By the same token, I was drawn into a number of fights because some of my friends relied upon me to back them up when they started a fight. It was not uncommon for one of my friends to start a fight with a guy they knew they couldn’t beat because they knew I would come to the rescue. And, because they were my friends, I had no choice but to do so. As a consequence, I was involved in far more fights than I would otherwise have been. (And spent far more time in the principal’s office than I would otherwise have).

The United States is in a similar position. We have allies that pick fights with their neighbors, or at least refuse to make peace with their neighbors because they can depend on us to back them up. If the United States were to make clear that these friends were on their own, they would cease to make trouble and would be willing to make peace with those with whom they have beefs. Some fights are unavoidable but, by and large, most are not. Those that can be avoided ought to be and powerful nations ought to make clear that their wimpier neighbors and friends ought not to place them in a position to be drawn into them. This is the essence of what George Washington said when he said that we should avoid entangling alliances. Certainly, we should not hand out defense guarantees.

If the United States were to make clear that it was not going to fight for others, two things would happen. First, it would be drawn into far fewer fights. Second, its supposed friends would be far more likely to find an amicable resolution to its disputes and be far less likely to foment disputes with their adversaries. As a rule, those of our friends who are nuclear armed should be weaned from the teat first. They have less need of our support than any others. Other nations should be put on notice that the United States is not in the business of meeting their friends’ enemies behind the schoolhouse. We have enough enemies creeping across our own borders to worry about the problems of other nations.

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

The president is imbued with the authority to implement military strategy in his role as commander-in-chief of the military by Article II, Section 1 of the constitution.

Clearly, the raising and equipping of a military force is authorized by the constitution. What the constitution does not say is how that military is to be used. In the debates that led to the adoption of our constitution, issues surrounding the raising of armies and navies were hotly contested. Generally the debating parties fell into one of two camps: the Federalists and the anti-Federalists.

The Federalist position on the military was mainly represented by Alexander Hamilton’s writings. In Federalist 23, Hamilton argued that the federal government should be imbued with an unlimited authority to raise armies and navies “for the common defence.” Nonetheless, it was clear from his writings that the military’s role was defensive, that the military should be powerful enough to address any contingency in order to deter aggression from other quarters. Hamilton saw the American people as essentially a commercial people rather than an imperial or martial people. In Federalist 34, he stated:

But if we mean to be a commercial people, it must form a part of our policy, to be able one day to defend that commerce. The support of a navy, and of naval wars must baffle all the efforts of political arithmetic admitting that we ought to try the novel and absurd experiment in politics, of tying up the hands of Government from offensive war, founded upon reasons of state: Yet, certainly we ought not to disable it from guarding the community against the ambition or enmity of other Nations.

Clearly, the idea of engaging in offensive wars was an absurd notion to Hamilton, who believed that the military’s role should be to protect our nation’s commerce from attack.

The anti-Federalists saw the existence of standing armies during a period of peace as inimical to freedom and as a threat to liberty. The Anti-Federalist who used the name of “John DeWitt” wrote extensively about the evils of standing armies in a series of essays published in the Boston American Herald in late 1787:

They shall have also the power of raising, supporting and establishing a standing army in time of peace in your several towns, and I see not why in your several houses.”

Where lies the security of the people? What assurances have they that either their taxes will not be exacted but in the greatest emergencies, and then sparingly, or that standing armies will be raised and supported for the very plausible purpose only of cantoning them upon their frontiers? There is but one answer to these questions. – They have none.

The advocates at the present day, for a standing army in the New Congress pretend it is necessary for the respectability of government. I defy them to produce an instance in any country, in the Old or New World, where they have not finally done away the liberties of the people. – Every writer upon government, – Lock, Sidney, Hamden, and a list of other have uniformly asserted, that standing armies are a solecism in any government; that no nation ever supported them, that did not resort to, rely upon, and finally become a prey to them.

It is universally agreed, that a militia and a standing body of troops never yet flourished in the same soil. Tyrants have uniformly depended upon the latter, at the expense of the former. Experience has taught them, that a standing body of regular forces, where ever they can be completely introduced, are always efficacious in enforcing their edicts, however arbitrary.

There is no instance of any government being reduced to a confirmed tyranny without military oppression; and the first policy of tyrants has been to annihilate all other means of national activity and defence, and to rely solely upon standing troops.

