"I apologized for accusing you of stealing me bike, so now you should apologize for accusing me of stealing your ball."
"But you did steal it!"
The "controversy" over Karl Rove's recent comments about Democrats not appreciating the full importance of the War on Terror is pretty amusing. They're pointing to Senator Durbin's weasel non-apology for calling American soldiers Nazis and claiming that Mr. Rove should now likewise apologize for his critical remarks. I guess the main difference is that Senator Durbin the Turban was wrong, whereas Karl Rove is right.
Rove, the architect behind President Bush's election victories, on Wednesday night told a gathering of the New York Conservative Party that "Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." Conservatives, he said, "saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war."He added that groups linked to the Democratic Party made the mistake of calling for "moderation and restraint" after the terrorist attacks.
I can't even count how many times I had to listen to whiny pleas to "try to understand why they hate us". Ironically, I'd like to understand that, and fix it, but priority number one has always been to make sure that if more dying is necessary it's them that's doing it, not us. Can't we all just get along? Yes, we can, as soon as they stop blowing stuff up; and since we have no reason to trust them, we'll have to eliminate their capacity for violence.
Anyway, the left has been wobbly on terror since 9/11. That's no secret. Sometimes some hesitation was worthwhile, but most of the time their complaints are designed to hamstring America and protect our enemies out of misplaced (or entirely disingenuous) "compassion".
Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, in a letter to Rove co-signed by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Democratic senators from Connecticut and New Jersey, called the presidential adviser's speech "a slap in the face to the unity that America achieved after Sept. 11, 2001."
There are more important things than unity for a country. What's more, the idea that unity is "achieved" and must then be preserved is nonsense. There's unity when people agree about important issues, but unity is the result of that agreement, not the cause of it. In that way, unity is like peace.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday there was no reason for Rove to apologize because he was "simply pointing out the different philosophies when it comes to winning the war on terrorism.""Of course not," McClellan said when asked by reporters whether Bush would ask Rove to apologize.
Ace points to The Therapist's main complaint:
Rove's recent comments, in which he said that liberals sought "therapy and understanding" in the wake of the attacks on September 11th, 2001, is being touted as "the most" incendiary of comments yet delivered in the rapier-thrust arena of politics--primarily in how Democrats charge that Rove "deliberately and maliciously" plotted to not slam American fighting forces. ...Illinois Senator, Dick Durbin said he "knows first hand" how to go about dispensing incendiary remarks, and that Rove's non-comparing of the troops to Nazis was "part and parcel of the nefarious GOP strategy to unite Americans behind America."
Meanwhile, James MacDuff bemoans the connotations of "liberal".
But read Rove's comments again. Remember the Presidential election? How many times did you hear the Democratic ticket described as the 4th and 2nd "most liberal" Senators as if it were a disease? It is truly fascinating how pejorative the term "liberal" has become to our Southern neighbours - if you are a liberal, you are a waffling wimp with no moral compass. A "liberal" voting record is a bad one in middle America, case closed. Conservatives in Canada likely have the same grudge at Liberals for successfully linking the extremist elements to the core of the party, hence its "scary" nature.
I generally use "leftist" rather than "liberal", because to me a real liberal is someone who favors, you know, liberty, which most American leftists abhor. Anyway, if people associate "liberals" with waffling America-haters, whose fault is that?
Rick Santorum!!!!!!
I just couldn't help myself.
From Andrew Sullivan:
"... this outburst (and the White House's subsequent endorsement of it) are an indication of some level of panic. We face at least three more grueling years of warfare in Iraq with our current troop level, and it's not at all clear that the public is prepared to go along with it, given the incremental progress we are making. Rove knows this. He also knows that the haphazard way in which the White House prepared for the war, its chronic under-manning of the occupation, its failure, as Abizaid conceded yesterday, to make any progress against the insurgency over the past six months despite the enormous psychological boost of the January election: all these have made the administration unable to really shift the blame. Rove's strategic decision to make social security reform the center-piece of the second term has also, shall we say, not gone according to plan. So what to do? You do what you always do. You create a scenario in which you cannot be out-demagogued. You deflect from the awful fall-out from the decision to exempt terror suspects from bans on cruel and inhumane treatment to a senator's analogy to the Gulag. And instead of leveling with the country about the real difficulty of the war we're in, acknowledging error and sketching a unifying vision for winning, you divide the country into good folk and "liberals" and hope it works as well as it always has. If you want to know how well the administration really believes the war is going, listen to their rhetoric. And start worrying."
