Do We Have What It Takes Anymore? Maybe Not

Mark Steyn, in his always insightful way, wonders the same thing. Having read his post in the Sun-Times does give one pause and a good reason to reflect on what America is capable of and willing, or not willing in this case, to do about our present and future enemies. Several of Marks paragraphs jumped out at me but the entire post is well worth reading.

The enemy aren't a bunch of simpleton Pushtun yakherds, but relatively sophisticated at least in their understanding of us. We're all infidels, but not all infidels crack the same way. If they'd done a Spain -- blown up a bunch of subway cars in New York or vaporized the Empire State Building -- they'd have re-awoken the primal anger of September 2001.

The jihad crowd ... employed a craftier strategy. Their view of America is roughly that of the British historian Niall Ferguson -- that the Great Satan is the first superpower with ADHD. They reasoned that if you could subject Americans to the drip-drip-drip of remorseless water torture in the deserts of Mesopotamia -- a couple of deaths here, a market bombing there, cars burning, smoke over the city on the evening news, day after day after day, and ratcheted up a notch or two for the weeks before the election -- you could grind down enough of the electorate and persuade them to vote like Spaniards, without even realizing it. And it worked.

The jihad crowd know that. So instead they employed a craftier strategy. Their view of America is roughly that of the British historian Niall Ferguson -- that the Great Satan is the first superpower with ADHD. They reasoned that if you could subject Americans to the drip-drip-drip of remorseless water torture in the deserts of Mesopotamia -- a couple of deaths here, a market bombing there, cars burning, smoke over the city on the evening news, day after day after day, and ratcheted up a notch or two for the weeks before the election -- you could grind down enough of the electorate and persuade them to vote like Spaniards, without even realizing it. And it worked. You can rationalize what happened on Tuesday in the context of previous sixth-year elections -- 1986, 1958, 1938, yada yada -- but that's not how it was seen around the world, either in the chancelleries of Europe, where they're dancing conga lines, or in the caves of the Hindu Kush, where they would also be dancing conga lines if Mullah Omar hadn't made it a beheading offense. And, as if to confirm that Tuesday wasn't merely 1986 or 1938, the president responded to the results by firing the Cabinet officer most closely identified with the prosecution of the war and replacing him with a man associated with James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and the other "stability" fetishists of the unreal realpolitik crowd.

Still, we are all Spaniards now. The incoming speaker says Iraq is not a war to be won but a problem to be solved. The incoming defense secretary belongs to a commission charged with doing just that. A nostalgic boomer columnist in the Boston Globe argues that honor requires the United States to "accept defeat," as it did in Vietnam. Didn't work out so swell for the natives, but to hell with them.

What does it mean when the world's hyperpower, responsible for 40 percent of the planet's military spending, decides that it cannot withstand a guerrilla war with historically low casualties against a ragbag of local insurgents and imported terrorists? You can call it "redeployment" or "exit strategy" or "peace with honor" but, by the time it's announced on al-Jazeera, you can pretty much bet that whatever official euphemism was agreed on back in Washington will have been lost in translation. Likewise, when it's announced on "Good Morning Pyongyang" and the Khartoum Network and, come to that, the BBC.

For the rest of the world, the Iraq war isn't about Iraq; it's about America, and American will... Meanwhile, the guys who are challenging us right now -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and elsewhere -- are regarded by the American electorate like a reality show we're bored with. Sorry, we don't want to stick around to see if we win; we'd rather vote ourselves off the island.

I'm still not totally convince that the Iraq war is "the" reason that the Republicans lost on Nov. 7 considering the trouncing that Leiberman gave the Democrats hand picked and supported candidate in very blue Connecticut. But Steyns analysis is spot on in what the ramifications and indications are.

New Format Apology

As you may have noticed, I changed the template format of Heard Here. In doing so I inadvertently ended up deleting all the past comments. I'm sorry for that, it was not a house cleaning, they just got lost in the move. Not being a computer geek I am struggling to find several of the features that I had previously and it will take some time to get them back but the past comments are gone forever it seems.
Tom

UPDATE: I think I have it fixed. Fingers crossed.

A Post-Mortem

There seems to be a bunch of these going around the net about "what went wrong?". Most of the gnashing of teeth, rending of clothes and keening while taking the mantle of sack cloth and ashes can be understood. Wrong, but understood. The Republican Party has no one to blame but themselves and the people we sent to Washington. It was, in my opinion, not a failure of the conservative agenda and conservative ideas but a failure of our elected representatives to follow that philosophy. They fell into the trap of feeling safe, bullet proof and their future was insured by their incumbent status. The same hubris that caused the downfall of the Democrats in the 1994 elections. My only consolation is that they recieved a message that they ignore to their own peril and that the ones who kicked their ass were for the most part running on a conservative, albeit Democratic, agenda. We will see is the new class of Blue Dog Democrats can walk the talk and not succumb to the Pelosi, Rangel, Conyers, Waxman ilk and the other far left side of the Party leadership.

