Wish I'd Written That

By Drew

"For many of us, the [Iraq] war was supposed to be about U.S. national security and only about U.S. national security. It would be nice if we could make Iraq a better place, just as it would be nice if we could make Afghanistan a better place, but that was never a sufficient reason to go to war. The reason to go to war was to find and kill every last son of a bitch who had anything to do with 9/11. And that job was not the main focus in Iraq, and in any event is unfortunately not finished.

"One of the main reasons John McCain is facing such an tough job today is that we are now in the sixth year of a war that the president of his own party started by mistake. That's a major headwind when you're running for president; an error of that magnitude will exact a political price. Would anyone be surprised if voters say that they've had enough?"

Byron York, NRO

Which Way?

By Drew

Kathryn Jean Lopez, who writes for NRO, sums up the conumdrum facing the Republicans in their presidential contest. From a conservative who isn't that wild about Rudy, but could see voting for him nonetheless:

At a recent Beltway party, a friend who is a devoted social conservative explained, and I paraphrase, "Even if abortion is legal in this messed-up post-Roe country, I can choose to not have an abortion. I can counsel you not to have an abortion. I can even choose not to hook up with anyone in the first place. But I can't kill the jihadists. I need the government to do that."

And from K-Lo herself, which is more in line with my own thinking:

The guy who will clearly stare down the jihadists will ultimately earn conservative votes. That may be Giuliani. For now, however, I'm holding out for a leader who comes with even more than that — the one who knows not only that we have a civilization to fight for, but also understands that marriage and the preservation of human life are essential to keeping that civilization going.

What those who most fervently believe the Iraq War is "unjust" often fail to understand is the depth of feeling that so many Americans have, that, as K-Lo's correspondent said, "I can't kill the jihadists. I need the government to do that." I suppose some would say that feeling was unjust as well; they might even try to make an analogy equating the "it's the government's job to keep me safe, regardless of the costs" type of thinking with things like, let's say, embryonic stem-cell research. ("As long as it cures my disease, it's the government's job to do it, regardless of the costs.") I'm sorry, but I don't buy that line.

And yet I'm no supporter of Rudy myself. As Mitchell wrote a few months ago, too much of what he believes in runs contrary to what we believe in. For in fighting to preserve the West, we have to look at what makes up that civilization, what makes it worth saving in the first place. Without that basic belief in the worthiness of human life, the magic of creation, it becomes that much less worth saving.

The problem, as I see it, is this: even if West does become "that much less worth saving," a lot of the people in it still deserve to be protected from those who would destroy that civilization entirely. And that's a hard one to reconcile. I sure don't have the answers.

What I do know is this: too many people, on both sides of the argument, approach it from the standpoint of 1) naivety, and 2) incivility. If we can get past those two obstacles, we might come up with an answer yet.

Why I'm a Conservative, Not a Republican: Reason #2,221

By Mitchell

In honor of Presidents' Day (actually, Washington's Birthday Observed), a look at this month's First Things and a very interesting discussion between Joseph Bottom and Michael Novak on "The Leadership of George W. Bush: Con & Pro," which, fortunately is also available online. (And which hopefully means we can finally be rid of that exceedingly tedious debate between Alyssa Lyra Pitstick and Edward Oakes.) Bottom takes the "con," and while his entire piece is valuable (both his and Novak's are well thought-out), the case couldn't be put much better than he does in the concluding four paragraphs of his brief, presented here without further elaboration.

And the fact we must face is this: We have already been defeated in Iraq. Perhaps not in literal truth; a better policy, better implemented, might yet bring about a stable, democratic country. And certainly not in historical terms; Iraq is only an early chapter in what must be a long struggle against global Jihadism. But, at the very least, the battle for perception of the Iraq War has gone entirely against the United States. In the eyes of both the American public and the Islamic world, we have lost-and lost badly.

The reason is President Bush. His administration has mishandled the logistics of the war and the politics of its perception in nearly equal measure, from Abu Ghraib to the execution of Saddam Hussein. Conservatives voted for George W. Bush in 2000 [editor's note: not this one] because they expected him to be the opposite of Bill Clinton-and so, unfortunately, he has proved. Where Clinton seemed a man of enormous political competence and no principle, Bush has been a man of principle and very little political competence. The security concerns after the attacks of September 11 and the general tide of American conservatism carried Republicans through the elections of 2002 and 2004. But by 2006 Bush had squandered his party’s advantages, until even the specter of Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House was not enough to keep the Republicans in power.

