Only Choice Is To Win The War Or Lose It (American Moment Can't Be Ceded To 25 Percenters Alert)

Chicago Sun Times ^ | 10/29/2006 | Mark Steyn

[goldstategop]

I was on C-SPAN the other morning, and a lady called in to complain that ''you are making my blood pressure rise.'' Usual reason. The host, Paul Orgel, had asked me what I thought of President Bush and I replied that, whatever my differences with him on this or that, I thought he was one of the most farsighted politicians in Washington. That's to say, he's looking down the line to a world in which a radicalized Islam has exported its pathologies to every corner on Earth, Iran and like-minded states have applied nuclear blackmail to any parties within range, and a dozen or more nutcake basket-case jurisdictions have joined Pyongyang and Tehran as a Nukes R Us one-stop shop for all your terrorist needs. In 2020, no one's going to be worrying about which Congressional page Mark Foley is coming on to. Except Mark Foley, who'll be getting a bit long in the tooth by then. But if it really is, as Democrats say, ''all about the future of our children,'' then our children will want to know why our generation saw what was happening and didn't do anything about it. They will despise us as we despise the political class of the 1930s. And the fact that we passed a great prescription drug plan will be poor consolation when the entire planet is one almighty headache. My caller at C-SPAN thought this Bush farsightedness shtick was ridiculous. And, though I did my best to lower her blood pressure, I can't honestly say I succeeded. But suppose the ''Anyone But Bush'' bumper-sticker set got their way; suppose he and Cheney and Rummy and all the minor supporting warmongers down to yours truly were suddenly vaporized in 20 seconds' time. What then?

Nothing, that's what. The jihad's still there. Kim Jong Il's still there. The Iranian nukes are still there. The slyer Islamist subversion from south-east Asia to the Balkans to northern England goes on, day after day after day. And one morning we'll switch on the TV and the smoke and flames will be on this side of the Atlantic, much to President Rodham's surprise. Bush hatred is silly and parochial and reductive: History is on the march and the anti-Bush crowd is holding the telescope the wrong way round.

"We're in this grand ideological struggle," said the president two days later. "I am in disbelief that people don't take these people seriously." He was sitting in the Oval Office with a handful of columnists including yours truly. At the risk of making that C-SPAN caller's head explode, it was a great honor. I wasn't the only foreigner in the room: There was a bust of Winston Churchill, along with those of Lincoln and Eisenhower. A war president, a war prime minister, a war general.

Bush was forceful and informed, and it seems to me he performs better in small groups of one-night-only White House correspondents than in the leaden electronic vaudeville with Helen Thomas, David Gregory and the other regulars. (You can judge for yourself: Michael Barone has posted the entire audio at U.S. News & World Report's Web site.) He dismissed the idea that going into Iraq had only served to "recruit" more terrorists to the cause. (General Pace told me last week that, if anything, the evidence is that Iraq has tied up a big chunk of senior jihadists who'd otherwise be blowing up Afghanistan and elsewhere.) The president's view is that before it was Iraq it was Israel; with these guys, it's always something. Sometimes it's East Timor -- which used to be the leftie cause du jour. And, riffing on the endless list of Islamist grievances, Bush concluded with an exasperated: "If it's not the Crusades, it's the cartoons." That'd make a great slogan: it encapsulates simultaneously the Islamists' inability to move on millennium-in millennium-out, plus their propensity for instant new "root causes," and their utter lack of proportion.

"We need to be on the offense all the time," said the president. I pointed out that, when the military are obviously on offense -- liberating Afghanistan, toppling Saddam -- the American people are behind them. But that it's hard to see where the offense is in what to most TV viewers has dwindled down to a thankless semi-colonial policing operation with no end in sight. How about a bit more offense? Syria's been subverting Iraq for three years. Why not return the favor?

"We are on the offense," he insisted, sounding sometimes as frustrated as us columnists that so much of the wider momentum had become (in Charles Krauthammer's words) "mired in diplomacy." Still, it was a different conversation than most Bush encounters with the media-political class. I happened to be plugging my book on a local radio show this week just as a Minnesota "conservative" (ish) Democrat joined the herd of stampeding donkeys explaining why they were now disowning their vote in favor of the Iraq war. What a sorry sight. It's not a question of whether you're "for" or "against" a war. Once you're in it, the choice is to win it or lose it. And, if you're arguing for what will look to most of the world like the latter option, you better understand what the consequences are. In this case, it would, in effect, end the American moment.

