When I first heard the story of a groupf of Syrian men on a flight I was skeptical about the story. It seems highly unlikely that a flight attendant would inform a passenger of the presence of air marshalls on a flight. However, it appears as though at least the basic story is true which is very worrying. The fact that a possible terrorist was just arrested in the MSP airport only adds to my suspicions. I’m not the paranoid type, but I’d guess that something is going on with all the terrorist chatter flying about. Is it something we should be worried about? Possibly. Is it something we should be aware of? You damn well better believe it – the best defense against terrorism is awareness.
If something should happen, I agree with James Lileks:
I tell you, something like this happens on a big scale – lots of planes dropping out of the sky, half the country is going to ask for detention camps. All because we didn’t dare delay or inconvenience self-professed bands of Syrian “musicians” because it might suggest we were (gasp) dispositionally suspicious of a dozen Syrians clutching violin cases. Is profiling a good idea? Read the piece, put yourself on that plane before you answer the question.
I especially agree with this:
I hate this; God I hate this. But I don’t have any longing for normalcy, as Noonan put it the other day, because normalcy was a delusion, a diaphanous curtain draped over the statue of Mars. Nor do I want a time out, a breather, an operational pause. I want to cut to the chase. I want Iran in the hands of its people and leaning to the West again, I want Lebanon independent of Syrian rule, I want Syria isolated and cowed, Arafat dead and buried in the land of his birth – or Paris, symbolically – and the Saudi Civil War done and over with pragmatists in power. I’d like this all tomorrow please.
That’s my sentiment exactly. I’m sick to death of all this bullshit about how we shouldn’t be offending the rest of the world. We’re in the crosshairs of a group of madmen with a hard-one for the Dark Ages and a desire to kill all those who don’t embrace shari’a. We sure as hell don’t need to be pussyfooting around.
There is absolutely no substitute for victory in this war. The Islamofascists are not only just like the Nazis, they’re worse. The Nazis couldn’t nuke New York or Washington. Why this country wants to continue to live in ignorance of this war is beyond me – but there may be a point where such illusions can no longer be maintained. I just hope that point isn’t when we’re pulling more bodies out of the rubble of collapsed buildings.
I agree that the libs/Dems worry far too much about the opinions of the “Arab street”…the U.N….the French…
It’s sad that Kerry’s entire foreign policy is based on this premise of getting others to “like” us…
I want others to respect us…and that’s the difference…
We are in a war and one of our two major parties…the Democratic party…wants to deny that basic reality and worry about “hurt feelings”…
To borrow from Steven Den Beste, the liberals/Dems position on foreign policy can be summed up as this:
Approval is more important than achievement. Awards are more important than accomplishments. Credentials are more important than knowledge and capabilities. Justification is more important than purpose.
Form is more important than substance. Motives are more important than results.
Remember all the talk about how the “Arab street” was going to be so angry at us if we went into Afghanistan? And then, of course, it was how the “Arab street” was going to be so angry at us if we went into Iraq?
Well, it seems life goes on quite well, regardless of this phantom issue of the “Arab street.”
The sad thing is that so much of the reason why so many people want to live in ignorance of this war is because the Democratic party has made the political decision to push that point of view. They realize that if people really care about the War on Terror, then they lose politically. The liberal media is then their accomplice is trying to lull people into sleep on this issue.
If people really care about the War on Terrorism, they’ll be willing to pay the taxes necessary to fund it. Any takers?
As usual, Mark tries to shift the issue. Nice to see where your priorities are…here’s a thread talking about our very existence and Mark focuses on taxes…
I could just as easily say that we should shift money from social programs of limited value into the War on Terror. Any takers, Mark?
First, note to Mark: we already do pay taxes…lots of them. Second, we already pay enough taxes to fund the war on terror. Third, if one could ever prove to me that we needed more money, of course I would go for higher taxes. But that is a barrier not yet reached by any step of the imagination. Fourth, there is a point where raising taxes lowers govt revenue because of the depressive economic impact.
Regardless of the tax issue, that still leaves us with the Republicans serious about fighting the War on Terror, and the Democrats serious about raising taxes.
So vote for Kerry if you want to lose your life and lose your wallet at the same time.
Mark shows us why the Democrats have done such a disservice to this country in time of war: here we are in a post discussing how we are in a fight for our lives, how urgently we need to take this, how we can’t let our will to fight decrease, and what does Mark want to talk about?Tax increases. Indeed…
You all had fun leaping on Mark for attempting to shift the issue, now let me try to shift it back to Jay’s posting.
There’s a scary situation going on right now, and unfortunately there’s no easy answer. Jay has posted his anger and frustration, something everyone feels, but rather than rail at “the democrats do this” “the republicans do that” and “gosh, if they’d go away we’d be fine”, why not be constructive and come up with an answer?
In the case of that article, which if taken at face value is scary, but this is a single story in a womens financial news magazine, any court would consider 90% of the material heresay. Michelle Malkin’s linked article has more objective information, I encourage folks to read all the links there.
Anyway, whether this story is valid or not, and lets assume it is. What would you suggest we do? Would you van all Syrians from planes? They’re already saying you can’t congregate in groups on an airplane.
