Redstate

...his stated theme is "will we ever act?", then spends the entire essay basing the Bush Administration for doing just that.  Not much divination there, just plain understanding.

In 1941, we were attacked  by a world-class nation-state.  Such is not the case now.  Sorry for the "sneering tone", but you seem to be suggesting that the only place to find money for the war is to kill economic growth.  I think that's nonesense.  Indeed, our economy grew by leaps and bounds during WWII.  In any event, it's not a zero sum gain: growing the economy and winning the war are not mutually exclusive. They better not be, because everyone from George W. Bush to Hilary Clinton has said that winning the war on terror will take a very long time.  You and Helprin suffer from the very thing you pretend to despise -- fighting the last war instead of the current one.  This is no conventional war.  Even Vietnam was far more conventional than is the war on terror.  

And please don't waste my time with this:

 "Rather than comprehensive inspection and screening of passengers and cargo, we turn instead to complicated exercises with computers" (hint: this is a literary device, sometimes called sarcasm; he actually favors "comprehensive inspection and screening of passengers"); "Aliens with even the slightest record of support for terrorism should be summarily deported"; "American citizens with suspected terrorist connections should be subjected to at least the same level of surveillance and investigation as figures in organized crime"; "the borders must be controlled absolutely, as is the right of every sovereign nation."

All of the above can be done WITHOUT profiling anyone.  Indeed, we are doing many of these things NOW.  The problem is, most potential terrorists have no record to screen and are suspected of nothing.  Hell, even in post 9/11, we allowed several KNOWN terrorists on airliners.  You see, any device which supersedes the common sense of inspectors on the ground, i.e. profiling, will be riddled with holes.

And in the terror war, one hole is too many.  

because it simply does not matter, as there are no organized cells or cabals of Christian Americans, of any confession, prone to terrorism.  They can plead their case, such as it may be, before the court of democracy just like any other ideological faction.  

No one is claiming that Islamic societies are what they are solely by virtue of the dominant religion; all that I am suggesting is that there is a broad spectrum of what constitutes "orthodoxy" is Islam, and that part of that "orthodoxy" is the problem.  I would welcome changes on the part of Muslims; but Islam is for Muslims to define, not Christians such as myself.  As for the Turks, they may not be the enemy, but the restive Islamic masses in the country may certainly become enemies, in spirit at least, at some point in the future.  Kemalism is losing its hold on the loyalty and imagination of the people.

I'm curious to hear the RS response.

Cheers -

I am in complete agreement. There are few commentators who reflect my thinking so completely. As a former soldier, from the intelligence corps, and someone who is strongly rooted to Realpolitik and pragamtic foreign policy, I have been fighting this uphill battle with other Republicans for a long time. There are serious criticisms to be made of this administration's execution of the war effort. And it ill behooves us to castigate independent, intelligent voices as traitors and enemy partisans.

One of my frustrations with the debate during both the run-up to the war, and since the war itself, is the seeming blindness by so many otherwise smart, ethical and rational people.  

I've come to the sad conclusion that many people are so invested in the GOP in general, and GWB in particular, that they have sacrificed the ability to objectively analyze the current situation regarding the war in Iraq.

From the lack of attention paid by this administration to the weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq before the war, to the Rumsfeld-designed quick-strike battles, which allowed fighters to meld into the civilian populace, to the looting allowed immediatly after the fall of Baghdad, to the lack of political will to deal with insurgents effectively and immediately after the fall of Baghdad, no one in this administration has been held accountable.  In fact, several have been promoted.  And despite the outcry from the left for accountability, the right is overwhelmingly silent.

With ever shifting targets to what constitutes "success," we're now being told that Iraq will get better after the elections.  Excuse me, but isn't that what this administration told us about the "transfer of power" when Allawi was installed?  Weren't we told that once Allawi and the Governing Council was in place, that Iraqis would start turning against the insurgents?  

Many conservatives and Republicans refuse to acknowledge that real mistakes have been made, and these mistakes have severely damaged our reputation on the world stage.  This damage will have long term negative consequences.  To those of you who believe "F**k Europe and the rest of the world," you're sadly delusional if you believe our standing in the world doesn't matter.

I applaud Mr. Helprin's essays. He's an insightful and pragmatic observer of U.S. political history, and a very good writer.  Like him, I guess I wonder what, if anything, could get certain conservatives and Republicans to turn against this administration, or GWB at least.

Just curious...

Thanks, Mr. Cella, for the original posting.

"Two paths define our future: chaos, tyranny and terror, or expanding freedom and prosperity based on free markets and free men.

