In his last post, Denny Hitzeman takes me to task for what he characterizes as an “academic understanding of the Constitution, the war against fundamentalist Islam . . . and the role of the President and the federal government in our lives.” He doesn’t believe I understand our nation’s toolbox or the reasons for its hammer, our military.
Generally the charge that someone has an academic understanding of something is tantamount to saying he is being unrealistic. I think it is fair to suggest that Denny is using the charge in this way, though he does so respectfully. Denny himself gives mixed signals about how he weighs the academic and the real. He has no problem using his academic understanding of the Constitution and his understanding of the reality of history to conclude that the President’s domain is international in scope, but what are we to make of his reading of the Constitution and history to suggest that we are a nation that “otherwise chooses to deal with its own affairs by actions other than the government?”
This statement seems to be a denial of the legislative role of the Congress that is laid out in great detail in the Constitution and the long history of its role in our affairs. He further clarifies his position in the comments section of his last post. In a response to my comment he says, “Put another way, I take the Constitution very seriously when it doles out responsibility, and want my elected leaders to do the jobs the[y] have been assigned and nothing else.” It is a wonder, then, that he seems willing to ignore the Senate’s important role in balancing and enforcing the limits on the Presidency or, in fact, legislating.
Regarding the Constitution and the role of the Presidency, Denny rejects the President’s role in solving domestic issues. “I do not elect a president,” he says, “to stimulate the economy, force me to accept government health care, or create moral dictates for me to abide by. I elect a president to abide by the role he occupies as clearly defined by the Constitution and nothing more.”
Denny places great weight on the fact that the first of the President’s duties is as Commander in Chief. Though he picks up on the importance of the placement of the enumeration of the President’s powers, he doesn’t give enough weight to the actual words. The President only assumes the role of C in C when “the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States” are “called into the actual Service of the United States,” in other words, when Congress declares war. Further, the President’s other international role, that of treaty making, is a power he only has “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” It is clear from such a reading of the Constitution – a reading, I would argue that is at least academically accurate, if not an indication of what now actually happens – that the powers of the President are extremely limited even in the international arena.
This confusion between the academic and real, if that is what it is, is easy to understand. We the people have not been particularly vigilant of what has become of our Constitution over the years. As a group, we have been all too willing to let the office of President gather power to itself well beyond the intentions of the people who framed out our government. This fact is far from academic. The Constitution is a living document, not only in the sense that it can be amended, but in the sense that it provides a blueprint, one adjudicated by our Supreme Court, for how to run our government. That process has very real effects on our lives. How then are we to set aside what that document says in some instances and not in others?
All that said, Denny takes a realistic view of the situation. As he says in his comment, “We're not going to achieve limited government in one President's term.” He does acknowledge that change needs to be made but that it will take time. On that point we agree.
Denny also claims I possess only an academic understanding of fundamentalist Islam. On this point he is certainly being too kind. I’ve heard a lot about this threat, how vast and deadly it is, but only in the most vague terms. It is almost always as part of some doomsday scenario where the fundamentalists acquire a nuclear or dirty bomb and obliterate our civilization. There’s a lot of talk about “us” and “them” and “over there” and “good” and “evil” and all of it, or most of it, is very non-specific.
Denny and I do not disagree that fundamentalist Islam is a threat to us. Fundamentalism of almost any sort is a danger to rational beings everywhere. What we seem to disagree on is the level of that threat. I can’t speak to Denny’s inside knowledge, but I know that I can’t say with certainty what the level of threat is because I have never heard it specified. How many fundamentalist Islamists are there? How many actually want to destroy us (all of them, I assume, but again, how many is that)? What weapons do they actually have at their disposal? What are their finances? Where are they located? How likely is it, really, that they will be able to obtain and successfully deploy WND? We never get this information. We only hear about a most dire, amorphous, usually faceless “threat.” How are we to gauge our response or even accurately target that response if we don’t have this information?
One might assume that someone has this information. We are certainly asked to trust that the President and his administration do, yet they have given us little reason to trust either their judgment or intentions. Certainly, I believe he and his advisors want us to be safe, but I fear that this simple motivation is mixed with others less simple and obvious. Again, it is a matter of just how big a threat fundamentalist Islam presents that determines whether or not our current actions – which appear on the surface to be out of line with our stated principles – are justified and appropriately measured.
So to the extent that I know anything on this subject, it is, in fact, academic. A point to Denny on that score.
On Denny’s last point, that our struggle against fundamentalist Islam is a war and one “fought on behalf of the United States by an all-volunteer fighting force made up of professional, educated, dedicated, and willing warriors who understand better than anyone of any political ideology what our nation is and why it is necessary to fight,” I clearly have to tread carefully. That it is a war may be true. Wars are generally fought between nations, but perhaps the term is fitting for this struggle. His other contention about our military is a trickier issue.
While I have not myself served in the military, I have many family members, both immediate and extended, and friends who have. I say this not to somehow excuse my own lack of service; I do not believe I need an excuse for not joining the military. I say it because I know some military people and have had some exposure to their demeanor and their reasons for joining. Their service, particularly the service of those who have seen combat whether direct or from rear positions, is commendable and, I would never do or say anything to impugn the sacrifices they and their families have made.
