RSS Feed MenuCharles Krauthammer in his column today enlarges on his complaints about President Obama’s non-eloquence at West Point.
It was meant to be stirring. It fell flat. In August, he called Afghanistan “a war of necessity.” On Tuesday night, he defined “what’s at stake” as “the common security of the world.” The world, no less. Yet, we begin leaving in July 2011?
Now keep reading.
Despite my personal misgivings about the possibility of lasting success against Taliban insurgencies in both Afghanistan and the borderlands of Pakistan, I have deep confidence that Petraeus and McChrystal would not recommend a strategy that will be costly in lives without their having a firm belief in the possibility of success.
I would therefore defer to their judgment and support their recommended policy.
So Charles’ advice is for the president to go out and deliver a Churchillian address … on behalf of a policy of whose merits Charles himself remains dubious. But that kind of gap between rhetoric and reality is much more dangerous to a policy and a presidency than an underwhelming speech.
sinz54 // Dec 4, 2009 at 5:42 pm
SpartacusIsNotDead: believe that it is as difficult to make an intellectually honest argument against many of the policy proposals of today
I listed all the public statements (many on YouTube) of liberal Dems who said openly, bluntly, and even PROUDLY that the public option is a stealth road to a single-payer system. I stated my reasons for my opposition to a single-payer system–I’m not a fan of monopolies that can stagnate free of competition.
But I guess you don’t consider my pointing out what liberal leaders actually say to one another when they think the CNN camera isn’t on them to be an “intellectually honest argument.”
BarryS // Dec 4, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I don’t think I am “hard left”
I support the Afghan war always have, fiscal sanity even though conservatives in office always spend and spend, sensible foreign policy not just bomb the hell out of everyone. Get Bin Laden and crew, sensible social net for the under privileged but not entitlement unlimited.
Those seem pretty middle of the road positions to me.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Dec 4, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Sinz Part I: “Don’t do what the Dems did, and let your personal dislike of the President cause you to oppose a reasonable war policy.”
Sinz Part II: “Most of [the Dems] opposed it for the same reasons they opposed the Gulf War of 1991 . . . ”
Unless Sinz does not know that Bush II was not the President during the Gulf War, it’s really, really hard to think we are dealing with someone who is rational and disciplined in his thinking.
Unfortunately, this is a classic example of the pretzel-forming “thinking” that is occurring on the Right today.
sinz54 // Dec 4, 2009 at 5:54 pm
SpartacusIsNotDead: When conservatives do make sound arguments against current policy proposals, they don’t propose, as an alternative, policies that would be embraced by most conservatives.
As I’ve said before:
Yesterday’s reasonable ideas become today’s inflexible dogma.
This has happened with the Dems in the 1970s, when they couldn’t think of anything besides New Deal 2.0 (or Great Society 2.0) and “All wars are just like Vietnam.”
And now it’s happened with us conservatives:
The Cold War is over, and most of the thinking that went into it is no longer applicable. And free market ideas that made sense when the world’s population was a fraction of what it is now, and natural resources seemed infinite, are starting to show their age. Finally, these two trends have reinforced each other. During the Cold War, a Reagan or a Goldwater could be both a nationalist and an advocate of free markets. Today, globalization and unrestricted immigration often benefit other nations (some, like China, that do not have our best interests at heart) at America’s expense.
The Dem Party got out of its 1970s hole when new organizations like the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) were formed, and when new politicians like Clinton and Tsongas steered the Dems on a more moderate course. But it wasn’t easy–and there’s an unreconstructed left-wing that still seems to think that we’re back in the 1960s.
I believe that the basic conservative philosophy of maximizing personal opportunity with minimal government interference is still valid. Otherwise I wouldn’t be a conservative. And I love this country deeply; I still believe it to be the “last, best hope of Earth.”
But I also believe we can’t just continue to rehash the same policy prescriptions from 30 years ago. We need to clean the blackboard and start over, much as Buckley did in the 1950s.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Dec 4, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Sinz wrote: “But I guess you don’t consider my pointing out what liberal leaders actually say to one another when they think the CNN camera isn’t on them to be an “intellectually honest argument.” ”
Actually, I’d like to think that your opposition to a major policy intiative on healthcare reform would be based on the merits of the policy and not on the wishes of some reform proponents as expressed in a Youtube video.
With respect to your oppostion to “monopolies that can stagnate free of competition,” well, this is wholly irrelevant to the actual reforms that were proposed. But when presented with ample, uncontroverted evidence that the monopoly argument was a straw man (e.g. the CA workers comp market and various foreign health insurance markets, etc.), you responded by simply saying “conservatives will never stand for a public option no matter what, that’s just the way it is and liberals will have to get over it.”