The problem in a free society is how to enforce law and order while remaining free. To me there is no easy answer here. It is my *personal opinion* that the policies GW Bush has instituted have made the world and the US a far more dangerous place, but continuing to antagonize those forces that have threatened to destroy us. Does that mean “We should all be happy and quiet and smiley?” No, of course not. Does that mean we have to browbeat every country on the planet into submission simply because we’re rich and powerful? According to the Bushies, yes, because that’s how we make the ‘world safe for democracy’.
Speaking of freedom, a total sideline here. I find it odd that those defending the right on Jay’s blog invariably post anonymously. While those defending the left (or centrist-left, as I consider myself) all use their names. Why is that?
The problem with the libs/Dems is that they hate Bush more than they hate the terrorists. Where are the so-called documentaries that show the terrorists to be the bad guys? Where are the songs that denounce Osama bin Laden (aside from country songs)? Where is the moveon.org type of group that protests against the terrorists?
Another Thought, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say you’re willing to do whatever is necessary to defend America from people trying to kill us….as long as our children pay for it because I sure as hell ain’t. It’s funny that you say I’m “changing the subject from terrorism to taxes”. How you plan to pay for things you want or need is a vital component of the discussion. If I bought a home security system on credit card and never paid the bill, I don’t think the credit card company would be responsive to my claims that “my security comes first and you talking about me paying for it is changing the subject.”
And in this case, if the kind of military-industrial complex you guys wanna resurrect is realized, then Americans will be woefully undertaxed to effectively finance it. That gives us two options. Clearly, fiscal child abusers like yourself would have problem mortgaging the costs of “maintaining our very existence” (not much drama there)to your children and putting our long-term financial stability in ruinous peril. And certainly we can cancel every existing social program to finance every new Homeland Security boondoggle you guys can dream up, but the effects on every needy segment of our population would be such that it would likely result in an uprising, or at the very least, the ousting of the government who decided that giving Tom Ridge another dozen understudies was more important that giving Granny her Medicare check.
The top tax rates have fallen by more than 70% since the 1950s, and by more than half since the 1970s, so there’s little fear of “economically devastating overtaxation” that would come from a tax hike if, or rather when, we need it to maintain “our very existence.” The bottom line is that if we don’t have the necessary revenues to fund this high-priced “epic struggle” we’re waging, we’re doing the terrorists work for them by destabilizing our long-term financial well-being to the point of making the bad guys efforts a roundabout success story.
Another Thought, the problem with Republicans is that they’re more worried about defeating Democrats at home than terrorists in the Middle East.
This always struck me as an odd argument – they already want to destroy us, so exactly what difference does it make if we antagonize them or not? When you’re dealing with people who have already declared war on us, worrying about antagonizing them further isn’t very sensical.
Mark: As AT mentioned, we have more than enough money to fight the war. How about ending programs like the Medicare benefit to pay for the war? We don’t to give discounts on drugs to millionaire seniors – hell, that alone would more than pay for the war. How about defunding the NEA? Pictures of a crucifix in urine and experimental theater won’t win the war.
Even better yet, how about ending farm subsidies? We don’t need to pay farmers not to plant crops. Just ending the recent tobacco subsidies would save $12 billion.
But no, the Democrats have to shake down the “rich” (everyone who works being “rich” under their definition) for more money. God forbid the government be asked to tighten it’s beld.
And here is a classic case of what we like to call “projection”…
Mark: your tax argument won’t fly…raising taxes now would only undermine our economic recovery…ask any economist, and would only lead to larger deficits.
Any deficits we have now are very manageable…As a percentage of the gross domestic product — which many economists consider a better measure than simple dollar amounts — the currently projected deficit, at 4.2 percent according to the Congressional Budget Office or 4.5 percent according to the Bush administration, is equal to or smaller than those recorded in six years during the 1980s and 1990s (6.0 percent in 1983, 4.8 percent in 1984, 5.1 percent in 1985, 5.0 percent in 1986, 4.5 percent in 1991, and 4.7 percent in 1992).
Consider that during WWII our deficit as a percent of GDP was 106%…and that Roosevelt gave us largest enduring deficit ever.
But really, Mark, it doesn’t matter to you…you’ll shoot off any canard as long as it is against Bush. So again nice try to take the issue of the War on Terror to taxes.
It also seems to me that it is Republicans who spend far more time and energy discussing the War on Terror and are in general far more concerned about it. It also seems to me that it is Dems who shoot off all vitriol against Bush, and don’t save any for the terrorists. While Republicans were outraged at the beheadings of The Other America is more shocked over the beheading of Nick Berg and Paul Johnson, because is shows what our enemies are capable of, the Dems fixated more on the abuses of Abu Ghraib.
The bottom line: Republicans believe that our world was changed by 9-11; many Dems seem to believe their world was changed by Michael Moore’s F9-11. (thanks to Charles Sykes for a useful comparison)
This always struck me as an odd argument – they already want to destroy us, so exactly what difference does it make if we antagonize them or not?
It’s not antagonizing bin Laden that we care about. It’s antagonizing the people that aren’t sure which side is right – bin Laden’s or ours.
Bush’s actions, though, are taking people like that – people who hear their peers talk about al Quaeda like we talk about Robin Hood, but still wonder if killing 3,000 people in New York is a bad thing to do – and make their minds up for them, against us.
This isn’t hard to understand, Jay, unless you don’t want to.
Mark: You state that you didn’t support the Medicare bill because it was too expensive; yet I’m curious as to what you think of Kerry’s proposed healthcare initiative which is estimated to cost far more…probably at least 2 to 3 times as much?
