Robert Kagan, who two days ago penned an op-ed in the Washington Post explaining why it will probably be better for the country if the Democrats win the White House in 2008, is the co-founder of the neo-conservative Project of the New American Century (PNAC). I remember what I was doing on September 11, 2001. I was watching CNN. Robert Kagan was busy penning an editorial.
September 11, 2001 – the date that will live in infamy, the day the post-Cold War era ended, the day the world for Americans changed utterly. In the coming days, as rescuers pick through the rubble in New York, in Washington, in Pittsburgh, and who knows where else across the besieged United States, as the bodies of thousands of dead Americans are uncovered, and as the rest of us weep over the destruction of innocent human life, our friends and loved ones, we may begin to hear analyses as to why this “tragedy” has befallen us. There will no doubt be questions raised, sins of omission and commission in the Middle East alluded to. Even today, the BBC opined that the attacks came because the United States had failed to get a “grip” on the Middle East. There is nothing strange or odd in that. After Pearl Harbor, almost exactly sixty years ago, there were those who argued, with perhaps even more persuasiveness, that then, too, the United States had somehow invited the Japanese attack. After all, had we not embargoed Japan’s vital oil supply?
One can only hope that America can respond to today’s monstrous attack on American soil – an attack far more awful than Pearl Harbor – with the same moral clarity and courage as our grandfathers did. Not by asking what we have done to bring on the wrath of inhuman murderers. Not by figuring out ways to reason with, or try to appease those who have spilled our blood. Not by engaging in an extended legal effort to find the killers and bring them to justice. But by doing the only thing we now can do: go to war.
And I have to say, we took his advice. We never asked what we had done to bring on the wrath, or what we might do to limit the likelihood they might want to do it again. We just went to war, with total moral clarity. We are the good guys, Muslims are the bad guys. Nearly five years later, Kagan’s unthinking scheme has been exposed as a costly blunder. But, he thinks his foreign policy aims can be best perpetuated through the election of a Democrat.
On 9/11 Kagan was already salivating at the prospect of permawar.
The only question is whether we will now take this war seriously, as seriously as any war we have ever fought. Let’s not be daunted by the mysterious and partially hidden identity of our attackers. It will soon become obvious that there are only a few terrorist organizations capable of carrying out such a massive and coordinated strike. We should pour the resources necessary into a global effort to hunt them down and capture or kill them. It will become apparent that those organizations could not have operated without the assistance of some governments, governments with a long record of hostility to the United States and an equally long record of support for terrorism. We should now immediately begin building up our conventional military forces to prepare for what will inevitably and rapidly escalate into confrontation and quite possibly war with one or more of those powers. Congress, in fact, should immediately declare war. It does not have to name a country. It can declare war against those who have carried out today’s attack and against any nations that may have lent their support…
…Fortunately, with the Cold War over, there are no immediate threats around the world to prevent us from concentrating our energies and resources on fighting this war on international terrorism as we have never fought it before.
How wrong Kagan was. And yet, he now says:
If the Democrats did take office in 2009, their approach to the post-Sept. 11 world would be marginally different but not stunningly different from Bush’s. And they would have to sell that not stunningly different set of policies to their own constituents.
In other words, the likely Democratic nominees (Hillary Clinton, Mark Warner, Evan Bayh, Tom Vilsack, Wesley Clark, John Kerry) would be forced to run a very similar foreign policy where it matters. The style might be different, the diplomacy might be better, the human rights record might improve, but on the bottom line, they would continue present policies. And the left, grateful for a stake in power, would rally around their President, and prevent America from questioning why we brought on the wrath and what innovative ways we might pursue to limit the wrath.
Let’s face it. We need more of a change in thinking than just a kindler, gentler size ZZZ footprint in the Middle East and Central Asia. We need to get rid of our need to be in the region. And that requires radically different policies than those being espoused by the front-runners of the Democratic Party.
I recommend that you not only read Al Gore’s interview with the Philadelphia City Paper, I recommend you email the link to everyone you know. Gore understands what the stakes are. He gets it. Other than Feingold, do any of our other candidates get it?
