Who’s in Charge?
There comes a time to put disagreements to one side. When the submarine captain yells Dive! Dive! Dive! somebody had better start slamming hatches shut. That time has long since come in Iraq. The 2002 buildup for an invasion was a time for debate. President Bush made his case and the following spring rightly or wrongly went to war with broad public support. 2004 was a time to reconsider. If we were going to change leadership, that was the time. We made our collective decision. 2008 will offer another opportunity. Then we will elect a new Commander in Chief whether we want one or not. Our parents and grandparents made that choice for us six decades ago when they limited presidents to two terms.
We don’t have that option this year. Mr. Bush has decided to build up troop strength in Iraq for what he bills as a final push. Maybe it will succeed, maybe not, but the die is cast. It strikes me that the continuing cacophony of dissent is less then helpful. In fact it is extremely damaging. If our enemies in Iraq believe they have only to hold out a little longer and the Americans will withdraw they will be encouraged. If they prove to be right we can expect to pay a heavy price in coming years, maybe for another generation.
I want to believe we are all loyal Americans who want to succeed in winning the War on Terror but the display of partisanship in congress is not encouraging. Democrats chose a graceless new Senator who refuses even to behave civilly to deliver their ritual rebuttal to this year’s State of the Union Address. I am left thinking they are hoping for defeat if only to see George Bush get his comeuppance. I expect that from many members of an elitist media who long ago lost touch with their country but I don’t expect it of our elected representatives.
Maybe it’s just that many of us don’t really feel threatened by terrorists. We don’t think the war is a serious one. It isn’t a life of death struggle; not for us anyway, certainly not in Iraq. Ho Chi Minh saw that in Vietnam. He realized that what was for him an existential conflict was for us only one battle in the larger Cold War. He reckoned we would eventually tire of the cost and he was right. Our enemies in Iraq are making the same calculation.
Or maybe it’s the nature of a representative democracy to flirt with self destruction. Every American president has had his critics of course, especially in wartime. They have always been loud and they have always given comfort to the enemy. Robert E. Lee saw his only real hope for victory dashed when Abraham Lincoln was re-elected in 1864 but held out for five more bloody months, in part because a defeatist Northern press was clamoring for a settlement. Had the drunkard Andrew Johnson taken office a bit earlier there might be no United States today.
It’s true we aren’t in the sort of national danger we faced in the Civil War, or in the Cold War for that matter. Terrorist aren’t going to destroy us, though they might inflict a great deal of pain and like the dog that chases a car out of its neighborhood they might think they have put us to flight if we leave Iraq prematurely. Still, there is room for only one Commander in Chief. Once he makes his decisions further debate is not only pointless, it can be quite costly.
We don’t have that option this year. Mr. Bush has decided to build up troop strength in Iraq for what he bills as a final push. Maybe it will succeed, maybe not, but the die is cast. It strikes me that the continuing cacophony of dissent is less then helpful. In fact it is extremely damaging. If our enemies in Iraq believe they have only to hold out a little longer and the Americans will withdraw they will be encouraged. If they prove to be right we can expect to pay a heavy price in coming years, maybe for another generation.
I want to believe we are all loyal Americans who want to succeed in winning the War on Terror but the display of partisanship in congress is not encouraging. Democrats chose a graceless new Senator who refuses even to behave civilly to deliver their ritual rebuttal to this year’s State of the Union Address. I am left thinking they are hoping for defeat if only to see George Bush get his comeuppance. I expect that from many members of an elitist media who long ago lost touch with their country but I don’t expect it of our elected representatives.
Maybe it’s just that many of us don’t really feel threatened by terrorists. We don’t think the war is a serious one. It isn’t a life of death struggle; not for us anyway, certainly not in Iraq. Ho Chi Minh saw that in Vietnam. He realized that what was for him an existential conflict was for us only one battle in the larger Cold War. He reckoned we would eventually tire of the cost and he was right. Our enemies in Iraq are making the same calculation.
Or maybe it’s the nature of a representative democracy to flirt with self destruction. Every American president has had his critics of course, especially in wartime. They have always been loud and they have always given comfort to the enemy. Robert E. Lee saw his only real hope for victory dashed when Abraham Lincoln was re-elected in 1864 but held out for five more bloody months, in part because a defeatist Northern press was clamoring for a settlement. Had the drunkard Andrew Johnson taken office a bit earlier there might be no United States today.
It’s true we aren’t in the sort of national danger we faced in the Civil War, or in the Cold War for that matter. Terrorist aren’t going to destroy us, though they might inflict a great deal of pain and like the dog that chases a car out of its neighborhood they might think they have put us to flight if we leave Iraq prematurely. Still, there is room for only one Commander in Chief. Once he makes his decisions further debate is not only pointless, it can be quite costly.
posted by Onfoot at 10:02 PM
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