It is very true, that the celebrated Mr. Wilson, a member of the Convention, and who we may suppose breathes, in some measure, the spirit of that body, tells you, it [a standing army] is for the purpose of forming cantonments upon your frontiers, and for the dignity and safety of your country, as it respects foreign nations. No man that loves his country could object to their being raised for the first of these causes, but for the last it cannot be necessary. GOD has so separated us by an extensive ocean from the rest of mankind, he hath so liberally endowed us with privileges, and so abundantly taught us to esteem them precious, it would be impossible, while we retain our integrity and advert to first principles, for any nation whatever to subdue us.

While it is debatable today that the imposition of an ocean between our nation and those who might be jealous of our soil does much to ensure our security, what cannot be denied is that, like Hamilton, the anti-Federalists acknowledged the legitimate role of an army or navy to be essentially defensive.

These founding patriots are supported by the Church’s teachings on war:

2307 The fifth commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life. Because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war, the Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine Goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war.

2308 All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war.

However, “as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.”

2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

-  the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.

These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the “just war” doctrine.

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

2310 Public authorities, in this case, have the right and duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for national defense.

Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honorably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace.

(footnotes omitted; emphasis in the original).

Freedom and moral probity require that a military force be oriented to the defense of the nation or people. And yet, the United States conducts two major wars in which the defense of the American people does not figure. At the end of 2007, the United States military was stationed in 152 countries (of the 194 countries on earth) in addition to its troops at home. More than a quarter million American servicemen (288,627) were stationed in foreign countries.

Some will no doubt argue that the fighting of wars abroad, mainly in the service of the “Global War on Terror,” helps to keep us safe at home. But, the events of this week expose that statement to be the lie that it is. Thirteen Americans were slain here at home and 29 injured despite our best efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our law enforcement and intelligence personnel have also uncovered several other plots within our borders to kill Americans while we fought in those countries. It does not take an unnatural effort of intellect to conclude that fighting wars in foreign countries has little effect on our safety at home. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that we are targeted, at least in part, because of our military involvement in other countries. Certainly, Osama bin Laden cited our military presence in Saudi Arabia as one of the reasons for his craven attack on the American people. To be sure, there are other reasons for terrorism and I do not suggest that America is the author of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 or at any other time. However, to deny the fact that intervention contributes to terrorists’ hatred of the United States is to make oneself willfully stupid.

Others will argue that, as the lone superpower in the world, we have a moral responsibility to defend those who lack the power to lift the oppression visited upon them. This argument, at least, has the virtue of presenting a facially moral justification for war that the intellectually flaccid argument in favor of a “Global War on Terror” lacks. Indeed, I have made the argument myself in former days. However, this argument is beset by practical difficulties. It is not always clear who is the oppressor and who the oppressed (If Israel invades Syria, to whose defense do we rally?). Furthermore, those who advocate this position reveal themselves to be selective in the exercise of their morality. For instance, do they advocate a war against China to free the Tibetan people who are undoubtedly oppressed? Why not to overthrow the government of China itself, whose people labor under a despotism that is odious to any notion of freedom? Or, acknowledging the daunting task of fighting a billion people, why not topple the government of Venezuela – a task easily within the capabilities of our military? In each instance, those who advocate the lifting of oppression blanch. In the end, the moral argument devolves into a weighing of the benefit to America, revealing that even those who would enter into war on moral grounds do so because of private interests. Indeed, any such intervention, because of the selective nature of its imposition, is exposed as offensive in nature, designed to benefit American interests – even if simply to assuage our sense of moral justice. Where the American interest would not be served, as in Tibet due to danger or in Northern Ireland for other reasons, they demur from intervention. If America has a moral obligation to protect the oppressed, then moral probity would demand that it extends to all who are oppressed and not selectively.

How then are our interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq defensive? The Global War on Terror is not a defensive war. Indeed, George W. Bush, its progenitor, described the invasion of Iraq as “pre-emptive self-defense.” This non-sequitur is another name for offensive war. The war in Iraq itself was premised on Iraq’s pending accession to nuclear status and the supposed threat that would pose – a pair of contentions neither of which has been borne out. If we had a moral obligation to free Islamic women so they may be educated and dunk their thumbs in purple dye, then why not extend the GWOT to Iran where its women are likewise oppresse and which also appears poised to become a nuclear nation? How about Saudi Arabia? Or Pakistan? Or Syria? Or Turkey? Or, or, or?

A more traditional argument could be made that our dependence on foreign oil provides cause for the military to protect our commercial interests in the Middle East. But even this argument proves infirm when one considers our large deposits of domestic oil and the nearly unlimited deposits of domestic natural gas at our nation’s disposal. It is true we would suffer a rise in prices for our fuel. But that would only serve to spur domestic investment in exploiting our own resources. This economic development would, in turn, render those price increases temporary. Not incidentally, it would also serve to employ Americans in a time when unemployment tops 10%.