And, somehow, you think you have presented an intellectually honest opposition?
SpartacusIsNotDead // Dec 4, 2009 at 6:02 pm
“Yesterday’s reasonable ideas become today’s inflexible dogma.”
I agree completely, which is why I likened today’s conservative arguments to a Democrat arguing today for a return to a top marginal tax rate of 90%. But somehow the “reasonable” conservatives seem compelled to defend conservatism despite its transformation into inflexible dogma that has no usefulness for today.
As for the statement, “I believe that the basic conservative philosophy of maximizing personal opportunity with minimal government interference is still valid.”
This is a perfectly fine philosophy, and I don’t believe I have ever condemned many basic conservative philosophies. But, with respect to governance, a philosophy is, at most, only a first step. The key issue is how those philosophies and ideologies get translated into actual policy. On that score, conservatism is simply a miserable failure today.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Dec 4, 2009 at 6:06 pm
“All wars are just like Vietnam.”
My post from another thread:
[T]he comparisons to Vietnam are not reflexive. They are based on features of that conflict that have also been present in subsequent conflicts (no clear and substantial U.S. interest at stake, no objectively measured goal, no defined exit strategy, lukewarm public support, etc.). These features by themselves do not mean these subsequent conflicts are another Vietnam, but they do mean that extra caution and analysis are required before going to war.
With respect to the Gulf War, that very well could have turned into another Vietnam had Bush I not exercised the wisdom that he did both leading up to the war, during its conduct and in the aftermath. Bush II showed just how easy it is to screw up a war and waste trillions of dollars, thousands of American lives and over a hundred thousand foreign civilian lives.
Lastly, if either side is guilty of reflexively characterizing all military conflicts, it is the Right, who seem to reflexively compare every conflict to WWII despite that fact that none of our conflicts since then have had any of the significant features of that war. This is quite ironic given the Right’s posture leading up to WWII.
BarryS // Dec 4, 2009 at 6:38 pm
As I have said before what most “Normal” people want is competence in government. The GOP particularly over the 8 years of the Bush administration was simply incompetent. Katrina, mis managed wars, fiscal stupidity, entitlements without any way of paying for them, and on and on.
People got fed up with the sheer incompetence of it all. Not sure they will change their minds when presented with the current crop of GOP leaders. They are not bringing solutions to peoples problems thay are bringing slogans and supporting the latest “outrage”. Won’t work.
balconesfault // Dec 4, 2009 at 6:52 pm
“All wars are just like Vietnam.”
Oddly, I see this coming from the right just as often from the left. Although it’s a different perspective.
In the minds of the right, every Dem who opposed the war in Vietnam was some kind of cross between a Jane Fonda gladhanding with the Viet Cong while calling our POWs war criminals, or some mythological San Francisco yippie who sat at the gates of SFO to spit on the uniform of every soldier who returned from abroad. Opposing the war, even if you had fought in it, immediately made you a dirty f’ing hippie … supporting the war, even if you did everything in your power to keep from participating in it, made you a patriot.
Following this mythology, the US didn’t lose in Vietnam because of the will of the Vietcong, or because of the corruption of the South Vietnamese government. Instead, it was all because the dirty f’ing hippies didn’t let them win … the dirty f’ing hippies weren’t excited about being drafted, weren’t excited about seeing their friends come back in boxes, and weren’t ever really convinced why they should want to go over to another country and walk around in the jungle waiting for some guy to shoot at them so that they could shoot back, when nobody from that country had ever done squat to Americans before we stuck our nose in their civil war.
The problem is, that this ended up shattering the illusion that the right wing could summon Americans to fight in any country, at any time, under any premise, and sustain the support of the American people needed to eventually win. This kind of sucked, because if we couldn’t sustain American support long enough to win in Vietnam, then how would we ever someday sustain American support for the long hard slog to Moscow that had wore down Napoleon and Hitler?
Thus, every opposition to America getting into, or deeper into, a war has become a reflection of “Vietnam” – once again, that opposition to the idea that Americans would be willing to support a fight in any country, at any time, under any premise.
SpartacusIsNotDead // Dec 4, 2009 at 9:40 pm
txanne: “There are some sane voices out there like Bruce Bartlett . . . ”
Well, there are still sane voices who used to be associated with conservatism. But based on Bartlett’s writings over the past year or so, which side is more likely to agree with his views? Clearly it’s the Dems and liberals and not conservatives.
