| From the Politico blogs: |
This is a quite big deal that most of us totally missed last night: John Edwards doesn't believe there's a "global war on terror," at least not in the simple-show-of-hands sense.To come to that sort of conclusion takes either a total lack of attention, a willing suspension of disbelief, or a black belt in stoopid. Having heard part of his Two Americas speech, I'm going with the black belt idea.
This is something a lot of Democrats say privately -- and something mainstream pols everywhere else in the world say publicly -- but it contests a Bush administration premise in a way very few American politicians have been comfortable in the last five and a half years.
I put the European attitudes down to the willing suspension argument. After all, they've got the Muslims living in their midst in greater numbers than we have. The turbans are raping European women, slaughtering the occasional European intellectual in the streets like sheep, and staging carbecues in Gay Paree. You can't not pay attention when the train's exploding under your backside, and if it's stoopidity then I'll bet Theo van Gogh sure wised up quick there at the last. But the Euros spent many happy years under the American nuclear umbrella, practicing their willing suspension skills until they were able to confuse Americans and Soviets in motive and method, with lots of them preferring the Soviets since they were closer and more European, until the system so inconsiderately collapsed. They still miss the commies, still hope they're gonna come back so they can all march and wave red flags and enroll their kids in the Young Pioneers, because Marxism sounds like it should make sense. After all, it's expressed mostly in polysyllables. Americans are much more monosyllabic, and if you're monosyllabic how're you gonna engage in dialectics? So obviously the wrong system collapsed and the pursuit of Social Democracy avoids those unfortunate mistakes that caused that unpleasantness with the kulaks. His stance -- though it doesn't seem to have been all that deliberate -- matches the recent comments of a prominent British politician. It's the most direct challenge to the Bush administration's whole worldview that I can recall from a leading Democrat.
A good part of that's the "dissidence" meme that's ever so fasionable among those who lack the imagination to believe that we could lose the war against the savages. Since there's no way we could possibly lose and since there really aren't any demands being made on them, not even the demand that they pay attention, it's great fun to pretend to be ever so Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn-ish, only without the unstylish beard and the even more unstylish Christianity. There aren't any penalties to "questioning authority," and in fact it'll even get you laid in college. The net result is a beleagured Authority that has to explain itself over and over to nitwits who are posturing, not listening, and eventually being distracted from Authority's task, which is in this case defending the rest of us from people who want to cut our heads off and make our children wear turbans.Edwards aide David Ginsberg confirmed that the former North Carolina senator had not raised his hand in response to Brian Williams' question,"Do you believe there is such a thing as a global war on terror?" He also noted that Edwards elaborated later in the debate. "I believe -- and this goes to the question you asked earlier, just a few minutes ago -- global war on terror. I think there are dangerous people and dangerous leaders in the world that America must deal with and deal with strongly, but we have more tools available to us than bombs. And America needs to use the tools that are available to them so that these people who are sitting on the fence, who terrorists are trying to recruit, the next generation, get pushed to our side, not to the other side. We've had no long-term strategy, and we need one, and I will provide one."
This is mere fatuity. Maybe he really is simply not paying attention. Ruling out or never being willing to resort to force leaves talk the only option and wind the only end product. If we're going to deal with those dangerous people and dangerous leaders "strongly" then we've got to do the Clausewitz thing: military action has to remain diplomacy by other means and vice versa. The U.S. was actually doing that, and in many cases doing it damned well, up until last fall. Bush and his team suddenly deflated when they noticed that the nation's attention span had moved to Britney's nether regions and the Dems were making political gains. I'll reiterate: The original goals were correct and the original approach was effective. The Taliban were tossed out. Al-Qaeda hard boyz were chased down and captured or killed. Terror networks were dismantled. Funding lines were dried up. Qaddafi went out of the terrorism business. The Oil-for-Food crooks were chased down, and there have actually been some convictions -- though George Galloway, Kofi, and Kojo aren't among them. The AQ Khan network was dismantled. There were the Rose and the Orange revolutions. Syria was forced out of Lebanon after 30 years of occupation in the Cedar Revolution. Our Ethiopian proxies have thrown the Powerful Islamic Courts™ out of Somalia. And Sammy was bounced from bloody-handed power in Iraq. Those are all successes and they are successes precisely because the Bush administration was a prickly and pushy partner for a torpid, self-satisfied, and basically corrupt International Community™ to work with.
The areas where success hasn't come have been in those areas where we haven't been pushy bastards. We've been letting the EU take the liesurely diplomatic approach with Iran. Solana and Larijani just shared a cliche 5-star meal the other day. North Korea's been another six-party approach that's produced just ducky results. Darfur's been a UN project with the UN's usual spectacular success. The only place where the multilateral approach is showing any success at all is in the manner in which the Euro courts have been willing to extradite bad guyz back and forth across their borders. And you can bet that Carla del Ponte'd just love to get in on that action.
Our weak spot has always been the Democrats' deteermination to keep on fighting Vietnam, to keep on singing Alice's Restaurant whether it makes sense or not. Binny's been counting on that from the first. Sammy was, too, though it didn't work well for him. The Paks are counting on us giving up in Afghanistan and going home so the Talibs and the ISI can retake control. Al-Qaeda in Iraq and its Syrian and Iranian backers are not only counting on us leaving, but on us telling them when we're going to do it. All of them think the tide's turned against Bush and against the United States. All they've got to do is wait us out. They're counting on the weakness, the yellow stripe, the fascination with who's Dannilyn's daddy to overcome our determination to give the Muslim world a chance to live like decent human beings for a change. They're counting on lightweights like John Edwards to come through for them.