By Jason Schwalm
Whenever Democrats speak about the war in Iraq, a collective moan sounds from the country at large. Time and experience have confirmed many of the left’s claims – weapons of mass destruction are noexistent and the exit strategy was poorly conceived – but the public just doesn’t want to hear about it. However much we distrust politicians, few Americans are willing to condemn an ongoing war, one in which people still die.
An ethical investigation of the war in Iraq, reducible to the question, “Should we be there?” is fundamentally different than a strategic analysis of the war: “Now that we’re there, what should we do?” That Democrats conflate, confuse, and otherwise misalign moral questions and practical questions is their Achilles heel.
All the while, ever more terrifying truths about the manner in which our country has proceeded in this war are made known.
President Bush’s administration, fresh from its preposterous attempt to insist that we do not torture detainees while remaining unwilling to relinquish our legal right to do so, is now locked in a public relations battle to gain support for its program of wiretapping telephones without warrants. As this practice is a few years old, it seems that the adage, “It is easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission,” is never truer than in politics.
Our society rests proudly on a bedrock of patriotism. Almost every generation of Americans has sacrificed for a war effort. As we continually invest constitutionally questionable war powers in the executive branch, our generation’s sacrifices are intangible, but monumental. We have made them in the name of victory. But what does victory in the war in Iraq, and the war on terror, look like?
Dismissing any call for a clear plan of action as defeatism is lazy and absurd. Replacing the claim that a Democrat is defeatist or un-American with the playground expletive “Your mom,” would give a rough idea of the kinds of rhetorical techniques employed by this administration.
Meanwhile, the president’s recently released “Plan for Victory” included no clear statement of the criteria that must be met for power to be relinquished to the newly formed Iraqi government. “We’ll stay until the job is done” is not a specific political event. Even if such a state of affairs occurs in Iraq, the war on terror will still rage on – and so will the wartime behavior of our country’s government.
Ultimately, terrorism is a strategy employed by non-state actors who believe that the imbalance of power and military might between their group and their enemies precludes traditional warfare. Contrary to this administration’s inspiring slogans, war can’t be waged on a condition or a technique. Like our war on drugs, poverty or crime, there is no such thing as victory in a war on terror. There is no point at which terror, a centuries-old idea, will simply disappear. A McDonald’s in Mecca will not change the reality of terrorism, or the impulse of certain fringe and extremist groups to direct violence at noncombatants.
And so, the Democrats’ critique should be easy to understand: How can we be asked to sacrifice in the name of a war that appears perpetual? Surely no one is willing to concede such authority to a single branch of the government indefinitely. Without a clear criteria for victory, this administration’s policies appear to be nothing more than naked power grab.
The president has replaced due process with his personal judgment and that of his administration. Even for those who trust President Bush completely, what happens three years from now when someone else is at the helm of such considerable power? Bravo to Democratic and Republican congresspersons for their reticence in further extending the Patriot Act without careful examination. However necessary those provisions might be, they are useless unless we know what, specifically, we are fighting for, and when the fight will end.