It will probably not be one or the other. There is no steady path to progress, and there will never be a world without tyranny and conflict. But our course must be to strengthen the one and combat the other. Thus encouraging the Muslim world, and particularly the Arab Muslim world, which is the heart of the global terrorist threat -- to adopt democratic ways and to shine the light of liberty into its culture of medieval darkness is a pragmatic necessity for the future security of the civilized world. That is the reality behind the President's address. Only people in serious denial can be blind to this fact."  

--- David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine.com, January 24, 2005

I couldn't have said it better myself.  And as far as Mr. Helprin's other utopian pronouncements are concerned, I'm not that impressed.  

For instance, in one article he's demanding that we "subjugate the economy to the common defense".  In the next he's complaining about the expense of modern armaments.  How does he suggest we fight any war on the cheap?  Nobody can -- wars are expensive.

And my response to his WSJ article is this:

Let's see, toppling a brutal dictator who invaded neighbors and slaughtered minorites, not to mention his own people, is somehow misguided? Gee Mr. Helprin, maybe we should have let Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Ree have their own way too.

Going on, the civil defense of this country could be drastically improved by profiling middle easterners. Mr. Helprin deftly ignores this possibility.

Flu shots were unavailable because many vaccine manufacturers have been put out of business by rapacious trial lawyers. Has Mr. Helprin come out in favor of serious tort reform? I didn't notice such a stance in his essay.

And, yes, Korea is the last mainline bastion against the Chinese. We could have had another one, a place called Vietnam, I think. Perhaps Mr. Helprin could enlighten us as to why that war was such a bad idea as well.

casual dismissal. That said, I would like to bracket all of the possible discussion that could be entertained on the subject of his analysis of the military situation.  If indeed Helprin is correct that our means are not requisite to the ends we have set for ourselves, we must pause to reflect upon the circumstances which have brought about such a portentious disconnect.

The first cause, I am afraid, is that we refuse to name our enemy accurately.  Our enemy is not terrorism.  It is not Islamo-fascism.  It is not a distortion, perversion or corruption of Islam, at least not that which has become, over the centuries, the majority, establishment view of the relationship of Islam and State, Civilization and Society.  Our enemy is the idea that Sharia must be the sole law by which the world of men is ordered and governed, and that, to the end that Sharia might be established, jihad is ordained as a requirement of Muslim piety.  It will be pointless and vain to object that not all Muslims are violent, that many, even most, do not share the objectives of jihadists (although, in light of some surveys indicating that upwards of 75 percent of American Muslims believe Sharia ought to be the basis of American law, one might question such qualifications).  Islamic tradition is what the majority schools of interpretation have decided that it is, on the basis of their own criteria for ranking and exegeting the Koran, the Hadiths, and the Sunnah.  And Sharia and the duty of jihad are integral to that tradition.  If there are many Muslims who have no truck with such ambitions, all the better for them as people; but they reject the tradition on those points.

It is possible to overdraw the analogy between the challenge posed by communism and the challenge posed by Islam today; nevertheless, an important analogy between them remains valid: it might be one thing to believe that the communist or Islamic way of seeing the world is one thing, but it remains that belief that either communism or Islam justifies efforts of the believer to overthrow or subvert his host society, by force if necessary, is quite another.  It follows that our enemies are those who believe a certain thing which entails the conclusion that our society must be utterly overthrown in its very essence, compelled to become something that it is not and never has been.  Our enemies are those who believe in what amounts to a particular doctrine of revolution.

Second, I fear that we are much more like the Europeans than we would like to admit.  If it is true - it is, at the very least, a proposition which has a prima facie case to be regarded as true - that our military force structure is numerically inadequate to the task, perhaps that is because we, as a people, from the Congress which allocates resources to the humblest citizens, do not value military service, and the civilizational ideals we propose to defend in the current war, as highly as we must if we are to prevail (where success is defined negatively, as in not having to utterly isolate our nation; not ceding control of resources, such as oil, critical to our survival, to jihadist lunatics; and not having to hunker down, hoping that the bribes we toss their way will encourage jihadists not to kill us).  Perhaps, that is, we simply do not have it in us to undertake the sacrifices necessary to defeat those who believe in Sharia and jihad as a divine imperative.

Warrior, I would recommend that you go ahead and read the essays before you pour out your scorn on them.

Let's see, toppling a brutal dictator who invaded neighbors and slaughtered minorites, not to mention his own people, is somehow misguided? Gee Mr. Helprin, maybe we should have let Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Ree have their own way too.

Anyone remotely familiar with Helprin's work would not write something so stupid. In the very passage I quoted from yesterday's Journal, Helprin describes the Iraq war as an "eminently justifiable invasion."

in one article he's demanding that we "subjugate the economy to the common defense".  In the next he's complaining about the expense of modern armaments.  How does he suggest we fight any war on the cheap?  Nobody can -- wars are expensive.