If liberty and moral probity require that our use of the military be defensive, what would that look like? Certainly, it serves no defensive purpose to maintain military presences in 152 nations, most of which pose no threat to the United States. For instance, what purpose does it serve to have three servicemen stationed permanently in Bermuda? Are they likely to attack the United States? Or even to be attacked by another nation? And, if so, what would our three men do to prevent the invasion of Bermuda? It might be nice duty – a little plum that a Senator’s son might be given. But is it necessary?

Indeed, why is it necessary to maintain 57,000+ troops in Germany? Are we still fighting the Cold War? Is Europe under attack? The rationale for those troops was to counter the threat of Soviet expansion, but with the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago and the disintegration of the Soviet empire, that justification no longer answers. When the Soviet Union fell, talk turned to the peace dividend that America would enjoy. However, we have squandered that dividend by maintaining our former Cold War stance and conjuring new justifications for it.

The new justification appears to be the need for “forward deployment” and “rapid response.” Forward deployment, however, fairly screams its offensive character. They are stationed there because it is convenient to the Middle East and Asia. Yet what possessions on those continents does America have? The short answer is none. America cannot be attacked in Asia if it is not there.

A defensive force would be stationed at home on American soil. It would be considerably smaller as a defensive force need not project power across the globe. Our navy would be dedicated to the protection of American commerce as was originally envisioned. Disputes with other nations would be resolved, in the first instance, by talking to our adversaries. In so positioning ourselves, we would be committing to peace first and war only as a necessary last resort. Our example would do more to promote peace than any amount of intervention has proven to provide. America, as Ronald Reagan once said, should stand as a shining city on a hill testifying to the cause of peace and comity through its own example to other nations. We should be seen as threatening none, but willing and able to defend our own. As Teddy Roosevelt put it, we should speak softly and carry a big stick.

Maintaining a smaller force would provide the benefit of lessening the burden on the American taxpayer and thereby lessening that particular tyranny at the same time that it would provide an effective bulwark against foreign invasion. Europe and Israel, it is true, would be required to provide for their own defense (another boon to the American taxpayer). But, the burden should be placed on those who benefit and to place the burden elsewhere is unjust to those who are forced to shoulder that burden.

Finally, I was discussing much of what I have written here with my wife and she called me naive – specifically, that I had my head in the sand. Maybe I am; judge for yourself. But, first ask this question? What is your goal when you seek to intervene in other nations’ affairs? Is it to bring them peace? It has a certain Orwellian ring to it when one advocates Peace Through War. But that is precisely what inteventionists seem to believe – that peace can be obtained by killing people. But, then I probably flatter the interventionists when I assign to them any motive of promoting peace. Peace would be bad for business. How could the government be grown if we no longer had to fund endless wars? Come to think of it, the existence of an endless war against a hated adversary, like the GWOT, has an Orwellian flavor.

Nonetheless, it seems President Obama is wavering with respect to backing up his claim that Afghanistan is the good war. Lately he has been intimating that McChrystal is out of luck. Neocons are apoplectic about the prospect of abandoning any sort of surge strategy in Afghanistan. After all, they point out, the surge worked in Iraq. True enough. But what evidence is there that it will work in Afghanistan? Indeed, everyone needs to stop for a moment and examine what the goal in Afghanistan is.

We went there to depose the Taliban because they were harboring al Qaeda. That mission was accomplished. The Taliban no longer has a central role in Afghanistan. On the other hand, it seems that we are inadvertently propping them up monetarily, so they can fight us more effectively. Nonetheless, they no longer hold the reins of power. An American puppet government has been installed. But I always thought the real goal in Afghanistan was to destroy al Qaeda and to kill Osama bin Laden. That goal has not been accomplished. Furthermore, it appears that the United States military, under the rules of engagement they are saddled with, is not up to that job. Osama is likely squirreled away somewhere in Pakistan where the Army and Marines cannot reach him. Indeed, to reach him, America would have to open a new front in this war – a prospect which is unlikely to occur.

Given the state of events, a withdrawal from Afghanistan following our rout of the Taliban eight years ago could be couched as a victory to ameliorate the bloodlust of the neocons. At the same time it may entice bin Laden to emerge from his hidey-hole where someone can take a Whack-a-Mole shot at him. Unless McChrystal proposes pursuing an illegal war over the border of Pakistan (ala Cambodia – which might net him a Nobel Peace Prize like that which Kissinger enjoyed after his advocacy of the bombing campaign in Cambodia), there is absolutely no prospect of bringing the mastermind of 9-11 to justice through military means. Or we can continue doing what we have been doing and hope that it nets different results.

