Centerfield

The reality is that an attacker has a MUCH easier time of it then some-one trying to prevent an attack. This is pretty much a universal truth in security.... regardless of what type of security you are talking about.

All the attacker has to do is figure out ONE vulnerability that they can exploit... and they have opportunity to try and try again until they find one that works or they get caught. The defender has to anticpate EVERY possible vulnerability and develop an effective counter measure for each....and to constantly keep those counter-measures effective... they can't afford to be lax even once.

When you are trying to secure something as large as a nation or society... it seems to me pretty much an impossible task. You've got to expect failures. I'm amazed that our security folks do as good a job of it as they do.

Essentialy, that's why I believe playing defense and relying on prevention in the GWT is a loosing plan. We've got to go out and actively target terrorist organizations and thier support systems. We've got to hit them before they can hit us... destroy them and the resources they rely on. We've also got to insure that if/when the terrorists do strike .... the results work counter to thier objectives.... thus making such actions entirely futile gestures.

That's the only way, IMO, we can reduce the threat enough to minimize the number of successes the terrorists have. We surrender the initiative to them.....and start treating it like just another law enforcement problem and we're done. That's just the way I see it.....YMMV.

I think this is extremely debatable. For example, the offensive strategy you describe seems to correspond pretty closely to the long-term strategy Israel has taken. And while you can argue that their continued existence shows that this approach has merit, I think it's a bit iffy to suggest that this approach has "minimized terrorists' successes," to borrow your phrasing.

But that's the core of the debate, isn't it? Some people believe we can only defeat terrorists by aggressively and directly targeting them, others believe this may well make things worse. I've sprayed my share of hornets' nests in my day, so I have sympathy for the former view. But I never doubted whether I could ultimately defeat a hornet, and I've also found myself in circumstances where detente was the wisest strategy at the time.

BK,

There is one serious assumption in the "detente" strategy..... namely being that a reasonable compromise can be found between the two sides that allow them to live in "relative" peace for the time being.

In the case of a hornets nest... no problem. The hornets mostly just want to be left alone and if you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone. If you can live with staying away from the particular little piece of territory the hornets have claimed as thier own.... you've got detente.

On the other hand, if you are dealing with a rabid, starving grizzly bear... detente isn't an option. The bear just wants to kill and eat you... it will accept nothing less then killing and eating you.... your only option is to kill the bear or let it kill you. There is no option for detente.

I maintain that our current opponents are more of the rabid grizzley bear then the hornet variety. Although they are (some of them) smart enough bears to hold out (false) promise of the detente option to buy enough time to build up thier strength and resources to have a better shot at eating us. Which is the other danger with the detente option. I'm not going to risk Godwins law here.... but I think we're all well aware of the strategy of using the promise of peace as tactic to gain the time you need to prepare for an attack.

Anyway, maybe you view the islamofacist goals and motivations differently then I do....but I just don't see where they leave any room for detente.

I don't view islamofasism as an especially coherent entity. The more of islam that I try to encompass in my model, the less coherent I see its ultimate goal. I try not to conflate islam with islamofascism even as I acknowledge that they are deeply entangled.

I believe that the only feasible way to keep them distinct is to try to apply the carrot to islam while trying to apply the stick to islamofascism. I don't know how best to do this. But I don't expect us to be able to catch and kill all the islamofascist terrorists. There's an aspect of the hydra in it, in that as we kill islamofascists we also get collateral casualties that are simply islamic. So we create more islamofascists. So I believe that any sort of solution involves slowly bringing about circumstances in which islam produces less islamofascism over time. It's a generational prospect. And I'm unconvinced that "more stick" is the answer. I concede cheerlessly that this is not much of an answer.

Well if either one of us possesed THE "answer" we probably would or should be doing something alot more productive then typing away on a blog ;)

The idea behind the search and destroy option isn't that you'll eliminate every single last attacker.... that's a practical impossibility. The idea is that by reducing the number of potential attackers you reduce the odds of one successfully exploiting a vulnerabilty. Again, a pretty basic concept of security... if you have 1,000 attackers banging away at your security system the odds that one of them will find a vulnerability to exploit are alot greater then if you have ten.

