have targeted has ballooned.

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When the war is incorrectly defined as a war against "terror," then one cannot even properly gauge the progress of the war. This is not a war against "terror," and success or failure is not a function of the number of terrorist incidents around the world. Rather, this is a war against militant/fanatical Islam, and I suspect that this could be a very long war - a war in which success or failure may not become evident until many years from now.
 

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Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
 
What distinguishes discussion of changing tactics (because, as you said, the field of battle is often fluid) from bickering?

McCain agrees with the war, but he does not agree with how the war was handled and has made suggestions as to how it could be waged more intelligently. Is that bickering or constructive criticism? Or is it that, once our leaders have settled on a war plan we must continue it even after it appears to have been made with faulty information and overly optimistic outlooks?

I agree that slamming the current adminstration's policies without offering clear replacements, as the Democrats have done (with a few notable exceptions) for 6 years now is foolish. But following a failing course of action without adapting to change is just idiotic, and failing to speak out against those who would is unpatriotic.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
You might want to alert the President its a war against militant/fanatical Islam, he's been telling everybody how its a war against terrorism, no matter who commits it.

As for success or failure along that axis, most of my comments hold true. Our policies, both now and in the past, are some of the primary sources of new recruits for islamic terrorist organizations and problematic regimes.

You want to know why the Taliban became so powerful? Because we paid Pakistan to create them, and because after kicking the USSR out of Afghanistan we abandoned it, resulting in the initial, more moderate government getting replaced by radicals. Guess what we're on track to do in modern day Afghanistan? We've already ceded all but a tiny part of the country to the warlords and remaining Taliban (though it'd less likely be another Taliban regime and more likely be a nation of drug lords providing significant funding for terrorism).

You want to know the biggest source of fanatical terrorist leaders? Saudi Arabia. They practice a policy of using Wahabbi Islam to shore up their regime, but encourage anyone who gets particularly radical to leave. We previously and still provide significant support to their regime; after all, they don't support terrorism, just a briny sea of anti-westernism that spawns terrorists.

Interested in one of the regimes in the area least supportive of terrorist organizations? Iraq under Hussein. Want to know one of the biggest rallying cries for terrorist organizations? Iraq under the US. I do think we should have gone in, but we botched the follow through so ridiculously badly (in ways predicted by Pentagon planners, including with suggestions for ameliorating the problems that were not followed) that many of the most important cities remain either in a state of chaos or are under the control of forces unfriendly to the west.

If our intent is to fight against fanatical/militant Islam, we've picked a darn awful way to go about it. I suggest we start by paying actual attention to, among others, the Islamicists in the field of Internation Relations. For instance, if they look at a policy and say things along the lines of "no, you idiots, that will only make things worse," then its likely a good idea to take a long, hard look at the policy.

I don't mean to say that no specific policy by the current administration has been a step in the right direction (for instance, I specifically mention my support for the invasion of Iraq), but too few have, and many of their negative effects were quickly predicted by specialists in the field. I'm not sure how policies that aren't having the specific positive effects the Bush administration says they have and that are having specific negative effects, including ones predicted by experts, are going to somehow result in us winning some war against militant/fanatical Islam in the long run.
 

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Posted by David G (Member # 8872) on :
 
Fugu, your points are well stated, and I don't disagree with some of them. I think there are some problems with how the broader "war against militant/fanatical Islam" has been waged (past and present), and alot of that stems from our not properly understanding or defining the war.

But I disagree with the claim that our own policies are the source of recruits to militant/fanatical Islam. I see fanatical Islam as a kind of stateless/cultural/religious totalitarianism acting out a fantasy ideology.

Mussolini sought to re-create the Roman Empire. Hitler sought to create an Aryan/German empire. Both Mussolini and Hitler, in creating their totalitarian regimes, relied upon fantasy ideologies and twisted world views. The fantasy ideologies included the following elements: (i) a perpetual state of war, (ii) unyielding, totatlitarian world view (fantasy ideology), (iii) desire for global supremacy, and (iv) subjecting everyone to their will. (I highly recommend Hannah Arendt's THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM.)

Fanatical Islam also is acting out its fantasy ideology of creating a global Caliphate, and the same elements of totalitarianism apply. I do not believe this ideology and the will to act on it was caused by anything the U.S. did or did not do.

Have we and the rest of the world not acted in a way that is aimed at removing the conditions for Fanatical Islam to flourish? Perhaps, but only to the extent we did not act quickly and decisively enough to address the problem. Some would argue that the same could be true for Hitler's rise to power.