To abandon Iraq now would be the height of irresponsibility. It would lock in place the perception of defeat, with all the predictable consequences, and it would abandon the Iraqis to whom we promised freedom and democracy. President Bush has clearly done the right thing in refusing retreat and pledging to stay the course in Iraq.

But hasn’t that always been the problem? Again and again, he has done the right thing in the wrong way, until, at last, his wrongness has overwhelmed his rightness. How can conservatives continue to support this man in much of anything he tries to do? Iraq is not America’s failure, and it is not conservatism’s failure. We are where we are because of George W. Bush’s failure. All the 2008 Republican presidential candidates should understand the task they face over the next two years. George Bush’s ideals have gotten him elected president twice, and his incompetence has finally delivered the Congress to his domestic opponents and empowered his nation’s enemies abroad. Iraq needs an American president who embraces Bush’s principles-and rejects his policies. The United States needs much the same thing.

Five Years Later

By Hadleyblogger Drew

I know this is outside my normal scope of commentary, but I hope you don't mind me offering a few thoughts on this sad anniversary. A lot of words will be written about today, and you don't really need more coming from me, so I'll keep them brief and to the point.

It's hard sometimes to remember that we're a country at war. We don't act like it, we've been encouraged to keep living normal lives, and except for the threats that occasionally pop up we seem to be content to let it drift into the background. Most of the time we don't think about it unless it's to complain about the latest security measure.

But there are people out there, evil people who are dedicated to destroying us and our way of life. They murdered thousands of innocent people five years ago today, and they've been at it ever since, though not in numbers so spectacular as those. The Islamofascists are nothing if not xenophobes, with a paranoid fear of anything and anyone different from them. Unless they're stopped they intend to try to finish what they've already started.

Now, there are those who say that we brought on the terrorist attacks ourselves, with our support of Israel, our arrogant stance in the world, our hedonistic lifestyle. The more conspiracy-minded even doubt that there were terrorists involved at all. And then there are the Nervous Nellies out there who wring their hands and fret about just war doctrine and how we're treating our prisoners and whether or not we might actually be killing people during this war. There are others who discount the whole Islamofascist movement, who say that it's ridiculous to think that these terrorists could actually take over the world, and that if we just ignored them the theat would go away.

There's probably a bit of truth in each of these propositions. I think, for example, there's a lot of merit to the idea that September 11 represented a chastisement from God, a warning that as a country and a society we'd gotten too far away from His will for us. (After all, you'll remember that it had been just a few days previously that Bush had made his disasterous stem-cell decision.) Unfortunately, things have, if anything, gotten even worse since then. If September 11 was the first chastisement, I shudder to think of what the next one will be.

But we must remember all the innocent men, women and children - not only in this country, but around the world - who, by the very fact of being alive, stand in the terrorists' crosshairs. Whatever else its sins may be, and they are legion, our government owes it to these innocents to protect them from those who seek to destroy them. It may be true that the idea of the Islamofascists conquering or converting the entire world is a preposterous one. What is not preposterous is the idea that these insane barbarians can destroy the world, nor is it absurd to suggest that they lack the will to do so. "Better Dead than Red" was the joke of the Cold War era; in this era of the shooting war, "Better Dead than Non-Islam" might be their rallying cry.

It's thought somewhat insensitive nowadays to be in favor of "total victory" in war. But that is what this defeating the terrorists is going to require. Total victory, no matter how hard it may be, how long it may take, how difficult it may get. The threat is out there, a threat to our lives and our way of life. As you watch the memorials today, as you remember the images of people leaping to their deaths from the burning towers, of the pictures of missing ones that lined the walls of buildings in New York for weeks afterward, of the candlelight vigils that took place, keep in mind that these murderers are still out there, with bloodlust in their hearts. They must be destroyed, each and every one of them.

We cannot afford to wait for them to strike again. They have already made their intentions known, and we must do the same. This does not mean that we resort to their tactics, that we become animals as they are, that we toss away the last shreds of morality that we may posess. There is a just way of waging war, and we have to follow that. We also have to recognize the folly of doing anything without the presence of God in our thoughts, our plans, our way of life.

Can it still be done, at this late hour? Only God Himself knows. But we do know our task. The threat must be met, head-on. The Islamofascists must be defeated and their reign of terror ended, however long it may take. If this bluntness offends anyone I'm sorry, but that's just too bad. The people responsible for this, and those like them, must be killed, defeated, destroyed.

The clock is running.