Of course, in the process there is a real risk of spawning more attackers. I'll completely concede that is a major consideration....and it certainly is a very fine line we need to thread. Of course one of the things we have to remember.... and it's one that sometimes our friends on the Left sometimes overlook.... there are TWO things that can de-motivate potential enemies from becoming actual enemies HOPE and FEAR. You can offer them a carrot which provides them with enough hope to make them feel that they don't need to resort to violence to achieve thier desired ends. You can also show them the stick... which illustrates to them the inevitible futility of resorting to violence.

In the West we are great with using the carrot as a tool to de-motivate potential enemies. However it seems to me that sometimes we are way too shy about using the stick as a de-motivator. It seems to me that we are too paralyzed with self-guilt to try use fear to dissuade potential enemies.
Me, I got no problem with using fear against our enemies where required.

Look at how long lasting and wide-spread the Roman Empire was. How did they treat potential enemies? Salting the earth isn't pretty but it can be damn effective.

Okay, let us return to the idea of remaining cool. Democrats have recently responded to new disclosures about terror networks with, “I refuse to let you make me scared”. Yep, yesterday on CNN one Democratic spokesperson refused to discuss terrorism with Blitzer because he would not succumb to Republican fear tactics. Hey, it works for Iran. Anyway, BK said on another thread that I sounded afraid. Indeed, I am, and if one is not afraid you are probably missing the critical moment America is arriving at. It is not personal fear; it is fear for the Liberal Democracy that only twenty years ago emerged from the Cold War.

First, let me state what I am “deeply concerned about”. I think Lieberman should stand up and point out the constant criticism he maintains he shouted concerning Iraq and the war on terror. His blog should read like “Fiasco” by Thomas Ricks. Last night on The Daily Show, Ricks pointed out that abandoning Iraq would be a terrible mistake. He hardly points the finger solely at Rumsfeld. Franks is blasted and Bremer is outrageous. This idiot virtually created the insurgency with his dumping the Iraq army and his De-Bathification policies despite strong military objection. We can debate this elsewhere.

Although Ricks tries to put Iraq 2003 in context by going back to Iraq 1991, he barely scrapes the context of the “greater” war on terror. Certainly, Iran figured into George senior's decision as it did for George minor's. I believe McCain, Hagel, Biden, Lieberman, Boxer, Clinton and other centrists did make numerous warnings and objections to the Bush-run Iraq campaign now in its fifth year. While I supported an intelligent plan to remove Saddam (I thought taking the North and South of Iraq plus the oil would be a start).

I am certainly deeply concerned by our present fiasco in Iraq and I have posted innumerable warnings over the last five years about the Republicans polarizing the public while advancing a social conservative agenda that alienates much of our allied support and divides the country. By stumbling, so many times, through false or manipulated intelligence or by shear arrogance, greed and/or stupidity, this administration has almost deliberately cast a poor perception of itself on the world. Stem Cell Ban, Intelligent Design, Justice Department Memos, Katrina etc. add up and the polls reflect. Iraq is the convenient scapegoat for voter rage. Since there are probably more Democrats than Republicans, what Republican strategist would think this was a winning situation? Fiasco will certainly make it into Independents deliberations. The center is looking for repairs while the Left is advancing policy reversals under the pretense of making us safer. There is certainly a long list of items that would make us safer, but to reject the seriousness of the present conflagration is foolish to the point of treasonous.

That said, I am actually “afraid” of another even more pressing situation which Bush’s fiasco in Iraq and domestically (I would argue) has made far more difficult for the US to maneuver in. It is the convergence of antiwar momentum and media. Most media portray a whole picture of manipulation and incompetence. I am afraid that these two forces will cause an amplified blowback that will reverse the core thrust of American policy and thus provide a crucial next step for the consolidation of a extremist hegemony now taking shape in the Middle East, though not confined to that region. It will become impossible for proactionary forces in government to slow and contain asymmetrical warfare by Islamofascists.

