Throwing Down the Gauntlet
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Edited on 11/4/06 to include my own “position statement.”
I am losing patience with liberals and conservatives. It seems as though both have forgotten that ideology is supposed to be about ideas and principles, not about two teams circling the wagons around “their guys” and trying to get “the other guys.”
So I’m issuing a challenge. I hope at least a few of you will take me up on it.
I challenge you to take a liberal or a conservative position on an issue of current national or international importance and to defend that position on the basis of ideas rather than partisan politics.
You may debate with each other, but you may not reply to someone else’s post until you have contributed at least one “position statement” of your own. Everyone needs to have some skin in the game.
I really hope this thread won’t end up empty. I think the national dialog has deteriorated to the point where each “side” is doing nothing but name-calling, and this is my small attempt to try to change that situation.
The rules apply to me as well. Here is my contribution:
I firmly believe that individuals should be called to account for their actions, and that results generally matter more than intentions. Our current administration in Washington has produced spectacularly awful results in Iraq through a combination of:
1. A reliance on foolish assumptions, such as the belief that our troops would be welcomed as liberators in an area of the world where we are largely hated.
2. An unwillingness to consider information that contradicted their thesis about Iraq, such as intelligence that cast doubt on the assertion that Iraq had been able to revive its WMD program back to a state of viability.
3. A refusal to benefit from the experience of battle-tested military commanders, resulting in appallingly bad tactics such as the decision to leave arms depots unguarded, which in essence helped arm the insurgency.
4. An inability to plan for the insurgency, which was a foreseeable consequence of toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime.
I believe we need fresh ideas and a better, more realistic perspective grounded in experience and an understanding of military history. As much as I loathe President Bush, I believe his resignation would be ill-timed. And I realize that the political reality is that Dick Cheney will not resign, even though I believe he should. Nevertheless, the President could go a long way towards remediating the situation in Iraq by cleaning house, starting with the firing of Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld should be replaced by Colin Powell.
Oh, yeah, I’m serious. Bush should get down on his knees and beg if need be. Powell has something that Rumsfeld lacks: credibility. Yes, Powell gave a speech in front of the U.N. making the case that Iraq had WMDs, even though he had his doubts. But at least Powell was able to admit afterwards that it was a mistake (he called it a “blot” on his record). Whereas Rumsfeld tells the press corps they need to “back off and relax” while our troops are dying in the desert sands of Iraq.
The only way this would work, however, would be if Powell were granted the level of respect and authority that Bush has so clearly given to Rumsfeld, a man who is clearly undeserving.
Powell is a strong yet unabrasive leader. He is unafraid to fight but believes we should be guided by our moral principles. His warnings to the administration demonstrate that his assessment of the situation in Iraq was far more clear-eyed and accurate than Rumsfeld’s. I believe if there is anyone who could help turn around the situation in Iraq, Powell is the man.
I doubt Mr. Stubborn-Pants Bush will even consider it. But I nevertheless believe it would be the right thing to do.
November 2nd, 2006 at 7:42 pm
All right, Myers, I’ll take up your challenge!
Bush has labeled North Lorea, Iran, and the ex-Iraq as being members of teh Axis of Evil. While hyperbolic statements like that are great for exciting the passions of the masses, it lumps together groups that have nothing in common other than “We don’t like them, they don’t like us.” It also paints the speaker into a corner by painting the individual being spoken of as some mustachio-twirling nogoodnik out of a Dudley Do-Right cartoon. Since the first step in diplomacy is communication, leaders need to learn to communicate with each other like civil beings, not kindergarteners with a scraped knee and an absonded kickball. No name-calling, no appealing to the emotions of your listeners, just the facts, ma’am. The best way to create a dialogue is presenting the appearance of being willing to listen. Listen to what the other people are saying, then consider your response before you give it.
November 4th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Sean, first of all, thank you for stopping by! I’ve enjoyed conversing with you over at Peter David’s blog. I had hoped you’d swing by here as well.
I like the sentiment you’ve expressed but I question just how realistic such a posture would be. For one thing, I believe Kim Jong-il and
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would have dangerous agendas regardless of how they were treated by the United States. Their ambitions are not solely a reaction to U.S. foreign policy.
Also, I’m curious: what do you believe we could offer to either leader that would encourage them to compromise? Asking either of them to give up their nuclear ambitions would be, I’m sure, a huge sacrifice in their minds. They’d need to believe they were gaining at least as much as they were giving up.
Moreover, can we trust either man? And would a purely diplomatic solution be enough to ensure our national security?
Back to you, Sean…
November 4th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
If I may interject here…I have to wonder how these other countries view the United States. We are telling them that they can’t have nuclear weapons but we have them. We are basically telling them we don’t trust them with such weapons, that we believe their leaders are too wrapped up in their own world or beliefs to the determinent of others. Now I don’t want these countries with nuclear weapons, heck I would like it just fine if no one had these weapons, but as a leader that is narrowly focused on his own set of beliefs and doesn’t listen to opposing viewpoints, who thinks God is on his side, and that he is fighting for God and country…who does this sound like? How about our own president, W. I’m sure some of these countries out there look at us as some type of crazed bullies, intent on getting our way no matter what. We’re not above invading a country just because we think they are evil, they don’t have to attack us. To me it just seems like we’re talking out of the side of your mouth.
