Posted on 11/09/2006 6:45:41 AM PST by Pokey78
"I ran into a kid the other day who used to work here," mused George W. Bush, "and he goes to a famous law school, and he said, 'The problem, Mr. President, is people don't believe we're at war.' I not only believe we're at war, I know we're at war."
It's not something previous commanders-in-chief have had to point out, and the President's curious situation might have taxed even the leaders whose busts adorn the Oval Office -- Lincoln, Churchill, Eisenhower. To some Americans, Mr. Bush is a wartime president engaged in the same scale of existential struggle as that eminent trio. To others, the "wartime" is largely a concoction of the President: there's no war, except for the photo op gone awry the neo-cons chose to stage in Iraq. To others -- supporters of the wartime President back in the early days -- it's a slightly different problem: Mr. Bush may be in war mode, but the war itself isn't. There was a sense, between 9/11 and the fall of Baghdad, that the United States was making up for lost time. Now time ticks on, in Iran and elsewhere.
In Washington last week on the book-plug circuit, I got the call from various high-ups to lunch at the Pentagon with Donald Rumsfeld and General Pace, and a couple of days later to swing by the White House and see the President. And, as I happened to be in D.C., I thought why not? I don't mean to sound disrespectful -- it was a great honour to be the only foreigner in the room aside from the bust of Sir Winston -- but it can be disheartening to have too much face time with the movers and shakers, especially when there doesn't seem to be that much moving and shaking going on. In the silence of his lonely room, the armchair warrior remakes the world; across the keyboard the horizons roll. In the corridors of power, alas, he discovers all the reasons why the grand schemes can't be accomplished. I forget who it was at the Pentagon who said that Congress always takes away money for things you want to do and gives you money for things you don't want to do. Oh, hang on, it was everybody.
Anyway, the President had requested the company of a handful of kindred spirits from the columnar crowd in order to lay out his thinking on Iraq and beyond. One assumed there were some low political motives not unconnected with recent polls and a looming rendezvous with the people's verdict next Tuesday But it was striking how non-electoral the discussion was: Mr. Bush never once referred to the Democrats. They're obsessed with defeating Bush, he's obsessed with defeating "the extremists" -- by which he means the enemy, not Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean.
Still, for a broadly supportive group, we were somewhat tetchy. CNBC's Larry Kudlow wanted something big and rousing. When some dread State Department concept like "sanctions" or "resolution" passed the presidential lips, Mr. Bush would glance warily at the Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer. He recalled a previous visit in which the columnist had queried whether the administration was going to get "mired in diplomacy." Bush savoured the phrase, enunciating the syllables. "Mired in dip-lo-ma-cee," he said, as if it were the forlorn hook of some country ballad. "I think that's what you were wondering."
"I usually do," said Krauthammer, dryly.
The President had begun his remarks by saying that "we need to be on the offence all the time." And, for those of us who agree, that's part of the problem. "You say you need to be on the offence all the time and stay on the offence," I began. "Isn't the problem that the American people were solidly behind this when you went in and you toppled the Taliban, when you go in and you topple Saddam. But when it just seems to be a kind of thankless semi-colonial policing defensive operation with no end . . . I mean, where is the offence in this? Instead of talking to Syria, can't Syria get some payback for sending all these guys over the border to subvert Iraq? Shouldn't Syria be getting subverted in return?"
"Now you're thinking," said the President, and laughed. When I'd put a similar suggestion to the secretary of defense two days earlier, Mr. Rumsfeld's eye had flickered with the old flinty gleam from the glory-day press conferences of late 2001/2002. "That's an interesting idea," he said. Both men were humouring me, needless to say. They considered it long ago and either rejected it as politically too complicating, or they're doing it but in some below-the-radar way. And the latter doesn't solve the perception problem -- that the American people would value some evidence that their side is not merely hunkered down in defensive operations in Iraq.
"First of all, we are on the offence," the President insisted. "It's frustrating however, because you're right, it's the perception that this great military power full of decent people is just getting picked off and nothing is happening." He pointed out that's not the case -- that the insurgents are dogged by U.S. forces, hunted down, and killed in very large numbers. "A thousand of the enemy killed," he said of one recent engagement. "It's happening; you just don't know it. And there's no scorecard." Or, rather, there's only a one-sided scorecard: it's American military deaths and Iraqi civilian casualties that make the news. As for Damascus, he wandered off into mired-in-diplomacy-speak: "Syria needs to know that there are other people who are interested in isolating them economically than the United States, and we're working toward that end . . ."
