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I'm sure SA210 (stuck under a bridge) and others will love this little
article.
Put up or shut up
By Tony Snow
Jan 5, 2006
Add "domestic spying" to the long list of botched attempts to unseat George W. Bush. The New York Times' would-be bombs alleging Nixonian snoopery has detonated in its builders' faces. The story not only hasn't shaken Washington, it has restored the president's standing by reinforcing popular su ions that he, unlike leading Democrats, takes seriously (a) terrorists' intentions and (b) the necessity of winning the war.
The seriousness gap is important. While the president attempts to press the case for continued engagement, key Democrats respond with hollow grade-school cant. Not even they believe their claims that the president is a liar, a slaver, a BTK-type voyeur, a draft-dodging mass murderer. Nor do they buy the alternative scenario -- that George Walker Bush is a feckless dope in the thrall of the Rasputin-like Cheney and a cadre of cigar-munching, rib-eye slurping, back-slapping, conniving oilmen.
Similarly, the media have failed to depict the Commander-in-Chief as a petrol-punk. One-by-one, the would-be exposes have crumbled into dust: Abu Ghraib, the Koran in the Guantanamo toilet, secret prisons, horrifying interrogations, endless Halliburton conspiracy theories and, now, the "domestic spying" tale.
For whatever reason, the president's critics are dodging the one question that really matters: Is the war morally justifiable? Americans care about such things. We have a national desire to do the right things for the right reasons at the right times.
Until recently, just-war questions were easy to answer: Nations had a right to fight back against aggressors and oppressors: Japan bombs, FDR responds.
But what happens when the invader isn't a nation, doesn't have formally cons uted or uniformed armies, doesn't play by rules, doesn't declare its martial intentions and doesn't even have leaders with whom one might reason or negotiate?
And what do you do when that enemy doesn't want to seize ground but merely wants to commit scattered acts of mass destruction? How should the world's pre-eminent superpower respond to jihadis who strike indiscriminately -- against Christians, Jews and Muslims, on the soil of Asia, Africa, Europe, America and Arabia?
Statecraft won't do the trick. The Clinton administration tried it after al Qaeda attacked New York (the first World Trade Center bombing), Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Tanzania and Yemen. It turned down the chance to take custody of Osama bin Laden, citing legal concerns, and instead tried to scare him by bombing some empty tents and taking out the night watchman at a Sudanese aspirin factory.
Bin Laden interpreted these actions as weaknesses and ordered the hijackers to board their jets on Sept. 11. Team Clinton responded to the killing of 500 Americans by attempting a mix of diplomacy -- negotiations through third parties -- and symbolic action. Al Qaeda responded by killing another 3,000.
That scenario lays the groundwork for a new definition of a just war. A just war is one in which peace is not an option -- and the alternative to war is not tranquility but carnage. As Michael Novak argued three years ago, "The aim of a just war is the blocking of great evil, the restoration of peace and the defense of minimum conditions of justice and world order."
By those standards, the war in Iraq is just. Saddam Hussein was the perpetrator of great evil. Far more Iraqis died by his hand in "peacetime" than have perished in the three-year war. Furthermore, he was active in trying to organize and foment global terror.
Meanwhile, contrary to the frettings of the pant-soiling Murtha brigades, the war hasn't failed. Previously inimical Shi'a, Sunni and Kurdish factions are busy cutting deals and forming a new government -- that's progress -- and we haven't had a repeat Sept. 11. That's progress, too.
As for establishing conditions for justice and global order, the war has put terrorists to flight, reducing al Qaeda to little more than a production company for bad jihadi videos. Death-loving Islamosadists, while still active, have been forced to alter their plans and targets. And tiny seeds of democracy have begun to sprout throughout the region.
The one argument used most commonly against the war -- that it was for oil -- hasn't panned out. The people chiefly interested in Iraqi oil were the ones most opposed to the war -- the French, Germans, Russians and Chinese.
This leaves critics with a simple put-up or shut-up choice. They can look for principled arguments against the moral basis for the war, or they can continue playing the "I'm for the troops but against the war" game. Either way, they'll have to explain how the abandonment of Iraq would make the world a safer place.
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Find this story at: http://www.townhall.com/opinion/colu...6/01/05/181090
Zing!
So the moral basis for invading Iraq was Osama is a bad man? The continued attempt to link these two is laughable.
"is laughable"
is criminal, is impeachable.
I don't support the troops
but I do support the war
Another Presidential panderer attempting to offer after the fact justifications for a war that the majority of the American people still find unjustifiable.