Indeed they are expensive. And Helprin remarks that if we were serious about fighting one, we would place private sector prosperity beneath victory in the order of our objectives. Hence, "subjugate the economy."

On profiling and trial lawyers: again, you ought to acquaint yourself with Helprin and his arguments before you critique them. I have no doubt that Helprin would endorse profiling and little doubt that he would favor protecting companies that produce vaccines from frivolous lawsuits.

Success in the war on terror, more correctly a war against Islam's fascist wing will not be won easily nor quickly.  It requires long term cultural change throughout the mideast. The US has embarked on the path that will have the greatest chance of LONG-TERM victory. In the mid-term things will get nasty. So far we have had few casualties and even the cost is not something we cannot handle. (If you think otherwise I suggest a cursory reading about Waterloo, Battle of or Somme, Battle of (first day only!)).

UBL is not the target (nor is Al Queda) and his elimination will not change the long term dynamics. (this is the law enforcement option - not a war).  His capture/death in say Jan of 02 would have crippled our war effort and guaranteed a second 9/11 by preventing the continuation of war to the next phase.  Unless the long term dynamics of the ME change we would just get hit again by another organization (probably with a nuke).  The US leadership (and I believe Kerry does also - just he has to pander to the tin-foil-hat crowd) sees this and has taken the correct steps. Tactically we have had some missteps but strategically we are doing just fine.

Why Iraq? As I told my crew in Dec 01as I came off the last tanker, it is the easiest of the next and in a great strategic position. Didn't matter if they had WMD or ties to 9/11. Iraq was the obvious next move - and all the officers I was with agreed (long discussion past this level on why). To be honest I haven't heard a coherent argument from anyone for not invading Iraq. Just to many advantages and little downside. And events still just confirm that position - but I look at the long term. If in 2013, Iraq is up to speed with 1963 South Korea I'll be very happy. Especially if we can maintain the major Army/Air Force bases we have built. (If we don't need them even better but I'm not that much an optimist).

Define Victory? Easy, when the beaches outside Mecca look like the ones at Monaco in South France. One word: Freedom

. . . that partisanship (accompanied by the descent of much of the Left into gibbering lunacy) has produced a special kind of blindness on the Right. It is a perilous state of affairs.

... "an eminently justifiable invasion" all he wants to, but the very title of his piece betrays that notion.  He is stating, rather ridiculously, that we are fighting for an idea, rather than an objective.  Well, listen Paul, the idea was to topple Saddam and the objective is to bring some stability to the region before another gang of sheetheads kills 3 or 4 thousand more Americans.  Is that plain enough for you?

You say Helprin says:

"...we would place private sector prosperity beneath victory in the order of our objectives."  

I hate to break it to you, but "private sector prosperity" IS what's financing the war NOW.  A war which he, and apparently you, say is too expensive.  How do you propose we pay for it?  A bake sale?  (Whoops, there's that private sector again...curses.)

Again, you say:

 "On profiling and trial lawyers: again, you ought to acquaint yourself with Helprin and his arguments before you critique them. I have no doubt that Helprin would endorse profiling and little doubt that he would favor protecting companies that produce vaccines from frivolous lawsuits."

That may all be true, but these sentiments are nowhere in evidence anywhere in the pontifications of his you cited.  So, why doesn't he suggest these things?  Because it's easy to beat up on the President, but far more difficult to take the heat for voicing unpopular views.

No, I think Helprin should stick to writing novels.

Oh, and BTW, maybe you should read my posts before criticizing them.  I quoted my own response to the original article in the WSJ Online.  It was probably too late for them to post it.  Nontheless, it's posted now on RS for all to see.

Paul, a very interesting post (as always).  But, though I think Maximos manages to paint with both too broad and too narrow a brush simultaneously (difficult feat!) in his "depiction" of Islam -- i.e., I disagree with pretty much everything he says -- he does make one good point.  

Helprin's fundamental conception of our struggle is one of a "hot war."  He thus applies the standards of a "hot war" to our policy and, unsurprisingly, finds it lacking.  Now, his criticism has teeth when it comes to Iraq, which is a hot war and which has been fought without clear goals and on the cheap.  But the critique is inapplicable to the rest of our struggle against Islamic terrorism and extremetism, which more closely resembles the Cold War.  In other words, Helprin's test is testing for the wrong things.

(We must be careful not to take this comparison too far -- and not merely because communism and Islamic extremism are dissimilar in many respects, as Maximos notes.  The Cold war also involved nation states as principals.  The same is not true in our current struggle.)

if 75% of Christian Americans would say the Bible ought to be the basis of American law.