Good luck with that. Syria is a useful way of looking at what's changed these last three years. A few weeks after the fall of Saddam, I stood on the Iraq-Syrian border with members of the Third Infantry Division and we joked about how nervous Boy Assad's border guards must be feeling these days. They were twitchy times for Assad. In short order, he found himself under pressure to get his foot off Lebanon's windpipe, and the other Arab dictators were quietly suggesting that, while they didn't like this cockamamie Bush plan to remake the map of the Middle East, if the Great Satan was determined to go ahead and he needed a pilot program, they weren't averse to him knocking off Assad. You get the feeling Syria's dictator is sleeping better than he has in a while.
The Commander-in-Chief doesn't micro-manage Iraq. We were sitting on the sofas in the Oval Office and he waved his hand toward the President's desk on the other side of the room and reminded us of the famous photographs of Lyndon Johnson poring over maps of Vietnam and picking out targets. This chief won't make that mistake, rightly concerning himself with the bigger picture. It was said of Ronald Reagan that he won the Cold War "without firing a shot," which makes it sound less of a war. But in advanced Western democracies it's the non-shot-firing aspects of war that are hardest to get right -- maintaining popular support, identifying strategic goals that can withstand the nightly barrage of the media defeatists and the default torpor of government agencies and multilateral gabfests. Musing on the enemy, Secretary Rumsfeld told me, "The people you're up against have brains, and they don't have bureaucracies," as if the two are mutually incompatible. "They don't have states to defend, and they don't have to tell the truth, and they're able to take advantage of public opinion." I'll say. The other day, a typically gloomy TV yakfest on the "civil war"/"quagmire" was interrupted by a commercial for a dream vacation in Iraqi Kurdistan.
There's something faintly unbecoming about the terms in which the Iraq debate is conducted. News anchors talk about whether people are "for" or "against" the war, as if the citizenry are Olympic skating judges awarding marks to some prancing ninnies out on the ice. Whether we (i.e. the Western world) know it or not, we're all out on the ice, and it's getting mighty thin in places. Yet this demeaning, immature conception of war as a reality show you're bored with is said to be the key factor in polls showing big Democrat gains in Tuesday's elections. I don't believe it myself: I'd bet on the Republicans to hold both the House and Senate. President Bush is a smart, far-sighted guy engaged in the correction of 40 years of disastrous State Department stability fetishization in the Middle East and, beyond that, in an ambitious remaking of the region that no European power attempted even in the heyday of empire. Would you want to try that in a land of two-year election cycles?
"You can make a case that the centre of gravity of the war is in the United States," said Donald Rumsfeld. "I mean, you can't lose it militarily over there. The only place you can lose it is here."
bttt
>>"I ran into a kid the other day who used to work here," mused George W. Bush, "and he goes to a famous law school, and he said, 'The problem, Mr. President, is people don't believe we're at war.' I not only believe we're at war, I know we're at war.">>
The problem is that people don't FEEL it. We are too busy worrying about whether or not someone's dress was 'trashy' or 'flashy' at the Grammy's or whether or not Brittany is going to divorce that loser she chose to let latch on to her and get knocked up twice in two years. Business as usual for America.
And we did Rummy... on Tuesday.
The problem is that we are NOT really at war.
We are engaged in military operations, but the Congress did not actually declare war, with a full-out Declaration of War.
A Declaration of War would have allowed the President to invoked the World War II precedents, which have gone unused since, because America has never been at war, legally and formally, since. America-actually-at-war, DECLARED war, precedent includes full press censorship, political censorship (once war is declared, political opposition to war is a criminal offense: sedition, and maybe treason if it goes too far), censorship of private communications, and the ability of the President to deploy forces wherever he thinks he needs to (i.e., no going back to Congress to ask permission to go into Afghanistan, and then again to ask permission to go into Iraq, etc.). A declared war would allow America to invoke the defensive articles of the NATO alliance, forcing our allies to either declare war, or ending the alliance.
A declared war is a very different thing from an undeclared war. Because a declared war is actually, legally, officially a WAR, and everyone knows it's a war, because things you can normally do in peacetime - like publish articles about Abu Graib in the New York Times, for instance, are subject to government censorship before publication in the event of an actual war.