Despite the media spin does anyone stop for a moment and consider reality?

Iran and Syria has been building and training Hizb’Allah for years. Israel was confident they knew that there would be many bunkers, missiles, anti-tank weapons, mines, terrorists firing from civilian positions. Israel understood that US attacks on Iran would cause problem from Lebanon. What idiot would not understand this? Israel was preparing a response to Hiazb’Allah aggression by hitting them hard, but remember what the goal was: to re-establish deterrence. Who would argue that the people of Lebanon do not understand the consequence of just a limited reaction to terror? Now the French of all people will have to disarm Hizb’Allah? The international community is now on the line to enforce what was before the war, uninforced. Hundreds of terrorists have been killed as well as significant intelligence finds. The US and Israel is in the precess of deploying anti-missile defenses to personnel carriers and tanks. New anti-mine weapons are being shipped. It hardly makes sense for Israel to fight with one hand tied and take losses over a questionable and pre-mature occupation. And they are not now bogged down in the way the US is in Iraq. Olmert, I believe wanted intelligence, border security, a force in Southern Lebanon and attention turned on the Syrian border. Before the war, the world ignored Iran’s role and now the Israelis have proof they killed Iranians fighting for Lebanon. Most experts have said that Israel’s bombing was very accurate given the tonnage and the proximity of launchers to women and children intentionally placed. Hizb’Allah was a state within a state. Now they dismiss disarming for all to see. Iran and Syria claim they have won. Everything is spun as though the US blundered or even planned the HIzb’Allah attack. The Democrats would have demanded an immediate ceasefire. Perhaps there is irony in the French deploying in Lebanon.

Those who care to see beyond the media wall find the Shiite and Sunni militants in Iraq and Sunni divide Iraq. Without Saddam, which certainly would have become another ominous variable, Iraq would be set for a Syrian and Iran grab with Turkey pressing the Kurds. Anyone watching the Turks these days? These radical groups are supported by the Brotherhood (Egypt and Pakistan), AQ (Afghanistan and Pakistan), Iran, Syria and even China and Russia. The idea here is that Islamic extremists envision extremist hegemony from Asia to Africa running straight through the Middle East. Israel is therefore an abomination to be removed. The West must be removed while they buy oil and supply technology is a long pathetic retreat. Syria and Iran proclaim victory for Hizb’Allah as they warn the US and Britain against confronting them. Iran mocks the Holocaust with a cartoon contest.

Does this resemble what the news is reporting?

Any foreign policy which doesn’t focus in on the FACTS endanger Americans. To portray mistakes made in Iraq as justification for ignoring reality is utter BS. To spin Israel’s difficult position as poor planning and that they have lost is absurd. Can anyone imagine a good scenario for Iraq with an American retreat? Can anyone deny France and others also have a "severe terrorist warning"? Can anyone defend the UN’s failure to stop Hizb’Allah, Iran or Syria? This is a war against Islamic extremists aided by China, North Korea, Russia and others. Soon Iran will have the bomb. Does the West expect to extract oil from irradiated oil fields? I imagine Halliburton will charge a lot for that operation.

So I am indeed afraid of a convergence of terrible reporting and a growing trend of the antiwar sentiment. It may very well spook the Republicans and centrists who have the supremely difficult task of reconstructing fiascos while rejecting the antiwar wing. If we retreat, we are screwed and if we pre-empt with tactics devoid of intelligent strategy we are screwed. I am afraid America might not find the balance as our adversaries look on in bravado.

Iran the mother of all battles

Why should we be afraid?

Turkey and Iran

Some Arab voices

the present problem with force size in Iraq

Sanctions?

a longer bit from the first link

And the Democrats would continue this?

"While I supported an intelligent plan to remove Saddam (I thought taking the North and South of Iraq plus the oil would be a start), I hardly supported a bungled operation with one mistake after another. Didn't we learn something from counterinsurgency lessons from Viet Nam?"