With luck, Obama will decide that further prosecution of this “good” war is not in America’s interest and will bring the troops home. As a result, there may be some chance that someone will have a chance to take out bin Laden. But, none of this can happen if Obama caves to General McChrystal and continues the path we’ve been following. A new strategy is called for and hopefully, Obama’s gutlessness will accidentally provide it.

UPDATE: Hey, I know. Why don’t we set up a country where we know the terrorists will set up camps to plot against us? At least then we’ll know where the terrorists are. I propose we allow Afghanistan (which seems to be immune from stable government) to be that location.

According to my critics one would expect me to be far out of the mainstream.

But then, two weeks ago, George Will, writing in the Washington Post, wrote this. I wonder if he has crossed over to the dark side, cozied up to the anti-war left. Certainly, I think it would be a tough sell to paint George Will as some sort of slavering extremist. I may have anticipated the movement among those who are more conservative-minded, but it does appear that sentiment within conservative circles may be turning. And that should be a welcome thing.

The article to which you linked, when read through the lenses of one conversant with history (which one would expect a self-described historian to do), demonstrated far better than I could of the bankruptcy of your side. Kagan starts out by mentioning the Great Depression. He failed to note any of the actual causes of that depression. He failed to take into consideration the “adventurism,” to borrow one of your words from a recent comment, of the United States leading up to that crisis. The economic decisions in the midst and wake of the Civil War (National banking acts of 1863 and 1864 which consolidated currency to fund the Union’s war; Federal Reserve creation in 1913; Aldrich-Vreeland in 1908, etc.) and the domestic and foreign policy decisions in the wake of the war (Reconstruction; almost immediate attempts at imperialism in Santo Domingo, Cuba, and Liberia – all of which came about due to slavery and its end; westward expansion, Indian wars, Alaskan purchase; Roosevelt’s splitting of the Republicans, his appointments to the Supreme Court, etc.; financial, monetary, and fiscal management and mismanagement), not to mention World War I, all contributed directly to the spreading thin of the American military and building resentment throughout the world.

Kagan goes on to insinuate that, because the United States seemed to somehow ignore foreign policy, Japan militarized and Germany fell under Hitler’s sway. This is howlingly funny. What we are required to do if we are to accept Kagan’s hypothesis is to absolutely and unequivocally deny that black is black, that water is wet, or that fire is hot. Aside from the fact that it was American “adventurism” (e.g., with the Great White Fleet, which further fueled a zealous desire to militarize in newly-nationalist Japan) which thrust Japan on its path toward imperialism (read about Perry’s Black Ships and the cracking of isolationist Japan, the Meiji Restoration, the Manchurian, Korean, and Russian campaigns of Japan), we can hardly be faulted for “ignoring” Germany: we had shipped thousands of American boys there to fight, bleed, die, and kill, and had established a new world-political body to deal with the German problem only 20 years before the 1933 Nazification. One could be excused for refusing to read any of the rest of Kagan’s ludicrous bombast after realizing this, but, intrepid soul that I am, I trudged on.

Kagan engaged in your least-favorite pasttime. He had the balls to criticize Ronald Reagan (gasp! the horror!) in practically the same breath as he criticized Jimmy Carter. Calling Reagan’s policy decisions about Lebanon “failed” and asserting that these policies led to the bombing of the Marine barracks is hardly what one would expect to hear you lauding. Implicit in this is the recognition that we should not have been there to get bombed. Reagan quickly and wisely realized this and did exactly the right thing: he got out and left Israel to what it was perfectly, demonstrably capable of doing: defending itself and letting Beirut and the Lebanese tend to their own damned affairs. No more Marines were killed there after that. No Al-Aqsa,  ”Quds Force,” or Hezbollah started trouble by killing Americans there. What a concept.  What were “Reagan’s failed policies” in Lebanon? Assisting a “multinational force” along with French troops and others to “keep the peace” in a sectarian civil war. What spawned the Muslim hatred and subsequent suicide bombings? Perceived American preference for Maronite Catholics and the shelling of Druze areas which inadvertantly killed civilians.

Kagan touches tangentially and seemingly accidentally upon one truth: things now are probably more dangerous for the U.S., but because of our huge overseas presence and constant “spreading of democracy” or “war on terror” or “search for WNDs” (we really do need to find those nasty World Net Dailies) or whatever they’re calling it these days, not because we are letting our guard down.