However, as a nation, we have perhaps become overly sentimental in our views of the military. We have created icons out of the men and women who serve and have often forgotten their humanity, both the positive and negative aspects of it. Returning veterans do not always receive the care, treatment and benefits that our government has promised them. Too often, we find that once they have completed their service, veterans are no longer actively appreciated though we speak emotional words at various times about their brave service.
Similarly, we tend to lionize these men and women. Yes, they are as Denny says, “professional, educated” – at least in the arts of war – “dedicated, and willing warriors” – for the most part. However, I don’t think it is fair to say that they “understand better than anyone of any political ideology what our nation is and why it is necessary to fight.” This sentiment may be true of Denny and certain people with whom he has served. It is certainly true of some number of our military personnel, whether that is many or few, I cannot say with certainty.
However, it is also certainly true that many of the people who volunteer do so for reasons that surpass an undying commitment to and understanding of the principles that lie at the heart of this great nation. Some number enlist to escape economic hardship – which is saying something when you consider how little the average soldier in any branch is compensated – some enlist because of promised money for higher education, some enlist for the training, because they have no other driving goals, or simply because they like the romantic idea of being a soldier, traveling to far lands, and using modern weaponry.
These are not bad reasons to join, merely common ones. They aren’t the noble reasons that Denny and others assign to our military personnel in our eagerness to create that romantic vision and pay rightful homage to their sacrifices when they have been called upon to make them. I do not seek to denigrate them – any of them – but I do seek to clarify that you do not need to have survived boot camp and carry a gun or faced enemy fire to understand the intended nature of this country’s founding principles in either a very real or an academic way.
Furthermore, that the men and women in our armed forces continue to serve during this period may be an indicator of their understanding of the threat, as Denny implies, but I find it far more likely that it is an indicator that for them to leave the military before the term of their service is up would be a crime that would certainly be punished. For those that re-enlist, I suspect that the commitment to their fellow soldiers and the guilt they feel leaving others behind has more to do with their re-enlistments than their supposedly superior understanding of our nation’s principles and the threats arrayed against us.
In a final analysis, our entire discussion is, to a great degree, academic. Neither Denny nor I are in a position to make policy decisions. Denny clearly has the right to vote as his conscience leads him. On that point, there can be no argument. However, in my view, the internal threats we face to our nation – an economy groaning under the weight of debt and an increasingly unaccountable government that has grown disconnected from the people it serves among others – are at least as important to the future strength and safety of our country as the threat from the fundamental fringe of an otherwise peaceful religion.
We’ve seen what adherence to a one issue government policy has wrought over the past eight years. It’s time for a course correction, and that will require a leader who has a broader vision. If Denny feels McCain it that man, so be it. But I hope others won’t take such a narrow view of our future.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
23 comments:
I will get to a more subtantial response later.
Immediately, however, I grant that David immediately hit on the significant flaw in my previous presentation, which was the statement--fairly called an accusation--of academic understanding. Perhaps, all understanding is academic after a fashion.
There is a major point that I would like to address that cuts directly to my approach to the issues underlying this entire debate: practical application always always trumps understanding, however it is gained.
As an example, much of the media blovates on an almost daily basis about events in Iraq. They breathlessly report on bombings and casualties, and continue to refer to the situation in Iraq as deteriorating. Yet, by their own admission, most of their reporters rarely leave the "Green Zone", instead relying on a handful of AP and freelance reporters and a host of notoriously unreliable stringers. Their understanding of the situation in Iraq is, therefore, quite academic and practically inapplicable.
The contrast to this reporting and its conclusion is the incredible reporting of independent freelancers like Michael Yon who regularly and continuously imbed with operational forces in Iraq. This reporting is practically applicable because it is coming from people who are there seeing and doing in a way that can never be achieved from the protected confines of the Green Zone. It is not surpising that these reports come to far different conclusions that the ones reached by most of the rest of the media.
Certainly, then, I place a great deal of importance in the understanding of the Constitution I have gained from my direct participation in the political process and through military service. Perhaps, conceitedly, I believe that this practical experience with the Constitution and its application informs whatever academic understanding that I have in a way that is unique and powerful to people who have such experience.
That informed, though still perhaps academic, understanding causes me to come to very, very different conclusions than many of my fellow Americans. What strikes me as interesting is how so many of the people, from across an otherwise broad political spectrum, who agree with my point of view have similar experience and come to conclusions similar to my own on the nature of the choice that lies before us in 2008.
Of course, the question remains as to whether all of our thinking is flawed or whether we are on to something, but I am comfortable with my understanding and rationale.
As a side note--I will attempt to gather the relevant statistics and present them on this weblog later--my understanding of the United States Military is that it is, contrary to media propigation, predominant made up of white males of middle class background with a higher rate of higher education than the general population. Again, this is my hazy recollection and not hard fact, so feel free to post the relevant statistics here in the comments.
Also, everyone else is welcome to jump in here. I'd hate for AHOCF to be hijacked by an academic debate about indissuadable political views, however informed.
-=DLH=-
Denny, I agree that it is not surprising that imbedded reporters come to different conclusions than those reached by the rest of the media. An embedded reporter gets to see precisely what the military would like them to see and their continued "access" is predicated on their continuing to tell the military story faithfully.
Those reporters who roam the country on their own, at great risk to their safety, are free to discover what our military is not eager for them to see.
I am also not surprised that people who share your experiences have a similar view. I may be wrong to assume that the formative experiences to which you refer are largely military in nature. If I am right, however, I am not at all surprised that you would make your analysis from a military perspective. It is never surprising when a body advocates for its further existence and the importance of its role. Again, this is the "every problem is a nail" approach used by the hammer because that's what the hammer is good at and it wants to continue to have a prominent role in the tool box.
We all tend to see things through the prisms we inhabit. That is one reason why it is good to have open dialogues about these matters.
None of this is to suggest that you are wrong. You may well be right, but the public seems to be getting a very mixed message. Many of the reasons for attacking Iraq, for example, have been repudiated. For any expert in the military arguing from your perspective, there seems to be a voice -- usually ex-military -- that argues the contrary.
The only thing I can say with certainty is that it appears that reasonable people can reasonably disagree about our current approach. I am confident that your view is a reasonable one and I welcome any further attempts to persuade me of the validity of it.
I concede that I can't convince you otherwise because I lack the hard facts to do so. All I have to go on is logic and my intuition because I think it is clear that great effort has been taken -- by some faction -- to obfuscate the facts. I must also say that were the facts available to us, we might still find room for disagreement. It is clear that even those "in the know" have differed in their analysis of the information they have. Clearly, we won't resolve the issue here.
If McCain becomes President, I will hope that you are right about him and the situation.
I have to disagree with one point with regard to the media: there are very few independent journalists roaming Iraq giving an independnet view, and practially none of the ones that are work for AP, which currently provides the great majority of the raw information going to traditional media outlets about Iraq.
Instead, what is happening in Iraq is that AP and the other mainstream news agencies plant their reporters in the Green Zone and then rely on reports from the US Military, the Iraqi government, and from a host of uncredentialed stringers in the country to write their stories. The result is that it is easy for them to report on trouble and impossible for them to report on progress.
I grant that there is always a problem with bias with imbeds, but there is a far worse bias from people who are not in any way experiencing the situation on the ground first hand. Currently, I trust the word of anyone on the ground in Iraq over anyone in the Green Zone as a simple matter of practicality.
-=DLH=-
It makes a lot of sense that reports in the field would be more accurate than reports from the Green Zone. I don't, however, understand how you conclude "it is easy for them to report on trouble and impossible for them to report on progress" when two-thirds of the sources you name -- the U.S. military and the Iraqi government (which owes its existence to our protection) -- would be more prone to reporting the positive.
Similarly, what "credentials" are you looking for from these stringers? Who is it that is issuing "credentials" in this case? What is it about the stringers' reporting that makes their reporting seem so inaccurate to you? Is it perhaps that they don't parrot the talking points of the administration that is bothersome?
I think that your questions immediately reveal their flaw. Why are you so willing to trust so-called reporters and their sources of information simply because they happen to agree with your view of the administration and events in Iraq?
Frankly, I did not say that their reports were not factual, I said they were biased and biased in such a way that they are creating an impression of events in Iraq that do not tell the whole story.
As an example, I wonder how many people know that there are only 250 US Marines left in Fallujah, Iraq--once the most violent city in the country. How about that Ramadi, Iraq--where the US Military experienced some of its highest casualties--may very well be turned back over to the Iraqis in the next several months.
Of course, this information is also worthless without the whole picture. Things are still dangerous in Iraq. Yes, forces are actively acting to undo the progress made in Iraq. People are still dying. Critical infrastructure still needs to be repaired or rebuilt. A lot of work still needs to be done.
Taken together, the previous two paragraphs paint a whole picture of Iraq, one that is factual, unbiased, and allows someone to reach informed, rational conclusions. Try finding that picture on CNN, Fox, or NBC. The fact is, you won't.
This idea cuts back to the heart of my original statements: many people who have taken the time to review all of the evidence available from all of the available sources, often combining it with their own personal experience or trusting the experience of those they know to be trustworthy sources if information, seem to come to far different conclusions than those who do not engage in that process.
So, I arrive at my conclusions by reviewing as much of the available evidence as I can get access to. My conclusions are not some blind adherence to some arbitrary political organization or loyalty to a leader, but the result of taking the time to figure out the answer for myself. I am not afraid to say that I know that I am right, hence my statements and my point of view.
-=DLH=-
You are right to caution me about sources. However, I wasn't advocating for the veracity of stringers and against the military view, though it must have sounded like it. I merely sought to counter what I perceived to be your willingness to trust only one source. But, that's not what you were really doing, even though it seemed to be the case to me before your further explanation.
I'm curious how you gauge the stringers' bias though. The reason I see the military as bias in what they report to us (even accounting for the, in certain circumstances, understandable lack of transparency about certain issues) is because several commanders have been relieved of duty for having views about the situation that didn't jive with the administration in Washington. It seems to my non-military eye that our choices of commanders in Iraq have been made for political and not military reasons.
This tells me that the administration wants a certain version of events told and rewards those who are willing to tell it. In this sense, the administration and military are operating precisely as they did in Vietnam. Recent history shows that the military neither cares to share the truth (when it's not positive) nor believes the public can handle it (to steal a line from "A Few Good Men"). So that's why I believe them to be bias in their reporting.
Why do you so fervently believe these stringers have a bias? Is it merely because they paint a different picture, or because of some other more objective factor?
You imply that my views are the result of some blind adherence to a political party or personality. Like you, the whole picture is what I seek as well. I don't have a party allegiance. My alliegance is to truth, the facts, and proper action derived from considered analysis of those facts.