I also think the comparison between Islam and Communism is pretty weak.  Islamic countries are not what they are exclusively or even primarily because of their religion.  Might as well blame South American poverty on Catholicism, or the collapse of the British Empire on Anglicanism.  Maybe we should judge Western parliamentary democracy on Weimar Germany and the rise of Hitler.  

The Turks make an interesting study of quasi-modernity for an Islamic nation. I don't think (at least last time I checked) they are the enemy.

I find myself in nearly total agreement with you on this.

Gotta go, the nice guy in the white suit is telling me its time for my meds.

"He can call it 'an eminently justifiable invasion' all he wants to, but the very title of his piece betrays that notion."

So you have discerned from the title "Our Blindness" that Helprin actually opposed the war in Iraq? That is an impressive act of divination, particularly in light of his having stated, here and elsewhere, the exact opposite.

You appear to disagree with Helprin's argument that we ought to place winning the war above growing the economy on our list of priorities. This is perfectly defensible. But the disagreement is real, which your sneering tone seems to deny; and I hope I don't need to point out that the last time a war began with an attack on American soil, the economy was indeed subjugated. By your logic, FDR sure funded a massive war effort with bake sales.

"That may all be true, but these sentiments are nowhere in evidence anywhere in the pontifications of his you cited.  So, why doesn't he suggest these things?  Because it's easy to beat up on the President, but far more difficult to take the heat for voicing unpopular views."

This is ridiculous. Your complaint is that Helprin did not write about what he did not write about, and you wish he had. But wait! He did write about it, if you would just have the patience to read: "Rather than comprehensive inspection and screening of passengers and cargo, we turn instead to complicated exercises with computers" (hint: this is a literary device, sometimes called sarcasm; he actually favors "comprehensive inspection and screening of passengers"); "Aliens with even the slightest record of support for terrorism should be summarily deported"; "American citizens with suspected terrorist connections should be subjected to at least the same level of surveillance and investigation as figures in organized crime"; "the borders must be controlled absolutely, as is the right of every sovereign nation." Altogether a pretty resounding endorsement of profiling.

A responsible government would raise taxes to an appropriate level to pay for the war it is fighting. It is absurdly irresponsible to cut taxes while increasing spending on a war, so we end up borrowing money from places like the Chinese Central Bank. That is not an example of private sector prosperity.

It seems to me that if the problem is as described, then the Saudis are among the principals who are arrayed against us in this war between those who support an expansive Islamic theocracy and those who support secular democracy.

...his stated theme is "will we ever act?", then spends the entire essay basing the Bush Administration for doing just that.  Not much divination there, just plain understanding.

In 1941, we were attacked  by a world-class nation-state.  Such is not the case now.  Sorry for the "sneering tone", but you seem to be suggesting that the only place to find money for the war is to kill economic growth.  I think that's nonesense.  Indeed, our economy grew by leaps and bounds during WWII.  In any event, it's not a zero sum gain: growing the economy and winning the war are not mutually exclusive. They better not be, because everyone from George W. Bush to Hilary Clinton has said that winning the war on terror will take a very long time.  You and Helprin suffer from the very thing you pretend to despise -- fighting the last war instead of the current one.  This is no conventional war.  Even Vietnam was far more conventional than is the war on terror.  

And please don't waste my time with this:

 "Rather than comprehensive inspection and screening of passengers and cargo, we turn instead to complicated exercises with computers" (hint: this is a literary device, sometimes called sarcasm; he actually favors "comprehensive inspection and screening of passengers"); "Aliens with even the slightest record of support for terrorism should be summarily deported"; "American citizens with suspected terrorist connections should be subjected to at least the same level of surveillance and investigation as figures in organized crime"; "the borders must be controlled absolutely, as is the right of every sovereign nation."

All of the above can be done WITHOUT profiling anyone.  Indeed, we are doing many of these things NOW.  The problem is, most potential terrorists have no record to screen and are suspected of nothing.  Hell, even in post 9/11, we allowed several KNOWN terrorists on airliners.  You see, any device which supersedes the common sense of inspectors on the ground, i.e. profiling, will be riddled with holes.

And in the terror war, one hole is too many.  

... to find money besides taxes or borrowing.  Let's start with Congressional salaries/perks and work our way down to pork.  Gee, all this is making me hungry...

... cut spending so that our priorities no longer reflect a "September 10th" government.  To suggest that we cannot sustain the GWOT with an overall domestic tax burden higher than FDR ever had at his command is silly.  We have problems not with our level of taxation, but rather with the spending priorities of our government (including those set by GWB).

$2.2 Trillion should be plenty to fight a sustained GWOT while providing the essential services of the federal government.  True, the GWOT is a tempting excuse for leftists to argue for increased taxation - because to argue otherwise would be to acknowledge that there is spending at the federal level that can be cut or eliminated to fund the war(s).  Can't have that now, can we.

To the point of the article: Helprin's analysis is compelling, though I'm not altogether convinced that his pessimistic prognosis will come to pass.  I would however agree with the central tenet of the article by Paul - which is that we ignore his criticism at our peril.  It certainly seems in hindsight that we made many miscalculations (okay, mistakes) in the run-up to the War and the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad.  Additionally, it seems logical to think that we've not done nearly enough to get our own domestic affairs in order.

Those problems, as well as those further outlined by Helprin and others, to me seem to stem from a lack of proper focus.  We may have said the world changed (for us) on 09/11/01, but we still have national priorities laid out as if the attacks never happened.  That's the real problem, not a lack of resources (tax revenues).

The sacrifices required of our nation should include being willing to live with less direct "service" from the federal government.  However, as long as we continue to pour $$ in the tens-of-billions into pork and programs that are not in the realm of "essential" government services, then I'm afraid that we're not yet serious about fighting the GWOT to win.  Cut the fat and fluff out of the budget, the money is there.

If Helprin's critique helps us focus (or refocus) on those priorities, then I believe he's done us all a service.

For at least three reasons:  

1.  Saudi Arabia's government does not support Islamic theocracy.  Quite the opposite, in fact.
   
2.  Saudi Arabia's government and people, though decidedly unhelpful in many respects, are not solely on this or that side of the war.  They are playing both sides.  (If you must have a Cold War analogy, think of Yugoslavia under Tito; incidentally, a sudden fall of the House of Saud could have similar effects.)
   
3.  We are crucially dependent upon Saudi Arabia, and that will not change in the near future.
   

For the record:  I think that there's actually broad consensus on the day-to-day stuff among neoconservatives, realists, Bush doctrinaires, et al.  The high-sounding theorectical crap that seldom, if ever, gets implemented is where the differences lie.

Von, your cold war/hot war distinction is a good one; but I don't think it is one that Helprin has neglected. He has, for example, repeated rebuked the Administration for not even increasing military spending to Cold War-level outlays.

The big different here is that while the Communists were certainly in the terrorist business, they were not threatening us with suicidal mass murder of civilians by rogue agents. Thus, while there are elements of cold war, the real threat is very hot indeed.

And even during the Cold War, out war aims were much clearer: when Reagin talked about freedom, his rhetoric was much more grounded in fact than Bush's -- he meant the break-up of the Soviet tyranny that had subjugated half the globe and was menacing us. While Islamic tyranny is quite as dreary, and its effects very dangerous, there is no nation-state level confrontation worthy of comparison.

. . . use your powers of divination (which revealed for you that Helprin opposed a war he in fact supported -- a error you have not yet conceded) -- use your powers of divination on this passage: "Aliens with even the slightest record of support for terrorism should be summarily deported." Which aliens would those be? Norwegians? Aussies? Obviously, if we heeded Helprin's deportation recommendation, we would begin a program of sufficient vigor to make the PC crowd cry "ethnic cleansing!"

"All of the above can be done WITHOUT profiling anyone . . . You see, any device which supersedes the common sense of inspectors on the ground, i.e. profiling, will be riddled with holes."

But again: anyone familiar with Helprin will recognize that he is not using this language to evade the judgments of common sense. To the contrary.

Warrior, you write as if I had cited some Liberal who is wishy-washy on the war, when in fact I cited someone well to Bush's (and your) right. Helprin's (another example is Angelo Codevilla) critique is so important because it is one of the very few of hawkish sensibilities that drives at Bush from the right. The great majority of the presser on Bush is from the Left.

"We are crucially dependent upon Saudi Arabia, and that will not change in the near future."

WHy are the Saudis essential to us?

Thanks -

1. The Saudi funding of Wahabism and other schools that are anti-Western leads me to believe that they will do anything to stay in power, no matter what the cost to others.
   
2. Except when the House of Saud has been threatened from internal problems or neighbors, their decisions, from the first Arab Oil Boycott to now have been contrary to American and Western interests. But,
   
3. We let them do this because we have made ourselves vulnerable to their corrupt whim.

They may merely be corrupt and evil, but their decisions over the past three decades have helped the theocrats at our expense.

Never take counsel of your fears

---LTG Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson

Far from heeding Jackson's admonition, Helprin has not only taken counsel of his fears they are firmly ensconced under his bed.

The title of the article itself, "God help the army that must fight for an idea rather than an objective", is breathtakingly anti-historical.

COL Harry Summers, in his excellent "On Strategy", relates an encounter between himself and his North Vietnamese counterpart during the Paris cease fire negotiations. Paraphrasing, Summers commented to his counterpart, "You never defeated us in battle" and received the rejoinder, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant." This epitomizes the difference between an army fighting for objectives and an army fighting for ideas. Men don't die for objectives. They die for ideas. On the other hand, if you are looking for armies fighting for ideas look at the US Army in World War I or World War II.

At a minimum ideas, not objectives, keep men in the field. Our own Continental Army, the Confederate Army after Gettysburg, were sustained past viability by ideas, one to win its war the other to lose. Indeed, to give the devil his due, the insurgents in Iraq are sustained by an idea.

So call me pollyannish if you will, but there is nothing more pathetic or ineffectual than an army without an idea.

Beyond the philosophy, Helprin, it seems, has a fundamental disagreement with how foreign policy and armed force interplay. As noted by Clausewitz "war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means" with a corollary "policy is the guiding intelligence and war only the instrument, not vice versa." So there is nothing particularly wrong with using military force to move forward the US policy goal

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

While he has every right to disagree that this should be a policy goal, his critique of how the military is employed to forward that objective is simply wrong.

His other points are, at a minimum, arguable. Why would we follow the "paradigm" Helprin posits that was successful in Germany and Japan when he tells us the situation in Iraq is not analogous to the situation in those two countries? It is more than a little counterintuitive to baldly state our strategy in Iraq is wrong when we have never confronted, at least in his estimation, a similar situation.

Chinese expansionism. Pandemic. Locusts. Drought. Famine. Boils. Attack by nihilists. Sure it could all happen. Some of it will. Most of it won't. None of it has any real bearing on the immediate problem which is ensuring Iraq succeeds.

because it simply does not matter, as there are no organized cells or cabals of Christian Americans, of any confession, prone to terrorism.  They can plead their case, such as it may be, before the court of democracy just like any other ideological faction.  

No one is claiming that Islamic societies are what they are solely by virtue of the dominant religion; all that I am suggesting is that there is a broad spectrum of what constitutes "orthodoxy" is Islam, and that part of that "orthodoxy" is the problem.  I would welcome changes on the part of Muslims; but Islam is for Muslims to define, not Christians such as myself.  As for the Turks, they may not be the enemy, but the restive Islamic masses in the country may certainly become enemies, in spirit at least, at some point in the future.  Kemalism is losing its hold on the loyalty and imagination of the people.

precisely where I have, all at once, painted both too broadly and too narrowly.  I have my suspicions, but until and unless you reply, I'll have to restrict myself to observing that the places of sharia and jihad in Islamic thought are well-established in the classical jurisprudence, and that Islam lacks any conception of the separation of faith and state, meaning that, in that inestimably important respect, it is utterly unlike the largely private faiths assumed by most Western political thought.  

Again, what individual Muslims believe is somewhat beside the point; I myself, and friends, know Muslims who have developed interpretive techniques for "getting around", deconstructing, or moving beyond the bellicose unpleasantries that one can find in classical Islamic texts.  What these Muslims cannot do is appeal to such pacific interpretations and claim for them the mantle of historic authenticity; they are either modern, and thus suspect, or they are positions long ago pushed to the margins in Islamic thought and life.  

streiff -

This is a good reply to Helprin's article.  I agree with your comments on ideas vs objectives, and also agree that the most critical immediate goal is making a success, or the best success we can, out of the situation in Iraq.

Other of Helprin's points make sense to me, however, and I would be interested in your thoughts on them.

Have we clearly defined who our enemy is?

Is it Al Qaeda?

Is it any organized terrorist organization?

Is it any organized terrorist organization that means harm to us, specifically?

Is it any state that supports, in any way, any terrorist organization?

Is it any state that is explicitly Islamic and which follows Sharia, whether or not they sponsor terrorists?

Have we clearly defined the end state we want to see?

Is our goal democracy in the middle east (and elsewhere), or is our goal to prevent people from attacking us?

If our goal is "democracy in the MIddle East", which countries have to be democratic before we can declare victory?

What kind of democracy do they have to have?

What if instituting democracies in the middle east doesn't actually eliminate terrorist activity?  Do we continue with our democratization?

If the terrorists go to other places, is our goal to then establish democracies in those places as well?

What happens if this ends up being everywhere on the globe?

In case it's not obvious, what I'm getting at here is that while an idea is essential to giving meaning to what we're doing, IMO a clear understanding of what it is we want to accomplish -- an objective -- is necessary in order to be effective.  Otherwise, it seems to me that you quickly turn into Don Quixote.

FWIW, I have yet to hear a consistent statement of either who our enemy is, or of what our actual goals are, from anyone in the Bush administration, or for that matter from anything like a quorum here on RS.  Both seem to be moving targets.

I'd be curious to know your thoughts on this.

Thanks -

"Men don't die for objectives. They die for ideas. On the other hand, if you are looking for armies fighting for ideas look at the US Army in World War I or World War II."