That last part was clipped from my first post...sorry.

the missing link to Turkey and Iran

So why do we react to each new threat with new security measures. If the 9/11 public reaction taught us anything is that we must be prepared for all "unknown" or even "unknowable" threats AND we must take VERY seriously any "known" threat. That's a sure fire recipe for lots of reaction, worthwhile or otherwise. No politician wants to be the one who "ignored" a plausible threat and then... (Well you know the rest.)

The French Red Line

And after the oddity of seeing the French protecting Israel ( or enable Hizb'Allah ). Consider this bit of irony

Protecting every possible target is too expensive nor possible. Starts with intelligence, securing high priority targets, resources, ports etc.

We are hardly prepared for the unknowns we do know alittle about concerning Iran such as their air defense systems here The F-22 is designed to avoid the Russian built system and missiles. I wondered if the administration that brought us liberation in Iraq anticipates the real unknowns about Iran. Are we prepared for a dirty bomb strike on the Saudi Oil fields or in Grand Central Station. The blame game will last a decade while we grow less powerful.

Hizb'Allah might be rearming but so is Israel and the US. France and Germany is about to deploy to the Middle East while NATO is in Afghanistan. This is certainly a unique moment the media and the Left wish to cast in the worst manner. They forget what real war can look like in this day and age. Dresden was pretty.

I recommend reading FIASCO and wonder what greater FIASCO might happen given the mixture of serious warning lights and Bush strategic skill. The dice is set. Rove has terrorism on the table and the Kossaks have Iraq disintegrating. I will have to start drinking.......

and this is pretty cool too

I have a feeling the Germans won't have a chance to protect the Jews....

Which army would win in a match, Iraq or Lebanon?

and these people are really cool too.

That said, I am actually “afraid” of another even more pressing situation which Bush’s fiasco in Iraq and domestically (I would argue) has made far more difficult for the US to maneuver in. It is the convergence of antiwar momentum and media. Most media portray a whole picture of manipulation and incompetence. I am afraid that these two forces will cause an amplified blowback that will reverse the core thrust of American policy and thus provide a crucial next step for the consolidation of a extremist hegemony now taking shape in the Middle East, though not confined to that region. It will become impossible for proactionary forces in government to slow and contain asymmetrical warfare by Islamofascists.

Right. If we fail to democratize the middle east by the force of our will, those who supported this policy will blame the anti-war left and the media. I've known this all along. it's awfully fancy to saythe convergence of antiwar momentum and media. It's just another way of saying that as things go poorly, fewer Americans support staying the course because it doesn't appear to be working. Iraq, Iran, North korea, and Lebanon, to name 4, all seem far less stable than they did a few years ago. Is stability always a virtue? I say no, l but Simon may disagree.

Lebanon is a US failure? The US did not tell UNFIL to ignore weapons and bunkers for years while terrorists prepared for war. Britain is actually seeking a stronger war on terror than the US is fighting. Brits get angry The UN did what to sanction Assad's murder of Harari? Syria is the terrorist convention capital of the world, outside of Iran and Pakistan. I suggest you consider this in regards to who made what mess in Lebanon. The country doesn’t even recognize Israel. See here and and here . Before Hizb'Allah attacks on Israel the world did what? This Status Quo the Democrats favored will lead to what? You do not see the extent of media bias and fall for the spin that Israel and the US are the big losers in Lebanon. Actually, this is a set up for the international community to put up or shut up. You think the world does not now see the link between terror, weapons and Iran?

Iraq? Not even the writer of FIASCO calls for a retreat from Iraq. Again, the Status Quo of Saddam (with Chinese, Russian and French investment and technicians) added to the already noxious Middle East mix would do what? The problem with dividing Iraq is that too many Shia live in the Sunni Triangle. Sunnis are beginning to feel the squeeze in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza. If the West’s confrontation is with Iran, AQ and the Brotherhood along with Hizb'Allah, then we are in their belly in Iraq rather than outside delaying the fiasco of bombing terror groups latter from afar as Murtha suggests. FIASCO points to the mistake of not applying the lessons we learned about counterinsurgent warfare in Viet Nam. It did not say that our position is inherently untenable. It’s cut and run without a plan to avert the obvious. That is Ricks’ position too.