Again, I’m not saying there are no intellectuals or even sane people on the conservative side anymore. I’m saying that when it comes to policy and governance today, there are no “conservative” positions that can be supported by anyone who is both intellectually honest and seeking to advance the country’s best interest.
sdspringy // Dec 5, 2009 at 9:12 am
There is absolutely no comparison between the right and left concerning the ability to invoke the “Vietnam Analogy”. Whether January 2002 in Afghanistan or 2006 in Iraq the voices of Dem politicians, NYT columnists, or Liberal bloggers have consistently invoked the “Vietnam Analogy”.
That in its self is not unusual, nor unexpected. To truly appreciate the Liberal War Philosophy you have to be able to invoke the “Vietnam Analogy”, in Afghanistan, apply same to Iraq, then declare Iraq lost and Afghanistan the good and neglected war to now invoking the “Vietnam Analogy” in Afghanistan again.
You only have to review the Messiah speech at West Point to understand that our national security only has 18 months of political capital. For, when Dems talk about the ‘Cost of War”, they are not referring to actual dollars but whether they can still be elected.
And in 18 months what will the Taliban do? Will they surrender? Will they throw down their arms and declare themselves defeated? Only the Liberal mind could conceive a strategy where they declare the game over in 18 months and their side wins.
It is now completely possible that the Taliban’s strategy will be to build up, and wait 18 months to regain control. And anyone else will hedge their support based on the chances of survival in 18 months.
sinz54 // Dec 5, 2009 at 9:53 am
balconesfault: The problem is, that this ended up shattering the illusion that the right wing could summon Americans to fight in any country, at any time, under any premise
The right-wing didn’t send tens of thousands of troops to either Korea or Vietnam. Both were under the command of Democratic Presidents. In fact, the President who sent half a million U.S. troops to Vietnam was the same President who gave us Medicare.
Who was it who FIRST advocated the idea of fighting “in any country, at any time, under any premise”?
Taft? No. (If anything, Taft was an isolationist like Ron Paul.)
Goldwater? No.
Nixon? No.
Reagan? No. (Reagan’s motto was “PEACE Through Strength.”)
Let me jog your memory:
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
— John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, 1961
Now as often happens, we Americans weren’t aware of everything JFK was doing to live up to that promise. Such as sending the CIA to fight secret wars around the world (wars that would sometimes eventually require U.S. troops as reinforcements). Sending the Green Berets into direct ground combat with the Viet Cong for the first time. Etc.
sinz54 // Dec 5, 2009 at 10:03 am
BarryS: As I have said before what most “Normal” people want is competence in government.
What most Americans want is to be able to pass Reagan’s famous test: At the end of a President’s term, they want to be better off (or at least not worse off) than they were at the beginning of that term. There’s an old-fashioned term for that, now scorned by liberal sophisticates: It’s called “progress.”
Liberal intellectuals are now once again flirting with American declinism: America has passed her peak, her best days are over, she’s not going to be the superpower she once was, the best we can do is learn to live with less, our children and grandchildren will inevitably grow up to live with less than we currently have. But that’s OK, they say, because the rest of the world will do better at our expense, and liberals care more about the whole world.
That was rejected in the 1970s.
And if the liberals keep up this sing-song, it’s going to be rejected again.
athensboy // Dec 5, 2009 at 11:36 am
My big question is are we fighting a Taliban insurgency, or has it morphed into a movement of Pashtun nationalism that wants foreign,Christian,troops out of their tribal lands?Karzai will be no help in our fight, he’s as corrupt as the day is long.Karzai controls nothing from Kabul,the entire country is like the Old West. How do we define sucess in a country like that? The Taliban/Pashtun insurgency will never end. The only way to break their resolve would to exterminate every man, woman, and child. Is this what we want to do?
sinz54 // Dec 5, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Kagan and Kristol, who had pushed the Iraq surge and got Bush to sign off on it, have now come out in support of Obama’s surge in Afghanistan:
Republicans will have the opportunity–and the responsibility–to criticize this administration’s policies toward Iran, China, and Russia; its defense budgets; and its detainee policies, to say nothing of its domestic policy initiatives. Democrats will respond. But the president’s announcement of a sound and feasible strategy in Afghanistan gives us a chance to show to ourselves and the world that politics really can stop at the water’s edge when the nation’s safety is at stake and our troops are fighting on our behalf.
So we say: Support the troops. Support the mission. Support the president.
–Frederick W. Kagan and William Kristol
txanne // Dec 5, 2009 at 1:35 pm
85 SpartacusIsNotDead
Good point! You are right, conservatives are stuck in a one size fits all economic solution. Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts.