From the founder of:
Corked Bats: The Attitude of a Big Blog, the Readership of a Xanga Web Journal.
Come and Take It: Keeping the Eyes of Texas Upon Our Imploding Right Wing.
Taking the Fight to Karl: American Service Men and Women Mad at Karl Rove.
I muttered an anti-Bush comment to one of my co-workers today. This was gutsy--I thought--because he is rather vocal about the fact that he served in the Marines for four years in the mid-1990s. He's clearly proud of his service and I was ready for the possibility that he would be angry with me. Post-Kerry, though, I say what I think and defend it as politely as possible. I don't back down to avoid a fight.
But, lo and behold, he wasn't angry.
In fact, he recommended that I read
The Art of War--and then he said something like "if
George Bush had read Sun Tzu, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in in Iraq--he is breaking every rule of good strategy." He called Iraq another Vietnam. He says people he talks to (I don't know if they are military folks or even if they are conservative) think we need to bring the troops home--which he disagrees with (he says we should stick it out based on the pottery barn argument). But he said Bush went into Iraq like "an old-time crusader" and got bogged down just like they did back in the day. He agreed with me when I said that Bush expected the best-case scenario and made no plans for the worst. (He sounds a lot like my Marine friend Tom who is in Iraq right now. Tom loves the service, but he opposes the war for practical and moral reasons.)
But there is more. My co-worker said something that I think is worth taking to heart because I think it is true AND useful for Democrats. He said that the main difference between now and the Vietnam Era is that the American people support the troops and they do not treat them with disrespect. In terms of domestic politics, I think he is right.
Of course, this is one conversation. But if this is a view that a lot of service people have (and I would like to see some numbers), then all of this nervous hand-wringing about how Democrats have to establish credibility on military issues is even more misplaced than I thought. If it is true that the loyal opposition has largely been viewed as supportive of the troops, then at least the Democrats are making some progress in carving out a space in public debate for an anti-war position that isn't presumed to be an "anti-military" or "anti-soldier" stance.
See, we are the folks who are on the side of the grunts and who support effective leadership. People in the service know how important these two fundamental positions are.
I really hate to see Democrats running away from a fight on the war issue. It is very much our issue now. We support the troops. They keep screwing up and blaming "a few bad apples" or attempting to deflect any story about the massive failure of accountability in this war. If our message is getting out by accident, how effective might it be if it was intentional?
We cannot run from this issue. But what is so puzzling is that this seems like an issue that we might, in fact, be able to embrace openly and proudly.
Thus far, I think Barbara Ann Radnofsky has it right--she is hammering Kay Bailey Hutchison for her stances on veterans' affairs. In a state as touched by the Iraq conflict as Texas, I am very interested to see how these reality-based attacks are going to work for 2006.
And recently, Lieutenant General William Odom penned a very important piece about the Iraq War.
Read it now.
Odom is dead on. If not for his advocacy of pulling out (which I do agree with) then definitely for his bewilderment about the Democrats yet again ignoring the war issue. Here:
Most surprising to me is that no American political leader today has tried to unmask the absurdity of the administration's case that to question the strategic wisdom of the war is unpatriotic and a failure to support our troops. Most officers and probably most troops don't see it that way. They are angry at the deficiencies in materiel support they get from the Department of Defense, and especially about the irresponsibly long deployments they must now endure because Mr. Rumsfeld and his staff have refused to enlarge the ground forces to provide shorter tours. In the meantime, they know that the defense budget shovels money out the door to maritime forces, SDI, etc., while refusing to increase dramatically the size of the Army.
As I wrote several years ago, "the Pentagon's post-Cold War force structure is so maritime heavy and land force weak that it is firmly in charge of the porpoises and whales while leaving the land to tyrants." The Army, some of the Air Force, the National Guard, and the reserves are now the victims of this gross mismatch between military missions and force structure. Neither the Bush nor the Clinton administration has properly "supported the troops." The media could ask the president why he fails to support our troops by not firing his secretary of defense.
So why is almost nobody advocating a pullout? I can only speculate. We face a strange situation today where few if any voices among Democrats in Congress will mention early withdrawal from Iraq, and even the one or two who do will not make a comprehensive case for withdrawal now. Why are the Democrats failing the public on this issue today? The biggest reason is because they werenÂt willing to raise that issue during the campaign. Howard Dean alone took a clear and consistent stand on Iraq, and the rest of the Democratic party trashed him for it. Most of those in Congress voted for the war and let that vote shackle them later on. Now they are scared to death that the White House will smear them with lack of patriotism if they suggest pulling out.
Journalists can ask all the questions they like but none will prompt a more serious debate as long as no political leaders create the context and force the issues into the open.
I don't believe anyone will be able to sustain a strong case in the short run without going back to the fundamental misjudgment of invading Iraq in the first place. Once the enormity of that error is grasped, the case for pulling out becomes easy to see.
Look at John Kerry's utterly absurd position during the presidential campaign. He said ÂItÂs the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time," but then went on to explain how he expected to win it anyway. Even the voter with no interest in foreign affairs was able to recognize it as an absurdity. If it was the wrong war at the wrong place and time, then it was never in our interest to fight. If that is true, what has changed to make it in our interest? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
Exactly. The Democrats act like the American people will hate the Democrats for sharing their views. They won't. The American people want a coherent, sensible position. They want leadership on this issue. They are dying for the Democratic Party to be an effective critic. But they are unconvinced that we even care about the issue. And who can blame them given the fact that Democrats continue to refuse to give voice to the majority of people who both oppose the war but want to do the best we can in our situation?
This issue is not going away. The Democrats can either deal with it or remain incoherent.
I repeat my advice. Get together on the steps of the Capitol and do something that Republicans cannot do: apologize en mass for your votes supporting the Iraq War. Take responsibility. Be leaders. For the love...