Stephanie
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Written by Raymond Kraft
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
It has become fashionable for Democrats and other Liberals to intone the relentless mantra, "George Bush has made too many mistakes in Iraq!" at every opportunity, without ever bothering to explain exactly what those mistakes were and why they were mistakes, as if it were a self-evident truism. I understand this: they are determined to define themselves as the Un-Bush, right or wrong. They would rather be wrong than admit that George Bush has ever done anything right.
Inexplicably, many Republicans and other Conservatives have fallen into the bad habit of intoning their own obsequious shibboleth in reply, "Yes, America has made lots of mistakes in Iraq, but . . . the war against Islamo-Fascism [or Islamic Nazism, which is more accurate] must be won anyway . . . unless the going gets too tough . . . and do we have a plan to win? . . . and what is our "exit strategy," and so forth. They are beginning to sound too much like Liberals Lite, praising the president with faint damnation.
The "mistakes" alleged are generally of three kinds:
1. All war is wrong, and we should never go to war under any circumstances. This is the Suicidal Liberal Democrat position, those to whom the myth and fiction of "peace" is more important than the defense of themselves, their familes, and their country, against their enemies.
2. This war is wrong, illegal, based on lies, and we never should have started it. We have no plan for victory, no exit strategy. We should have caught Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, declared victory, and brought the troops home. We should find a way to get out of Iraq as soon as possible, but without actually publishing a time-table for surrender to Al Qaeda, so long as we're outta there by next Christmas. This is the Congressional Democrat position among those who want to surrender their way to the next presidency.
3. We incompetently failed to predict the Insurgency, and now we have a Civil War on our hands, we should have sent in five times as many troops and cleaned out the hornet's nest in the first two months, and brought the troops home. We have no plan for victory, no exit strategy. This is terrible! Now what shall we do? We should stay the course, but can we? We can't let our soldiers' lives be given in vain! But is it really worth it? This is the hand-wringing unclear-on-the-concept weak-kneed Captain Queeg Republican position fearful of losing votes and seats in the House and Senate.
Now I'm going to jerk the choke-chain and pull us back to some sort of rational reality about this war.
War Is Not a Movie Script
That's right. A real war is not a hollywood war, there is no script, and no real war in history has gone predictably and ended on schedule and on budget. In most wars, the ending is uncertain and unknowable until you get almost to the end, and depends on a multitude of factors, including (but not limited to): (a) Who has the better weapons systems, (b) Who has the better manufacturing capacity and the most reliable supply tail, (c) Who has the better officers and soldiers, (d) Who has the better intelligence, (e) Who has the better strategic and tactical planning and adaptation skills, (f) Who makes the most mistakes, and the most serious mistakes, and most important of all, (g) Who has the greatest will to endure and win.
The chorus of pundits and pontificators who decry the "many mistakes" and the "lack of a plan" cannot have ever learned to play chess, or poker, not even badly, nor studied war, however superficially, or they would understand that one's planning goes out the window as soon as the enemy makes his first move, fires his first shot, and then one must begin adapting to the adaptable enemy. And with every adaptation we make, the enemy makes new adaptations. Then we have to adapt again. Victory goes to the most adroit, to those most adept at changing tactics and strategy quickly and often, and to have a "plan" that is set in stone and stickin' to it is a sure-fire recipe for defeat.
Wars end when one side has been battered and mauled so badly that it no longer has the will and ability to keep fighting, and gives up, and either surrenders or fades away. In Iraq, we, Democrats and Republicans, have to answer an important question: Shall America sustain its will to fight until the forces of Islamic Nazism surrender, are decimated, or fade away? Or, shall America surrender to Al Qaeda and Iran and abandon Iraq and the Middle East, and maybe Europe too, and maybe America eventually, to the puritanical Islamic Nazis?
Those are the options. Those are the choices. There are no others.
Most Republicans and other Conservatives believe it is better for America and its allies, including the new Iraqi government and its people, to win this war. Most Democrats and other Liberals apparently think it is better for America and Iraq to lose, to concede defeat and surrender to puritanical Islamic Nazism, the most illiberal of all ideologies, and come whimpering home with our tails between our legs.
