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“Security Should Be the Deciding Issue” (a response to Dean, Mike and, to a lesser degree, Karl)
Perhaps the definitve article of the election season was released just days before the votes were cast and America changed forever. As a “neo Con,” I took umbrage with nothing he says. How about you’all?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122541445283586623.html
As conservatives of various stripes, surely you know Kagan is a professor at West Point, a scholar at AEI, and alongside Cheney, Bush, McCain, Petreaus and others, the architect of the The Surge which won Operation Iraqi Freedom for us, and kept us safe & prosperous, while the Democrats and the hideous Ron Paul opposed.
I hope this is where we find common ground, but I highly doubt it. You guys take care. If I wanted to debate with people 100% different than me, I’d hit up HuffPo, CNN and MSN.com.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Not normally would I comment on my own post, but in order to get this noticed, David Horowitz, a patriot I know and admire, who has spent years dedicating himself to ridding campuses and the world of radicals and Islamic extremists, summarizes my views on Ron Paul and libertarianism/paleoconservatism in 2007:
“Some of my best friends are libertarians and the greatest intellectual influence on me was Hayek. However, in practical political matters, libertarians tend to live in alternate universe, without regard for the real world consequences of their actions. Ron Paul – the only Libertarian in Congress – is a disgrace. He has waged a war against America’s war on terror, in lockstep with the left, and against the state of Israel, the frontline democracy in this war”
August 11th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
I hesitate to respond to this message in light of the gauntlet that has been thrown down. As I see it, we have been given an ultimatum: If you agree with me, I will consider posting on the site further. However, if you continue to disagree, I will take my toys and go home. If that is how things will be, it’s probably best if I just wish you a fond adieu, and chalk this up to a misjudgment of character on my part as disagreement is a certainty – if not on this post, then in some future post.
Nonetheless, I shall plow forward in the hopes that this is but one more example of hyperbole that comes from a surfeit of passion.
In many respects what Frederick Kagan has written is correct. Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations like it are our enemies. Pakistan poses a threat to the security of the region (whether that equates to a threat to American security, on the other hand, is debatable).
His analogy to the Great Depression is flawed on its face. As he points out, when Roosevelt took office, American military power was at its nadir. With our troops strewn across the globe and fighting multiple wars, Obama inherits nothing like what Roosevelt did. It is not at all certain that a general military disengagement would result in another World War. That is pushing the (flawed) analogy too far.
“Hoover had the distinction of being the last American president who did not command American troops in important conflicts. After FDR, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower led the war in Korea that ended up shaping East Asia and the global economy profoundly.” Maybe I’m perverse, but doesn’t this beg the question that interventionist foreign policy is inimical to peace? Couldn’t a case be made that our involvement in affairs across the globe has resulted in more warfare, not less? Kagan’s observation seems to undercut his argument.
Lastly, he notes that the next president will face the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran. I don’t dispute that. I think whatever we do that outcome is inevitable. It is just a matter of science and technology. No amount of war can make the Iranian people stupid. They will eventually develop the bomb. Indeed, a war may hasten that development, as it did for the United States in 1945 when necessity propelled our nuclear program.
I wish Kagan had spent more time, not on identifying the challenges, but making the case that a threat to the Middle East region is equal to a threat to America. I have yet to hear a cogent argument for why that is necessarily so. Isn’t instability in that region even more of a concern for Russia or China? Why should the United States be responsible for the protection of Russia and China?
It may seem like I am pleading for someone to advance such an argument. If one were to arrive at that conclusion, they would be correct. Doughboy, I understand that you do not write your own arguments. But, perhaps you have an article in that vast archive of yours that lays out the case for me so that there is a chance I could be persuaded.
I understand that you could say if Afghanistan were to fall back into Taliban hands, then terrorists would have a safe haven from which to plan attacks. This is undeniably true. But, 9/11 was not allowed because our troops were not deployed overseas. It was primarily an intelligence and immigration failure – domestic policies. Can anyone argue that had we been fighting in Iraq on 9/11, the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and the Capitol building would have been prevented? That is what I must believe to accept this worldview – that we are safer from attack if we are deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan or Germany. Connect the dots for me.
August 11th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
“Can anyone argue that had we been fighting in Iraq on 9/11, the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and the Capitol building would have been prevented?”
Yes, but we had Clinton as president so it all was ignored. Carter is to blame originally for the onset of the Mullahs as you all know.
And we will continue to be safer now thanks to the Bush Doctrine you, like the left, oppose!
Say it with me:
NO TERROR ATTACKS SINCE 9-11!
And you vote for Ron Paul. Again, one of us will look bad to our grandchildren.
Mike, nice post. No response from me is required as I would just hit the same points and you’d argue back the same way. It’s unnerving that folks like you and I have made the GOP into factions again. This is why we lost elections from 1932 to 1952. This is why the Whigs lost elections in the early to mid 19th century. The Dems are united in their radicalism, so they’re set.
The next 20 years will be similar (loss after loss) unless you guys wake up and support our noble efforts.
August 11th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
BTW, guys, you’re intelligent folks. I think you’re well-meaning, just off on the most crucial issue of our time as you over-complicate matters.
It’s troubling, but it is what it is.
Best always,
AJ
August 11th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Karl looks at Mike and says, “Why do we have to join him? Why doesn’t he join us?” Mike simply shrugs because everything has gotten overly complicated.
And the ratchet effect continues its unidirectional, relentless progress…
August 11th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
So government can’t run the post office, can’t run Amtrak, can’t ever get health care right, can’t manage the welfare state, etc., etc., etc.
But government can invade countries, install democratic governments, and bring peace to the planet. And, oh yeah, government can prevent a few guys (out of 6 billion on the planet) from executing a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Remember, it can’t run the Post Office even reasonably well, it couldn’t even launch military aircraft on time to stop a couple of planes from hitting the Twin Towers. But government can save the world from Terror.
This is ultimately what you are arguing.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
NO TERROR ATTACKS SINCE 9-11!
I think there are scores of families and 400 children in Texas who would disagree with you.
August 11th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Makes no sense, Dean. There have been no islamic jihadist attacks since 9-11 thanks to the Bush Doctrine and programs like the Patriot Act that thwart them. These same programs you oppose! Enough said.
August 12th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Of course it makes no sense to you. In your paradigm anything the US gov does is beneficent by definition.
Amazing how we had 200 years of no Bush doctrine and no Islamic terrorists attacks. Then we had 4 years of George the First’s New World Order in the Middle East, perpetrated by 8 more years of Clinton, then we have the 9/11 blowback. And you want to pretend these NWO policies now on steroids since George the Second is keeping us safe. For someone who claims to be a historian you seem remarkably ignorant of historical cause and effect. Bin Laden himself gave us the reasons for the 9/11 attacks and they had everything to do with those policies instituted under GWB I. In your make believe world we were minding our own business when 9/11 happened.
Some trust in horses and chariots, some in the iron fist of military might, but I’ll choose to trust in a different deity.