Also from Andrew Sullivan: "Yes, Karl Rove is an ass. But you didn't need me to tell you that. This liberal wasn't calling for therapy. This liberal was calling for bombs." - Jeff Jarvis, another pro-war liberal this administration just pissed off for a quick political fix. What a way to win a war.
As for my thoughts on the subject, I've always thought that the War on Terror has two required components: a military component, to kill terrorists, and a long-term social change component that changes attitudes, breaks down the strangleghold of radical Islamic fundamentalism, etc. In other words, every sensible approach available to prevent more terrorists from being created.
We've demonstrated to the world and the terrorists how good we are at using the first component. We have the most well-trained, well-equipped, and lethal military in the world. Unfortunately for us, terrorists don't much value their own lives... or the lives of others... so the threat of military force is no deterrent.
Effectively leveraging the second component has been a failure so far. Iraq is more of a terrorist haven now than it was before the removal of Saddam. Who knows... it might all work out in Iraq and be a positive thing for us and the Middle East... but it certainly doesn't look that way now. The administration was hoping that Iraq would be a beacon of democracy for the Middle East... at least, according to their latest reason-du-jour for the Iraq war. It might be.. but not the way things are going now.
The bottom line is that killing terrorists is just one part of the solution to terrorism. We have to figure out how to keep more terrorists from being created or we'll always have a terrorism threat. Neither terrorist attacks nor an indefinite terrorism threat are acceptable options, as far as I'm concerned.
Mark, I've been hearing this doom-and-gloom nonsense virtually nonstop since 9-11. First we were fools to invade Afghanistan, as the hardy mountain warriors would maul our troops as they did the Soviets. Then the invasion of Iraq was going to be a catastrophe, as the fearsome Republican Guard was going to give us high casualties. Then it was unthinkable that the Iraqis could actually hold elections. Things are really bad over there! Postpone the election for several months!
It's like King Arthur vs. the Black Knight. The liberals just won't give up, no matter how much of a beating they take. They've been wrong on virtually everything about Iraq, and you still expect us to take their dire predictions seriously?
Mark: Plus, although there are a lot of terrorists being attracted to Iraq right now, that's a feature not a bug. Iraq is hardly a "haven" for terrorists.
BB: Yeah, there were plenty of dire pre-war predictions that didn't come true.
BB: Consider the following...
- I never said we were fools to invade Afghanistan or that our troops would be mauled.
- I never said Saddam's forces (Republican Guard or otherwise) would be much of a threat.
- I also never said anything about the elections.
Is there reason to be overly pessimistic about Iraq; to conclude there is virtually no chance for peace and democracy? Probably not... but it's not going as well as the Bush Administration is making it out to be either... nor is the insurgency, as Dick Cheney said, in its "last throes".
MW: You can't have it both ways. Either terrorists are attracted to Iraq (because it's a harbor or haven for them) or they're not. Why else would they flock to Iraq from Syria and Iran? Because they can attack us there (or try to).
Mark: That is a false dilemma. It is a tautology that either terrorists are attracted to Iraq or they are not, but the reason for being attracted does not have to be because Iraq is a harbor or a haven. As you said yourself, one reason why they might be attracted is because of the real or perceived opportunity to attack Americans. But in acting on this opportunity, they open themselves up to a grave danger of being attacked by coalition forces as well. If they had remained in Syria or Iran, these terrorists would truly be in a harbor or haven because they would be out of harms way. By drawing them into Iraq, we have brought the terrorists within the reach of our military might. As Michael pointed out, that is a feature, not a bug.
adamj: The terrorists may not much value their own lives or the lives of others, but they're not stupid. They wouldn't flock to Iraq if there was a significant chance of being thwarted by native Iraqis. Syria or Iran are safer than Iraq... but Iraq is both reasonably safe and presents an opportunity to attack us.
Only when an Iraqi government and the Iraqi people take charge of killing terrorists and keeping them out of their country will Iraq cease to be a safe place for them.
Drawing the terrorists into Iraq so they're within reach of our military might may work out okay for us... but it isn't doing any good for the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people and fledgling government have enough to deal with as it is.