Intellectuals live and die for ideas. Simple men live and die for concrete things. Mostly men die for all that is tied up with the word home. And the whole point about home is that it is a very real thing. It is not an abstraction. The U.S. Army in WWII fought for America, which is immeasurably more than an idea (though many, on both the Left and the Right, are busy trying to convince us that she is nothing but an idea).

What ideologues we have become! No moral man could possibly justify taking another man's life over an idea, no matter how noble. Men fight because they feel that something good and precious is threatened -- something real, concrete, material.

"At a minimum ideas, not objectives, keep men in the field."

This is true only in the sense that ideas are memories of something real. Again, a moral man does not fight and kill because he loves an abstraction like freedom or democracy; he fights and kills because he loves a real thing called America, which he feels is threatened. He only understands freedom because experienced it, in the flesh, as an American.

______________


For anyone interested, I wrote a long critique of this notion of ideological patriotism here.

By giving patriotism over to the empire of ideologists, we have called forth our ruin. Where is the place for the man of unpretentious intellectual aspirations, whose intelligence, quite potent in its way, is dedicated to things practical and material, in this scheme of national constitution? Where is the place for the tank commander who knows little of federalism or judicial restraint, the fireman who hasn't read his Harry Jaffa? If these men cannot love their country simply because she is their country; if, instead, they are asked to love ideas, and call them a country, then we have gutted patriotism, and replaced it with ideology. [. . .]

The proponents of America the abstraction have made a revolution in moral sentiments; they have made patriotism disreputable. With America conceived as a purely abstract thing, men lose their cachet of patriotism, so to speak, if they decline to assent to the political visions promoted by this abstraction. So it becomes un-American or unpatriotic to harbor suspicion about the entire project of modern democracy; or to doubt the wisdom of multiculturalism. In fact, patriotism is not an intellectual but an emotional sentiment; it derives from habit and custom, from real feelings about real places, from a tender sense of home and hearth, from smells imperceptible but unforgettable, from a thousand attachments subconscious but fierce. Because patriotism subsists in these things and not in clever arguments or fancy rhetoric or dramatic gestures; because it is more the stuff of the factory and the farmhouse, than of the halls of intellect and litigation; because it isn't really about ideas at all but rather sentiments --- because of all this, to make patriotism subservient to the whims and wiles of the intellectuals is to subvert it, to defeat it, and finally to discredit it. {more}

what exactly are your qualifications to discuss Islam, its history, its traditions? Just wondering what your sources are.

To suggest that we cannot sustain the GWOT with an overall domestic tax burden higher than FDR ever had at his command is silly.

The OMB tells me that your claim is erroneous. According to these OMB historical tables the federal government collected more than 20% of the GDP in FY 1944 and 1945 (while spending more than 40% of GDP). Now we collect about 16% and spend about 20%. If we were imposing the same tax burden that happened at the end of WWII, we would be in surplus.

I agree we do have a problem with spending priorities, but exaggerating how much the government collects doesn't help us deal with the problems at hand.

I have read the Koran and a good bit of the Hadiths.    I am only marginally interested in quoting "chapter and verse", because a few years have passed since I read them, and I can conceive of about 14963 better ways to spend my time than arguing the exegesis of some particular sura or fine point of Islamic theology.  I feel the same way about disputes in Christian theology, by the way.  If we're going to go down this road, why don't we pass on hours of interminable disputation by questiong some scholar from Al-Azhar on the interpretations of sharia and jihad in Bukhari and Muslim, their relationship to the Koran and the life of Mohammed, and the status of such interpretations today.  

One need not be a Kantian (Lord knows I'm not) to believe ideas have real value.

When men fight for America, they fight for home, but they also fight for the idea of America. To say otherwise is to do a profound disservice to the men who died taking on a Nazi Germany that had little real chance of ever being a threat to the United States in any meaningful way. It is a disservice to the men who fought for independence when their homes, truthfully, were never really at stake.

Simple men can have ideas, and can love ideas, too. A man's reach, and all that. Simply because one does not spend all day trying to figure out if reality is real or if it is a constructed dialectic does not mean that one cannot be inspired and driven by ideas.

Actually, moral men may indeed fight for ideas. Unless you're charging the men who fought in World War I, the War of 1812, the Texas War of Independence, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and arguably World War II with a- or immorality. I like to bash the French as much as the next fellow, but it's hard to deny that Napoleon's men died for an idea, and I rather doubt they were all without moral fiber.

Am I not my brother's keeper? Might I not fight for his good, and not merely my parochial interests?

Point taken, Thomas.

"One need not be a Kantian (Lord knows I'm not) to believe ideas have real value."