And you criticize authorities for telling people to live their lives as normal as possible…what else would you tell them? Churchill in WWII advised the people in Great Britian to do the same thing even as they were being bombed by the Luftwaffe. It was very important to do that psychologically. In fact, if you ask any behavioral expert, they will tell you that in times of crisis it is usually very important for people to live life as normally as possible. Consider patients who are terminally ill, or the handicapped? Guess what they are told…to lives their lives as normally as possible…
What would you have people do…hunker down in their homes, afraid to go out? Would you prefer they don’t spend as much, and bring down the economy and of course cost a lot of people their jobs?
Mark, you are long on criticism but short on alternatives. Good business executives ask their people to bring them a solution every time they bring them a problem. Anyone can gripe…the real accomplishment is coming up with something better.
I have noticed on this blog a very consistent pattern among those who post who tend to express a more left wing or liberal point of view:
1) They tend to only criticize and rarely offer alternative solutions they consider to be better
2) They are brutal in their criticism of Bush yet have very little positive to say about Kerry; this is very revealing. No one seems very fired up about Kerry for the sake of being Kerry and not just the anti-Bush. I remember when I supported Reagan over the incumbent Carter in 1980…Carter was an awful president who had a far worse record, and yet I and all other pro-Reagan people I knew would always talk far more about Reagan and the positives he offered than bash Carter…even in 92 the Clinton supporters I knew would find some positive things to say about him…it wasn’t all just bash the incumbent. But now it’s the hardest thing to find anyone who is really jazzed up about Kerry…
I have noticed on this blog a very consistent pattern among those who post who tend to express a more left wing or liberal point of view:
Really? You haven’t been reading my posts, I guess.
No one seems very fired up about Kerry for the sake of being Kerry and not just the anti-Bush.
I’m fired up about Kerry. He’s an intelligent, proven leader, well-read, able to appreciate nuance. For once it’ll be nice to have a president who’s not from the South. That hasn’t been the case as long as I’ve been alive, except for Reagan. (So, I guess I should have said “for twice it’ll be nice…”)
I’ve been reading your posts, AT, and I’ve noticed patterns too – for instance, you have yet to demonstrate an ability to interpret arguments put before you. This leads to the almost farsical strawmen you continually erect in your vast, scatterbrained missives.
The fallacy in your argument is that you think by being tough on the terrorists that we encourage the creation of more.
No, the conclusion of my argument is that by being indiscriminate, we harm not only terrorists but innocents. Those innocents then become terrorists.
Funny how critics of Bush never mention that the very approach they advocate has been tried under Clinton, and failed miserably.
Really? How many of the World Trade Towers were knocked down by airplanes under Clinton?
Another Thought, again, you can’t have it both ways. This can’t be a “fight for our very existence” when you’re defending giving a blank check to the defense industry and Pentagon….but then tell people to “live their lives as normally as possible” when it comes to buying tax-deductible Hummers at seven miles to the gallon. Even though I don’t support the war in Iraq in the least and have plenty of concerns about the effectiveness of our War on Terror, I think denounce the September 10th mode of gluttony and self-absorbtion (is that a word??). Certainly, there has to be some middle ground between a government telling people to panic and expect the worst, and a government passing multiple rounds of tax cuts, ridiculing energy conservation, and slapping around the television networks because Janet Jackson flashed a mammary during the Super Bowl Halftime show.
Bush’s stock would go up with me if he had the balls to say what Jimmy Carter said when our country was in the midst of the energy crisis with no relief in sight….”put on a sweater.” We’ll never hear that from Bush…and sadly probably wouldn’t hear it from Kerry either.
On any given night on the news, we’re likely to see hostile, red-faced Americans shouting through clenched teeth about stopping gays from marrying, paying too many taxes, having to breathe second-hand cigarette smoke in bars, seeing Janet Jackson’s boob, and not being able to have the Ten Commandments in a public courthouse. Many of these tirades are coming from the very people who later insist we’re in a mythological battle against the evils of Islamic terrorism and “our very existence depends on it.” At the end of the day, it all just seems like jockeying for political power at home. Both parties are largely stuck in September 10th mode, but watch the news tomorrow night and I’ll bet you $10 a Republican is more likely to be drawing attention to September 10th issues than is a Democrat.
AT: You need to understand that people like Chet and Mark don’t live on the same planet as the rest of us. To them, the Democrats are all noble crusaders for the common good facing the evil Republicans who want to eat babies and oppress everyone. This isn’t an opinion based on facts, this is a religious belief. Liberalism has replaced religion, God has been supplanted by the state.
In their world, Kerry isn’t a spineless waffler, he’s displaying “nuance” who has “proven leadership” rather than simply been a mediocre Senator who spent his entire career on the wrong end of nearly every issue. It’s not the Democrats who are trying to distract from the war, it’s those evil, nasty Republicans.
I’ve long found that trying to reason someone out of something they never arrived to by reason is a pointless exercise.
Sheesh. And here I thought AT was the one dragging down the intelligence of the discourse here. His one-dimensional rants are starting to look like Socrates compared to Reding’s latest display. To describe his demeanor as childish would be to insult second-graders. While we all engage in some snide personal attacks in the heat of a debate, this ad hominem from Reding is so amateurish, so junior high, that even his ideological brethren have gotta be wondering if he should be in a padded room right about now. I almost have to feel sorry for someone reduced to calling his political opponents otherworldly after being battered-bloody in countless feeble attempts to one-up in debates on issues. I guess your failure here was the final straw…and it made you snap.
