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June 20, 2006
It's a WAR, dammit!
I've been arguing for a long time that Pres. Bush made a tremendous mistake when, in the aftermath of September 11 and the destruction of the Twin Towers, he told Americans that the way to respond was for us to go on living our lives as we did before, working, spending, playing as we had on September 10th. To do otherwise, to change the way we live as a result of the attack on our nation would, according to Pres. Bush, hand the terrorists a victory.
I said then -- and I maintain now -- that we must live our lives differently. How can we be engaged in a war if we're asked to sacrifice nothing in pursuit of victory? Why should we believe we're fighting a war against an implacable enemy when our own government insists on treating our enemies as merely criminals?
Mark Levin nails it.
It’s time to reorient our thinking toward victory. In fact, it’s time to not only celebrate “the Greatest Generation,” as the media has characterized the World War II generation, but to emulate it in many respects.
For the past few years, we’ve watched the Senate debate, the Congress adopt, and then the president sign legislation that would confer constitutional rights on unlawful enemy combatants captured on the battlefield and detained at Guantanamo Bay, while we watch as our Marines are accused of war crimes at Haditha without the benefit of any due-process rights. (And notice, not a word from John McCain, Lindsey Graham, or Chuck Hagel.)
We’ve watched as self-labeled human-rights groups have demanded that the Geneva Conventions be applied to terrorists, even though they’re applicable only to those who honor the rules of war.
We’ve watched as the ACLU and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’s offspring have brought lawsuits before activist courts challenging the conditions of the detained terrorists.
We’ve watched as virtually every intelligence gathering technique is attacked as a civil-liberties and constitutional violation, from the Patriot Act and the NSA intercept program to data-mining and interrogating the enemy.
We’ve watched as the Supreme Court and now lower federal courts have intervened in the president’s constitutional commander-in-chief duties, substituting their policy preferences for his despite their lack of information, experience, or competence.
We’ve watched as the media have used every opportunity to undermine our war effort with flat-out false reporting (the phony story about flushing of a Koran down a toilet at Gitmo), the exploitation of Abu Ghraib (with overkill coverage), the promotion of irresponsible antiwar voices (such as Cindy Sheehan and Michael Berg), and the support of antiwar politicians like John Murtha (who went from a relative unknown to an overnight media sensation because of his shrill and irresponsible antiwar allegations).
And we’ve watched as the media have splashed some of our nation’s most important war secrets across their front pages, and then give themselves awards for aiding and abetting the enemy.
No branch of government is acting as they acted during World War II. Rather than undermining the president’s leadership, Congress should be looking for ways to contribute to the winning this war. They’re few and far between.
Rather than intervening in war-making decisions, the courts should acknowledge their limitations during war as past courts have. And even the administration appears tentative about using more military might to destroy this enemy, a hesitation which rarely entered FDR or Truman’s thinking.
And, of course, whereas the media in the 1940’s focused their reportage on the evil that was the enemy, much of today’s media view George Bush as the real problem.
Meanwhile, two kidnapped U.S. soldiers were apparently brutally tortured and murdered today. And the question I pose to those who rightly honor the Greatest Generation is this: What would our country have done 60 years ago in response to this war crime? How would our political and military leadership have acted?
By all accounts, they would have demanded severe retaliation and retribution. And by that I don’t mean “bringing the perpetrators to justice,” as if we’re talking about some law-enforcement response to a white-collar crime.
No, I’m talking about a military response of such devastation that the enemy fears the consequences of future kidnappings and executions of our men and women in uniform. And that’s what’s missing in this war — the enemy does not fear us (at least not enough) and defeatism (rather than victory) is being preached from Capitol Hill and the news and editorial pages.
Bravo. We must pursue victory vigorously, killing our enemies with great dispatch, leaving the survivors to fear the wrath of the United States. As a matter of national survival, we must adopt the credo of the Marines: No greater friend; no more deadly enemy than the U.S. (Marines).
Posted by Mike Lief at June 20, 2006 01:24 PM
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Comments
I think it's important to remember that both the liberals and conservatives have extremists. I don't think it's fair to attack Cindy Sheehan as she unravels her pain in the way she sees fit. She's a mother who lost a boy and deserves to grieve in the way she feels appropriate, as long as she doesn't break the law.
Likewise, I don't feel it's fair to attack the president based on poor judgement of people in the ranks below him.
Meanwhile, there is an unyielding upswelling in the population of the US that Bush is, well, not so sharp? But here's the bottom line, we elected him. Hello? At what point do we take conviction in our choices and rather than bitching about it make the most of it.
The most important message that came through for me in this passage is that Jihadis don't deserve the protections of the Geneva Convention. I agree with passion and conviction despite other leanings.
Posted by: Dawn at June 20, 2006 05:16 PM