Three things about me:
1. I absolutely support the war in Afghanistan -- it was the right thing to do and we should prosecute that war to its conclusion.
2. I absolutely respect and support the troops who are now in Iraq.
3. I absolutely do not support the decisions that placed those troops in Iraq in the first place.
Somehow, I'm sure that articulation of those views will result in someone labelling me anti-American, or unpatriotic, or a terrorist sympathizer, or something like that. Nuanced views based on definable principles so often get lost in a forum that deals so often in only black-and-white in matters of politics.
Didn't yall hear? The Iraqi people said " you" to all liberal pussies with the purple fingers.
How did you guys get that purple mess out of your ing stupid ass eye's?
Go play with your barbie collection pussies.. leave the fighting to the Marines and Army...
Are you in the military, Vashie?
Then explain to me, oh wise one, why we aren't "exporting democracy" to other non-democratic countries. Why haven't we expanded this democratic imperialism to other downtrodden folks who live under the rule of tyrants? Are the Iraqi people somehow uniquely en led to democracy while the people of some African countries or some Asian nations are not?
The birth of democracy in Iraq is a wonderful byproduct of an otherwise unjustifiable war.
Well two words says why no given explanation would satisfy you. Your selection of the two words: "democratic imperialism ". Those two
words give you away completely.
I'm asking for an explanation because I want to see consistency in foreign policy. If our foreign policy is to export our way of life -- which is exportation and in days of yore, was known as imperialism -- then why aren't we doing that everywhere? I'm earnestly asking the question because if that is truly a foreign policy choice, I'd like to see it applied consistently.
I certainly understand and support the idea that democratic societies are preferrable to tyrannical and authoritarian governmental structures; but if we've decided that we should convert governments, why hasn't our effort been more widespread? Seriously, there are millions of people suffering in Africa under tyrannical regimes. Why haven't we gone there and done what we've done in Iraq?
because those people are black and have no oil to give us.
My thoughts, and mine alone. I really don't think we are exporting
our way of government. I think we are just trying to help them and
others sit up a democratic type government or parliamentary type government
that is freely elected. I have some doubts it will work in the short haul.
I say this because of several reasons. First, like Mexico, graft has played
such a role in everyday life in these countries it is going to be hard
to overcome. Second, because of the first reason given, those who
have benefited the most from the corruption don't wont to give up
the source of their wealth, or in some cases, just their way of life.
But maybe, just maybe, they will get a taste of what it is like to live in
a truly free society, without the corruption and want to really accept
it as a way of life. We have had success in helping form truly free
governments, Japan, as an example. But we are seeing a resurgence of
socialism in the America's which is worrisome to me. And corruption
has played a big part in bring this type of government (socialism)
to the fore.
^^^ I thought we went to war in Iraq because there was a link with Sept 11. I don't know, I'm just thinking here.
I think that's sort of the point here. The post-invasion justifications for the war have been essentially disproven so we're now to rationalizations for our actions. The Right rationalizes the war now as an exercise that was beneficial to the Iraqi people because it deposed Saddam and brought about the possibility of democracy. If that's now become a justification for using military force, then -- again -- why aren't we using our military might to bring democracy to other parts of the world, where people are at least as oppressed (and likely more oppressed) as the Iraqis were under Saddam?
Snow is rationalizing the war while arguing that the President is, essentially, morally bulletproof as long as he wraps himself in the mantle of fighting terrorism -- that the American people should be unconcerned with possible Cons utional issues or misrepresentations so long as the White House can couch its actions as efforts to prosecute the amorphous war on terror.
great posts FWD
Tony Snow is quivering at his keyboard. Osama has already claimed is sorry ass. Here take my freedom, take my way of life, please don't hurt me Mr. Terrorist. He is the kind of guy that would knock a pregnant woman down to get out of burning building.
The last three post prove one thing. You ask a question, someone tries to answer
that question and it all goes back to the same old crap. You people talk to hear
the echo's in your head. What a bunch of twerps.
There you go again, using up all that web space.
SA210=stuck under a bridge
It would help me to respond to you if you actually bothered to answer my question, rather than resorting to name-calling.
You say that we're not exporting our form of government, but turn around and say that we're trying to help the Iraqis set up a governmental form that is similar to ours. Which is it?
You offered predictions about the possibility that democracy will fail in Iraq -- and I hope you're wrong about that -- but you didn't explain why this nation isn't trying to do the same thing in other parts of the world.
What was I supposed to do to respond to your philosophical viewpoint when it was only tangentially related to the question I posed?
Xray,
Blah, blah, blah
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