The War So Far Is An Important But Unheralded Victory
Yes, there is a guerrilla war, an insurgency, left to fight, and it may last years, or decades, or months. Nobody knows. Nobody can know. Not yet. And there may be a hot war with Iran and Syria in the near future, but the US and its allies have already achieved a major strategic victory that has yet to be recognized by Democrats and Liberals, and by most Republicans and Conservatives. We have stopped the unchecked proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. This may not be a permanent victory, but for now it is crucially important.
1. Pakistan is an Islamic country with nuclear weapons. Whatever carrots and sticks have been offered to President Musharreff, so far, he has managed to keep the Pakistani government officially aligned with the United States, and Pakistan's nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Jihad. If (or when) Musharreff loses power, it is more likely than not that the next Pakistani government will be aligned with the Jihad, and at that point Pakistan will become a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism with nuclear weapons. It is crucially important that this point must be deferred as long as possible, until the Iran-Syria-Lebanon-Hezbollah-Hamas axis of Jihadist power has been defeated, or at least greatly deflated. If (or when) Pakistan becomes a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism with nuclear weapons, it will immediately open a whole new front in the War on Islamic Nazism, unless the War on Islamic Nazism has been largely won first. For now, the Pakistani alignment with America is a strategic achievement that cannot be over-estimated. But for the war in Iraq, and the collateral diplomacy in Pakistan, it is probable that Pakistan would be a state sponsor of Islamic terror armed with nuclear weapons, today. Yesterday. Now.
2. Iran is a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism, and it is on the fast-track to develop its nuclear weapons as quickly as possible, despite President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's public prattle about peaceful nuclear energy. No rational person believes him. Ahmadinejad has also promised the imminent annihilation of Israel, the completion of Hitler's "Final Solution," and says the death of Israel is "the only key" to peace in the Middle East, and that "chaos" will bring the return of the 12th Mahdi, the Second Coming of Islam. Unless we want to see a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv, another Holocaust, another Shoa, it is imperative to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Because of George Bush's "mistakes" we have US forces bracketing Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an underestimated ally in Israel. But for the Iraq war, we would probably have little or no significant US presence in the Middle East now, and far fewer options on Iran than we have. We are in an infinitely better strategic position to prevent a nuclear Iran than we would be in if we had just collared Osama, declared victory in Afghanistan, and brought the troops home.
3. Iraq is no longer under the control of Saddam Hussein, who had been trying to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons systems for thirty years, with some success. No, we haven't found much in Iraq, but it's a big place with lots of desert to bury things in, and we gave him 18 months to bury things before the invasion, or ship them to Syria and Lebanon. It is not plausible that Saddam risked a second war with America, his dynasty and his life, in order to conceal the fact that he did not have WMDs. You do not fight to conceal your innocence. Left in power, it is probable that Iraq under Saddam Hussein would now, or soon, be a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The Iraq War has prevented that.
4. Syria, and Lebanon, allied with the Iranian "special warfare division" called Hezbollah, the Party of God, would plausibly or probably be launching pads for nuclear strikes with Iranian weapons against Israel, almost as soon as Iran has nuclear weapons, with flight times and trajectories too short for Israel to intercept before we see the mushroom cloud rising above Tel Aviv. For now, at least, it is unlikely there are any nuclear weapons in Lebanon and Syria. If we stay focused and sufficiently determined, there will never be.
5. Libya turned over its nuclear and chemical weapons programs, inspired by the American invasion of Iraq, and US and UN inspectors found they were far more advanced than US and European intelligence had thought. As a result of the invasion of Iraq, Libya is not, and will not become, a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism with nuclear weapons.
6. Saudi Arabia, facing a nuclear Iran, would be developing its own nuclear force in self-defense. If the Saudi regime fell to the Wahhabists within, Saudi Arabia would then become a state sponsor of terrorism, armed with nuclear weapons.