People are growing weary of the wars, growing weary of the constant misequation of the United States of America with Israel by the radical Zionists, and people are growing weary of the stubborn economic hardships put upon them by constant imperialism. Bring Americans home to defend America. Root out radical Islam here and deport it. If the resistance starts here, put it down swiftly and with no remorse. But there is no way we need to be defending South Korea from a tinpot near-dead in charge of a run-down non-entity. There is no justification for making all those “security guarantees” to states in the Russian sphere of influence. There is no way you could possibly believe that Kagan essay if you know and understand history. There is no way you can continue to call yourself a conservative and defend such Wilsonianism. It is definitionally schizophrenic, or alternatively simply mendacious, to claim to be conservative and yet espouse this baseless, historically-illiterate, radical Ledeenishness while at the same time believing it makes us safer. Your apologists split their time between appealing to how much safer we are and how dangerous it’s getting. Your side constantly purports to support “democracy” and “freedom” while working overtime - often in cahoots with outright radical socialist would-be totalitarians – to quash them through Patriot Acts, occupations of foreign countries, propped-up banking cartels and outdated unionized auto companies (remember which President started those great things?). Your side is trying to cling desperately to relevance, which is understandable. But for whom are you striving?

I have posited that America is maintaining an empire – a claim that is refuted by Doughboy who prefers the term “peacekeeping.”  By using the word empire, instead of a more misleading term, I have been labeled a “guy who care[s] about your pocketbooks and cozying up to the anti war left”; that I am a cult member of Ron Paul’s; that I am a xenophobe who lacks understanding of the “global nature of the present times”; that I maintain a “leftwing site” that “never [has] any praise for our military, our Republican leaders, America etc. And there’s never any criticism twrd Obama, Pelosi, etc, only the military, Bush and peacekeeping.”

As to the last several specious arguments: that this website “never [has] any praise for our military,” see here, here, here for instances where I, personally, have praised the military during the last year. These do not reflect Bill’s constant praise for our soldiers. As for praising our Republican leaders, I would direct Doughboy’s attention here, here, here, here, here, here, and here where I have praised Republicans. Just recently I wrote this praising the very idea of America and I would note that virtually everything I write is suffused with an abiding love and respect for our constitutional way of life. So, as for Doughboy’s criticisms of the website, I think we can safely view them as hyperbole and emotional reaction unrelated to actual facts. I admit that I do criticize Republicans and even conservatives. As I have written before, the more vigorous the debate on the issues, the better. A strong debate tends to cull weaker ideas that cannot be justified. In that sense, debate among conservatives is healthy. When conservatives cease debate about their plank, that is a sign of unhealthy group-think that will inevitably lead to trouble.

As for the primary question, whether America is an empire, I point to our continual military presence in far-flung provinces as evidence of empire. Doughboy responds that these are for the purpose of peacekeeping, although one wonders if Germany still remains at risk of descending into chaos but for the presence of our soldiers there. Wouldn’t America be safer if its allies maintained strong militaries instead of abdicating their responsibility to defend themselves to the United States? Think of it this way. If you were a criminal looking for victims and you saw a huge, tough guy walking around with a bunch of four-year-olds in his gang, you would instantly recognize that in order to take control of the gang, you would simply have to take out the huge, tough guy – the rest would fall into your orbit from a lack of any real options. However, if you approached a gang where the huge, tough guy were accompanied by a fair number of sizable companions, you may find yourself less likely to consider them as a potential target. I invite Doughboy to consider which model the situation in Europe is more like. The fact is, our presence there excuses them from providing for themselves. Their refusal to accept responsibility for themselves, in turn, places the United States at greater risk, not lesser. A strong allied Europe would be a boon to the United States, but that will never happen as long we maintain our protective umbrella over our European provinces.

Oh, I’m sure referencing “our European provinces” is likely to draw fire, but if one nation cannot defend itself and relies on another, the stark reality is that the nation that holds the strings of life or death over the other actually holds the nation. It has been rendered a dependent state and cannot in any meaningful way be regarded as sovereign as long as such a condition persists. America was once in that position; it was then a colony of Great Britain, a holding of the crown. I will readily admit that America is bad at maintaining an empire. For instance, it is customary to force the colony to pull its own weight by remitting taxes or tribute to the emperor. Instead, we foot the bill for the entire world’s security.

Doughboy maintains that we are safer because we have troops scattered all over the world. He maintains that we benefit economically from this arrangement and that the world is more secure as a result. I have asked him to make his case. I am persuadable, I will listen to cogent argument. I will not listen to a harangue about how I have turned the website into a CNN.com chatroom by making myself into a leftist, who harbors a secret love for Pelosi, Reid, and Obama. Set me straight, Doughboy. I welcome the opportunity to engage in reasoned debate.