All I can say, man, is get help….before it’s too late.
If anything we have taken great pains and used advanced technology to fight this war with unparalleled accuracy and minimization of civilian loss.
Mmm hmm. That explains the use, of course, of cluster bombs in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Only on Planet Republican are those weapons that display “unparalleled accuracy and minimization of civilian loss.” Everybody else – including those on the unfortunate end of a bomblet – recognizes that absolutely nothing about these weapons could be considered “precision.”
I take it you assume that Al Qaeda cooked up the 9-11 plot and did everything to carry it out since the day Bush was inaugurated. I also take it that you do not realize that the planning and preparation for the attacks all occurred under Clinton’s watch.
Indeed. I also remember how the latter part of Clinton’s term was hamstrung by a ludicrous impeachment trial leveled by Republicans placing purient interest over national responsibility.
I remember how many times Bush changed the subject when the subject of Al-Queda was raised by staffers, even by a departing Clinton himself.
Sure, Clinton could have done more. Maybe if he hadn’t been fending off Republican attack dogs, he might have. But Bush could have done something, and didn’t.
To them, the Democrats are all noble crusaders for the common good facing the evil Republicans who want to eat babies and oppress everyone.
Projection, Jay. It’s not just a sign on a movie theatre door.
I’ve long found that trying to reason someone out of something they never arrived to by reason is a pointless exercise.
Really? Because I’ve never known you to try to use reason at all when spineless invective will do.
Mark:
I live in Mongomery County. Maryland, right outside of Washington, DC. DC and Montgomery County both have rather high taxes, yet DC has one of the most ineffectual police forces in the nation, and quite possibly the worst schools in the nation. Montgomery County has competent police and good schools. The correlation between amount of money spent and quantity of quality of goods or services obtained isn’t always high, and it isn’t always positive.
As another example, I’m trained as a chemist, and I know from personal experience that progress in scientific research isn’t necessarily determined by the amount of money thrown at it – not by a longshot.
As to your last comment, Chet, it seems indicative of the practice of a secular religion I and some others call Postmodernism, with somewhat varying defintions of what that means. I’ll give you my own operational definition.
Postmodernism, among other tenets, holds that man is the ultimate master of all aspects of his destiny. It generally demands perfection from people – who aren’t Postmodernists.
To the Postmodernist, the imperfections of non-Postmodernists are unforgivable; the imperfections of Postmodernists are nonexistent.
Finally, to the Postmodernist, truth is not an absolute, but rather is subjective – your truth may differ from my truth. Ultimately, truth is really nothing more than a tool, to be invoked and used as as needed or desired. This is how Postmodernists get to have no imperfections, among other things – they are simply defined away.
Now, believe it or not, those two comments of mine above really do end up setting the stage for what are some fairly on-topic comments.
First, to answer Chet’s comment use of cluster bombs in some theaters of the Terror War was a refutation of Another Thought’s claim from his 9:33 PM comment from yesterday:
If anything we have taken great pains and used advanced technology to fight this war with unparalleled accuracy and minimization of civilian loss.
That’s true as well. Why waste money on large numbers of dumb weapons that aren’t anywhere near as militarily effective as much smaller numbers of much smarter weapons? Smaller numbers of dumb weapons, like mortar rounds, will be used as needed militarily, but our military rather spare innocents and kill those who pose us a direct military threat as efficiently as possible, because those are the people who have the immediate means and intent to kill them, in addition to the humanitarian concerns. That said, there are innocents killed in every war, even wars fought with lots of smart weapons. It’s not about being on Planet Republican – it’s about being on Planet Earth, where imperfection is on display in every human venture – especially war.
As another point, take a look at these figures for civilian casualties in World War 2. The Allies killed literally millions of innocents in that conflict. I would argue that, outside of some of the Russian forces, the Allies didn’t want to kill innocents. But when all anyone had to fight with were dumb weapons, that was inescapable.
If we had accepted nothing less than perfection in our targeting of our enemies in World War 2, we’d all most likely be living under the jackboot of Naziism, or a descendant of it.
The ideology of the Democratic Party has shifted from the Kennedy/Scoop Jackson/Truman wing to the wild-eyed statism of the far-left liberal McGovern/Mondale wing, and with it the Democrats have collectively gone off the deep end.
Just look at the arguments being advanced here. Does one honestly think that the Iraqis are so naive that if someone they knew were killed in the war, they’d instantly join al-Qaeda? It’s a view that is breathtakingly naive, and only comes from those who either have no clue of basic human nature or are willfully ignoring it. The terrorists who attacked on September 11 were all well-off men, most of whom having enough money to study overseas before joining with Atta.
But of course those facts don’t matter. The left has constructed a narrative around their ideology that lionizes the “poor” and “oppressed.” It’s a watered down Gramscian Marxism that divides the world into the “privileged” and the “oppressed” and blames the plight of the “oppressed” on the “privileged”.