Regardless of who is to blame for Fanatical Islam, we now have to view the war for what it really is, and begin acting accordingly.

Your points about Saudi Arabia and its disseminating Wahabbi Islam are well taken. But this movement does not arise from our support of Saudi Arabia. If the Saudi Arabian monarchy were to be overthrown today, it would only be replaced by the leaders of the Wahabbi Islamic movement. Saudi Arabia is a complex and dangerous problem. It may be that withdrawing support for Saudi Arabia could even exacerbate the spread of Wahabbism (despite how difficult it may be to imagine an exacerbation of the problem that presently exists).

It is widely argued that the U.S. occupation in Iraq is one of the biggest source of recruits for Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations (even though we were not in Iraq on 9/11/2001). Imagine a world in which the following is true: (i) We are not in Iraq or have a presence anywhere in the Middle East, (ii) we do not support Saudi Arabia in any way, and (iii) we do not support Israel. In this imaginary world, do you really believe that Fanatical Islam would not exist? Do you really believe that the Fanatical Islamic insurgency would not proceed to act out its fantasy ideology of creating a global Caliphate that threatened the rest of the world?
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
First, to a very large extent we (the western world) created modern fanatical Islam. It did not exist in anything like its current, far more dangerous form one hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago. US policies are hardly the sole determinants, but we are among the worst of recent. The very beginnings reside in the distant past of European (principally British) colonial policy.

And you mistake my position. I think we should be in the middle east; our absence at certain times is part of what created radical Islam, and part of what gives it its fuel. We should have remained in Afghanistan, we should have provided support to the moderate Iranian regimes, we should have invaded Iraq in the first Gulf War (all that would have been needed would be to engage the remaining military forces and let the insurgents we promised aid to so they would rise up to take over instead of being slaughtered by the thousands). The last has little directly to do with radical Islam, but much to do with the course of the region as a whole.

Wahabbism was not successful in Saudi Arabia until its rulers found they needed a way to keep the populace in line so as to be secure in the fortunes we ensured for them. If the house of Saud lacked the same copious monetary resources, they would have to find new sources for their power, and the Wahabbists would be significantly more dangerous to them. There is still a significant secularizing community in Saudi Arabia, and good reason to believe the ruling families would turn there (being largely secular themselves).

Of course we weren't in Iraq on 9/11, but any cursory survey of the literature will show you that Al Qaeda's recruitment has burgeoned greatly since we invaded Iraq, and that specific problems that could have been prevented through proper management of the situation are being used as recruitment devices.

As for fanatical Islam trying to create a global caliphate, that's extraordinarily problematic. First of all, there are several fanatic sects who, if they weren't busy fighting the west, would be fighting each other (and they already are, in some places). Second, fanatical Islam tends to be strongly in favor of religious councils modeled off tribal elders, not the more secularized rule of a caliphate (the caliphs of the past inherited Muhammed's secular, but not religious, authority); this is particularly true among Shia radicals, for obvious reasons. Third, recruitment into radical factions doesn't proceed at all based upon calls for a caliphate, it proceeds through dissatisfaction with the state of the common people in the middle east and the actions of the western powers, and to a lesser extent calls for religious purity and unity; it is with "are we not your brothers, and are your brothers not suffering?" that recruitment succeeds.

And your own examples undermine your argument. Mussolini and Hitler only succeeded as much as they did because they managed the beliefs of their populations, it wasn't as if their states acted together in some mystical gestalt. Similarly, it is not so with muslims that there is some mystical gestalt they are all actors within, but that there are factors maintaining the status of radical actors.

Of course there have always been some radicals with disfigured ideologies, but this is true of every religion (or other sufficiently large grouping of believers). Their efficacy is due in large part to our blunders, including our continued blunders.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Its also worth noting that the populations of Germany and Italy swiftly adapted (well, once allowed to in the case of East Germany) to healthy societal norms.
 

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Posted by Bean Counter (Member # 6001) on :
 
Maybe what we need to do is wait a generation until we are the underdogs in this fight, though our casualties will increase by an order of magnitude or two at least we will then be able to claim the moral high ground.

BC
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
A generation wouldn't even come close to making us the 'underdogs'; also, morality is not dependent on numbers or military superiority.
 

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Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
 
Amazingly enough, there might be choices other than "continue with a nonproductive and ill conceived course of action" and "do nothing."

But of course, one doesn't score points in the modern political arena by suggesting things are other than black and white. Never mind. Carry on...


 

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Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
 
Hmm, I wonder if there's a video of that speech somewhere.

--j_k
 

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