These goals have been met, to a greater or lesser degree. There are no terror camps operating within Afghanistan. Many of al-Qu’eda’s leaders have been captured or killed. The Taliban, who harbored and protected al-Qu’eda was deposed and scattered to the winds. As for terrorist activities within Afghanistan, it is difficult to separate insurgency from terror and it is unclear to what extent attacks would continue in the country if America were to withdraw its troops. Certainly there will be a fight in Afghanistan to fill the vaccuum that America’s departure would create, but that violence is more properly called civil war than terror.

Nonetheless, the great prize has not been accomplished in Afghanistan – the capture or destruction of al-Qu’eda’s leader, Osama bin Laden. After nearly eight years of constant occupation of the country, bin Laden remains at large and is sufficiently safe to issue occasional messages tweaking America for its inability to reach him. This is likely to continue for as long as thousands of American troops remain in Afghanistan. The very fact that the military is in every nook and cranny of Afghani life, means that bin Laden and his protectors will keep their heads down and do what has been so successful for nearly a decade. Clearly, after a decade of futility, a military operation has been shown to be ineffective in rooting out bin Laden.

The natives, as they say, are getting restless it seems. Violence is on the increase in Afghanistan and the Coalition is losing troops at a rate higher than at any time in recent memory. At the same time, the Aghan government seems to be losing stability rather than consolidating its hold on the country. Indeed, it would seem that the Afghani people are chafing under the continued occupation of their land by foreigners. As the Soviets learned in the eighties, Afghanistan can be a tough nut to crack. Meanwhile, al-Qu’eda has relocated to the mountains of Pakistan (everyone seems to think) where they have enjoyed relative safety from American or Pakistani forces.

If the military were to leave Afghanistan and the pressure to keep bin Laden hidden were lessened, he might be enticed to relax his guard. Surely, over the course of the last eight years, the CIA has not been sitting on its hands. One would hope that they have developed sources in Afghanistan that might prove more able to penetrate the defenses around bin Laden when those defenses slacken in his eagerness to reassert himself in new terror endeavors. The military angle has played out; it is time to try something a little more circumspect. In the process, we just might save our young soldiers from spilling more blood in an operation that, while enduring, has done little to promote freedom and has little prospect of doing so or of  capturing the mastermind of September 11th.

In short, it is time to cut and run. Let the chips fall where they may in Afghanistan and hope that Osama bin Laden pokes his head out of whatever spider hole he has been sheltering in for the better part of the decade. And, when he does, let us hope we have a man on the scene who can settle accounts that have long been overdue.

Jack Hunter, over at Taki’s Magazine, recently wrote a review of Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto by radio talk show host, Mark Levin. I recently read the book on the glowing recommedation of one of my friends and had intended to write my own review. In retrospect, I do not believe that I could add anything to Mr. Hunter’s review or that I would add anything different. Anyone who has listened to Mark Levin’s radio program will immediately note a significant difference in tone in his writing. He is far more reasonable and evenhanded in his manifesto and there is much that is valuable in his presentation. I, however, had exactly the same reaction as Mr. Hunter when it came to Levin’s treatment of “national security” and “foreign policy.” To me, after such an excellent exposition of conservative (dare I say it?) orthodoxy, Levin turns conservatism on its head with his celebration of American interventionist foreign policy.

The old wisdom used to be that Democrats took the nation to war and Republicans brought us home. Today, as Mr. Hunter points out, such mainstream expositors of conservatism (or at least what the public is told is conservatism) as Sean Hannity and Mark Levin now routinely decry any position as liberal which questions whether America should send troops to a foreign land. No more do Republicans stand for the idea of “speaking softly and carrying a big stick.” Of course, we still have a big stick – the biggest stick going by far (there’s something especially satisfying as a male to write those words and know they are true). However, we have long since given up the idea of speaking softly. We, as a nation, are in EVERYBODY’S business, telling them how they should live, govern, trade, lend money, etc. Today, we speak non-stop, like a drunken idiot who believes he is the life of the party, waving our stick menacingly around the party. Meanwhile, some of our fellow party-goers have been grumbling about calling the cops and having us removed from the party, but lamenting the fact that the cops cannot handle us.