One can easily see how in informs both domestic and foreign policy for these types. The Republicans are bad because they are “privileged” the party of the “rich” – and taxation is a way of making them “pay their fair share” for their success. The plight of the poor is usually blamed, if indirectly, on their “greed” for wanting to keep the fruit of their labors. In foreign policy, America and Israel are “privileged” and therefore culpable. Why if Israel just let the Palestinians slaughter them en masse there would be peace. The brutality of Saddam Hussein barely rates a mention, because the Iraqis were “oppressed” – that same lionization of tribalism at work again…
One has to understand that this meta-narrative is the core of the liberal agenda, and every issue is viewed through this prism. As I said before, it is tantamount to a religious belief, an axiomatic way of thinking that will never be changed by any amount of argumentation.
Finally, as to Bill Clinton’s impeachment, there are kinds of imperfection we can’t abide in human actions if we wish to maintain a civil society, and one of them is obeying the law – especially when one is the head of the federal government. A good rule of thumb is that if an organiztion does not want its operation by the prosecution of its chief executive, it should try not to put a shady character in that post. Barring that, it should try to remove him as soon as he gets prosecuted. Let me clarify that I’m talking about legitimate prosecutions brought on legitimate legal grounds – not anything having to do with the International Court of Justice, and nothing like this.
The fact that Clinton’s impeachment caused collateral grief is on one level beside the point; a number of people went broke when Enron went under, but nobody was using that as an excuse to not prosecute itc corporate officers – nor should thay have.
As for the argument that Clinton was unduly distracted by impeachment, it must be said that he was already unduly – one might say pathologically – distracted from his duties as President by having affairs and working to cover them up. So, while damage to national security may sometimes influence prosecution of criminal cases by the government, in Bill Clinton’s case I don’t think that was so much of an issue. And yes, I do consider Presidential impeachment, and trial in the Senate, as tantamount to criminal prosecution.
Moving back on topic from my last comment…
Jay, as to your comment of 9:52 AM, I think our views of current political discourse in this country, particularly as it relates to the Terror War, are very much in accord. What I refer to here as Postmodernism seems to be the operative philosophy on the left with respect to war, taxation – and right and wrong.
I’ve argured in the past that one could make many of the same arguments about our attacking Germany in World War 2 as are made regarding our choise of battlefields in the Terror War. One could argue (and I’m sure some have, to their discredit) that attacking the Germans after Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese made no sense. Japan had attacked us directly, on our own soil, without direct provocation. What threat had Hitler or Mussolini posed directly to the US? They were European problems, troublemakers who had no designs on the US. Right?
Wrong.
Unlike many experiments in the physical sciences, there’s often no way to know for sure what Hitler and Mussolini would have done had they won World War 2, but given the personalities of both men involved, and the scientific acumen of Germany in particular, I think most reasonable people don’t need much convincing as to what the most likely result would have been for the US had we deferred to ADolf and Benito.
The goals of people like Saddam Hussein differ from the goals of people like Usama bin Ladin. Hussein I think would have been happy to sell the US and other western nations as much oil as he could, while terrorizing them, perhaps blackmailing them with nuclear weapons in the not-so-distant future when UN sanctions had been lifted from Iraq. Bin Ladin and his ilk want to terrorize western nations into conversion to their foul brand of Islam – or dying if they resist.
But in the secular religion of the left America is a cold-hearted, oppressive nation which kills those who oppose it indiscriminately and without mercy. No deed is too foul to commit, and no end is too base to pursue, for the evil American Hegemony in this worldview.
But these people who can’t see how an imperfectly executed campaign to remove a true inheritor of the mantles of Stalinism and Hitlerism like Saddam Hussein is different from Hussein’s campaign against his own people – presumably because both involved innocent civilians losing their lives. Never mind that Hussein engaged in wholesale murder, and US and coaltion troops killed far fewer civilians, either by accident or as otherwise unavoidable deaths in taking out a military target. This is no different from most of what the western Allies did in World War 2, except that precision weapons today allow us to achieve military objectives with far less loss of life, especially innocent life, than was possible with the weapons of the past.
The more I read about it from those on the left, the more I’m convinced that the Terror War is equal parts fighting the Islamofascistic terrorists and their immediate allies, and fighting in teh arena of ideas those who don’t feel that America is worth saving from the terrorists in any realistic sense.
The bottom line on Clinton’s presidency: for 8 straight years Clinton was asleep at the wheel on national security issues. It was during his entire 2 terms…so one cannot blame the impeachment hearings/scandal. Also, even there Clinton must take the blame; he is the one who lied under oath, he is the one who had the affairs, etc. As noted above, he is the one, who even before he was caught, was distracted with his escapades and trying to cover them up.
Plus, a president needs to put the good of the country above his own political well-being; had Clinton truly been looking out for America he would have done what is right for national security in spite of the impeachment mess. That’s what a president does; he leads…he is the single most powerful man in the world, and he should set the tone. It’s sickening to blame Clinton’s failures on anyone else but Clinton.
Also, during his impeachment, Clinton was more ready to use military force than during any other time in his presidency. If anything, he was looking for such an excuse. He just didn’t recognize the real threat.
And talk about a distraction…Clinton focused this country on Bosnia when we had the terrorist threat growing and growing out there…when Al Qaeda was already planning 9-11 and executing upon its plan.
Clinton was an absolute failure on terrorism…no doubt about that.
Mark: Again, you exhibit no real world understanding of life. You make another attack on the idea of telling people to “live their lives as normally as possible” while we fight the War on Terror.