North Korea is Bush's mess? Clinton did a fine job and his former advisors recommended recently we bomb NK launch sites. Missed that article? Please tell us how you or Lamont recommend we "fix" the NK problem. Japan is thinking about a new military as Russia attacks a Japanese fishing boat. Germany is about to send troops to Lebanon to protect the Jews. This is all about Bush? The failure to either see nothing to see it as Bush induced is the mindset of the antiwar left. Snap out of it man. And the Democrats who are not very antiwar advocate what policy?

Iran. It is having a contest until September over which cartoon artist best depicts the untruthiness of the Holocaust. I don't see much outrage from the Left. They show far more concern over South Park. Iran is now going to have a large-scale military show in areas of civil unrest. It is a show for us and to prepare for a likely Western attack. They are this paranoid because they know that we know what they are up to. They openly declare death to the US and Israel and take all possible help to Hizb'Allah. They send Bin Laden’s son to Lebanon and allow AQ to set up shop in the South. Where is the non antiwar Democratic wing on this? Show me the Democratic centrists….oh I forgot Lieberman was defeated. Biden and Clinton have gone silent. Lieberman will win and then what? Before we know it terrorists will have more goodies see here With lots of oil money and a poor population, anything is possible.

The idea in the Middle East after removing the Taliban was to push moderate Muslims to become more moderate. Notice the initial reaction to Hizb'Allah attacks from Sunni governments. Notice their reaction to terrorist attacks (London, Jordan, Egypt, Bombay, etc.) and their reaction to the famous Hamas election. We did not remove Saddam to democratize the Muslim world. We removed Saddam because he was a dangerous, presently weak asshole in a critical geographical locate. I hope we will continue to confront regime supported terror, but with less adventurism and more strategy. We give people a choice, but it not up to us to make their decisions. Again, we can take about failed tactics, but the idea was to break a dead end Status Quo and confront regimes that sponsor terror. To fail to take this action and retreat is a fool's game. I wouldn’t have conducted Iraq as Rumsfeld has, but it was Clinton that accepted regime change as the policy of the United States. Funny how some on the Left that opposed the first Gulf War also claim Bush left Saddam in power to thwart Iran which they declared was a far greater menace in 2003 than Iraq.

As I said, beware of the media and the hollow firmness of the patriotic Democrats. Without a plan (remember Kerry's "I will not allow a nuclear Iran"?), they are just pretending to sound tough while being far from it. They actually link the spread of terrorism to Bush policies rather than to see it was increasing before Bush came to office. Democrats think that if they discount terrorism as a "ploy" to scare Americans into voting for them (I am sure some Republicans want to do that), they are mistaken.

Bill Clinton stuck his foot out today by suggesting the terror plot in London was not related to AQ or Iraq. He has altered his view somewhat on what how he would have ousted Saddam. He has been silent on Lebanon and Iran. I guess the Democrats are really not being routed by the antiwar. The centrist will stay quite for the second time and see what happens when the voting is over. Yes, and the BBC is antiBush and antiIsrael. CNN puts on Pat Robertson from Israel and the networks repeat Hizb'Allah victory cries and declares Israel's failure. Time Inc almost makes me ant to cancel my internet service from Time Warner. If you do not see my point then wait a few months. Perhaps then you'll change your mind.

Max, calm down. All I am trying to point out is that in the wake of our post 9/11 strategy, many people might get the impression that the region around and the middle east has become (even) more unstable. I never said Bush was to blame. I just said that many people have noticed that B followed A, not that A caused B. Maybe you think it's not more unstable...I've seen the laundry lists of positive developments. Not what I want to argue though. I think it's pretty obviously more unstable, but I've always expected that. Instability is a necessary component of change.

IMO there's reason to think that the aggressive, forthright and stalwart approach you continually advocate might be counterproductive. I don't happen to believe this, and I certainly don't hope it. I'm simply pointing out that its not an implausible conclusion.

I keep noticing the same rut, and calling attention to it, and it feels to me like some of the folk here who are more pro-war than I keep doing their best to ignore it. Here's the thing: the approach we are taking right now might well fail. It has before. With islam and islamofascism intimately entangled, we may not be able to effectively give islam mostly carrot and islamofascism only stick.

Very loosely speaking, it feels to me that the usual response from pro-war folk is some version of "we can't consider failure because it's too ugly and unpalatable an option to consider." IMO, that's not an answer. It's panglossian, it's whistling through the grave yard.

I'm a patient person, certainly not by nature, but because I really need to reason through things, and time and experience has shown me that patience is a virtual necessity. For me anyway, it's the only alternative to crazy anger. (and Bobby, if you're tuning in, that's another dictum I like, that Patience for most people is more a learned skill than an innate trait. It's an act of will, or at least it can be. I've had people tell me that "you're lucky, you're patient...." which ironically infuriates me, because I'm NOT innately patient, I choose to exercise patience despite my desire not to be. People who don't have patience excuse their failure to exercise it by believing it's innate, and that you either have it or you don't.)

I made a conscious decision that it was necessary to support the path the President took once he acted. And when I did, I also acknowledged to myself that any sort of reasonable support for the policy HAD TO include the minimum amount of patience to wait and see if the policy would work. That meant years, a generation even. So I'm still on board, I'm not bailing, and I'm still hoping. But even as I decided I had to support the President's chosen policy, I knew there was a line, a standard that had to be met. It wasn't a number, or a time, or anything like that. More simply and vaguely, it was just a background recognition that if I came to believe that the policy was not working, was obviously making things quite worse, and resulted in is continuing to be intimately involved in a multiplicity of bloody and dangerous no-win situations, I'd want us to consider changing paths.

Speaking only of Iraq, I support our continued involvement over there only so long as I believe our presence remains tenable and productive. If a substantial majority of the people over there want us to leave, we should strongly consider it. If the entire nation (as opposed to pockets here and there) devolves into lawless violence and our presence becomes superfluous, it'll be time to go.

My support is not unconditional. I won't be the last one off the sinking ship. I'll stay for as long as I believe the ship can be saved, and if I'm convinced it's going down, I'll start trying to drag our people. Now I guess the reason that the captian is supposed to go down with the ship is becuase it's the strategy a leader must adopt in order to maximize the number of crew who will stick around until things are utterly hopeless. But I'm not the captain. I'm just part of the crew. And I know the rest of the crew. You know, the part of the crew that hasn't thought through all this stuff at length, but that we still need if we want to save the boat.

Though I still support our captain because he's in charge of OUR ship, I believe him to be a somewhat mediocre and inarticulate man given to fits of temper, riddled by growing self-doubt, moving to isolate himself from the crew, and now maybe even looking eagerly to the time when someone else is captain. I see him to be a man who at a time of crisis, has little idea as to how best to motivate his entire crew, instead choosing to surround himself only with his waning group of yes-men supporters. This saddens and concerns me.

BK,

Exactly how do most Americans know how the war is going aside from listening to the media tell them how it's going. So what happens if the story the media is telling isn't exactly accurate?

I don't pretend to know how things are really going. I'll give you a historical example though that we can look at to see how such things can happen. Look at the media coverage of the Tet Offensive in 1968. If you read the reports you'd get the impression that it was a disaster for U.S. and ARVN forces... that we were "loosing the war". Funny thing is but if you read the reports
of the North Vietnamese commanders on the ground from the same time period (which you can now do as some of them have started publishing memoirs and giving interviews about the war).... you will read that the NVA regarded as a complete disaster too...but for thier own side! They believed that Tet had spelled doom for thier war effort. Yet the american media coverage of Tet lent fuel to the anti-war movement on the U.S. homefront and began to change public opinion enough that we did eventualy pull out. Furthermore, it gave the NVA commanders the hope that if they simply persisted in the struggle they could (and DID) eventualy outlast the U.S., even though they knew they couldn't win on the battlefield. You can hear this from thier own lips.

