Cross-posted to Random Fate.
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Joe Gandelman, of The Moderate Voice, who is kind enough to allow me to post here, has written of his opposition to the apparent rebranding by the current Administration of President George W. Bush of the so-called “Global War on Terror”.
Gandelman writes:
The idea that this battle is more than just military, is a sound one.
But I thought that just a few months ago conservative commentators were up in arms about the BBC and Reuters refusing to use the word “terrorist.” TMV isn’t a conservative (OR a liberal) blogger and he thought it was silly too. But he knows Rush, and Sean and all the others (including bloggers) will now be falling all over themselves saying what a genius idea it is, but we must say:
It was dumb when the BBC didn’t use the “t” word and it’s dumb when the administration tries to recast this conflict now. The enemy is terrorism. Free and democratic societies may have to fight it on many levels — but the enemy is TERRORISTS and TERRORISM.
OH: We know it’s a terrible sin to be consistent on these things, so we’ll plead guilty. And we’ll save you the trouble: “How can you call yourself a moderate if you don’t accept the new definition of the global war on violent extremism?” Answer: EASILY.
While I recommend you read the entire post, I cannot comment on his position without quoting his ending statements:
People who want to blow up innocent men, women and children in sneak, sucker-punch like bomb attacks? Extremists.
People who want to group jump bound screaming captives and saw their heads off? Extremists.
People who want to use planes as missles, get nuclear materials and blow up U.S. cities? Extremists.
People who threaten and (if they) attack judges whose opinions they don’t agree with? Extremists.
If you don’t agree that “extremist” includes the last one, then I have a great idea:
Why don’t we just call it the “global war on terrorism?”
While I don’t dispute his definition of extremists, the general tone of Gandelman’s comments is that he opposes the “rebranding”.
Joe Gandelman is indeed a true moderate, and he is not trying to take some partisan advantage of the change of public strategy by the current Republican Administration.
There are others, however, who are not so generous, and I find myself forced to disagree with what Gandelman has written in this case.
For me, even though I have many reasons to oppose the current Administration, I welcome the change in nomenclature, if it is indeed a true recognition of the need for a change in strategy.
I commented many times in the run up to the last election in November of 2004 of how President George W. Bush could not acknowledge ANY mistakes, no matter how minor, and of how this was (and is) a huge issue, to the extent of being a personality defect, because recognizing mistakes is the first step in learning from those mistakes and changing behaviors.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
-Albert Einstein, attributed
I would be completely remiss if I did not recognize and indeed, praise the Administration for actually recognizing a flaw in current “strategy” and at the least trying to change direction, even if they do not publicly acknowledge in the process the tremendous mistakes they made in reaching this point.
This is a change we need.
This is what is best for the nation as a whole.
Those on the Democrat side of the spectrum should NOT be playing this change for some kind of advantage, instead they should be applauding any change away from a stubborn adherence of former policies that have been shown to have failed and celebrating this change as the right thing for the country.
Why is this change needed?
From a book review of a history surrounding the Fauklands War, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign: The 1982 Falklands War and Its Aftermath, at The Economist magazine:
The French have a saying à la guerre comme à la guerre: when you’re at war, act that way.
We have been fighting the wrong war.
As has been said countless times by many others far more eloquently than I can write now, terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
-Sun-Tzu
From where I stand, we have failed in knowing both ourselves and the enemy.
Any change in that is to the good.
The only “leadership” we’ve gotten to date for the home-front in our so-called “War on Terror” is an exhortation to “keep shopping” while our best and brightest are sent to an abattoir of our own making to die, or if not to die, to lose limbs or something else almost as precious, in a cost we still do not count.
We like to say that we are in an “age of irony”, but that is mere self-deception, a pleasant illusion presenting a fiction that is more desirable than the unattractive reality. Irony has complexity, whereas what is typically shown by those seeking to be ironic is instead a knee-jerk rejection of concepts without thinking, a simplicity that is both stark and stupid.
In my first draft of this post, I told a story of how in history, one nation attacked another nation based upon an analysis that the success of the first nation in its goals would be thwarted by the actions of the second nation, in other words, the second nation presented a “clear and present danger” to the long-term survival of the first nation. An ultimatum was to be delivered, but was delayed, and the attack undertaken turned into a “day that will live in infamy.”
I had hoped to present the irony in contrasting the attack on Pearl Harbor, which even today from the point of view of history as taught in Japan was a pre-emptive attack that was forced because the United States had embargoed several key materials in an effort to force Japan to modify its behaviors, and many parts of the Japanese government felt a war with the United States was inevitable, so a pre-emptive attack was the only way to ensure national survival.
Sound familiar?