Again, what experience do you have in leading people. I guess you know better than Churchill, who told his people the exact same thing when they were being bombed daily by the Luftwaffe. I guess you know better than behavioral experts, who back this up.
Interesting that you admire the Carter approach of telling people to “put on a sweater” in the midst of the energy crisis…nevermind that that response was one of failure; it simply was the response of someone who didn’t know how to solve the energy crisis. Reagan took over and solved the problem…Carter would have had us accept less for years on end.
I’m all for asking people to sacrifice if it is needed, but it’s stupid to ask people to make hollow sacrifices that are not needed. You are more caught up in the symbolism than reality.
Apparently, you want Americans to consume less…but don’t consider that if that were made so then many people would lose their jobs…keep in mind that the goods and services that are consumed involve people who make and sell those goods and services. I have a feeling you wouldn’t be so quick to ask for a reduction in consumption if that cost you your job.
But then you aren’t interested in reasoning, just bashing Bush. If Bush had asked for the sacrifices you claim you want, you would be taking him to task for that.
Back to the original post: Lileks, as usual, does a great job summing it all up.
The libs/Dems just want to handwring over factors that are meaningless, such as “approval” of certain countries, the “Arab street,” etc. The shame of it is that the Dems are not serious about fighting this war on terror. Look at Kerry: by his own admission he is too busy to attend a terror briefing yet attends a big celebrity fundraiser to hear Whoopi Goldberg use her potty mouth.
Bush and his admin have been absolutely brilliant in fighting this war on terror. We have liberated 2 countries and 50 million people, and are taking the fight to the terrorists instead of having them bring it here. It’s a nice contrast to Clinton. And the sad thing is that Kerry makes Clinton look like Ronald Reagan, because Kerry is so weak and wimpy.
Before I get called on this by someone else, I think I’ll revise my description of Postmodernism somewhat, to state this:
To the Postmodernist, the imperfections of non-Postmodernists are unforgivable; the imperfections of Postmodernists are always forgivable.
So, the civilian deaths in the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan make Bush a war criminal, yet the civilian deaths in the the Yugoslavian campaign were the regrettable costs of fighting fascism. Never mind that the tactics we used in the Iraq War in particular put our troops at risk to spare civilians far more than the tactics used in Yugoslavia. That isn’t to say that the Yugoslavian conflict fought immorally, but ist’s a realistic assesment of the differences in the two actions.
But, to speak more directly to Jay’s original post, innocents will get caught up in war, one way or another, in the process of defending ourselves against terrorists. If these Syrians really were nothing more than musicians, their inconvenience for acting suspiciously and otherwise superficially fitting the profile of mideast terrorists is regrettable – and we were lucky.
Personnel profiling should be part of a serious, integrated homeland security plan, but the Terror War will not be won through homeland security. Terrorists only have to break through homeland security measures once to be effective.
A better approach is to kill terrorists abroad faster that they can be recruited, and much faster than they can kill us so there are many fewer of them to organize and carry out attacks against us. After all, the recidivism of dead terrorists is nil.
To the Postmodernist, the imperfections of non-Postmodernists are unforgivable; the imperfections of Postmodernists are always forgivable.
So, for instance, someone holding that view might wave away civilian casualties as “a regrrettable reality of war” but view any voiced opposition to their policies as an unforgivable abdication of national security interests?
Sounds like a good definition to me.
You guys have all the answers, I guess – where do terrorists come from, then? Because the way we’re fighting them now isn’t working, so we need to prevent the formation of more of them.
There’s too many terrorists for them to be born that way, so where do they come from?
Strawman, pure and simple. This whole line about how the evil Republicans are stifling dissent is a crock of crap. There’s a difference between informed and rational dissent and outright lies, slander, and pandering to the enemy. There’s far too much of the latter and precious little of the former.
The autocracy and oppression of the Middle East, thanks to corrupt leadership and outright tyranny – which is why the idea that we should “only go after al-Qaeda” is a false strategy – al-Qaeda is the symptom of a larger disease. Just taking out bin Laden would be like putting a band-aid on a tumor – the only way to deal with the situation in any lasting way is to change the conditions in the Middle East, no matter how much the French complain about it. This is why Kerry should not be President – he would rather leave the tumor to metastize in order to please the French and the corrupt UN bureaucrats who would rather see teh terrible status quo remain.
Then again, if you’d actually paid attention to the arguments that have been made here you’d notice this is exactly what I’ve said from the beginning…
Another Thought, so now Reagan solved the oil crisis? Interesting spin on history.
As for job losses related to conservation, I’m not overly concerned about taking away jobs from Saudi oil barons and OPEC executives. Your concern for their continued gainful employment is touching, however. The GOP’s “spend our way to prosperity” argument presents an interesting conundrum in general. In one breath, Republicans condemn the irresponsible spendthrift ways of all the “working-class garbage” out there “living beyond their means”, not saving for their retirement and forcing taxpayers to foot higher bills for their poor choices. “Only the enactment of a supersized consumption tax will stop these low-wage parasites from bankrupting government and stealing from the oppressed productive members of society…….In the next breath, “go out and spend!!!!” “If you don’t respond to the 9-11 attacks by buying big screen TV’s and designer boots, the terrorists will win!!!!” The funny thing is that Republicans can’t even recognize their hypocrisy here.
