Redstate

"There is a difference between healthy debate and self-defeating pessimism."

By AcademicElephant Posted in War — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

As I noted in an earlier post, a number of important speeches are being given this week by the prime Bush administration architects of the Global War on Terror. The heavy-hitting line up suggests that even as the President commemorates the first anniversary of hurricane Katrina in the gulf region, other high-ranking officials are starting to frame the narrative leading into the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and then into the November elections. Does that mean they're trying to run from Katrina and "play politics" with this somber milestone? I suppose that's a matter of judgment, but as far as I'm concerned it would be wildly irresponsible to do anything else. We're in a long and difficult war that doesn't just include the euphoria of the quick conventional victories at Kandahar and Baghdad; it also includes eagerly-hyped setbacks such as the (to-date) ongoing search for Usama bin Laden and scandals such as abu Ghraib. If you believe, as I do, that a vigorous prosecution of this war is the only way to preserve our way of life in a rapidly changing and dangerous world, then it falls to those who are prosecuting it to articulate their policy to the American people. And that's what they're doing this week. I think we should all listen.

First up to the plate was Vice President Dick Cheney, who spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention in Reno yesterday morning. The early portion of Mr. Cheney's speech is devoted to the VFW and veteran's affairs, as well it should be. But for our purposes here, things get interesting at about the half-way point, when Mr. Cheney began to talk about the current conflict. I found this passage particularly noteworthy:

Over the last several decades, Americans have seen how the terrorists pursue their objectives. Something of a pattern developed, and it was plain to see. To put it in blunt terms, the terrorists would hit us, but we did not hit back hard enough. For many years prior to 9/11, we treated terror attacks against Americans as isolated incidents, and answered -- if at all -- on an ad hoc basis, and never in a systematic way. Even after a strike inside our own country -- the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center -- there was a tendency to treat terrorist attacks as individual criminal acts, to be handled primarily through law enforcement.

The man who perpetrated that first attack in New York was tracked down, arrested, convicted, and sent off to prison. Yet behind that one man was a growing network with operatives inside and outside the United States, waging war against our country.

For us, that war started on 9/11. For them, it started years before. They killed 241 servicemen in Beirut in 1983. Then there was the first World Trade Center attack in 1993; and after that, the murders at the Saudi Arabian National Guard Training Center in Riyadh in 1995; the simultaneous bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; and the attack on the USS Cole 2000. With each attack, the terrorists grew more confident in believing they could strike America without paying a price. So they continued to wage those attacks -- making the world less safe and eventually striking here in the homeland on September 11th.

Against this kind of determined, organized, ruthless enemy, America required a new strategy -- not merely to prosecute a series of crimes, but to fight and win a global campaign against the terror network. If I may quote Franklin Roosevelt, the President under who many of you served and fought, in words he used to describe fighting the Nazis: "Modern warfare against treacherous enemies," he said, "is a dirty business. We don't like it -- we didn't want to get in it -- but we are in it and we're going to fight it with everything we've got."

Establishing this escalating pattern of attack and insufficient response followed by 9/11 and a vigorous response highlights that this administration's policy has given us the longest period without an attack.

Mr Cheney also took on the administration's critics, noting that:

In our own country, we take democratic values seriously -- and so we always have a vigorous debate on the issues. That's part of the greatness of America, and we wouldn't have it any other way. But there is a difference between healthy debate and self-defeating pessimism. We have only two options in Iraq -- victory or defeat. And this nation will not pursue a policy of retreat. We will complete the mission, we will get it done right, and then we will return with honor.

Again, Mr. Cheney is able to articulate this point with force and clarity, which makes the various Democrat proposals to leave Iraq seem contrived and needlessly complex.

The Vice-President concluded with a discussion of the non-military aspects of the GWoT, such as the Terrorist Surveillance Program. He declared that:

The authorization the President made after September 11th helped address that problem in a manner that is fully consistent under the Constitution and consistent legal authority of the President and with the civil liberties of the American people. The activities conducted under this authorization have helped to detect and prevent possible terrorist attacks against the American people. The recent ruling by a federal judge ordering an end to this program is just dead wrong. We are confident it will be reversed on appeal.

Once again, Mr. Cheney pointed to the undeniable success of these efforts:

Here in the U.S., we have not had another 9/11. No one can guarantee that we won't be struck again. But to have come this far without another attack is no accident. We have been protected by sound policy decisions by the President, by decisive action at home and abroad, and by round-the-clock efforts on the part of our people in the armed services, law enforcement, intelligence, and homeland security.

There's much more in the speech. Read the whole thing. And to give Mr. Cheney the last word:

Liberty and equality; justice and humanity; self-government, tolerance, respect, and the rule of law -- these are the principles by which we fight, the principles by which we live, and the principles by which we will prevail.