But for the war in Iraq, we would face, now, or soon, a Jihadist crescent of state-sponsors of Islamic Nazism armed with nuclear weapons, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan, and maybe Saudi Arabia. Because of President Bush's "mistake," we do not, and will not. Unless a Democratic majority in Congress next year decides to make a pre-emptive surrender to Al Qaeda, to abdicate the Middle East to Islamic Nazism, to end this war, for now, which will mean we will have to fight it again, another day, in the Middle East or somewhere else, after the state sponsors of terrorism have nuclear weapons.
But for the war in Iraq, it is probable that the Jihad, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Ahmidinejad, et al., would soon, or by now, control the oil production of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and by political alliance the oil of Venezuela. OPEC would be a tool of the Jihad. And they would be pleased to use the oil of OPEC to blackmail, loot, and intimidate Europe and America. Yes, this war is about oil. It is about preventing the Jihad from using the price and supply of oil as a weapon against the rest of the world, and that includes your job, your paycheck, your retirement fund, your future.
But for the war in Iraq, they would be, now or soon, within missile range of most or all of Western Europe, and that, coupled with control of OPEC, would leave the US and Europe with only three options: (1) cooperate with the Jihad, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Iran, whatever "cooperation" turned out to mean, which could conceivably mean the repudiation of our Constitution and the adoption of Sharia as the supreme law of America, (2) accept the destruction of the global economy if the Jihad decided to shut down the spigots or double the price, or (3) go to war in the Middle East to seize control of the OPEC oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Iran and break up the OPEC cartel, in the face of the Islamic Bomb.
All of these options are vastly worse than the war we have now in Iraq.
The fact that we do not confront these three options today is due largely, or entirely, to the fact that George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, and the rest of the awful war-mongering "neo-cons" made the "mistake" of going to war in Iraq, choosing the time and place of battle, rather than letting the time and place of battle be chosen by our enemy, choosing to go to war before the Jihad had its fingers on the nuclear trigger, rather than after. It was not a mistake. Faced with the options, none of which are good, the President chose the one that is least bad, the one that gives Western Civilization, a Civilized Europe, a Civilized Middle East, and a free America, the best possible chance of survival.
The war has not run perfectly, according to plan. But no war ever has, no war ever will, and no war ever can. Whatever mistakes we may or may not have made, they are insignificant, trivial, and immaterial, when compared to the mistake President Bush did not make: He did not do nothing.
Let me tell you a small parable, if I can call it that.
Imagine that I am sick. I go to see Dr. Neo Con, who says, "My friend, I am sorry to tell you that you have cancer. You have a large tumor. It is well advanced. And it is malignant."
"What," I ask, "Can we do?"
"Well," says my doctor, "We can do surgery and get the tumor out, or most of it. Then we can do some radiation therapy to get as much of the rest as we can. And then we can do chemotherapy to kill off the cancer cells that have metastized throughout your body."
"And will do that do the trick?" I ask. "Will I live?"
"I certainly hope so," replies Dr. Neo Con, "Your cancer is fairly advanced, and I may not be able to save your life. But, I may. I am hopeful. Let's put it this way, if I treat you very aggressively, you have a fighting chance. If I do not treat you aggressively enough, or not at all, you will certainly die soon. I wish I had better news. I wish I had a magic wand. I wish I had a good option. But I don't. I'll do the best I can."
"No! You can't do that!" cried his assistant, Dr. Demo Crat. "You're going to hurt this patient! You're going to cut him! Then you're going to radiate him! Then you're going to pump him full of toxic chemicals! He will suffer! He may die! Stop!"
"Well, Dr. Crat," replied Dr. Con, "You are right. He will suffer. He may die. But if we don't do what is necessary to eradicate this cancer, he will certainly die. And if we do treat him, however much it may hurt him now, he may recover, and he may live."
About the Writer: Raymond Kraft is a lawyer and writer living and working in Northern California. Raymond receives e-mail at [email protected].
