I got bored with the important campaign stuff and my mind and attention wandered and I was sort of checking around to see if something would grab my interest and Drum was talking about the Armed Liberal, who I'd heard of but never read, and he is supporting Bush, and Drum was sort of explaining his positions, and, apparently, people don't think he is an idiot, so I mosied over to see why he was for Bush. I mean, I detest Bush and think he is the worst President in history, but I'm no dove - maybe there was a way at looking at this and forming a halfway plausible defense of Bush.
So, here's what I think - Armed Liberal is a guy in need of a reality check as to what has happened these past 3 years.
More on the flip -
First, let me say that to even engage in this exercise, I have to abandon my First Principle - that the Iraq Debacle was the biggest strategic blunder in recent memory even if executed perfectly. There is and was no success strategy for Iraq. But let me set that aside for now, and assume the opposite. Here's Armed Liberal's basic policy position:
I started blogging post 9/11, and much of my early blogging was centered on my view that we face a major conflict with ideologically-driven terrorism, and that the broad state support and wealth behind the Islamist wave of that ideologically-driven terrorism is especially dangerous.
It's not, I believe, dangerous in that they are likely to succeed; the real power of these forces is extremely limited. But it is dangerous in two ways: First, that the exposure to terrorist violence does erode the legitimacy of governments if unchecked, and the means that governments use to combat terrorism typically erode the legitimacy of democratic republics such as ours. Second, that our reaction to a massive wave of Islamist violence is - if no other path to victory becomes clear - likely to be hard to distinguish from genocide.
Because I want to steer us off that path, I supported and continue to support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I don't things there are going incredibly well. Neither do I think they are a disaster. I think they are going credibly well.
Ok, frankly, this position is so weak as to be difficult to go on, but I will. I won't refute it here - as I've done so for a year now. If interested check my diaries from the spring especially. So, let's assume this is good policy. Then what? Well, how are we doing with this policy?
I'm hard-pressed to imagine a Churchill, today, surviving the disaster in the Norwegian Operation Sickle. Commenter Pierre Legrand reposted a letter that included this point:
One thing the Marine Corps taught me is that a 70% solution acted on immediately and violently is better than a perfect solution acted on later. My experience has proven this true time and again. The sad fact is however, that a 70% solution is a 30% mistake. And those mistakes can be hard to take. In WWII for example, 700 soldiers drowned in a training accident in preparation for D-Day (that is about how many combat deaths we've experienced so far in Iraq).
Every day, the MSM shows us the 30%. But the 70% continues to go on, and slowly, painfully, we will make progress if we keep doing it.
Here's a question, what 70%? What success? What is he talking about? Does he identify these successes? Well, no. And frankly, it is incumbent upon him to do so. I can bend over backwards, but there's no there there. Of course, not only do I think there is no 70% success, I think we are much more threatened by terrorism than we were before the Iraq Debacle, which has magnified the threat ten fold over the short, medium and long term. Surely, there is more anti-Americanism in the world, especially the Arab world, and our global alliance to fight terrorism has been demolished by the Iraq Debacle. There is clearly evidence to support my view and none to support the Armed Liberal's view. It seems delusional to me.
Then this -
But the psychological cost of the 30% is always there; and part of why I believe Bush's apparent determination is so important is because that's what powers us through the inevitable pause that the real cost of the 30% brings.
I think that Kerry wants, more than anything, to return to normalcy through winning the war, as opposed to winning the war so that we can go back to normalcy. Note that the emphasis in each clause is different - in one case, the focus is on normalcy, in the other, on victory.
Suppose this is true, so what? If the objective is winning the war, who cares why, in some Karnak moment, one imagines the President wants to do it? I read on and on and see no connection to why this is significant. In the end, it is a nonsequitor. So what about Kerry's policy?
Kerry is far more connected in his policy history and in his explicit policy statements to a commitment to re-engage other countries and international organizations in order to use multilateral pressure (except, of course, in Korea). TNR cites Kerry's willingness to 'go it alone' in Darfur - but the official statement reads:
And because there is no guarantee that the Sudanese government will relent, we must also start planning now for the possibility that the international community, acting through the United Nations, will be forced to intervene urgently to save the lives of the innocent.
Key word: "through". The core of Kerry's foreign policy is re-engagement with the United Nations.
One reason I've rejected the 'law enforcement' model of fighting terrorism is that, simply, to engage and combat terrorists abroad means that you will be conducting military actions in other countries. Many of those other countries won't support those actions.
What do we do then?
First, what countries could those be? To ignore this, is to ignore why supporting Bush is a joke. Why Saudi Arabia and Pakistan of course. Does the Armed Liberal seriously believe that Bush will take military action there without authority from those countries? Well, if he does, then he is just stupid. But suppose he is the one person in the world that doesn't understand the role played by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, that he thinks that Iran and say, Syria, are the problem? Does he think Bush can launch military action anywhere? With our Army bogged down in Iraq? Can he convince the American people now after misleading the nation? Are you fucking kidding me? Delusional. But then it gets worse.
There is also the issue of Sen. Kerry's relationship with the military.
It isn't good. This is both a matter of personal history ("Winter Soldier") and record as a legislator, where he was certainly not percieved - as many Democrats are not percieved -as a friend of the military.
Our military is professional, and honorable, and I believe they will serve whoever we elect in November ably. But I also believe that the doubt raised by Kerry's history and his unfortunate tone in criticizing the war will make it very difficult for the military to maintain morale in the face of sustained engagement; which in turn will be another argument for cutting short the engagement and 'returning to normalcy'.
This is just plain offensive. The guy is now in asshole territory.
Why support Bush?
And I also believe that the surest means to reduce the effectiveness of these nonstate actors to the point that we can treat them as a 'law-enforcement' problem is to deprive them of their state sponsors. Kerry doesn't.
Will the violence and disaster I forsee absolutely happen if Kerry is elected? Of course not. Sen. Kerry is, I believe, a good and honorable man who will do his best. And Kerry's choices will be limited. But I do believe that his priority will be to meet those domestic needs, and that - like everyone else - he'll work hardest on his priorities.
And I believe he's been clear as to what they are, and they aren't mine.
Here's his problem, his priorites won't be anybody's priorities. Assuming Bush totally agreed with him, and my view is that Bush is an idiot and doesn't think beyond simple grunts of good and evil, and I'm serious about that, he simply can't do anything that the Armed Liberal thinks is necessary. At best, he can launch another Debacle, ill planned, undermanned, and with universal hostility.
I've assumed ludicrous and just stupid positions here to try and see how someone could support Bush. Even accepting the ludicrous, one would have to ignore the sheer incompetence of the Bush Administration, the damage done to our military, the ridiculous failures on all fronts and levels in Iraq and the inescapable conclusion that the Armed Liberal's nutty policy prescriptions simply can't be done by ANYBODY! Since this is true, and a Liberal must be wholly opposed to Bush's domestic policy, I must conclude one of two things - the Armed Liberal is no liberal, or he is an idiot, seriously. Or both I guess. Because there is simply no way a rational mind could reach the conclusions he reaches.
I've tried to be fair, and I think I have been, but his view is so . . . well, stupid, it would be hard for me to take this person seriously. And I must say, that it will be hard for me to take seriously persons who think this is a guy to be taken seriously. The evidence strongly suggests he is a delusional fool.