I applaud your efforts to find the truth, and I envy your apparent sources.
I'm assuming that our conversation about Iraq is used as an example of the biases in play. Your original post talked about the "war on terror" (and I'm using your shorthand here for the same reasons you articulated).
Whether there have been some successes in Iraq is largely irrelevant to the larger war on terror. The country is still far from solvent. There is still wide speculation that we intend to stay. It is becoming increasingly clear that the current administration hopes to provoke Iran into a conflict. Our forces in Iraq are overextended both in terms of the length of their deployment and in terms of their numbers, especially if the goal is to commit to a Middle East war.
It is unclear how our relatively small footprint in Iraq is going to stem the tide of fundamentalist Islam if the threat is as vast as it is being made out to be. If the threat isn't as vast as it is made out to be, why are we taking the actions that we are?
I am neither a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, a pacifist, an isolationsit, nor stupid, so there is really no barrier to my understanding of the issue if presented with the information. So I genuinely ask you this question: what am I missing?
There are three basic answers to your questions.
First, I do not distrust stringers as a general rule, only as the situation has developed in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, in Afghanistan. The phenomenon in those places seems to be--I say seems because I am not there and I have this information at best secondhand--that these stringers are being accepted as sources of information with very little or no vetting, sometimes without even ever having been met, specifically because what they have to say contradicts what the the US and Iraqi governments have to say.
This phenomenon has resulted in a proliferation of news reporting in which events are stated to have happened that later are revealed to have been entirely false. Because the reporters are not vetting their stringers and are not verifying they have the facts before they publish, they are reporting lies they have been fed. Rarely, if every, are these facts presented in the mainstream media, so the result is whatever is published becomes fact in the public consciousness, creating an impression of a picture that is far worse than the actual facts show.
Also, almost every source I have for my own view of the events in Iraq, et al, are public and readily available. The difference is often that they are not the mainstream media, and not using the mainstream media is a conscious choice. Because so much of that media relies on so few sources of information, we are forced to seek our news from other sources. Those sources are available, are often journalistic, and present information far more reliable than anything in the mainstream right now.
Second, the firing of generals is a time-tested way of keeping the ideas fresh in an ongoing military campaign. Rome fired--and executed--her generals often. Generals have been fired since the US has been a nation, from the War of 1812 to Iraqi Freedom. Generals will continue to be fired as long as we have civilian leadership of our military. It is when generals stop being fired that we have something to fear.
Further, the military's willingness to share information is no worse than it has ever been. What is different is that we now have an omnipresent mass media that expects to be constantly fed. Militaries keep secrets, that's part of what they do. Wars cannot be won if the military is constantly blabbing about what it is doing. In fact, this is one area where the media is doing its job by reporting on the truth when the truth needs to be reported on.
Which points to another aspect of the popular impression of the current military operations being conducted as part of the "War on Terror". The US Military is not stretched thin. I know this because I, and most of the people I know in the military, are still here. Yes, there are units in the military, especially in the Army and Marine Corps, that have been heavily tasked and are suffering the strain of that tasking. They are, however, the exception and not the rule of the entire military. What we all need to consider is that this "stretched thin" mythology is a very well employed piece of propaganda that is working very well.
Third, Iraq is the center of the "War on Terror" in a way that few people want to accept. Because we are in Iraq, our fundamentalist Muslim enemies are going there too. And dying by the tens of thousands.
I do not think that I am exaggerating when I say that one of the main reasons that we have not been successfully attacked since 9-11 is because so many of our enemy's best trained and best equipped personnel have died in places like al Anbar and Baghdad. In a way, this phenomenon is no different than the dismantling of the Luftwaffe during World War II that paved the way for D-Day.
The bottom line is that Babylon is once again the nexus of the Muslim world as it was until the end of the 13th century. That the battleground would return there is not a surprise to me.
Now, the problem here is that the view I have presented above is formulated from almost two decades of following these very issues--the military, politics, and more recently the media--so their background is what makes them stand on their own. I doubt that my view will convince anyone without first being compared to the same evidence I used to arrive at my view, which comparison is what I have been trying to encourage all along.
-=DLH=-
To your first point about the stringers, this jives with what I've seen in the MSM. One thing that is striking to me is that whatever sources I read -- "liberal" or "conservative" -- both complain equally vehemently about the media and its abdication of actual reporting. Mainstream news outlets are almost all beholden to their corporate entertainment masters and no longer have the resources (and perhaps the will) to do their jobs properly. This is a bad sign for out republic.
Your comments about firing generals may be true -- they certainly make sense. But I don't think that's an effective answer to the question. I think there is more at play than mere "change is good" philosophy. That has to remain a mere opinion though, because I can't know for certainty whether the reasons we've been given are true or not.
Excellent points about the feeding of the mass media and the often times very real need for secrecy in the military. There will always be a need for us as an open society to negotiate the line of secrecy. How well we do it will play a big role in the future shape of the republic.
Your take on the stretched thin myth is interesting and makes sense. There's a whole conversation about total committment to be had there.
I hope that you will share links to some of your publicly available sources so I and others can look into them. It'll help cut the amount of time it takes to do this kind of in depth research.
On the point about Iraq and drawing our enemies to us. I have heard this "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" strategy before, and I need help understanding it.
Superficially it makes sense. But on further analysis it seems unlikely to me that we are actually impacting our safety at home this way. My logic -- however flawed it might be -- is that it makes sense that the "casual" -- if you can call running into the line of fire casual -- enemy might take advantage of the nearness of our troops to attack them. It's an attack of opportunity and that makes sense. But it seems these might be people who would otherwise not have taken action against us, at least in the U.S. Perhaps they would have still attacked our bases and troops in the region (and so having them actually on a war footing and in the field makes some sense as it doesn't just have them sitting around waiting to be attacked).
What makes less sense to me, what in fact strikes me as stupid in the extreme, is the idea that the committed terrorist would choose to face our military on the field of battle, even if that field is the very tricky urban terrain, instead of trying to hit at the soft underbelly of our country (from their point of view, citizens being unarmed and the military being well-prepared).
Why do we think that terrorists are lining up to fight our military instead of continuing to plan their subversive attacks on less defended areas? I'm probably missing some element of this logic, so help me out if you will.
It's this question that keeps me from buying that our actions in Iraq are keeping us safe at home. We're not exactly defenseless here and we have improved our defenses. I think that has had more of an impact. Basically, I think we would have the same result whether we were in Iraq or not. All we've done is put a more prepared and armed group of our citizens in harms way, which, you know, is better than me and Aunt Betty.
I don't know: if I'm an evil fundamentalist who resorts to terror, I don't think I'd meet you, armed with a gun, in your front yard when I could sneak into your house and hurt your family with much less resistance and actually hurt you worse by doing it. (It creeps me out even thinking like that, but I'm trying to get into the head of the enemy to figure out how he thinks.) Maybe that's not a good analogy and that's where my logic breaks down.
School me on this one.
My basic news reading list can be found here. It is in great need of an overhaul, but the essence of the reading I do almost everyday is there. Specifically, it does not contain links to web sites like Slate and Salon, nor does it contain links to some of the independent journalists I read. If I can find a way to do so securely (that is without exposing my server to potential exploit), I will also try to put a copy of my RSS feed list somewhere.
One thing to remember about generals is that they are often more politicians than military leaders. For every Schwarzkopf or Petraeus, there are hundreds of Powells and Myers. Failure to see the difference between those two kinds of commanders is the great failing of almost every wartime administration, and the Bush administration is no different. As a result, it took a few commanders before the administration found one with the combination of realism and military capacity to do the job that needed to be done. Unfortunately, it is entirely possible that General Petraeus could be replaced by someone equally unqualified as his predecessors. Such is the nature of a civilian controlled military.
I completely understand the discomfort of believing that we're fighting the terrorists over there so they're not attacking us here. Fortunately for us--and unfortunately for the enemy--the answer is one of simple logistics. Basically put, the entire rest of the world, including most Muslim countries, are looking for fundamentalist Muslim jihadis right now. In most of the world, these jihadis have no freedom of movement, and when they do move, they are often captured or killed. As a result, it is far easier for a jihadi to get to Iraq or the former Yugoslavia or Chechnya than it is for them to get to the United States.
Further, fighting the US in Iraq has a practical benefit: we have been engaged in a guerilla war in Iraq since late 2003 that looks on the surface like the same kind of thing that happened to us in Vietnam. The jihadis learned the Vietnam lesson well, which is that modern war with the United States is not fought on the battlefield, but in will of the American people to wage war. I believe they are banking on us losing our nerve and withdrawing before we should, thereby scoring the strategic victory they need to advance their cause.
Make no mistake, however, that our enemy continues to try to attack the soft target the United States is rightly identified as being. If we fail to catch them and to disrupt the logistics necessary to effect such an attack, they will hit us and hit us hard.
Which brings me to another point- they are hitting us, in a way, and we are constantly explaining it away. The greatest threat of terrorism to the United States at this moment is not another band of Saudis effecting some terrible attack against us, but of "homegrown" terrorists wreaking havoc by killing only a few. We are not far off, I believe, from a clear attack of that kind, and I think that kind of attack would be psychologically worse than 9-11 if it is successful.
-=DLH=-
Why It's Not The Economy by Robert Samualson via Real Clear Politics.
-=DLH=-
". . . it is far easier for a jihadi to get to Iraq or the former Yugoslavia or Chechnya than it is for them to get to the United States."
This might be true, but bluntly, so what? Let's say we weren't in Iraq. So jihadis enter Iraq. And? They're in Iraq which isn't in the U.S. and which, if we had no troops there, would leave them with no U.S. targets within Iraq. So their ability to get to Iraq easier than somewhere else doesn't lend any support to the "fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" strategy.
Furthermore, it also doesn't explain why actual terrorists would go to Iraq. Some, certainly, would take the opportunity to hit U.S. forces, but they use terror as a tactic because they know that they can't defeat us militarily, so the smart terrorist wouldn't waste himself in a low-gain attack on our military.
It seems to me that there are at least two kinds of terrorists: those who aren't really terrorists at all in so much as they attack our military which makes them more guerilla fighters. These are people who take the opportunity. The other kind is the dangerous kind. They are actual terrorists who make the opportunity. Our strategy seems to only provide a target for the opportunity takers.
