Brownstein: Support, Not Silence
Ron Brownstein's column in today's LA Times suggests:
"Serious debate about the war has practically vanished in Washington. It's difficult to find many people outside the administration who are satisfied with either the costs (in American lives) or the benefits (the progress toward establishing a secure, pro-Western Iraqi state) of current policies. It is even more difficult to find any major figure willing to publicly offer a significant alternative.
This amounts to a political dereliction of duty."
For both Democrats and Republicans, Brownstein argues, the "political incentives for silence" are strong - Republicans are uneasy, but know it is their party who might pay the price if things go sour (he notes the exceptions here of McCain and Hagel); Democrats (again, noting the exceptions, like Feingold) have their base united against the war, but many "fear that challenging Bush too aggressively on Iraq will open Democrats to charges of weakness on defense."
Brownstein is right that this state of things has "produced an unusual situation in which public discontent hasn't translated into meaningful pressure on Bush to consider changes" and "The war seems to be on autopilot, with leaders of both parties refusing to ask the questions Americans are asking one another every day."
"Silence in Washington doesn't support the troops," Brownstein concludes. "A debate that exposes the nation to the available alternatives, and that compels the administration and Congress to rethink what America can achieve in Iraq and what price it is willing to pay - that would support the troops."
He's correct. Republicans should not be afraid to criticize, and strongly; Democrats should not be afraid to offer plans, even if they aren't "stay the course." The American people do deserve a real debate over the direction of the war in Iraq, and they deserve more than "more of the same" from the Bush Administration.
We hear this morning that President Bush is going to begin a new round of speeches defending the war. This would be a good time to start making some different noises.
posted by JBD @ 7:20 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
You're post was dead center with what I saw on This Week yesterday from Chuck Hagel.
He was anti-Iraq policy for sure, but when pressed for an alternative strategy his response was mumbled hems and haws.
George Allen was able to sound more articulate, without expressing an original thought, by simply mouthing stand-up-Iraqi-central-front-blah-blah talking points.
I say time the "standing up" of Iraqis to the political timetable, so they know when and how they will be responsible for themselves, and phase our troop withdrawal accordingly.
Here's how a conservative, Prof. Bainbridge, evaluated Bush's first such speech:
"Meanwhile, Bush continues to insult our intelligence with tripe like this:
'Our troops know that they're fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to protect their fellow Americans from a savage enemy,' Bush said in his weekly radio address. . . .
'They know that if we do not confront these evil men abroad, we will have to face them one day in our own cities and streets, and they know that the safety and security of every American is at stake in this war,' he said.
I guess that's all he has left."
Bainbridge continues, "The trouble with Bush's justification for the war is that it uses American troops as fly paper. Send US troops over to Iraq, where they'll attract all the terrorists, who otherwise would have come here, and whom we'll then kill. This theory has proven fallacious. The first problem is that the American people are unwilling to let their soldiers be used as fly paper. . . . The second problem is that the fly paper strategy seems to be radicalizing our foes even more. For every fly that gets caught, it seems as though 10 more spring up."
The other problem is that, if you want to take the war to wear the terrorists are, then, well, you should go to where they actually are. They are in Iraq now, but before then, there seemed to be much greater support for terrorism in Syria, Saudi, Egypt, Pakistan, Somalia, etc. It seems like the fly paper strategy is to take over some place NEAR the terrorists and then wait for them, instead of actually going to the terrorists themselves. By said logic, we should be invading Niger quite soon to draw all the Egyptian and Sudanese radicals in.
I read the same article you have linked about Bush's new wave of speeches. I was disturbed by a technique his aides say he will be using - comparing the Iraq War to WWII - and posted some comments on my blog. I think this desparate comparison moves beyond the fallacious arguments that amba pointed out.
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