The country doesn't feel like it's at war because, actually, we're NOT. The President SAYS we're at war, but he didn't ask Congress to actually TAKE US to war.
And that first mistake was the grandest strategic blunder of all.
You beat me to it. You are spot on!
We are engaged in military operations, but the Congress did not actually declare war, with a full-out Declaration of War.
A small question...just who would you declare war on? Remember in most of the wars we've been involved in there has been no declaration of war.
Undeclared wars = unfunded mandates.
I'm not one of those who will blame the voters for Speaker Pelosi, nor shall I blame 3rd or 4th party candidates for Majority Leader Reid. Had the Republican leadership done their jobs, our turnout would have been much greater than it was, and we would not have lost as many seats, to include holding on to the Senate.
For example, why did Liddy Dole wait until two days before the election to say "The Democrats are content with defeat in Iraq"?
I voted, and I voted for Republicans, but my heart really wasn't in it. I felt like Rush, carrying water for many who did not deserve it. I voted to support our men and women in uniform...they deserved better support than they were given.
One wonders if part of the problem lies in seeing these as completely distinct groups.
ping for later
The enemy is a radical segment of the world's largest religion...spread across the globe.
Because of the disproportinate military strength between the parties, cutting off funding and the use of advanced technology is a major part of the battle.
This makes for glazed eyes and attention deficits to much of the populace whose only experience in warfare is seeing ghastly images of ruined cities...death and destruction.
Add a healthy pinch of political correctness...a cup of leftist MSM and Hollywood celebrity opinion...and here we are on November 9th wondering WTF happened?
dude ...that...is a great post...
from my point of view and to be fair to bush..
when he presented afghanistan and iraq...he did warn that there would be parts of the operation we would not be told about or would not hear...bush also said it would be a new type of war, never before seen
i do believe steyn is correct...what i truly truly fear now, is we may well get a very harsh lesson on this war..and it wont be in iraq...
bin laden said in a race between a strong horse and weak horse, people will bet on a strong horse...they honestly believe we have showed a great weakness in this election...and this will embolden them..just like the marine barracks attacks in the lebanon, the cole, the embassy bombing, somalia, the saudi attacks. our lack of firm reaction in these cases was seen as weakness. the western perception of this war or lack of...is a failure of insight and understanding our enemy...i think may countries around the world will pay also.
to modify an old reagan ad...there truly is a bear now roaming the woods...
finally could or should this vote be equated with the spanish vote after the madrid bombing?
are the democrats not merely following the spanish handbook on terrorism?
not a nice thought i know...
Patience.
They'll wait generations to achieve a goal...while we are used to instant gratification.
"A small question...just who would you declare war on? Remember in most of the wars we've been involved in there has been no declaration of war."
It's not a small question, it's a huge question.
Look at the big wars of US history (since the Constitution): War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf, War on Terror.
1812, Mexico, the Span-Am War, WWI, WWII were all declared, and all victories.
The Civil War wasn't declared (for obvious reasons), and was very nearly lost, politically, in 1864. Lincoln had the good sense to suspend habeas corpus and arrest all print media opponents of the war right at the outset; he even sent in the Army to arrest the Maryland legislaturein order to prevent them voting to secede. Lincoln clearly broke the law and violated the Constitution, but what he did was necessary to save the country, and had the EFFECT of what the censorship laws have done in other wars.
Korea was not declared...and Eisenhower won by campaigning against the war and promising to get the troops out of combat. Vietnam was not declared, and was a defeat. The Gulf War was swift, but the political will to go back in the field and finish off Saddam once he tore up the treaties was not there.
You say that most wars were not declared, but by those I believe you mean skirmishes, Indian Wars, small deployments of small forces here and there. Besides the Civil War - which was fought using the censorship rules and detentions similar to what America applied in World War II - all of the major wars America has fought, wars of significant duration with 1000 + combat deaths, have been declared.
The string of UNDECLARED wars has been post World War II, and they have not gone well for us.
As far as declare war on WHOM, Bush's "All terrorist organizations of global reach " would have been enough,. Congress was not going to be picky and refuse to declare war on September 15, 2001. Once declared, the precedents kick in.
It was not a formal declaration of war though. The power of Congress to declare war is not some abstract concept, it's in the constitution.
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