The wisdom about the political parties was true as recently as the Nixon administration and somehow in little more than three decades what was once the liberal statist position has become the mainstream conservative position. I’ve spoken about the ratchet effect elsewhere; here is a rather striking example. To some extent, I think some of the explanation for how this has happened can be found in the rise in popularity of talk radio and the hosts who hold forth on that medium. For the most part, I believe, they and their listeners are largely orthodox conservatives who believe in small government in most realms except in foreign policy. When, as Mr. Hunter points out, most modern-day conservatives have received the entirety of their political education from talking heads on the radio, but have not read Kirk or Burke or Hayek, it is understandable how they could arrive at the screwy conclusion that there is something conservative about intervening in every conflict in every hell-hole that erupts around the world. Nonetheless, one can only conclude that most of these people have not made the effort to fit that position into the larger structure that conservatism as a worldview provides. The two positions are entirely unreconcilable.

The belief that government should be fashioned so as to be as unobtrusive as possible to the individual and executed at the lowest possible level, but also believing that the nation’s role is to project its power into every corner of the globe creates a cognitive dissonance that is unsettling to a systematizer like me, who wants everything to maintain a certain internal consistency and harmony. How does it support small, local government to tax people to the tune of more than $1 billion to wage a war in Iraq against a nation that had not attacked us, posed no threat to attack us, and had only the most tenuous of relationships with those who had attacked us (namely, a common religion)? Yet, many propose to continue our intervention in neighboring Iran. I can imagine Bill and Doughboy pulling their keyboards closer to respond that Iran has attacked us. They have, after all, undoubtedly caused many of the casualties we have suffered in Iraq. But, that begs the question. If our troops had not been in Iraq, what harm would (or could) Iran have caused the United States? If we were to remove those troops and bring them home, would Iran still pose a threat to the United States? Wouldn’t it be prudent at this juncture to save our money, our blood, and our capacity for self-defense by leaving the region and focusing on our own borders? We have won the war in Iraq it is said. Great! Let us enjoy the fruits of that victory and withdraw the victor. But, we must ask ourselves: Are we safer for having waged that war? Has our victory secured American security? If not, one must ask himself why not or he will commit the same errors again as is being urged.

I propose that resolving this question – how the idea of small, local government comports with global interventionism – may be more important to the future of this country than is exposing Barack Obama’s agenda. It is only if we can save the soul of conservatism that there can be any resistance to the creeping fascism of statist policies like President Obama’s.

Doughboy writes:

“Obama celebrates Iraqi sovereignty”

George W. Bush will be a top 12 president. Many of you owe him, and those of us who stood by our country the past few years, a big apology. We won the War in Iraq. Time to admit it. Just like Mr. Obama finally did last night.

He was wrong on the war every step of the way. But here was one of those rare occurrences where, as the US president, he comes to grips with facts, and for PR purposes, praises our nation rather than bashes it. Thank you Dick Cheney, George W Bush, John McCain, David Petreaus.

Good day,
Doughboy

As I mentioned, I did not immediately respond – partly out of concern for alienating my new friend, but also because I am not comfortable in the position in which I now find myself. Many of our readers will discern a change in my stance, as I have written previously about my support for the War on Terror. In my defense, I will simply say that anyone who is honestly seeking the truth and approaches a debate with that level of honesty will find, from time to time, that his mind is changed. I have drifted over time to the position in which I now find myself. The exchange was as follows:

Doughboy writes:

I am as cheered by the cessation of our role on the front lines in   Iraq as anybody. However, by no stretch of the imagination do I   think GWB will ever be considered one of our greatest presidents.   First, Iraq was unnecessary – the fact that we won that war does  not  erase that essential truth. Second, the harm that GWB did at  home  with the erasure of personal liberty through the Patriot Act   (warrantless domestic wire tapping?) and through his ramping up of   governmental spending was inexcusable. Indeed, GWB’s spending has   given Obama cover and, to some extent, license to spend even  faster.  It was certainly not something to be lauded.

I am a freedom conservative. What made the second Iraqi war   necessary for the United States to fight? Pre-emptive self-defense   against weapons of mass destruction? That would justify our   immediate invasion of Iran right now. Do you support that? Should  we  exercise the Bush Doctrine and preempt Pyongyang by nuking  North  Korea? There are major problems with extending the Bush  Doctrine of  preemptive self-defense as our national foreign policy.

As a freedom conservative, I believe that government’s role should   be strictly limited to those enumerated powers expressed in the   Constitution. Under what provision of the Constitution does   pre-emptive self-defense fall? Warrantless wiretapping of American   citizens? If we want to change those rules, that’s fine. There’s a   mechanism for that. It’s called amending the Constitution. When  the  federal government arrogates undelegated power to themselves,  it is  rightly called tyranny, despotism.

Maybe I’m just a law guy who wishes there were more law guys in   Washington.