You imply that those who oppose the war lack or are losing the nerve to fight. Let me be as clear as possible about this: the U.S. does not lack the nerve. Our President failed to lead on this issue. He wanted something and pushed for it and got it without convincing the public. He never wanted a conversation about this because he knew that he didn't have a real case. So, he cherry-picked the information he had and got Colin Powell to spend his credibility to sell the war to us. But much of the country never bought it. We rented it because we didn't want to believe he would take us to war needlessly and didn't have the information to rebut him and didn't want to take the risk if our common sense turned out to be wrong.
I haven't seen an effective case made for our presence in Iraq and the administration and its media attack dogs have tried a variety of approaches to sell it to us. We don't support the war in Iraq because it is a flawed strategy, or at least we believe it is because the President and his minions failed to convince us.
". . . they are hitting us, in a way, and we are constantly explaining it away."
How is that exactly?
"The greatest threat of terrorism to the United States at this moment is not another band of Saudis effecting some terrible attack against us, but of 'homegrown' terrorists wreaking havoc by killing only a few. We are not far off, I believe, from a clear attack of that kind, and I think that kind of attack would be psychologically worse than 9-11 if it is successful."
How so? What kind of "homegrown" terrorists are you referring to? And again, how is our being in Iraq going to prevent this? You still haven't made this clear.
Here's another question for you because we haven't addressed root causes here: Why do the Islamic fundamentalists want to kill us? How did they become fundamentalists? (ok, that's two questions).
I ask because Islam has existed for a long time. The U.S. has existed for some 232 years now. Where was the massive desire to destroy us in 1867? 1904? 1932? Our way of life existed then too, so it can't just be that they hate our freedom or our way of life. And I'll ask again, how many of these fundamentalists are there? Do we really need to invade the Middle East and wipe it out to deal with the threat? That's the real issue. It's not "are Islamic fundamentalists dangerous?" -- we know they are. The real question is how wide is the threat? Why does it require us to invade an entire region of the world?
Re: Why It's Not the Economy
"Our presidential preferences ought to reflect judgments about candidates' character, values, competence and their views on issues where what they think counts: foreign policy; long-term economic and social policy -- how they would tax and spend; health care; immigration. Forget the business cycle."
That was a pretty long list of issues Samualson thinks we should weigh when choosing a President.
He may be right about his ultimate point that we should ignore the business cycle, but he did a very poor job of explaining it. In showing how Presidents try to impact the short-term economy, some of his examples show how effective they've been.
More importantly though, he seems to argue that we should look beyond the economy as an issue yet, as he says in his thesis and article, Presidents do have an impact on the economy even if it is most often long-term. In asking us to ignore the economy as an issue, he's asking us to take the short view. Stupid, indeed.
David, the answers to your more pointed questions are the subject of volumes of books written and yet to be written. As such, my responses here will not do them the justice they deserve. I will answer as best as I can without turning this response into a thesis.
First, the goal of a jihadi is to kill infidels, whenever and wherever he can. Terrorists trained in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia are going to Iraq because their leaders tell them to. Let's make one thing very clear: the average terrorist is not any more sophisticated than anyone else. He's just a foot soldier in a far broader conflict that he does not command or control.
The jihadis, if it is even fair to call them that, who do command and control the terrorists have the same practical logistical and economic limitations that face all commanders. What makes the jihadi commander's job even harder is that his troops die. A lot.
So, in order to ensure a continuous flow of fundamentalists willing to become jihadis and terrorists, jihadi commanders must constantly show they are doing something. The reason they succeeded in 9-11 is because they bombed the USS Cole and gained recruits as a result. The attack on the USS Cole was precipitated by the success of the African embassy bombings. And so on...
Certainly, the jihadi commanders want to attack us here and now. Unfortunately for them, successful actions on our part prevent them from having the logistical and economic capability to do so. This is an especially pressing issue since we brought the fight to them. Therefore, they are left with doing something, but the something they have left is not the optimal state. As I have said before, what they are hoping for is to defeat us in the media by creating the appearance that we fled Iraq. We may yet reward them in that desire.
As a side note, let's not forget that the US had an average of 50,000 military personnel committed to containing Iraq for 12 years before Iraqi Freedom. From personal experience, I can tell you that we were at war with Iraq long before 19 March 2003. What happened on that day is that the theater of operations expanded.
Second, domestic fundamentalist terrorism is very real. Rightly, it started on 26 February 1993 with the first World Trade Center bombing. While that bombing was carried out by foreign nationals, quite a lot of the logistics and financing was carried out by Americans.
Since then, there have been many instances. The case of Houssein Zorkot is among the most recent, but there are many others. As I pointed out, these incidents are often quietly reported as being something else, making them hard to find. Two events I know about are here and here. Eventually, one of these aspiring, self-styled jihadis will succeed at his intent.
Third, your last question drives to the heart of the matter. Simply put, the actual history of Islam since its inception has been one of fundamentalism. Islam was born and spread on conquest, from Muhammad's first conquests of Medina and Mecca to the first jihads against Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia to the sieges of Constantinople and Vienna.
If you look at what is now called the "Muslim" world, you will find that, before 1000 AD, most of it was not Muslim. Contrary to the popular folklore being spread today, most of the area now called the "Muslim" world was taken by force, through generations of conquests lasting from the 630s until 1918.
What happened to the jihadis to prevent them from attacking us? Being attacked back.