November 5th, 2006 at 3:25 am
Well, let me answer your second question first. What these guys seem to want, at least to me, is the respect of the people they rule over. Otherwise, from what I understand, they lose control of their countries, and I think that’s what scares them the most. We have to show them that they can deal with us, even come to agreements with us, without losing face. That’s the hard part. Both Kim and Ahmadinejad remind me of the short kid in class with a two foot chip on their shoulder. They want to be in the game with the big boys, but they don’t see that they have much to offer, so they just make louder noises. You’re right, asking them to give up their respective nuclear programs would be a big blow to their standing, but if we could do something to help them help their own people maybe, and from what little I know of these guys, it’s a maybe the size of Wisconsin, they’d realize they could maintain their standing AND help their people, this improving their standing. Get them to come to the figurative table and come away with something to help their people. You know, the hungry ones. The ones with the medical problems.
You know, I’m typing this, and I’m realizing that I’m sounding more and more like a Disney movie.
November 7th, 2006 at 11:14 am
John, you may always “interject”… although the rules of this particular thread did stipulate that you needed to contribute your own “position statement” before debating someone else’s!
Ah, well, you’re a nice guy and I’m inclined to let it pass.
Yeah, we have definitely created the perception that we’re a loose cannon of a country, and North Korea and Iran may be trying to go nuclear in part to stave off what they believe to be the possibility of a U.S. invasion. And other nations are understandably reluctant to accept the edict that we may have nuclear weapons but they may not.
On the other hand, look at what Iran is doing: President Ahmadinejad is making every effort to shift the regional balance of power in Iran’s favor. There is a wealth of evidence that Iran is backing Hizbollah, and that Iran worked behind the scenes to trigger that group’s conflict with Israel earlier this year. Ahmadinejad has stated he wishes to push Israel, a key ally of ours, “into the sea.” He is backed by radical Islamic clerics, and I don’t think we could put past him the sharing of dangerous WMDs with terror groups.
When it comes to the U.S. and Iran, I clearly believe we’re the lesser of two evils. And while there may be some degree of hypocrisy in our foreign policy, I believe it may be a necessary hypocrisy. After all, I don’t think we can afford to engage in unilateral nuclear disarmament, nor do I believe that we can afford to tolerate a nuclear Iran merely to show that we’re not the pot calling the kettle black.
November 8th, 2006 at 4:00 am
Iraq:
We can’t leave. Not yet. Maybe not even next year.
Bush screwed us. Iraq has become the future threat that it wasn’t when Bush and crew claimed it was before the invasion. Actually, that’s something we may now never be able to change or fend off.
But we have a moral obligation to try. We trashed the country. We opened them up for anybody else to come in and mop them up. We can’t leave them worse off then they were before we went in.
We also need to look at what we will do to ourselves if we just up and leave in the next year. We may not have a strong friend in Iraq if we stay and fight. Hell, we may not have a friend at all. But we will have an enemy nation if we leave them to fall apart and have Iran or others come in to “help them” and get them back on their feet.
The hard part will be facing the fact that we may have to do what should have been done years ago. What should have been done on day one of this massive cluster****. We have to send in more troops. We have to send in the numbers to give our guys the strength to make more areas stable. Right now, our troops are playing whack-a-mole.
They clear an area, leave, clear a few more areas and then find out that the first has gone to hell again. We need to be able to lock areas down and keep them that way.
It’s going to cost us in blood and lives. Because of that, we have to make it clear to the new Iraq gov that this comes with stips. They will start working harder to get set up because we will be gone on Jan. 1, 2010.
I could give you more, but I’ll go way over the 3000 character limit.
The really crap part of this is what we now have to look at as a “victory” here. If we do everything right from this day on, we MAY have a friend in Iraq. We MIGHT NOT be facing ten years down the road just a brand new Saddam that WE set up. We COULD BE making a safe zone for us and others in the Middle East in Iraq.
We’ll be sending men to their death in the hope that we might have a victory that may be worth the lives lost.
VS
We leave now. We leave and make sure that the lives lost and blood spilled was for nothing. We leave and the chaos overtakes Iraq. We leave and make the Middle East, if not the world itself, less safe for us and for others.
And maybe we spead up the time window for the next war we may have to get into over there.
Bush screwed us good. Now all we can do is try and take the least damaging path out of Iraq. I think this is the least damaging.
November 9th, 2006 at 3:02 am
Sean, I’m not sure that dictators like Kim and Ahmadinejad want their people’s respect as much as they want power. This requires obedience, but not necessarily respect.
And I very much doubt they care about coming away with anything that will help their people nearly as much as they care about maneuvering their countries into a more powerful position on the world stage. Given the track records of both nations, it seems likely they would abuse any such power and I don’t see how we can let them have it.
November 9th, 2006 at 3:09 am
Jerry, I agree with you. We shouldn’t have gone in to begin with, but now that we have we can’t leave anytime soon.
There’s something else that I think we should do. We need to go to the international community, hat in hand as we acknowledge our terrible mistakes, and ask for their help. We need to offer them something, however, to make it worth their while. I believe that in return for actual armed troops on the ground fighting alongside of us to secure Iraq, we could offer foreign nations a piece of the rebuilding action. In other words, we could promise to “outsource” some of the reconstruction efforts to those nations so that they can financially benefit.
By the way, I wish I could do something about the 3,000 character limit. Eventually, I may switch to a more fully featured blog product.