If not, read on, and perhaps it just might…
The Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq that have proven illusory, but there are many who stubbornly adhere to the WMD motivation for the war, despite the evidence to the contrary, even to the extent that many who proclaimed the existence of Iraqi WMD before the war still refuse all reason and claim the WMD were ported over the borders to Syria or Iran, both of which were mortal enemies of the overthrown regime of Saddam Hussein.
I deleted that long passage illustrating the irony inherent in the parallel motivations of “survival of the country” in the face of threats that existed only in the mind, and yes, what I had written was much longer. I chose to throw that work away because I suspect the irony will be lost on those who need to understand it the most, and will be merely preaching to the choir for those who already see it.
There are other, more recent, yet perhaps not fully recognized ironies at hand that may help in illustrating my point, however.
Ann Althouse has a post today titled, “Nothing we’re doing is evil.” According to what she wrote in the comments (the post itself is remarkably brief), the post title is something she heard “in a context.”
Her entire post beneath that title:
How do you like that as a statement intended as reassuring? Does it hit you in an “I’m not a crook” way?
Although it may not have been her intention, nor the context in which she heard the statement, that simple sentence, “Nothing we’re doing is evil,” it does indeed sound remarkably like much heard from the right-wing in defense of the prison at Guantánamo, among the defenses of other questionable actions taken in our newly renamed “Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism, née the “Global War on Terror”.
Before you start on your knee-jerk defense of torture perpetrated in the name of a “greater good”, consider this statement:
Rear Adm. Michael F. Lohr, the Navy’s chief lawyer, wrote on Feb. 6, 2003, that while detainees at Guantánamo Bay might not qualify for international protections, “Will the American people find we have missed the forest for the trees by condoning practices that, while technically legal, are inconsistent with our most fundamental values?”
What, a “bleeding-heart liberal who sides with the terrorists” is a Rear Admiral in our Navy?
TREASON!
This is the level we are reduced to now in a discourse dominated by the cheerleaders of Ann Coulter and Michael Moore.
The current defense mounted for Karl Rove is of a similar vein.
What is missing is this: The “leak” is NOT the issue, the issue is the nature of the “truth” from this Administration.
We were told the President had not firmly decided to go to war until “after all other avenues were exhausted.”
They were apparently exhausted much sooner than the last statement that “the President has not yet decided to go to war” was issued, if we are to believe the evidence available to date.
So much for the “truth”, especially as spun by the smear-meister, Karl Rove, who in a moving of goal posts unprecedented even in this post-Watergate era is not being held publicly responsible after the Administration publicly said that Rove did NOT discuss the Plame matter with reporters, and after the President himself said he would fire anyone responsible for leaks associated with the matter.
The “leak” is NOT the issue, despite the incredible amount of verbiage directed, the issue is the nature and reality of the “truth” from this Administration that claimed it would “restore honor and integrity” to the White House.
An Administration that at the least was not fully truthful about when the decision to go to war with Iraq was truly made.
An Administration that at the least tacitly accepted the results of an active smear campaign against a man opposing Administration policies if not outright approving of the smear publicly.
Apparently, this Administration has a different interpretation of “honor and integrity” than I do.
All of this, combined with Althouse post title, reminds me of something I heard in a movie, long ago:
When a man lies, he murders a part of the world.
-Merlin (in the movie Excalibur)
We are reaching the point to where the cynics are right, we cannot trust anything from any “spokesman” representing any elected official.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
-George Bernard Shaw
Is this the reality we want to accept? For it is in our acceptance that any reality is created.
Twisting of facts…
Distortion of truth…
Cherry-picking the information and patterns in ways that are obvious to those willing to take a step outside their own perspective, but which satisfy the echoing crowds who don’t want to take the time and energy to think…
There are those, such as John Cole, who are valiantly making an effort to confirm what is known and agreed upon in the Rove/leaking to the press matter.
I admire Cole for his perseverance, but ultimately it is pointless.
I try to not let my natural pessimism overwhelm me, but we are now to the point where it is no longer pessimism but instead realism.
The Afganistan War was necessary and justified.
The Iraq War was not absolutely necessary beyond all dispute, and the justification was weak even at the time and is failing the smell test more often as time passes.
Otherwise, the irony of comparison with the attacks made by Japan in 1941 would not arise to those who read and take the time to understand history in the context of those experiencing it at the time it was occurring.
It is often said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. There is one large-scale event in recent history I think we could well do to repeat:
To conquer the enemy without resorting to war is the most desirable. The highest form of generalship is to conquer the enemy by strategy.
-Sun Tzu
We defeated the Soviet Union without having to engage directly in a “hot war” that would have cost countless lives and possibly rendered significant portions of the planet unihabitable.
We defeated the Soviet Union without resorting to open war.
We conquered the enemy with strategy.
What are we doing now?
Is it the same path of victory?
Is it a path to victory that is truly worth the price paid?
Come to your own conclusions, and act upon your own conscience, but do not take a knee-jerk talking-points response as your answer.
Your conscience will remind you in the end.