[Rhodes22-list] Question for Brad about Iraq Information(political)

[Brad Haslett]

Rummy,

Wally is going to attack me for publishing another editorial instead of
stating my beliefs in my own words, but this one summarizes what I've said
over the years. There is little room for me to add or detract from this
thought.  As a man who has been abandoned by his party and his President,
"I'm Free At Last!"

Brad

-------------------------

July 10, 2007 The War About the War *By* *Herbert
Meyer*<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/author/herbert_meyer/>

The 9-11 attacks did more than start a war; they started a war *about* the
war. No sooner had the World Trade towers collapsed and the Pentagon burst
into flames than two perceptions of the threat began competing for the
public's support:

*Perception One: We're at War*

*For the third time in history Islam - or, more precisely, its most radical
element - has launched a war whose objective is the destruction of Western
civilization. Our survival is at stake, and despite its imperfections we
believe that Western civilization is worth defending to the death. Moreover,
in the modern world - where a small number of people can so easily kill a
large number of people - we cannot just play defense; sooner or later that
strategy would bring another 9-11. This conflict really is a clash of
civilizations whose root cause is Islam's incompatibility with the modern
world. So we must fight with everything we've got against the terrorist
groups and against those governments on whose support they rely. If the Cold
War was "World War III," this is World War IV. We must win it, at whatever
cost.*

*Perception Two: We're Reaping What We've Sowed*

*There are quite a few people in the world who just don't like the United
States and some of our allies because of how we live and, more precisely,
because of the policies we pursue in the Mideast and elsewhere in the world.
Alas, a small percentage of these people express their opposition through
acts of violence. While we sometimes share their opinion of our values and
our policies, we cannot condone their methods. Our objective must be to
bring the level of political violence down to an acceptable level. The only
way to accomplish this will be to simultaneously adjust our values and our
policies while protecting ourselves from these intermittent acts of
violence; in doing so we must be careful never to allow the need for
security to override our civil liberties.*

There is no middle ground between these two perceptions. Of course, you can
change a word here and there, or modify a phrase, but the result will be the
same. Either we're at war, or we've entered a period of history in which the
level of violence has risen to an unacceptable level. If we're at war, we're
in a military conflict that will end with either our victory or our defeat.
If we're in an era of unacceptable violence stemming from our values and our
policies, we are faced with a difficult but manageable political problem.

*Splitting the Difference*

Since the 9-11 attacks, President Bush has been trying to split the
difference. It's obvious that he, personally, subscribes to Perception One.
Just read his formal speeches about the conflict, such as those he's given
to Congress and at venues such as West Point. They are superb and often
brilliant analyses of what he calls the War on Terror. Yet he hasn't done
things that a president who truly believes that we're at war should have
done. For instance, in the aftermath of 9-11 he didn't ask Congress for a
declaration of war, didn't bring back the draft, and didn't put the US
economy on a wartime footing. A president at war would have taken out Iran's
government after overthrowing the Taliban in Afghanistan -- and then sent
500,000 troops into Iraq, rather than just enough troops to remove Saddam
Hussein but not enough to stabilize that country. And a president at war
would have long since disposed of Syria's murderous regime and helped the
Israelis wipe out Hezbollah.

Study history, and you quickly learn that oftentimes events and the
responses they generate look different a hundred years after they happen
than they look at the time. It may be that history will judge that President
Bush performed heroically, doing the very best that anyone could do given
the two incompatible perceptions about the conflict that have divided public
opinion and raised the level of partisanship in Washington to such a
poisonous level. Or, it may be that history will judge the President to have
been a failure because he responded to 9-11 as a politician rather than as a
leader.

Either way, it is the ongoing war about the war that accounts for where we
are today, nearly six years after the 9-11 attacks: We haven't lost, but we
aren't winning; fewer of us have been killed by terrorists than we had
feared would be killed, but we aren't safe.

While experts disagree about how "the war" is going, there isn't much
disagreement over how the war *about *the war is going: those who subscribe
to Perception Two are pulling ahead.

Here in the US, virtually every poll shows that a majority of Americans want
us "out of Iraq" sooner rather than later, and regardless of what's actually
happening on the ground in that country. Support for taking on Iran - that
is, for separating the Mullahs from the nukes through either a military
strike or by helping Iranians to overthrow them from within - is too low
even to measure. There isn't one candidate for president in either party
who's campaigning on a theme of "let's fight harder and win this thing
whatever it takes." Indeed, the most hawkish position is merely to stay the
course a while longer to give the current "surge" in Iraq a fair chance.
Moreover, just chat with friends and neighbors - at barbeques, at the
barbershop, over a cup of coffee - and you'll be hard-pressed to find a
solid minority, let alone a majority, in favor of fighting-to-win.

However it's phrased, just about everyone is looking for a way out short of
victory.

Overseas, public opinion is moving in the same direction. For example, in
Great Britain Tony Blair has stepped aside for Gordon Brown, who in the
midst of the recent terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow has ordered his
government to ban the phrase "war on terror" and to avoid publicly linking
the recent, mercifully failed attacks in London and Glasgow to any aspect of
Islam. The current leaders of Germany and France are less anti-American than
their predecessors, but no more willing to help us fight. Down under in
Australia John Howard - blessed be his name - is holding firm, but for a
combination of reasons may be approaching the end of his long tenure; none
of his likely replacements are nearly so robust. And the Israelis - who are
facing the triple-threat of Hamas, Hezbollah, and before too long a
nuclear-armed Iran - are going through one of their periodic bouts of
political paralysis.