So I ask again, if your only source for information about the war is the media...how do you know that people are loosing confidence because the war is going that badly or simply because they are being CONVINCED the war is going badly regardless of how things are really going on the ground?

I would say that, yes indeed, we HAVE failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam..... and the #1 lesson should be DON'T TRUST WHAT THE MEDIA REPORTS.

So I ask again, if your only source for information about the war is the media...how do you know that people are loosing confidence because the war is going that badly or simply because they are being CONVINCED the war is going badly regardless of how things are really going on the ground?

I'm saying that they are losing confidence because of what they believe, not what they know. I continually chose my words carefully on such matters only to find that my careful choosing has been overlooked.

Cengel, I couldn't agree with you more when you say that one should not pretend to know what's going on. It's the acid washed truth, and it's also a point that's lost on most people, especially the most rabid partisans of both sides.

That's why, if you read my comments carefully, you'll notice that I've been talking about what people "believe." I've been insisting that it's extremely important for us to pay close attention to what people BELIEVE precisely because they DON'T know. It's uinfortunate, but politically speaking, it's often essential for politicians to act based on what people believe.

I don't happen to believe (haha) that the vast majority of what the media reports is intentionally misleading, which goes back to what Bobby mentioned about not attributing to malice that which can be accounted for by stupidity. The main thesis of my master's project in graduate school insisted that exponential growth in the volume of information in the world would make it ever more essential for people to become "active editors" (and reserachers) of that info. While its quantity would grow, percent of quality would not, and might even decrease.

So in the main, I pretty much agree. But so far I haven't been able to make any dent in people going off half-cocked, jumping to conclusions, and uncritically accepting any number of widely held half-truths, etc., etc.

Here's the part where I get to the troubling conundrum. Please give me the benefit of the doubt and don't interpret it in the sense that I'm trying to dissent from your point about Vietnam and the media or anything else.

OK, so here's the thing: let's suppose for the sake of argument that we could persuade lots more people to pay close attention and critically digest a wider variety of higher quality info, and come to the conclusion that it's extremely difficult to know what's going on in Iraq and evaluate our progress or lack thereof. In other words, let's suppose we could convince a lot more folks to appreciate the merits of, as you say, not pretending to know what's going on. At the point of that realization, you're left with a matter of trust, aren't you? If You don't know, and understand it's dangerous (or dishonest or foolish or whatever you'd call it) to pretend you do, then you have to choose to trust someone else. If you're patriotic in the broad and simple sense in which both righties and lefties think they are, the first choice is to trust the leader and the government if you can find a way to do so. But in the wake of the WMD fiasco (speaking loosely and quickly for brevity's sake, giver me another break here), the trust just isn't there. And it's not coming. Bush is a deeply divisive figure who, at least right now, has lost the trust of what appears to be a majority of Americans. My experience is that this tends to be a one-way street...trust is much easier to lose than to earn, or re-earn.

I agree with you that it would go much better for America and the world if democratizing the middle east suceeds. If you believe that's the most pressing issue we face, and understand that this success depends on our having a leader that a more solid majority of Americans trusts/belivees/gives the benefit of the doubt to, I think you have to grant that Bush is far too damaged a leader to fulfill this role effectively. In other words, you have to fire the coach because you can't fire the players. I'm not saying it's all or even mostly Bush's fault. I'm not that interested in assigning blame. He's as lame a duck as I've ever seen. I hope he finds ways to do some good things, but I'm not holding my breath. We may be looking at 2 years of almost rudderless muddling.

