Posted on 11/16/2008 9:45:00 AM PST by Yardstick
For much of the last few years, and especially the last few months of the campaign, we have heard a familiar narrative. Guantánamo was a virtual stalag, where far more innocents than terrorists were unjustly incarcerated. Given that this gulag served no useful purpose, it should be summarily shut down, and the unfairly detained suspects at last returned to their families back home. The FISA laws and Patriot Act were aimed more at bogeymen than jihadists, and what little advantage they gave us was not worth the shredding of the Constitution.
The ‘fly-paper’ theory of Iraq—thousands of belligerents flocked to Iraq, were killed and defeated, discredited radical Islam, and, their loss of face, coupled with a constitutional Iraq, made the region and the U.S. safer–is a puerile reductive fiction. What bellicosity we experienced with supposedly rogue terrorist-sponsoring states such as Syria and Iran was largely due to George Bush’s juvenile cowboy rhetoric—‘bring ‘em on’, ‘smoke ‘em out, ‘dead or alive’—and his refusal to defuse tensions and misunderstandings through reasoned diplomacy.
The promotion of democracy was a neocon pipedream, in which partly through violence, partly through cultural arrogance, we tried to clumsily project our values on deeply religious, traditional, tribal—and in the end, deeply different—societies, whose own alternate politics cannot be so crudely dismissed by our rather arbitrary standards.
American unpopularity in the Middle East had nothing to do with globalization, westernization, age-old envy or the newfound ability via instant communications to see how much worse life was in an autocratic Arab world than in a free West, but was largely a phenomenon of George Bush’s Iraq War and his neocon advisors’ crude tilt toward the Zionists. “The War On Terror” was largely a construct to wage perennial war, impugn the patriotism of critics, and scare the American people, through false consciousness, into voting against their real economic interests.
I think that is a fair enough appraisal of the opposition’s view of the Bush anti-terror philosophy. And as is true of all theories, we will soon perhaps see the extent to which it proves the more accurate in the real world of the next administration.
So the closing of Guantánamo, repeal of the Bush anti-terrorism legislation, rapid withdrawal from Iraq (though we are already past Obama's original target date of March 2008 for withdrawal of all combat troops), cessation of pressure to democratize and the end of hectoring against Arab authoritarianism, soothing rhetoric from a new Chief Executive, renewed diplomatic reaching out to Teheran and Damascus, more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, and rejection of the notion we are in some sort of war, much less one of a “global” nature, should ensure greater American popularity, win-over our critics, defuse tensions with Iran and Syria, and ensure another seven years of safety from a major terrorist attack at home.
So come late January and beyond we shall see, and we all should genuinely wish the Obama administration well in their promised radical departure from the past, since the stakes are high for us all.
The real question, should these individuals be released in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Berkeley, Detroit and New York City?
“Soon the substance of the left’s anti-Bush theories will be put to the test.”
Yes.
What is the set of measurable criteria to judge whether the Left was right or not? To determine whether the Bush approach was the best way? To show the world how accurate Bush was?
IS there a set of criteria we, the American people, can all agree upon? Or even just those of us here?
In other words, what will history use to judge?
Why do I get an image of a Mad Scientist testing out his new improved potion on himself? Screw the consequences. This is for the good of all Mankind.
Yeah, right.
If the US were only to become more like Venezuela, all would be well.
I have been debating whether we on FR should have a betting pool on how soon we will be attack or how soon it will take for the MSM to turn against The One.
In my mind, easy. The number of dead bodies in American cities at the hands of Islamic terrorists fron 2001-2009 compared to the number of dead bodies in American cities thereafter.
Bush's record in this department is perfect. Zero attacks on American soil beyond September 11th, 2001. Anything but on BO's watch--shows failure. It's a tough record to beat.
I haven’t heard anything about releasing anyone in Guantanomo. I thought they were going to be moved to a prision in the US and given trials.
I was jumping the gun
More or less what Rice's State Department (maybe, 'Department Paid For By Arab Sheiks' would be a better name) has already been doing the past two years anyway.
With a complaisant media, Obama can do anything he wants: any incongruity with past statements or policies will vanish down the memory hole provided by the MSM Ministry of Truth.
“I have been debating whether we on FR should have a betting pool on how soon we will be attack or how soon it will take for the MSM to turn against The One.”
I’d be game for that!
The only good news is that the Dems will be completely in charge of their failures. I only hope their disasters are large enough to shock the idiots who voted for them.
Meanwhile the former military personnel serving at Gitmo will live in constant vigilance of reprisal. The US media will be happy to send al Qaeda encouragement by publishing their names, hometowns, and directions to their homes and kids’ schools..
I think this is something the Republicans need to get on the ball and start doing too. If indeed they think Obama's leftist policies are going to fail, they should be making public statements now that note present conditions -- unemployment rate, GDP growth, gas prices -- and that prime the public to pay attention to which way these measures move over the next few years. They should say if the Democrats do X, expect Y to happen, then they can point to it later.
With a true lefty in the White House and the Dems controlling all branches of govt, we have near laboratory perfect conditions to test the left's bad ideas. It's a great opportunity if we're smart about it and frame things right.
Be afraid..... be very afraid.
Jamie Gorelick is out there and alive.
To be fair, we don't know this.
There have been no attacks on American soil that we know of.
There have been many instances since 9-11-01 that could have been terrorist attacks, though they killed less numbers of people, were not spouted by the MSM to be terrorist attacks, and have not been credited to any terrorist organization.
In the end, we just don't know.
Bush gets that credit along with the other foreign intelligence agencies (namely the Brits) who have been pretty damn good too.
My thoughts exactly
I don't think that we will see another attack of that magnitude in, at least, the first two years of the Oboma administration.
The security forces will go along for that length of time on sheer inertia.
After that, it's anyone's guess.
BUT.... and that’s a big “but” - if, God be praised, no Americans die in American cities as a result of terrorist attacks ion Obama’s watch, we will need some further measurements to prove that Bush’s approach was the better one. What would the criteria be? Costs?
Again, though, the big unknown is just how he will govern. We don't know how destructive he will be to our forces and how lax he will let things get.
Also, the Islamists must realize the sooner they strike the better and longer they will have to commit harm to the country. I do believe despite the attempts to spin it as a Bush failure or whatever hey can conjure up to try and absolve Obama of the blame, the electorate will rush to the Republicans for security reasons.
Why not build a few barracks right there on the White House grounds and, after 1/20/09, let them all live THERE.
What the hell, they’re gentle souls, right?
The real question, should these individuals be released in cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Berkeley, Detroit and New York City?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
They probably have a much better chance of survival there than in Podunk, Missibama.
Whatever failures they experience, they will say it was Pres. Bush’s fault, because he did/didn’t do/tell them anything about it. Remember the clinton administration blaming Pres Bush #1 and Pres. Reagan for their failures? They were young and obama’s group will pull the same trick.
With the exception of very few elected Republicans, will we hear anything from them? I didn’t hear anyone contradict any untruths used against President Bush. It just seems to me, the Republicans we have elected are reluctant to appear on tv and disagree with the democrats, no matter how outlandish the story or how high the poop is piled.
Yes, we will send all the unfortunates to an ivy league university, though they can neither read nor write nor think.
How soon we will be attacked? We are being attacked now by stealth jihad and creeping sharia.
C-SPAN last night was showing the Miami Book Fair. Somebody named Scahill was denouncing the Bush administration and hoping that some European court would bring charges so that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others would be afraid to leave the US, for fear of being put on trial (like with Pinochet). He was pessimistic about Obama trying to punish the "crimes" of the Bush administration. He and the audience took it as a given that our treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo is "torture." It seemed to be a moonbat-only crowd.
My money is on January 20th just after the inauguration. That’s how quickly Achmed-the-nut-job released the hostages when President Reagan was sworn in in place of Mr. Peanut. Why should he change his stripes?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.