Modern Westerners villainize the Crusades, but the first real push back against Islamic expansion happened with them. Then Ferdinand and Isabella retook Spain. The Austro-Hungarians defeated the Ottomans at Vienna--twice. Finally, the Ottomans were completely defeated in World War I.
1918 to 2001 was a period of rebuilding for the jihadis. They had been dealt blows to their objectives, but not their spirit. Because of the vagaries of history--culture, economics, even religion--the jihadis could not sustain their aggression and their society fell into disrepair. Modern jihadis simply seek to reestablish what their ancestors started, and if they can, finish it.
-=DLH=-
It's stupid only if you chose to ignore his arguement.
Of course, he's only been employed as a financial writer since 1969, so what could he possibly know?
Re: Why It's Not the Economy
Ok, Denny, I'll take the bait. I clearly addressed his argument. For you, one more time: Samualson's argument is that we should ignore the business cycle. He says we should concentrate on issues the President can actually effect. Among those issues he lists long-term economic policy. He goes through a series of examples of how Presidents actually do effect the short-term economy, but his point is that the actions of Presidents have long-term results. He finishes by saying that it's stupid to consider the current economy in electing the next President.
Which part did I ignore, exactly? He's saying ignore the economy but choose your President on, among other things, his or her ability to set long-term economic policy.
So fine, I guess I'm being jumpy there. His point is not to overreact to the current situation. However, as I say in my comment, he does a really poor job of making the point because he's trying to be cute about it.
The current state of the economy serves to bring the issue to the fore and it is an issue that Samualson ultimately lists as a reason to consider your choice. So, Samualson undercuts his own point, contradicts it or is at the very least quite unclear about it and then persists in calling people who consider the economy stupid.
To use your own vernacular, I don't give a rat's ass how long he's been a financial writer. He may have written a very good essay in 1972, but this one is weak. That's my point.
Ok, his weakness is in his apparent self contradiction in talking about the distinction between current economy and long-term economic policy.
I think what he is cautioning against is electing a President because one believes he will change the economy now, as in during the next eight years.
Before I dig myself into this one too deep, my original purpose with the original comment was to illustrate that other people think as little of the economic gambit as I do. I did not mean, nor do I intend to state, that I agree with his other conclusions.
That being said, I think he is calling people who consider short term economic gain when selecting a President stupid. I doubt he is calling anyone who condsiders policy anything.
At least, that's what I took from it. That someone else saw something different is a hallmark of the entire conversation to date.
Every time someone brings up the argument that Islam has often been spread at the point of a sword it makes me want to take out lighting insurance. How many countries are Christian now because the crucifixes came with spears? How about *all* of North and South America?
Invasion and assimilation was the way the game of state was played on both sides of the line for centuries. And to a large extent it still is, only we seek to convert followers to our political ideologies instead of our religious ones.
Both religions have pasts that they need to live down, set aside or otherwise explain. To our credit, we're coming to terms with ours. We had the reformation and two thousand years to help us cast things into sharper relief. Islam is still the new kid on the block. And neither is in a position to cast the first stone on that issue.
Scott, I made no claim to justify "christian" agression while indicting Muslim jihad. I merely pointed out that Islam has both a direct history, and in the view of the fundamentalists, clear imperative to wage holy war against those who do not adhere to their view of Islam.
My statement focuses on two aspects of Islamic history: First, that Islam has an undeniable history of what we now call fundamentalism (again, pointing that out does not somehow justify similar christian agression nor does it excuse Islamic agression). Second, modern fundamentalists appeal to that history as a primary justification for their activities.
One of the great tragedies of this conflict is the continuing refusal on our part to define our enemies for who and what they are. We cannot fight a war against methodology and we cannot defeat an enemy, especially a guerilla one, whose motivations we do not acknowledge.
What I, and a lot of other people studying the same thing, want people to understand is that modern Islamic fundamentalism is an extension of a phenomenon that has existed since Islam existed, commanded by Muhammed himself by word as well as action, and that has defined most of the great events in Islamic history.
Certainly, there are modern Muslims who do not adhere to the tenets of fundamentalism, and part of this war has to be building up and encouraging moderate Muslims as much as it has to be defeating jihadis.
If we do not do this, how else do we defend ourselves?
This is a rather pedantic aside, but I'm frustrated with the language we use (go figure). I'm not crazy about the idea that we've let fundamentalism become a synonym for radicalism.
Jihad is clearly a fundamental aspect of Muslim belief in so much as it is one of the core, consistent concepts. However, there is great debate about jihad in the Muslim community and only the most radical interpretations of the concept include the use of terror as a tactic.
By conflating these two words, we artificially broaden and confuse the definition of who our enemies are. There may be many fundamentalist Muslims who will take up arms against us within their countries, but only the radical elements choose to use terror as a tactic to fight us.
Further, as Denny pointed out in an earlier comment, the foot soldiers who buy into this radical vision are no more sophisticated -- in fact, they are far less sophisticated -- than the average Muslim. Religious language is used to inflame their passions, but their actual grievances are practical. We should not overlook that much of what we take to be religious zeal is merely a cover for political aims. We've certainly seen enough examples of that in our own society in the past eight years.
This isn't to say that they aren't dangerous or intent on our destruction. However, as Denny points out, we need to understand our enemy. It is only when we have an inaccurately broad definition of our foe that our own radical departures from our principles seem to make sense.
I'm still very concerned that we could win the struggle against terrorists but lose our republic in the process.