In fact, it's this line of thought that has me re-thinking whether I could support Hillary Clinton, because she's likely to simply re-shoe the partisans. How many Americans would give her the benefit of the doubt coming in? 50.2% ? Any number of GOP candidates might well be in the same boat. This suggests to me that if it could somehow happen, a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be a fantastic thing. That's despite their flaws. If democratic reform of the middle east is the most important thing, we need a ticket that can be a unifying force for our country, one that starts out with a little bit more trust than usual on both sides of the aisle. And which gives us sober leaders who have the credibility with the moderate half of each wing to speak of uncomfortable truths, obvious shortcomings, and even concrete sacrifices.

If our next president speaks of such things in front of an audience where one side of the room is stoked and the other is bitterly crestfallen, he or she might as well be talking to an empty room. The die will be cast foir more of the same. If, on the other hand, this message is spoken to a room where half of each side of the room is nodding and listening in good faith while the other half of each side of the room looks on in sour silence, I think we'll get somewhere.

I'm guess I'm claiming that some sense of national unity is just as important as the vision of where we're heading. YMMV.

BK,

I couldn't agree with your last sentiment more. Although, in general, I trust GWB... at least as far as politicians go.... I recognize that his crediblility has been pretty banged up for alot of people.... and for better or worse he is a divisive figure...which I agree is exactly what the country doesn't need right now.

Unfortunately, I wasn't presented with much of a viable alternative in the 2004 election. I'm a pretty staunch conservative but if the Dem's had put some-one even half-way palatable there is a good chance I would have voted D for the first time in my life for Preseident. Unfortunately they choose John Kerry, who was just about the worst possible option I could imagine. I grew up in Mass., I know Kerry too well.... trustworthiness and resolve are NOT his strong points.... and we desperately needed both. Bush was simply the less bad option for me. I would have prefered a McCain or maybe even a Wes Clark.... but that wasn't what was on the menue.

So credibility damaged or not Bush still has to lead our nation for 2 more years...... and those are years which we are going to be engaged with the enemy. We need to give him as much support in that effort as we can.....even if we think he's not a particular good man for the job, he's the one that's got it...hamstringing him won't make his performance any better. For our own sake...and for the sake of the folks on the front lines, people need to find a way to work with our President, not against him, in this particular endeavour.

It seems to me that MOST of the Dem's right now want to portray Iraq as "unwinnable" and want us to bail immediately. They want to do that so that they can blame Bush and the GOP for getting us into an unwinnable situation..... because it's alot easier to score political points with that message then the message that their handling of the war caused it to be a harder road then it needed to be. I frankly think that some of them don't want us to win in Iraq because they are afraid if we do Bush and the GOP will get at least some credit for the final results.... and they can't stand that idea.

All this makes Dem's like Joe Lieberman (despite my disagreement with many of thier political positions) one of the really good guys, IMO. Because they recognize how important it is that we do win in Iraq.... and what a disasterous signal our bailing really will be. People like him are putting the good of the nation above thier own narrow self-interests, IMO.

Again, I have no way of knowing what really went down on the ground. From everything I've seen, I don't think Iraq was as badly mishandled as many portray it to have been. I'm totaly willing to believe that there were mistakes made and that things could have been handled better.... but putting things in perspective... things almost always end up being FUBAR in war.... and with the benefit of hindsight things always could have been handled better.... the real question always comes down to how FUBAR your side handling was in RELATION to the other guys. The administrations handling of Iraq may not rank with a Robert E. Lee.... but I don't exactly see it as an Edouard Daladier performance either.

So in essence I pretty much agree with you Brian. I'm just trying to get people to stop and think for a minute about what data it is that is causing them to have the perceptions that they do.... and I want people to realize the REAL WORLD consequences of all the negative publicity.
It's one thing to CONSTRUCTIVELY CRITICIZE the problems you see.... it's another thing to get to the point where you are DEMORALIZING yourself and effectively hampering your own ability to be successfull..... and Unfortunately, I see precious little of the former and a whole lot of the latter coming from both the media and the political Left these days. Which is exactly what I think Max was pointing out.

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