Only a Republican could support new tax cuts in wartime, run up $500 billion in deficits annually, and then suggest that there’s no need for sacrifice. Republicans believe in sacrifice alright….the sacrifice of future generations expected to pay substantially higher tax rates to finance the costs of the instant-gratification gluttony they demand for themselves.
And it’s getting to the point where additional troops are needed, and a military draft may be just the kind of sacrifice necessary to fulfill our wartime responsibilities. Is sending your kids to combat zones, even if they don’t willfully choose to go, an acceptable sacrifice? Or would that be “hollow” as well given that you can just redeploy, redeploy and redeploy again the current troops while Jenna and Barbara Bush and other Republican kids continue to get falling-down drunk at their sorority parties?
Jay, just last night you accused those who disagree with you as being “from another planet”, as “looking at the state as their God”, and of accusing Republicans of “eating babies.” Perhaps you’re not the most credible person to lecture others about “informed and rational dissent.” 🙂
Uhh, not to get into a nit picky argument here, but one of the anonymous posters posits, in my query as to why so many right-supporters post anonymously…
You post as “dbs” and consider that to be so transparent a use of your name…ha…that tells nothing.
I’m still scritching my head on this one. Which part of a) those are my initials, b) they link to my blog with all my personal information, and c) also link to my business where I do all my work. What am I hiding here? 🙂
Trevor, I don’t know exactly what argument of mine you’re referring to when you suggest that more money isn’t gonna help the War on Terrorism. I do hope Republicans keep your logic in mind the next time Bush or the Pentagon requests billions more. Should we merely tell them to make do with what they have because money doesn’t determine performance quality?
You also make an unintentionally good point about education spending. The rate of spending could double in DC and performance still wouldn’t see much significant improvement, at least so long as the increased funding is paralleled by a continued policy of narcotics prohibition that turns the young urban poor into low-level pawns in the criminal underworld, a continued policy that encourages low-skill and semi-skill job defection that reduces standards of living and any sense of hope for young people that they can continue to exist, and an immigration policy that maintains a large revolving door of ESL students into urban school districts and sufficiently educates none of them. It always amazes me when Republicans think public schools should be a utopian bubble even when it’s surrounded by the third-world decay of urban America in the “global economy”.
Furthermore, I will warn you to prepare for a similar meltdown in Montgomery County. If Bush follows through on last year’s pledge to replace half the federal workforce with low-wage, non-union, part-timers, it will be the economic equivalent of a neutron bomb for Montgomery County…and your schools may not be noticeably better than DC’s in another five years.
Jay commented, regarding ‘don’t antogonize the enemy, it just makes them stronger’…
This always struck me as an odd argument – they already want to destroy us, so exactly what difference does it make if we antagonize them or not? When you’re dealing with people who have already declared war on us, worrying about antagonizing them further isn’t very sensical.
I disagree (I know, shock, eh? 🙂 Let me use a metaphorical argument. There’s a kid at school. No one really likes him, he’s shunned by all, but tolerated because he really doesn’t bother folks. He decides he’s not getting enough attention, so he punches out a teacher while screaming “I’m gonna kill you!” Rather than expel the kid, we decide to villify him. We put up posters about him, we make big speeches about how bad he is, and we start dredging up all the details on his family, and publishing those things. We set up army roadblocks around his house and his family.
bin Laden et al are bullies. They thrive on attention and support by those disheartened by strength arrayed against them. They are rebels, in the ‘underdog’ position. That’s attractive to folks who feel they have no power. Look, even though they don’t have big guns, they have _POWER_! An entire nation is focusing their efforts on them! His name is in every speech by the powers. Dude, lets go check this out!
Dealing with the radical islamist factions, *in my opinion*, is not a matter of bigger bombs and faster tanks. It takes subtlety, well thought out maneuvering, and tactics. Bush has none of these. The man is as subtle as a brick through a window.
The evidence is where we are right now. Is Iraq and the midle east a safer place than it was before the administration took it upon itself to destroy 2 countries?
I’ll caveat this, because folks will automatically get their hackles up. I supported the action in Afghanistan. Always have, always will. I do not support the action in Iraq, not only because the reasons for starting the action were flimsy at best, but because it gained the US nothing except debt, anger, and threats.
dbs: Your comment illustrates exactly why I don’t think the Democrats have a clue about this war.
You act as though we just bombed Afghanistan and Iraq into cinders then left – ignoring the fact that we’re still in both countries building schools, roads, bridges, etc and speding billions of dollars and hundreds of lives to do so. The reconstruction of Iraq is the biggest humanitarian aid project since the Marshall Plan.
Bin Laden isn’t a bully, he’s a terrorist. Attacking Nazi Germany didn’t create more Nazis, attacking Japan didn’t create more kamikaze, nor has the war in Iraq made the Iraqis want to join al-Qaeda. If you’ve not noticed, the Iraqis are more targets than we are at the moment, and even in Fallujah they’re beginning to turn on the terrorists that want to drag them into the 7th Century.
There is no substitute for victory, and this whole argument is like arguing that because the Nazis were fighting back in 1943 we should have abandoned the war and just left Hitler alone. That argument stunk then and it hasn’t gotten any better with age.
dbs: apologies for my remarks regarding the transparency of your identity…I do not bother to click on the links associated with the names of people who post…
Chet:
Per your comment of 1:12 PM specifically:
Nice strawman; I’ve never made the latter claim. As for that “regrettable casualties of war” quote, that’s just common sense. I once had a mole on my chest biopsiesd along with the mole came a sizeable border of otherwise normal tissue. And after all that, the mode turned out to be benign.