Does that bother people? Bush said something, en passant, that I brooded on all the way home. Asked about poll numbers, he said that 25 percent of the population are always against the war -- any war.

That sounds about right. And it's a bit disturbing. To be sure, if Canadian storm troopers were swarming across the 49th Parallel or Bahamian warships were firing off the coast of Florida, some of that 25 percent might change their mind, though it might be a bit late by then. But, as America's highly unlikely to be facing that kind of war in the foreseeable future, that 25 percent's objection to the only wars on offer is rather unnerving.

The invaluable Brussels Journal recently translated an interview with the writer Oscar van den Boogaard from the Belgian paper De Standaard. A Dutch gay "humanist" (which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool), van den Boogaard was reflecting on the accelerating Islamification of the Continent and concluding that the jig was up for the Europe he loved. "I am not a warrior, but who is?" he shrugged. "I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it."

Too many of us are only good at enjoying freedom. That war-is-never-the-answer 25 percent are in essence saying that there's nothing about America worth fighting for, and that, ultimately, the continuation of their society is a bet on the kindness of strangers -- on the goodnaturedness of Kim Jong Il and the mullahs and al-Qaida and what the president called "al-Qaida lookalikes and al-Qaida wannabes" and whatever nuclear combination thereof comes down the pike. Some of us don't reckon that's a good bet, and think America's arms-are-for-hugging crowd need to get real. Van den Boogaard's arms are likely to be doing rather less of their preferred form of hugging in the European twilight.

[goldstategop]

There are the 25 percenters who think even freedom is not worth fighting for. To cede the initiative to them would end the American Moment in history. Let's remember what the Democratic Cut And Run crowd want is for us to lose the war. That's the proposition involved in embracing a retreat from Iraq. No amount of rhetoric will change the fact that it would embolden the Jihad to pursue our complete destruction.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[endthematrix]

"If it's not the Crusades, it's the cartoons."

[Uncle Ike]

"I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it."

Epitath on the gravestone of Post Modern "enlightened" Western Civilization.

[goldstategop]

I keep thinking Mark Steyn is probably right. 25 percent of the colonials opposed the American Revolution. Some people don't like their comfortable existence disrupted for any cause. That is exactly the mindset America's enemies are counting on to make us lose hope for we better understand this war will last beyond Bush and probably well beyond this century. We're in this fight and we can't forfeit it - unless we all want the peace of the grave for our posterity.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[wodinoneeye]

A simple answer to the ''Anyone But Bush'' tards :

"So, you would vote for Hitler or Stalin if they had run opposite Bush " ?????

[goldstategop]

Funniest Mark Steyn observation on the 25 percenters:

"To be sure, if Canadian storm troopers were swarming across the 49th Parallel or Bahamian warships were firing off the coast of Florida, some of that 25 percent might change their mind..."

I don't think that's a likely war in the offing. Mark still makes a serious point: If we're only willing to fight immediate threats, we don't stand much of a chance.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[goldstategop]

The anti-Bush crowd would vote for Ahmedinejad or Chavez if it would get rid of Bush for them. When we look back upon this decade, we'll wonder why so many Americans were seized with a psychosis over a President who did nothing more than try to save their lives. Unreal.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[bill1952]

I've said it. The common reply was that Bush is worse.
Indeed, he is the epitome of all of them reincarnated.

Stupidity expands to fill the available volume.

[goldstategop]

They would rather see America be destroyed than see Bush win. You can't put it any better than that. If they would only come out and say it openly, Americans could judge for themselves if they're stupid or in John Kerry's now immortal words, "tough and smart."

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[CDHart]

Thanks for posting this. It's amazing to me how so many people do not have a clue that we're in a fight for our very civilization. The Muslims want to return the world to the Dark Ages, and likely will succeed if the Democrats gain control. How can they be so stupid and so blind?

Carolyn

[goldstategop]

There will always be a considerable minority for whom a life of ease and plenty outweighs sacrificing one's lives, fortunes and sacred honor for far greater stakes. They're a noisy minority and to be sure many more people who are sensible know the danger but don't perceive the threat to be urgent. Its been five years since 9/11 and Afghanistan and Iraq have turned into the American equivalent of those colonial policing expeditions the Europeans undertook for centuries. The problem is we're the only policeman on hand who can prevent re-primitivized parts of the world from exporting their murderous social pathologies here. One 9/11 in a century ought to be lesson enough as to the stakes we face.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[mazda77]

"What a sorry sight. It's not a question of whether you're "for" or "against" a war. Once you're in it, the choice is to win it or lose it. And, if you're arguing for what will look to most of the world like the latter option, you better understand what the consequences are. In this case, it would, in effect, end the American moment."