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=23570
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
It has become fashionable for Democrats and other Liberals to intone the relentless mantra, "George Bush has made too many mistakes in Iraq!" at every opportunity, without ever bothering to explain exactly what those mistakes were and why they were mistakes, as if it were a self-evident truism. I understand this: they are determined to define themselves as the Un-Bush, right or wrong. They would rather be wrong than admit that George Bush has ever done anything right.
Inexplicably, many Republicans and other Conservatives have fallen into the bad habit of intoning their own obsequious shibboleth in reply, "Yes, America has made lots of mistakes in Iraq, but . . . the war against Islamo-Fascism [or Islamic Nazism, which is more accurate] must be won anyway . . . unless the going gets too tough . . . and do we have a plan to win? . . . and what is our "exit strategy," and so forth. They are beginning to sound too much like Liberals Lite, praising the president with faint damnation.
The "mistakes" alleged are generally of three kinds:
1. All war is wrong, and we should never go to war under any circumstances. This is the Suicidal Liberal Democrat position, those to whom the myth and fiction of "peace" is more important than the defense of themselves, their familes, and their country, against their enemies.
2. This war is wrong, illegal, based on lies, and we never should have started it. We have no plan for victory, no exit strategy. We should have caught Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, declared victory, and brought the troops home. We should find a way to get out of Iraq as soon as possible, but without actually publishing a time-table for surrender to Al Qaeda, so long as we're outta there by next Christmas. This is the Congressional Democrat position among those who want to surrender their way to the next presidency.
3. We incompetently failed to predict the Insurgency, and now we have a Civil War on our hands, we should have sent in five times as many troops and cleaned out the hornet's nest in the first two months, and brought the troops home. We have no plan for victory, no exit strategy. This is terrible! Now what shall we do? We should stay the course, but can we? We can't let our soldiers' lives be given in vain! But is it really worth it? This is the hand-wringing unclear-on-the-concept weak-kneed Captain Queeg Republican position fearful of losing votes and seats in the House and Senate.
Now I'm going to jerk the choke-chain and pull us back to some sort of rational reality about this war.
War Is Not a Movie Script
That's right. A real war is not a hollywood war, there is no script, and no real war in history has gone predictably and ended on schedule and on budget. In most wars, the ending is uncertain and unknowable until you get almost to the end, and depends on a multitude of factors, including (but not limited to): (a) Who has the better weapons systems, (b) Who has the better manufacturing capacity and the most reliable supply tail, (c) Who has the better officers and soldiers, (d) Who has the better intelligence, (e) Who has the better strategic and tactical planning and adaptation skills, (f) Who makes the most mistakes, and the most serious mistakes, and most important of all, (g) Who has the greatest will to endure and win.
The chorus of pundits and pontificators who decry the "many mistakes" and the "lack of a plan" cannot have ever learned to play chess, or poker, not even badly, nor studied war, however superficially, or they would understand that one's planning goes out the window as soon as the enemy makes his first move, fires his first shot, and then one must begin adapting to the adaptable enemy. And with every adaptation we make, the enemy makes new adaptations. Then we have to adapt again. Victory goes to the most adroit, to those most adept at changing tactics and strategy quickly and often, and to have a "plan" that is set in stone and stickin' to it is a sure-fire recipe for defeat.
Wars end when one side has been battered and mauled so badly that it no longer has the will and ability to keep fighting, and gives up, and either surrenders or fades away. In Iraq, we, Democrats and Republicans, have to answer an important question: Shall America sustain its will to fight until the forces of Islamic Nazism surrender, are decimated, or fade away? Or, shall America surrender to Al Qaeda and Iran and abandon Iraq and the Middle East, and maybe Europe too, and maybe America eventually, to the puritanical Islamic Nazis?
Those are the options. Those are the choices. There are no others.
Most Republicans and other Conservatives believe it is better for America and its allies, including the new Iraqi government and its people, to win this war. Most Democrats and other Liberals apparently think it is better for America and Iraq to lose, to concede defeat and surrender to puritanical Islamic Nazism, the most illiberal of all ideologies, and come whimpering home with our tails between our legs.