David, I agree with your frustration about language, but perhaps not in the same way.
What non-Muslims fail to realize is that the term jihad originally did mean, among other things, war against the infidel who refused to accept Islam. I only know this because of specific and ongoing academic (I know, I know, go ahead...) study on the subject.
Certainly, Islam, like many religions, has evolved over the centuries, but to use a Christian idea, the earliest and most reliable forms of Islamic teaching clearly relate jihad to warfare.
In this case, then, I believe that fundamentalism is the correct term to use. To the fundamentalist elements--Salafi'a, Wahhabi'a, Qutbi'a, some forms of Shi'a, and others--they are returning to an earlier, purer form of Islam not tainted by the evolution of centuries of juridical interpretation.
There are shades of difference in this fundamentalism, however, and I think that is what David is alluding to. Within fundamentalism, Salafi'a--as I understand things because I am still learning--believe in a more theoretical interpretation of jihad while Wahhabi'a and Qutbi'a believe in direct and litteral interpretations. Even between Wahhabi'a and Qutbi'a, there are differences in both interpretation and application.
In this case, then, one could probably argue that the Wahhabi'a and the Qutbi'a are more radical while the Salafi'a are less so, but they are all fundamentalists.
Whatever the case of fundamentalism or radicalism, we are faced by enemies who invoke the name of Muhammed and his teachings to justify their hatred and violence against anyone who does not accept their view. As a non-Muslim, my only recourse to understanding their perspective is to presume that they are, in some fashion, Muslim and to study them in that context--both as fundamentalists and as radicals.
Denny,
Your points about the overlapping meanings of these words in relation to Islam ultimately bring us back to the "over there" and "here" aspects of the discussion we touched on before, and open that newer territory (for us) of strategic and principled assumptions that we are loathe to approach publicly.
The reason for my parsing of the terms is that while jihad might be fundamental, terrorism is not.
My understanding of Islam and the requirements of jihad, which like yours is in process, is that there are rules to jihad that do not include attacking non-combatants. Furthermore, the vast majority of Muslims do not view the military expansion of an Islamic homeland as a mandate of jihad and there are actually specific prohibitions against unwilling conversion under the principle that religion is non-compulsory.
What jihad does call for, however, is repulsion of any non-Islamic "force" in Islamic controlled territory. Obviously, there are very progressive (or, from a different point of view, lapsed) Muslims who don't care much about this exhortation either. But even for those who do believe in this fundamental tenant, it's hard not to see why they would fight. I know you'd fight an invader (for such is how they view us) to your homeland, why are we surprised that they do?
So from my understanding, I can see why there might be a great number of Muslims who would commit to fighting us in their homelands. Our presence is considered both an act of war and an act of desecration. However, it is only the radical elements who believe that they should take the war abroad and who employ terrorist tactics -- attacking civilians -- to accomplish their goals.
Radicals are a (small but growing) subset of fundamentalists. I don't think our actions create fundamentalists, but our actions surely do much to help create radicals. And that's what I see as the problem with our actions, at least from an academic, theoretical, or principled point of view.
I honestly believe that if we don't wake up and smell our own principles, this war will become total; it will become a conquest. And at that point we will have entered into the ranks of every other fallen empire in history's long lineup of them. We've acted badly before; we aren't pure. But I guess I've been living under the illusion that we had learned something and that we might actually be able to fulfill the promise of our country's mandate which doesn't include world military domination.
(I had a whole bunch more typed here, but I thought maybe I was already edging into the terroritory that dare not speak its name in the blogosphere, so I thought I'd exercise at least some percentage of the caution with which Denny is proceeding.)
David, I think it is on the definition of jihad that you and I differ.
Modern Muslims can make whatever claims they want about the purpose of jihad (in fact, the juridical schools of Islam were designed exacly for such things), but history--both their own and more general history--contridict alternative views in the fundamental sense.
History tells us that Muhammed himself very much meant war when he talked of jihad. Jihad led to the conquest of Medina and Mecca and the violent purge of non-Muslim Arabs just before his death. Jihad was the banner under which the Arab Muslim armies marched out of Arabia to conquer Greek-speaking, Christian Palestine and Syria. Jihad was invoked when the first Moors invaded Spain. Jihad kept the Muslim armies before the walls of Constantinople and Venice. Jihad was the word al Saud used when he reconqured Arabia in the 1920s.
More importantly, this understanding of jihad comes not just from the Koran and from historical circumstance, but from the Muslim Sunna and from their own juridical schools. Wahhab and Qutb were not just some radicals, they were the leaders of respected Muslims scholars whose teachings are still studied by Muslim scholars today. Again, whatever interpretation of jihad modern Muslims may want to put on jihad, war has been part of its ongoing historical definition.
I do not make this claim myself, I let history make it for me. When I first started studying about fundamentalist Islam several years ago, I did so thinking of the same distinctions between radical and fundamental you have arrived at. Studying the history, reading the Koran, and studying the Sunna and its accompanying Hadiths has led me to the conclusions I now present.
I would love for Muslims to embrace the more modern understanding of jihad. I also understand that there are thousands, maybe millions, of Muslims who reject that understanding outright. From my view, unless--hopefully until--we accept what those Muslims already believe to be true, we have no chance of understanding how to defeat those who put that understanding into practice.
Post a Comment