This is really a letter to the average Republican that has an open mind. I want you to take a long look at what your party leaders are doing. I am going to provide some context for you to see things in a new way.
No one can dispute that we at war. We have over a hundred thousand soldiers deployed in Iraq alone. There are a lot of different ways to look at the war on terrorism. And there are a lot of different ways to look at the war in Iraq. I am going to focus on Iraq.
When we look back at the Vietnam War there is still controversy over why we lost that war. Some people think we never should have gotten involved there. Others thinks we used the wrong strategies. But one thing we can all agree on is that the war was lost when the American public turned decisively against it.
That fact has led many to blame elements within the country that worked to undermine the resolve for continued warfare in Indochina. But that is short sighted. The public would not have turned against the war if it had not been lied to and if the war had been making progress. There will always be peace activists in any conflict, whether warranted or unwarranted. We should be grateful that some people are unwavering opponents of using violence to solve conflicts. We wouldn’t want to live in a world where no one took Jesus, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King Jr. seriously. But their arguments rise or fall based on the fundamentals.
They were out there protesting the invasion of Afghanistan. But there was never any prospect of their protests undermining the resolve of the American people for removing the Taliban from power and ripping up Al-Qaeda’s terrorist training camps. Even as the war on Afghanistan starts to turn south, there still is little outcry for us to abandon the field.
Iraq is more like Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson, talking about the Tonkin Gulf Incident, admitted, “For all I know, our Navy was shooting whales out there.” Let’s compare that to what he told Congress:
President Johnson’s Message to Congress August 5, 1964
Last night I announced to the American people that the North Vietnamese regime had conducted further deliberate attacks against U.S. naval vessels operating in international waters, and I had therefore directed air action against gunboats and supporting facilities used in these hostile operations. This air action has now been carried out with substantial damage to the boats and facilities. Two U.S. aircraft were lost in the action.
After consultation with the leaders of both parties in the Congress, I further announced a decision to ask the Congress for a resolution expressing the unity and determination of the United States in supporting freedom and in protecting peace in southeast Asia.
These latest actions of the North Vietnamese regime has given a new and grave turn to the already serious situation in southeast Asia. Our commitments in that area are well known to the Congress. They were first made in 1954 by President Eisenhower. They were further defined in the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty approved by the Senate in February 1955.
This is very similar to the way Bush and Cheney took us into war in Iraq. The Downing Street Minutes show that the “facts were being fixed around the policy.” Now, it is always possible that our leaders know better than we do. Sometimes they may be justified in taking actions that don’t have public support. They might even be justified in providing a false casus belli to whip public support for a policy that is really in the nation’s best interests. Certainly Roosevelt could be forgiven if he failed to take precautions at Pearl Harbor, knowing that it would provide the much needed national unity to take on Japan and Germany. I am not subscribing to that conspiracy theory, but I could understand why FDR would do such a thing. In that case, it might be called ‘wisdom’. But that was only because the threat was real.
A communist Vietnam was not a real threat. And an isolated and embargoed Saddam Hussein was not much of a threat. Both Bush and LBJ (and subsequently Nixon) ran into a problem when their wars turned out badly. Having lied about both the reasons for going to the wars and on the progress of the wars, they had no credibility when it came time to ask for increased sacrifices.
The lesson should be obvious, but apparently is not. We should never enter into war unless there is overwhelming domestic support and the war is absolutely unavoidable. When the Brits were forced to retreat from Dunkirk and subsequently bombed, they did not lose their resolve or become divided. But that was only because the alternative to victory was unthinkable. The alternative to victory in Vietnam was disco. The alternative to victory in Iraq is likely to be more serious, but the political landscape is similar.
Many suggest that a defeat in Iraq will be catastrophic. I am not willing to argue they are definitely wrong. But I am willing to argue that, if there is a prospect of catastrophe, then we should be marshalling all our resources to prevent defeat. That would certainly include raising however many divisions we need to pacify the country. If that included a draft, so be it. If it is that important, by all means, let’s have a draft.
All of America should be doing their part. During World War Two, we bought war bonds and planted victory gardens and went without luxury items and paid higher taxes. We won.
Of course, if the Bush administration wants to ask the country to make these sacrifices, they have to unify the country. They have to depoliticize the conflict, so Democrats will know they can support the policy or dissent from the policy without it being used against them in campaigns.
But that is not what is happening. Rather than react to the success of Ned Lamont by reaching out to moderate Democrats like Carl Levin and Joe Biden and incorporating their ideas, rather than react to the quagmire in Iraq by dumping Rumsfeld and appointing a Democrat to run the Pentagon, we have the Vice-President comparing Lamont supporters to al-Qaeda sympathizers. We have Orrin Hatch calling us ‘appeasers’.
By politicizing the war in Iraq the administration has basically forfeited the right to expect bipartisn support. By refusing to ask all Americans to participate and sacrifice they have given the lie to how critical success in Iraq is. By refusing to punish those that have made horrible errors in both tactics and strategy, they’ve lost the right to be given the benefit of the doubt. By lying both about the reasons for war and the progress of war, they have lost the right to be taken at their word.
So, for my conservative friends, I ask you, ‘what do you think about this track record and this political strategy’?
What kind of leadership is this?
We are losing in Iraq. At what point do you expect the administration to stop blaming the Democrats for that fact, explain the stakes, and make the concessions that are needed to get some bipartisan support for the effort?
If it is really that critical, surely they can make that clear to the majority of the voting public.
I suggest that the actions of the administration demonstrate conclusively that they are more willing to suffer defeat in Iraq than to suffer defeat at the ballot box. And if this is all about electoral politics, then why are our children getting killed over there? Why, if Iraq is so critical to our security, are we watching it descend into hell without so much as a hint of bipartisanship from the administration?
Do you think they should continue to employ Rumsfeld and rely on Cheney’s council, while calling critics names and questioning our loyalty?
If this makes sense to you, my right-wing friends, then I guess we’ll never have a meeting of the minds.
When will you demand that our government act like statesmen and take world affairs with the seriousness that they deserve?