Now, did I hold any animus against the doctor who cut that chunk of tissue out of my chest, especially given that it turned out to be perfectly healthy? Of course not. In the real world, removing what could be cancer always involves taking out some healthy tissue along with it. The real world is imperfect, even at its best.
Mark:
Per your comment of 2:14 PM:
Trevor, I don’t know exactly what argument of mine you’re referring to when you suggest that more money isn’t gonna help the War on Terrorism.
First, I’m not suggesting what you claim I’m suggesting, but I think your response provide some insight into what you were suggesting here:
:
I’ll take it.
Since:
revenue = rate X base
and tax rate cuts generally raise the base more than they lower the rate, lower tax rates will likely result in higher tax revenues with which to pay for the Terror War. Even in the absence of additional tax revenue, restructuring of government funding priorities should be one of the first priorities in trying to secure additional funding for the Terror War.
We should strive to cut waste out of military spending, but proper military spending has direct, tangible benefits: it can pay for more munitions, which require replenishment after being spent in service, repair and replacement of vehicles, perhaps more troops, if they are needed, etcetera.
As for the rest of your comment of 2:14 PM, you’ve put up a number of premises that I don’t buy, so I’ll try to address them en bloc with some personal experiences.
I come from a relatively poor immediate family. On my father’s side of the family, my grandparents came from Italy; my grandfather, in spite of a lack of ESL programs, learned English and became a successful businessman. And a lot of the drugs which are illegal now were illegal then. Curiously, none of the Italian immigrants in my family were ever forced (or chose) to deal drugs or sell bootleg whiskey, even during the depression, in order to survive. They just weren’t drug-dealer material. I state this as no fan of drug laws, as stupid as I think using illegal drugs is.
I worked hard in college, although it took me a while to hit my stride, and even though I was literally starving at the beginning of grad school, I graduated and found a good job. I’m not chronic poverty material.
From what I’ve observed, chronic poverty is generally due to poor judgement and poor decisions on the part of the chronically poor. I won’t pretend that getting out of poverty is easy; for many, it may be the hardest thing they ever do in life. But I’ve always known pretty much what I wanted from life, and I’m quite certain that I would have found some way or another to get it legitimately through creativity and hard work. Some people have a problem with what they want out of life, and no amount of government spending can fix that.
Just to clarify my last comment, my observations on chronic poverty were meant to be applied in the context of poverty in the US. Poverty in many other parts of the world which don’t have free societies has different dynamics.
Nice strawman; I’ve never made the latter claim.
Hrm, it’s fairly clear that you implied that claim, when you made these statements:
If we had accepted nothing less than perfection in our targeting of our enemies in World War 2, we’d all most likely be living under the jackboot of Naziism, or a descendant of it.
and
The more I read about it from those on the left, the more I’m convinced that the Terror War is equal parts fighting the Islamofascistic terrorists and their immediate allies, and fighting in teh arena of ideas those who don’t feel that America is worth saving from the terrorists in any realistic sense.
Now the only reasonable conclusion from your statements is that you believe that the left’s opposition to the prosecution of the war on terror – and not, mind you, to the war itself – constitute “wanting the Nazis/terrorists to win.”
So, as far as anyone can see you did make that claim. Certainly Jay Reding and AT have made that claim; if you like, you may consider that comment aimed at them as well as yourself.
Of course not. In the real world, removing what could be cancer always involves taking out some healthy tissue along with it.
Mmm hmm. What I love most about that argument is how you dismiss living, breathing human beings just like yourself as nothing more than “tissue” to be discarded when it’s in our national interest.
Did you just pick a blindingly stupid example, or are you really that callous and arrogant? I’m just curious.
Also I wanted to respond to this comment, too:
Finally, as to Bill Clinton’s impeachment, there are kinds of imperfection we can’t abide in human actions if we wish to maintain a civil society, and one of them is obeying the law – especially when one is the head of the federal government.
I do fault Clinton for what was, by any definition, perjury. But there is such a thing as barratry. It was only a ludicrous sexual double standard that allowed the charges to persist as far as they did.
To describe those proceedings as anything but a farce, with undeniable malicious intent, is to advance a position of incredible naivite.
Jay writes:
The autocracy and oppression of the Middle East, thanks to corrupt leadership and outright tyranny
If that’s true, why are they fighting us and not the oppressive, corrupt leadership?
They are afraid of the oppressive, corrupt leadership, and are brainwashed to hate us instead.
That’s just fuckin’ stupid, AT. We’re the largest, most powerful military-industrial-technological superpower in the world.
You’re telling me that Abdul Q. Terrorist is so fuckin’ afraid of (for instance) Qatar’s Soviet-era military technology that they’d rather antagonize the world’s largest, most modern military power?
In 3 years we’ve demolished two entire countries and neither operation took more than a few months. And I’m supposed to believe that terrorists see us as the less dangerous enemy? Please.
You conservatives don’t have a clue about terror, which is exactly why you’re the wrong people to prosecute the war.
As for brainwashing, I’m glad we finally agree on one thing – terrorists aren’t born, they’re made. Now if we can stop the forces making them, we’d be set. But Bush’s methods are like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.