This, in my opinion, is the most pointed and missed arguement against the anti-war crowd. If this were a question asked over and over again the message just might turn on a light for the crowd who just goes along with the prevailing majority wisdom. As a Native Texan, I never saw so many Longhorn logos in my life outside of Texas. When I present the "Hook-em Horns" hand gesture they look at me like I am stupid. I just grin because it is only their reflection.

[Recon Dad]

The key strategists on the leftist liberal side don't care what happens as long as they oppose the President. They are only interested in being in power.

The polls that don't support the war show opposition to be at about 60%. I would bet if you rephrase the question you would find that 25% of the 60% just don't like the way Bush is conducting the effort and support winning.

[goldstategop]

During World II, Americans understood that to be against the war would gurantee Nazism and the Rising Sun victory over the West. It was both illogical and stupid. Today being against the war means guaranteeing a future where free people can be beheaded at will, women forced behind burqas and if non-Muslims haven't been wiped out by a few nuclear bombs, the survivors will be second class citizens in a totalitarian world that will make the one the Nazis dreamed up look like a Sunday parade by comparison. To refuse to win the war means allowing evil to win. There can be no legitimate anti-war movement in the midst of a war if the aim is to lead to the defeat of your own country and extinguishing freedom around the planet. Keep that in mind as you remember the 25 percenters don't even care about their own lives much less than the future of their own children. That's why we have got to keep on fighting until we achieve victory. For that is the only true guarantee the American Moment will endure well beyond this century.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[freelancer]

He read my tag line.

[Fred911]

Aint it the truth.

[Tom D.]

"The invaluable Brussels Journal recently translated an interview with the writer Oscar van den Boogaard from the Belgian paper De Standaard. A Dutch gay 'humanist' (which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool), van den Boogaard was reflecting on the accelerating Islamification of the Continent and concluding that the jig was up for the Europe he loved. 'I am not a warrior, but who is?' he shrugged. 'I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it.'"

This is one of the best Steyn columns I have ever read, and all of his stuff is great. He has a knack for effective ridicule of fools.

[capitalist229]

It is a long distance from the front lines to the suburban cocoon of American affluence.

W is trying to increase that distance. Maybe that's the wrong approach. Roosevelt had the same problem prior to WWII until he let Pearl Harbor happen. That woke up the doubting Thomases.

W, reduce that distance ! You will see an immediate return to rationality.

BUMP

[hnj_00]

these people cannot wait....wait until the ruination of the US experiment....they truly believe the old adage of appeasement equals the aligator eating them last......

they have yet to understand that the muzzies only respect power & force...any sign of tolerence is mistaken for weakness... 9/11 demonstrated nothing to the lib/dems....the illegal invasion also has proven nothing....

not to be metaphysical or psuedo-intellectual...but anyone that can read...can equate and draw an analogy to the years preceeding 476 ad....the year the roman empire fell after multiple years of invasions of all the barbarians at the gates!

the US is periously close to the same outcome if it continues along the same pc lib/dem course.....the invaders are teeming across the borders....they are ruining the social services....sucking up larger & lareger percentages of resources and wealth which is sent back to their home countries and they are being welcomed and enticed with promises of more (vis a vis) the lib/dem senate amnesty bill.

and who else walks among these invaders...of course...muzzies that are determined to bring down the US and establish a muzzie land in the west...all in the name of jihad...

yes....if we continue to lose the wars with these terrorists...we do have a bright outlook!!!!

[Apple Pan Dowdy]

"They would rather see America be destroyed than see Bush win"

I think the destroy-Bush-at-all-costs crowds is the results of a gimme-NOW generation. They have never learned to have to wait for anything, so they never think past today, the moment, themselves.

They are angry because they see Bush as the hold up to putting someone in power who will give them all that they want for the moment, and they can't see past today to know what the results of taking out Bush will ultimately mean. They don't think of it as destroying America, they proclaim that they love America as much as anyone.

Its the same thing when they go spend their latest paycheck on a new TV or cell phone rather than thinking about where the money will come from to pay the rent next week... or retirement down the road.