No wasted typing

I'm not a good typist, so when I leave a long (for me) comment on another blog, I often post it here to save on effort.

John of Random Jottings has a post up in which he says:

I support the Administration in the War not because I think they don't make mistakes, but because I agree with their compass heading. And the contempt I feel for President Bush's liberal opponents is huge, not because I think they would necessarily make more "mistakes" if they were in charge, but because they have no compass.

They have never made a philosophical case for a different Grand Strategy. Without that, to continually oppose and hinder our elected leadership means they are not a "loyal opposition." They are just treasonous ankle-biters.

I think that's not quite right.  I wrote:

John, it's not that they lack a different Grand Stategy. They have one, and while it's hard to get it out of them, it basically boils down to doing exactly what the Clinton Administration did.
They fact that their Grand Strategy didn't work, that it lead to the embassies, the Cole, and 9-11 really doesn't bother them. They shrug off everything before 9-11, and blame 9-11 itself on President Bush. Never mind that this makes no sense.

One hallmark of the liberal mind is caring more about intentions than results. To you and me, that sounds like insanity, but according to the psych's, the good-intentions folks make up something like a third of the population (including my ex-wife). As with the war on poverty and socialism in general, repeated failures just don't matter, or at least do not give a reason for changing their compass heading. They always argue in the face of failure for more of the same, a faster pace down the demonstrably ineffective but well-intentioned heading. Those are the nice liberals, and on even numbered days like today, I believe they're the majority of the Left. Tomorrow is an odd numbered day, so I will believe they are nefarious scoundrels more interested in personal power than in the well being of their fellow men.

Comments

[Rob Salkowitz]

I don't disagree with this, up to a point. One thing that's clear is that Bush's Grand Strategy has been an even more spectacular failure than Clinton's, in that we are in danger of losing two wars and "democratization" in the Islamic world has produced Hammas, Ahmadinijad, a resurgent Taliban, and civil war in Iraq. "Good intentions" don't make up for those results either.

What we might agree on is that, with effective exectuion, these outcomes need not have happened. Afghanistan, which everyone to the right of Noam Chomsky supported almost without qualification, was the least necessary failure. We have 20,000 troops there today - barely enough to secure their own barracks, and now the Senate Majority leader thinks we should invite the Taliban to join the government there. Afghanistan could have been everything Bush hoped to achieve in Iraq, with much greater justification and much lower cost. And again, no Democrat had any problem with that. I hope and expect that any D in the White House under similar circumstances to 9/11 would have done exactly what Bush did in the fall of 2002. So it's not that the strategies are all that different.

The failure of Bush's Grand Strategy isn't because it's too aggressive, over-reliant on military force as a vehicle for expressing US power, or disdainful of international opinion. There's room to disagree on those things: they're just tactics whose goal is shared by D's and R's alike: promoting the security and prosperity of America in the world. What's wrong with Bush's strategy is that the Administration steadfastly refused to understand why it couldn't be achieved. They put their ideology and their unfounded optimism ahead of the basic intelligence and analytical skills that anyone - liberal or conservative - needs to apply to their policies before foisting them on the public. It's the whole arrogant rejection of valid analysis and justified skepticism that's wrong with Bush's Grand Strategy. It's a blueprint for a mansion scribbled on a sheet of wet toilet paper. Really, it's hard to understand why intelligent people continue to defend it.

[pedro]

Since today is an odd numbered day, I'll reserve my response to Rob for tomorrow. It might be late - I've got a 3:00 PM deadline and no idea how I'm going to make it.
But for now, think about this: What are the alternatives? Mature thinking people choose between actual alternatives, not between wishes. That doesn't mean you never take a long shot, like hoping to reform Arabs, but wishful thinking, like banking on the UN, is not allowed.

[pedro]

As he often does, TigerHawk said it well regarding our strategy in Iraq:

In occupying Iraq, we presented al Qaeda with an irresistable target. The jihadis bragged they would drive us from Mesopotamia, staking their prestige on ultimate victory against the United States. Fortunately, American soldiers were much harder to kill than they expected, and George W. Bush was more stubborn than most of the world believed possible. Having failed to dislodge the United States directly, al Qaeda turned on Arabs whom it saw as supporting the United States, including particularly Shiites in Iraq and the "apostate regimes" in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. These attacks and the resulting chaos achieved al Qaeda's objective of eviscerating support for the United States in the Arab world, but this public relations victory came at a huge cost. Arabs now took up arms against al Qaeda in massive numbers, and al Qaeda's popularity also collapsed everywhere it attacked. More than 40 months into the American project in Iraq, there are a great many more Arabs hunting or betraying al Qaeda than there are fighting against the United States. We have lost some friends in this war, but we have created millions of enemies of our enemy. In a counterinsurgency, that is strategic progress. (end TigerHawk comment)

As the President has said over and over again, it will be a long hard war and will take a lot of work. Our enemies are cunning, fanatical, and backed by wealthy nut-jobs who share their sick views. Can Hope triumph over Hate? It could happen, and I hope it does happen, but it won't happen without blood, sweat, toil & tears. We could use all y'all's help in the fight.
And if Hope loses to Hate, then we'll show them what Hate backed by American ingenuity can do. Just ask any Nazi or Imperial Japanese officer, if you can find one.