Friday, September 12, 2003
The Hard Truth Catches Up With the Hard Right.
As the foreign policy decisions of the Bush administration beget their inevitable (and much-predicted) debacle, the malodorous bile that any criticism of that policy amounts to "aiding and abetting the terrorists" is frothing up out of the usual suspects.
Their aim, of course, is to bully offstage any criticism of their boy, and the shamelessness of their efforts is a direct result of his faltering poll standings. In short, the hard truth is catching up with the hard right, and they have far too much to protect to go quietly.
As the world has repeatedly learned, nothing is beneath them. This is, after all, the group that sent GOP congressional aids to masquerade as protestors to stop the vote recounts in Florida in 2000. They're certainly not going to let a little squeemishness from tossing around the word "traitors" stop them (assuming they still get squeemish from such things).
The president himself gave the green light for this unworthy argument in his national television address last Sunday. In it he said a "strategic goal" of the terrorists was to "shake the will of the civilized world" and that the terrorists themselves "have cited examples of Beirut and Somalia, claiming that if you inflict harm on Americans, we will run from a challenge."
You don't have to be Sean Hannity (though it helps) to get the message: any change in policy is "running", and any criticism of the policy is helping terrorists achieve a "strategic goal". And just like that, you're "aiding and abetting the enemy" by noticing that our Iraq adventure has been somewhat other than advertised.
This insulting nonsense must be met head-on. The easy, most rational argument -- that this is a free society where people are free to speak their minds -- doesn't deter the right. They prefer a vision of the world where they reserve for themselves the right to decide who can say what, and when.
Here's a few arguments that they cannot so easily dismiss.
An enormous number of prestigious military men have voiced their doubts about the policy in Iraq. Among them:
• Retired Marine General Anthony C. Zilli, the former chief of the U.S. Central Command, and a man who endorsed Bush in 2000. Zilli questioned why we originally "blew past" the UN, and said of our Iraq policy "there is no strategy or mechanism for putting the pieces together." "We're in danger of failing", he said. He also wondered aloud if "the garbage and the lies" of Vietnam were "happening again".
Do the shills of the right think Zilli is "aiding the enemy"?
• Former Navy Secretary James Webb also saw visions of Vietnam, saying, "I am very troubled by the fact that we went into Iraq and very troubled about how we're going to get out of Iraq."
• Col. Pat Lang, the Pentagon former chief of Middle Eastern intelligence from 1985 until 1992 called the administration's war plan "a massive illusion".
• Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki told the Senate in February, 2003, that we would need hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said he was "wildly off the mark", and Shinseki announced his "retirement" shortly thereafter.
Are all these men "anti-troops"? Are they aiding the terrorists?
Or are they honorable and patriotic soldiers who knew that the administration's plans for Iraq were short-sighted, arrogant, and unrealistic at best? With US soldiers now dying every day in a guerilla war, isn't it time to consider that these men had the best interests of US troops in mind -- and were right?
The smartest policy in Iraq would be whichever one puts responsible Iraqis in charge as soon as possible, and which provides them with the help they need (preferably not all American) to combat radicalism at home, and get their economy going again.
Because when radicalism is the enemy the best weapon is economic stability. Prosperity is radicalism's natural enemy. Violence and suppression are its fuel. We learned this lesson already -- or at least some of us did.
But perhaps the best argument in response to charges that criticism of the president amounts to aiding terrorists is simply to look the accusers right in the eye and call them on the fact that they don't give a damn about the troops.
They're just protecting their boy from the increasingly unavoidable realization that he's bungled the war on terror, harmed both our relationships with our allies and our standing in the world, and set the cause of peace in the Middle East back twenty years. And everyone knows it.
And if they cared about the troops they be saying it, too.
Their aim, of course, is to bully offstage any criticism of their boy, and the shamelessness of their efforts is a direct result of his faltering poll standings. In short, the hard truth is catching up with the hard right, and they have far too much to protect to go quietly.
As the world has repeatedly learned, nothing is beneath them. This is, after all, the group that sent GOP congressional aids to masquerade as protestors to stop the vote recounts in Florida in 2000. They're certainly not going to let a little squeemishness from tossing around the word "traitors" stop them (assuming they still get squeemish from such things).
The president himself gave the green light for this unworthy argument in his national television address last Sunday. In it he said a "strategic goal" of the terrorists was to "shake the will of the civilized world" and that the terrorists themselves "have cited examples of Beirut and Somalia, claiming that if you inflict harm on Americans, we will run from a challenge."
You don't have to be Sean Hannity (though it helps) to get the message: any change in policy is "running", and any criticism of the policy is helping terrorists achieve a "strategic goal". And just like that, you're "aiding and abetting the enemy" by noticing that our Iraq adventure has been somewhat other than advertised.
This insulting nonsense must be met head-on. The easy, most rational argument -- that this is a free society where people are free to speak their minds -- doesn't deter the right. They prefer a vision of the world where they reserve for themselves the right to decide who can say what, and when.
Here's a few arguments that they cannot so easily dismiss.
An enormous number of prestigious military men have voiced their doubts about the policy in Iraq. Among them:
• Retired Marine General Anthony C. Zilli, the former chief of the U.S. Central Command, and a man who endorsed Bush in 2000. Zilli questioned why we originally "blew past" the UN, and said of our Iraq policy "there is no strategy or mechanism for putting the pieces together." "We're in danger of failing", he said. He also wondered aloud if "the garbage and the lies" of Vietnam were "happening again".
Do the shills of the right think Zilli is "aiding the enemy"?
• Former Navy Secretary James Webb also saw visions of Vietnam, saying, "I am very troubled by the fact that we went into Iraq and very troubled about how we're going to get out of Iraq."
• Col. Pat Lang, the Pentagon former chief of Middle Eastern intelligence from 1985 until 1992 called the administration's war plan "a massive illusion".
• Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki told the Senate in February, 2003, that we would need hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said he was "wildly off the mark", and Shinseki announced his "retirement" shortly thereafter.
Are all these men "anti-troops"? Are they aiding the terrorists?
Or are they honorable and patriotic soldiers who knew that the administration's plans for Iraq were short-sighted, arrogant, and unrealistic at best? With US soldiers now dying every day in a guerilla war, isn't it time to consider that these men had the best interests of US troops in mind -- and were right?
The smartest policy in Iraq would be whichever one puts responsible Iraqis in charge as soon as possible, and which provides them with the help they need (preferably not all American) to combat radicalism at home, and get their economy going again.
Because when radicalism is the enemy the best weapon is economic stability. Prosperity is radicalism's natural enemy. Violence and suppression are its fuel. We learned this lesson already -- or at least some of us did.
But perhaps the best argument in response to charges that criticism of the president amounts to aiding terrorists is simply to look the accusers right in the eye and call them on the fact that they don't give a damn about the troops.
They're just protecting their boy from the increasingly unavoidable realization that he's bungled the war on terror, harmed both our relationships with our allies and our standing in the world, and set the cause of peace in the Middle East back twenty years. And everyone knows it.
And if they cared about the troops they be saying it, too.