The policy of fighting the terrorists over in the Middle East so we won't have to fight them on our home soil creates a dependency on us remaining significantly committed in the Middle East for a very long time. That cannot be our best approach to the War on Terrorism.
And, as I said earlier, killing terrorists is necessary, but you also have to try to keep more from being created or else you'll never really win and get out from under the threat of terrorism.
Mark: Actually, it's pretty clear that the terrorists are stupid and have no real strategy for winning -- or even an agreement among themselves of what "winning" would look like. Yes, they're being attracted to Iraq to fight, but that doesn't make it a "haven", a safe place. I don't see the connection.
And yeah, it sucks for the Iraqis to have all these terrorists there, but far fewer people are dying than under Saddam. Plus, I'd rather the terrorists go there than come here.
MW: Their goals require no strategy. Everything they do against us is its own strategy. Just fighting us every step of the way is a partial victory for them. Our notions of winning and losing and strategies are irrelevant to them and their goals.
Iraq is a safe place for terrorists in that they face no threat from native Iraqis. We're the only threat to them... and even so, it's a threat they apparently don't regard as significant enough to avoid flocking into Iraq.
There's also nothing stopping them from coming here or planning future attacks here. We're fools if we think that fighting them over there is sufficient to significantly reduce the threat of terrorism here.
Mark: Their goals require strategy if they hope to win... the original strategy was that if they put up enough of a fight we'd give up and go home -- Vietnam and Mogadishu. That's not working, so they're pretty much screwed. As Donald Sensing said a while ago, thir real strategy is religious, not military: they think that if they act Muslim enough Allah will personally intervene and give them victory.
I don't know why you think that terrorists are safe from Iraqis... you can read anywhere about the Iraqi Security Forces and how their role in fighting the insurgents is growing and how effective they're being. Terrorists are flocking to Iraq to fight, not for safety, and that's where the fighting is.
How can killing terrorists in Iraq possibly not make us safer here? There's a limited supply of terrorists, no matter how you count them, and the more Iraqis they kill the less popular they become.
MW: Winning and losing, to terrorists, means different things than it does to us. As you said, their strategy is religious not military (or economic)... so in their mind everything they do against us is a victory in itself... regardless of whether it causes us any actual harm or not.
Terrorists aren't completely safe in Iraq... but they're certainly not facing any immediate and formidable threat from Iraqis.
Killing terrorists makes us safer regardless of where we kill them. Whether we do it in Iraq or somewhere else is immaterial. Unless fewer and fewer terrorists are created to take the places of those we kill, however, the overall threat of terrorism isn't going to go away. Killing terrorists does nothing to prevent more from being created.
The threat of terrorism in the US remains significant in spite of our attacks on them in the Middle East. That's why I said that killing them over there so they won't attack us here is a false statement of security.
Mark: We're not even a little bit more secure? I mean, we had terrorist attacks against US interests every year through the 1990s. Since 9/11, all attacks against US interests have been in Iraq. That sounds like an effective strategy to me.
MW: Major terrorist attacks appear to take significant time to plan, so time will tell if our efforts so far have yielded results on large-scale attacks. Smaller ones take less time and are/were probably thwarted by our pursuit of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan more than they were by our actions in Iraq.
Mark: It's already been nearly 4 years. Obviously there will be another attack eventually, but seeing as how there were major attacks every year in the 1990s and we've had zero since 9/11, that's pretty good.
And yes, Afghanistan was certainly important to disrupting AQ.
MW: 9/11 was a class of terrorist attack that doesn't come often.
After 9/11, I don't think we can count the yearly attacks of the 1990's "major" anymore.
Mark: The bombings of our embassies in Afraid weren't major? They killed several hundred people. The bombing of the USS Cole wasn't major? The first attack on the WTC wasn't major? And so forth....
MW:
1993 - First WTC bombing.
1998 - Embassy attacks in Africa.
2000 - USS Cole bombing
There weren't "major" attacks "every year in the 1990s".
Since 9/11, there have been the following attacks:
2002 - Karachi, Pakistan. Bomb exploded outside American consulate.
2003 - Saudi Arabia, housing compound for Westerners attacked.
2004 - Various attacks in Saudi Arabia.
Given the totality of devestation from 9/11, many of the terrorist attacks that preceded it look far less major.
The number of years between attacks on American soil is approximately 8.