*A Second Attack*

It's possible that something horrific will happen in the immediate future to
shift public support here in the US, and throughout the West, from the
second perception to the first. When asked by a young reporter what he
thought would have the greatest impact on his government's fate, British
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan responded cheerfully: "Events, dear boy,
events." One more 9-11-type attack - biological, chemical, or nuclear - that
takes out Houston, Berlin, Vancouver or Paris, and the leader of that
country will be overwhelmed by the furious public's demands to "turn the
creeps who did this, and the countries that helped them, into molten glass
and don't let's worry about collateral damage." (This will sound even better
in French or German.) Should the next big attack come here in the US, some
among us will blame the President but most won't. The public mood will be
not merely ferocious, but ugly; you won't want to walk down the street
wearing an "I gave to the ACLU" pin in your lapel.

Absent such an event in the near future, it's likely that over the next few
years the war will settle into a phase that proponents of Perception Two
will approve. Simply put, we will shift from offense to defense. The
Department of Homeland Security will become our government's lead agency,
and the Pentagon's role will be diminished. (Nothing will change at the
State Department - but then, nothing ever does.) Most people in the US, and
elsewhere in the West, will be relieved that "the war" is finally over.

To preserve the peace we will have to be more than willing to make the
occasional accommodation to Moslems. If they ask us to put more pressure on
the Israelis - well, we can easily do that. If Moslem checkout clerks at our
supermarkets don't want to touch pork - by all means let's have separate
checkout counters for customers who've bought those products. And now that
we think about it, "Happy Winter" will be as good a greeting, if not a
better one, than "Merry Christmas." Won't it?

Of course, there will be the occasional terrorist attack. Some, like the
recent ones in London and Glasgow, will fail. Others will succeed, but
guided by the mainstream media we will view them with the same detachment as
we would view a meteor shower that brought flaming rocks crashing randomly
into the Earth. Most will land harmlessly in fields, some will land on
houses and kill those few residents unlucky enough to be home at the time.
Once in a while, one will crash into a crowded shopping mall or, sadly, into
a school packed with children. These things happen - alas - and while it's
riveting to watch the latest disaster unfold on television there really
isn't much one can do about it. Life goes on.

In the long run, history always sorts things out.

If it turns out that Perception Two of the threat is valid, then over time
we will become accustomed to the level of casualties caused by the
terrorists. After all, more than 40,000 Americans are killed each year in
traffic accidents and we don't make a big political issue out of that, do
we? Our attitude toward death-by-terrorist-attack will be the same as our
attitude toward deaths on the highway: a tragedy for the victim and members
of the family, but nothing really to fuss over. And if Perception Two is
valid, it's even possible that the terrorist threat eventually will ease.
Can you even remember the last time anyone got bombed by the IRA?

But if those of us who subscribe to Perception One are correct, then it's
only a matter of time before something ghastly happens that will swing
public opinion throughout the West our way - and hard. Whether this will
happen in two years, or five, or in 15 years, is impossible to predict. All
we can know for certain is that if Western civilization really is under
attack from Islam, or from elements within Islam, then they will not give up
or be appeased. At some point they're going to go for the knockout punch.

*Fighting, Finally, to Win*

The pessimists among us will argue that by this time we'll be too far gone
to save; that years of merely playing defense and of making concessions to
the sensitivities of our enemy will have eroded our military power, and
sapped our will, to the point where *de facto* surrender will be the only
option.

We optimists see things differently: For better or worse, it's part of the
American character to wait until the last possible moment - even to wait a
bit beyond the last possible moment - before kicking into high gear and
getting the job done. It's in our genes; just think of how many times you've
ground enamel off your teeth watching your own kid waste an entire weekend,
only to start writing a book report at 10:30 Sunday night that, when you
find it on the breakfast table Monday morning is by some miracle a minor
masterpiece.

However horrific it may be, the knockout punch won't knock us out. Instead,
it will shift us from playing defense back to offense - and this time we
won't hold back. The president will ask Congress for a declaration of war
and he, or she, will get it. We'll bring back the draft, send our troops
into battle without one hand tied behind their backs by lawyers, and we
won't waste time and energy pussyfooting with the United Nations. And if
we've closed GITMO by this time - we'll reopen it and even double its size
because we're going to pack it. All of this will take longer to organize,
and cost more, than if we'd done it right in the aftermath of 9-11. That's
unfortunate, but that's the way we Americans tend to do things. And when we
do finally start fighting for real -- we'll win.
 Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special
Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the
CIA's National Intelligence Council.


On 7/10/07, R22RumRunner at aol.com <R22RumRunner at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Herb,
> I believe that the Democratic candidate at least had a brain.
> Your  president
> is a joke. The only thing that isn't funny is the number of years it  will
> take to clean up the mess he will leave behind when he finally is
> relieved  of
> his duties....and the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned.
>
> Rummy
>
>
>
> ************************************** See what's free at
> http://www.aol.com.
> __________________________________________________
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