“warrantless domestic wire tapping?”

Did he tap your phone? They have a list of SUSPECTED TERRORISTS   whose calls they traced, and via that, saved lives.

The cliche you used above is false, and used often by left wing Bush haters.

No one you or I know has or will ever be wire-tapped. We’re alive   because of President Bush’s “warrantless domestic wire tapping.”

Next you’ll tell me that waterboarding 9-11 masterminds and folks   who planned to attack LA in the summer of 2004 — thereby saving   more lives — was illegal or wrong.

As for invading Iran or North Korea, we fight wars we can win.  Iraq  is one; the others, not so much.

Karl responds:

If the government started invading homes without a warrant and  stripping citizens of their firearms, but neither you or I knew any  of the people that had been so victimized, would that justify the  seizures? Your argument assumes as much.

I don’t even know where to start with your assertion that no one  either of us knows will ever be wiretapped. How can you know that?  The precedent has been set; the die has been cast. It is a short  step from suspected terrorists to suspected criminals – neither of  which establishes that those suspected are either terrorists or  criminals. Do you honestly believe that Obama will not expand the  authority already granted in the Patriot Act to obtain evidence  against “environmental terrorists?” You have placed your bet, but I  think you should pull your money back and think about what you are  betting on.

Doughboy writes:

The slippery slope argument, in America, from someone as smart as you, is surprising. This is such a small, small, carefully orchestrated, professional & imperative program that debate is laughable.

Thomas Sowell, whom I know you respect, can explain better than I:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-2_7_06_TS.html

Karl responds:

Thomas Sowell is right to talk about Americans’ short-sightedness. He is guilty of it. He makes a strong point about the need to burn down the law to get after terrorists. I don’t dispute that some good could come from that or that the need is great. But I am reminded of a scene from A Man for All Seasons:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

For our own benefit, we cannot compromise the very thing which provides for our freedom from serfdom, tyranny and despotism under an oppressive government. The threat is grave, I agree. But when people start talking about the ends justifying the means, you can be sure that evil is afoot and that the next person to suffer from that evil will be you.

“The rules of engagement exist for your safety and that of your team. They are not flexible, nor am I. Either obey them or you are history. Is that clear?” We will be history if we burn down the very rules that protect us from the evils of totalitarianism.

I would be interested to know if Sowell still believes what he wrote in 2006.

Doughboy writes:

You’re using the lefties’ Ben Franklin ” a country without civil liberties ceases to be a country” argument — though much better presented than they.

I know life is short. I’d prefer to live to have children and grandchildren, even if we use “unsavory” means to combat terrorism.

That what we’re doing is perfectly legal, and moreover, are fighting wars with one hand tied behind our backs due to the constitution and the rhetoric you’re espousing, WILL get us all killed. It would have already without the Patriot Act.

But at least we’ll die knowing we did not “compromise the very thing which provides for our freedom from serfdom, tyranny and despotism under an oppressive government,” right?

After kid-napping the captain of the Alabama, the pirates now seem to be angling to meet up with their comrades as to set sail for the Somalian coast.  While trapped in a life boat, the pirates called for a flotilla of ships previously hijacked by other Somalia pirates to come to their aide.  It appears that they will do so.  Anticipating further detention or worse, Captain Phillips attempted an escape on Friday only to be recaptured.  Meanwhile, U.S. warships watch while FBI agents negotiate with his captors.

What shall Obama order?  Assuming more pirate ships arrive on the scene, will he allow the Navy to destroy the vessels?  Will he allow the pirates to whisk away Phillips to the relative safety of the Somalian coast?  Will he fold like a stagnant sail and pay the pirates for the safe return of the captain?  Will he allow the pirates to escape if they first surrender their captive?

I am no longer so sure of the prediction I so boldly made months ago.  After Obama allowed North Korea to launch a missile towards the United States with virtually no repercussions, I have serious doubts that he has the fortitude to take this threat head on.  And yet failure to act decisively on this situation could spell doom for the historic deterrent effect the United States military.   This is a great opportunity for the president.  He could take on the pirates by sending a volley of missiles down on known pirate hideouts.  He could raid and destroy the numerous captured vessels held by pirates.  He could do a lot of things but he probably wont.  And if he does not take aggressive action now, it will become clear to enemy and ally alike that the President of the United States is a weakling and not seriously concerned about protecting American interests at home or abroad.

UPDATE:

Mr. Phillips is free thanks to the U.S. Navy Seals! It turns out Obama has something like a backbone after all!

And Bloomber News is now confirming my earlier suspicions.