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January 05, 2005
An open letter
American Thinker has an essay by Herbert E. Meyer, who served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence. In an open letter to the opponents of the war in Iraq he asks that they make an attitude adjustment.
I am not writing to quarrel with your judgment about the war in Iraq. Rather, I am writing to protest your attitude toward the war. And the point I want to make is this: sometimes, you have to choose between proving yourself to have been right, or helping make a project succeed despite your opposition to it...
To put it bluntly, your attitude stinks. You are so determined to be proven right that you are unhelpful at best, and at worst you are actively working to insure our defeat.
The Democrats, with the exceptions of Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman, are willing to risk the survival of the country to gain a little partisan advantage. Their first opportunity to break with the president was the over the liberation of Iraq, and they didn't hesitate. Had they anticipated partisan gain by opposing the liberation of Afghanistan, they would have opposed it. There is one thing that has been made clear by this past presidential election: the goal of the Democrats is power and nothing else matters.
Posted by Tom Bowler at 07:24 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Thanks for the post. I will say this about my thought process between January 1 and May 1, 2003: I did not want the war to happen, but when it did, I was in full support of what we were/are trying to do there. I thought the national debate in late 2002 and early 2003 so important, so critical to future U.S. foreign policy simply because I knew once we had made the jump there would be no turning back. We would need to win, period. Anyone who wanted us out after things "went bad" either were doing a power grab, as you say, or were against all war. Neither position has American interests at heart. Of course you know I feel George Bush didn't do his best strategically either, but we're talking about the war opponent crowd for now.
Because the leap into war meant future support would be needed from all Americans, my biggest regret is the debate during the pre-war period was not robust enough. Perhaps the intransigence of the anti-war and war always makes peace factions played a large part in this. The President deserves some blame too. This larger national debate would have led to, at the very least, far greater understanding rather than the regressive friction of today.
Posted by: Scott | Jan 5, 2005 8:26:09 AM
Meyer's second piece "Jolting Islam Forward" sums up everything about the war. I may blog about it myself.
Posted by: Scott | Jan 5, 2005 11:55:22 AM
Democrats followed their conventional strategy of campaigning way to the left in the primary season and swinging back to the center for the general election. This year it made for a muddied debate on the war because Kerry had to switch sides all the time, resulting in total incoherence. The leftward tilting press had a hand in it too, by misrepresenting what's at stake and misrepresenting what's going on. Fortunately people are catching on.
Posted by: Tom Bowler | Jan 6, 2005 10:08:56 AM
Tom, I take it issue with the idea that opposing the war was "left". Opposing all war is left, opposing this war was not. Among the reasons Howard Dean lost is the campaign had a feel of anti-war absolutism about it despite the candidate's own statements.
Posted by: Scott | Jan 6, 2005 11:34:11 AM
I do agree with you about with Kerry's complete incoherence.
Posted by: Scott | Jan 6, 2005 11:35:05 AM
You make a good point. Opposing the war did not mean one was necessarily on the left, but the left was almost universally opposed to the war, and those were the people Lord Kerry went after in the primary season. I imagine real honest to god Libertarians opposed the war too, and they tend to consider themselves to be on the right. The right being those favoring small government with the left being those favoring big government.
Posted by: Tom Bowler | Jan 6, 2005 12:16:32 PM
I suppose my point is Dean did himself in Iowa by appearing beholden to the far left, while Kerry altered the interpretation of his war vote so that he could have it both ways. Although 3 of every 4 Iowan caucus-goers were against the war, 40% of Iowa delegates went to Kerry because he convinced them he was not captive to the anti-war left as Dean appeared to be. I'm responding to your comment that Kerry campaign way left during the primary season.
Posted by: Scott | Jan 6, 2005 1:26:51 PM
...that Kerry campaign(ed) way left....
Posted by: Scott | Jan 6, 2005 1:31:34 PM