The War So Far Is An Important But Unheralded Victory
Yes, there is a guerrilla war, an insurgency, left to fight, and it may last years, or decades, or months. Nobody knows. Nobody can know. Not yet. And there may be a hot war with Iran and Syria in the near future, but the US and its allies have already achieved a major strategic victory that has yet to be recognized by Democrats and Liberals, and by most Republicans and Conservatives. We have stopped the unchecked proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. This may not be a permanent victory, but for now it is crucially important.
1. Pakistan is an Islamic country with nuclear weapons. Whatever carrots and sticks have been offered to President Musharreff, so far, he has managed to keep the Pakistani government officially aligned with the United States, and Pakistan's nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Jihad. If (or when) Musharreff loses power, it is more likely than not that the next Pakistani government will be aligned with the Jihad, and at that point Pakistan will become a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism with nuclear weapons. It is crucially important that this point must be deferred as long as possible, until the Iran-Syria-Lebanon-Hezbollah-Hamas axis of Jihadist power has been defeated, or at least greatly deflated. If (or when) Pakistan becomes a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism with nuclear weapons, it will immediately open a whole new front in the War on Islamic Nazism, unless the War on Islamic Nazism has been largely won first. For now, the Pakistani alignment with America is a strategic achievement that cannot be over-estimated. But for the war in Iraq, and the collateral diplomacy in Pakistan, it is probable that Pakistan would be a state sponsor of Islamic terror armed with nuclear weapons, today. Yesterday. Now.
2. Iran is a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism, and it is on the fast-track to develop its nuclear weapons as quickly as possible, despite President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's public prattle about peaceful nuclear energy. No rational person believes him. Ahmadinejad has also promised the imminent annihilation of Israel, the completion of Hitler's "Final Solution," and says the death of Israel is "the only key" to peace in the Middle East, and that "chaos" will bring the return of the 12th Mahdi, the Second Coming of Islam. Unless we want to see a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv, another Holocaust, another Shoa, it is imperative to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Because of George Bush's "mistakes" we have US forces bracketing Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an underestimated ally in Israel. But for the Iraq war, we would probably have little or no significant US presence in the Middle East now, and far fewer options on Iran than we have. We are in an infinitely better strategic position to prevent a nuclear Iran than we would be in if we had just collared Osama, declared victory in Afghanistan, and brought the troops home.
3. Iraq is no longer under the control of Saddam Hussein, who had been trying to develop nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons systems for thirty years, with some success. No, we haven't found much in Iraq, but it's a big place with lots of desert to bury things in, and we gave him 18 months to bury things before the invasion, or ship them to Syria and Lebanon. It is not plausible that Saddam risked a second war with America, his dynasty and his life, in order to conceal the fact that he did not have WMDs. You do not fight to conceal your innocence. Left in power, it is probable that Iraq under Saddam Hussein would now, or soon, be a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. The Iraq War has prevented that.
4. Syria, and Lebanon, allied with the Iranian "special warfare division" called Hezbollah, the Party of God, would plausibly or probably be launching pads for nuclear strikes with Iranian weapons against Israel, almost as soon as Iran has nuclear weapons, with flight times and trajectories too short for Israel to intercept before we see the mushroom cloud rising above Tel Aviv. For now, at least, it is unlikely there are any nuclear weapons in Lebanon and Syria. If we stay focused and sufficiently determined, there will never be.
5. Libya turned over its nuclear and chemical weapons programs, inspired by the American invasion of Iraq, and US and UN inspectors found they were far more advanced than US and European intelligence had thought. As a result of the invasion of Iraq, Libya is not, and will not become, a state sponsor of Islamic terrorism with nuclear weapons.
6. Saudi Arabia, facing a nuclear Iran, would be developing its own nuclear force in self-defense. If the Saudi regime fell to the Wahhabists within, Saudi Arabia would then become a state sponsor of terrorism, armed with nuclear weapons.