More: Another few random thoughts come to mind about the reasons we lost. Our Representatives and Senators didn't seem to have the cojones to fight for what they supposedly believed. They didn't act as leaders and a majority and just wanted to get along and be popular with the inside the beltway crowd of pundits, and their constituents who sent them there be damned. I hope that the ones left learn something about not only talking the talk but walking the walk

Update: Hugh Hewitt has it about right. As does Peter Mulhern. Both are exceptional statements of the point I was so poorly trying to articulate.

Kinsley on Pelosi

Ouch! Michael Kinsley in todays Washington Post has an op-ed about Pelosi and what we can look for if the Dems win the house. Kinsley, a liberals liberal talks about the Democrat platform "A New Direction for America," and he is far from impressed. No wonder he waited till now to give his opinion instead of a week or two ago. I have never been a fan of Kinsley but he is usually a level headed columnist and I do read him often. I wish everyone had read this column prior to the elections.

What would a Democratic House of Representatives under Speaker Nancy Pelosi be like? The Republicans have been painting an unattractive portrait of Democrats roasting young children on a spit in the Capitol Rotunda and whatnot. Hoping for a more encouraging view, I picked up "A New Direction for America," a 31-page manifesto released to little acclaim by House Democrats in June. By all means read it. But do me a favor and vote first.

The document is full of bromides, of course, and like all good bromides, they come in threes. The Democrats promise "security, prosperity, and opportunity" in "diverse, safe, and vibrant communities." Not to mention "integrity, civility and fiscal discipline." They will "protect Americans, secure our borders, and restore our country's position of international leadership" through "homeland, energy, and diplomatic strategies." And we're only up to Page 3.

He is not easy on Bush and company by any means but even he is having a hard time swallowing the Democratic agenda. He concludes with this little jaw dropper.

Honesty is not just therapeutic. Fiscal honesty is a practical necessity. "New Direction" quite rightly denounces the staggering fiscal irresponsibility of Republican leaders and duly promises "Pay As You Go" spending. But in the entire document there is not one explicit revenue-raiser to balance the many specific and enormous new spending programs and tax credits.

Competence, of course, brings us back to Iraq. Apparently and unfortunately, President Bush is right that the Democrats have no "plan for victory." (Neither does he, of course. Nor, for that matter, do I. But I don't claim to have one. And I didn't start it.) For national security in general, the Democrats' plan is so according-to-type that you cringe with embarrassment: It's mostly about new cash benefits for veterans. Regarding Iraq specifically, the Democrats' plan has two parts. First, they want Iraqis to take on "primary responsibility for securing and governing their country." Then they want "responsible redeployment" (great euphemism) of American forces.

Older readers may recognize this formula. It's Vietnamization -- the Nixon-Kissinger plan for extracting us from a previous mistake. But Vietnamization was not a plan for victory. It was a plan for what was called "peace with honor" and is now known as "defeat."

Maybe "A New Direction for America" is just a campaign document -- although it seems to have had no effect at all on the campaign. My fear is that the House Democrats might try to use it as a basis for governing.

Get out there and vote.

It's not Viet Nam, If we leave they will follow

From the American Thinker comes this thought provoking article on the consequences of a cut and run policy in Iraq. It is definately something to keep in mind when considering your vote on November 7.

It doesn’t matter how we got there. It doesn’t matter how you think you were lied to. It doesn’t matter if you think there was a connection between Sadam and Al-Qaeda. The only thing that matters now is that both Al-Qaeda and Iran and the terrorist groups they back and inspire believe that Iraq is their decisive battle. They have chosen it as the place where they will defeat America, and unlike the Viet Cong, they will not stay put. They will follow us home.

Bush opponents like to quote the National Intelligence Assessment which stated that America has been made less safe because its involvement in Iraq has become a recruiting aid for terrorists. That is of course true. But those same people ignore the flip side of that equation, which the National Intelligence Assessment made equally clear. If the Al Qaeda and Iranian backed terrorists win in Iraq they will be further encouraged in their war against us. If they are defeated, then the defeat will go heavy with them; and we will indeed be the beneficiaries.

To put it in its simplest terms, we can quit the battle field but the battle field will not quit us.

It is a powerful reminder of what we are facing and I ask everyone to read it all.