But for the war in Iraq, we would face, now, or soon, a Jihadist crescent of state-sponsors of Islamic Nazism armed with nuclear weapons, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan, and maybe Saudi Arabia. Because of President Bush's "mistake," we do not, and will not. Unless a Democratic majority in Congress next year decides to make a pre-emptive surrender to Al Qaeda, to abdicate the Middle East to Islamic Nazism, to end this war, for now, which will mean we will have to fight it again, another day, in the Middle East or somewhere else, after the state sponsors of terrorism have nuclear weapons.
But for the war in Iraq, it is probable that the Jihad, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Ahmidinejad, et al., would soon, or by now, control the oil production of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and by political alliance the oil of Venezuela. OPEC would be a tool of the Jihad. And they would be pleased to use the oil of OPEC to blackmail, loot, and intimidate Europe and America. Yes, this war is about oil. It is about preventing the Jihad from using the price and supply of oil as a weapon against the rest of the world, and that includes your job, your paycheck, your retirement fund, your future.
But for the war in Iraq, they would be, now or soon, within missile range of most or all of Western Europe, and that, coupled with control of OPEC, would leave the US and Europe with only three options: (1) cooperate with the Jihad, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Iran, whatever "cooperation" turned out to mean, which could conceivably mean the repudiation of our Constitution and the adoption of Sharia as the supreme law of America, (2) accept the destruction of the global economy if the Jihad decided to shut down the spigots or double the price, or (3) go to war in the Middle East to seize control of the OPEC oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Iran and break up the OPEC cartel, in the face of the Islamic Bomb.
All of these options are vastly worse than the war we have now in Iraq.
The fact that we do not confront these three options today is due largely, or entirely, to the fact that George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, and the rest of the awful war-mongering "neo-cons" made the "mistake" of going to war in Iraq, choosing the time and place of battle, rather than letting the time and place of battle be chosen by our enemy, choosing to go to war before the Jihad had its fingers on the nuclear trigger, rather than after. It was not a mistake. Faced with the options, none of which are good, the President chose the one that is least bad, the one that gives Western Civilization, a Civilized Europe, a Civilized Middle East, and a free America, the best possible chance of survival.
The war has not run perfectly, according to plan. But no war ever has, no war ever will, and no war ever can. Whatever mistakes we may or may not have made, they are insignificant, trivial, and immaterial, when compared to the mistake President Bush did not make: He did not do nothing.
Let me tell you a small parable, if I can call it that.
Imagine that I am sick. I go to see Dr. Neo Con, who says, "My friend, I am sorry to tell you that you have cancer. You have a large tumor. It is well advanced. And it is malignant."
"What," I ask, "Can we do?"
"Well," says my doctor, "We can do surgery and get the tumor out, or most of it. Then we can do some radiation therapy to get as much of the rest as we can. And then we can do chemotherapy to kill off the cancer cells that have metastized throughout your body."
"And will do that do the trick?" I ask. "Will I live?"
"I certainly hope so," replies Dr. Neo Con, "Your cancer is fairly advanced, and I may not be able to save your life. But, I may. I am hopeful. Let's put it this way, if I treat you very aggressively, you have a fighting chance. If I do not treat you aggressively enough, or not at all, you will certainly die soon. I wish I had better news. I wish I had a magic wand. I wish I had a good option. But I don't. I'll do the best I can."
"No! You can't do that!" cried his assistant, Dr. Demo Crat. "You're going to hurt this patient! You're going to cut him! Then you're going to radiate him! Then you're going to pump him full of toxic chemicals! He will suffer! He may die! Stop!"
"Well, Dr. Crat," replied Dr. Con, "You are right. He will suffer. He may die. But if we don't do what is necessary to eradicate this cancer, he will certainly die. And if we do treat him, however much it may hurt him now, he may recover, and he may live."
About the Writer: Raymond Kraft is a lawyer and writer living and working in Northern California. Raymond receives e-mail at [email protected].
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=23570