I did not deny that ideas have real value, for the sufficient reason that they do. But I do deny that they are more valuable than men.

"Actually, moral men may indeed fight for ideas. Unless you're charging the men who fought in World War I, the War of 1812, the Texas War of Independence, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and arguably World War II with a- or immorality. I like to bash the French as much as the next fellow, but it's hard to deny that Napoleon's men died for an idea, and I rather doubt they were all without moral fiber."

Well, there are ideas and then there are ideas. Even under the very best of circumstances, democracy is a slippery idea; it will never (in my view) attach to something real in the way that, say, home will.

But I fear that it was a bad idea (oh boy) to open this debate, because, well, I'm not Burke.

Certainly, democracy is a slippery term, and I'm leery of people who march off to fight for it without a shared definition ahead of time. At some level, I believe we're on the same page on that one.

Ideas are not more valuable than men, granted. I think we can agree that men might value their own lives less than an idea. Should we stop them from sacrificing themselves?

WHy are the Saudis essential to us?

My guess: they're essential to us paying less than $120/barrel or so.

Maybe pick up British Columbia in the process; there's some pretty country there.

But they probably don't want to join up, so I guess it isn't going to happen...

Technical point condeeded.  I was looking at overall tax burden (including state and local taxes), which is indeed about 1-2% higher than 1943-1945.

I will strive to be less sloppy in the future and your point is well made.

Cheers.

... as in, "follow-up".

It was my desire to enumerate the current level of revenues when I stated the $2.2T figure - assuming that would result in a balanced FY06 budget.  If $2.2T is also exagerated (and I think it is), I ask permission from the Speaker of the Board to revise and extend.

The point is just as valid if the number is $2.2, $2.0, or $1.9 - there is still plenty of $$ to get the job done.

Thanks again.

...The tone of Helprin's article is that somehow President Bush failed to "argue competently" concerning the war, praising by slight damnation to be sure.  His further "point" is that somehow we have no clear objective in the war.  If this is not opposition, it certainly is not support.  And it's exactly how our political will to win in Vietnam was initially undermined, by seemingly reasonable people, with Oh so reasonable arguments, questioning the "exit strategy" or the "morality" or the "objective" of the war.  

Well, the objective in Vietnam was to keep the South Vietnamese free, to prevent further expansionism by the Communists (Russian and Chinese), and to provide a forward base on the Asian mainland to stall or stop further geographical and political depredations by them-- the very thing Helprin now cries out loudly that we haven't done.

The object of the current war is much the same, except substitute extremist Islamicism, a movement at least as deadly as communism.  You and Helprin probably don't see it on the news, but MOST Iraqis are thrilled to have been liberated from Hussein and would love to put the car bombers on the road, so to speak.  Carping about not having an "objective" is not helping.  As I pointed out in my last post, frontlines, flanking movements and so forth are a thing of the past (except in large scale battles), so if you're looking for a headline screaming "Patton breaks through to the Saar", you will be sadly disappointed.

As far as your attempt to liken his formula for frisking aliens to real life profiling, it won't wash.  Aliens, as you point out, can come from anywhere.  If he means middle eastern aliens specifically, he actually IS talking about profiling, but the gist of which his language obscures rather than elucidates, a strange phenomenon for one who makes his living writing novels.  However, even if that IS what he means, it still won't work.  Many terrorists are homegrown American citizens.  Indeed, the largest concentration of Islamic fanatics lives RIGHT HERE in the good 'ole U S of A.  No my friend, singling out middle easterners from anywhere for extra search and questioning is what is needed.  You know, kinda like they do now with gray-haired Caucasian grandmothers carrying small white chidren in their arms.  Real suspicious characters.  

And as to your last "point", you (and he) are either for the war or you're against it.  President Bush doesn't need any more "pressure" from either side -- he needs support, as do our soldiers.  The necessity of homefront support hasn't changed since WWII.  Even Hollywood was on board back then...remember, "Ac-cen-tu-ate the positive, e-lim-i-nate the negative..."  

Terrorists are not stupid.  They, or their leaders at least, watch CNN, they read history, and they can add two plus two.  Just as we "lost" Vietnam (politically), we can lose this one, too.  And this time the "indigenous peoples" who suffer and die will be us.

And BTW, I doubt either you or Helprin is to my right politically, certainly not in this discussion.

We didn't invade Europe to defend a corporeal America. Read Stars and Stripes of the time. Soldiers were fighting in the macro to eliminate facism/nazism and in the micro to sustain their primary social group: rifle squad, tank crew, gun crew.

To the extent they fought for America, they fought for the idea of America that Roosevelt (and Norman Rockwell) neatly encapsulated in his Four Freedoms.

In our own history, the Continental Army was sustained by the idea of freedom. Not because, Mel Gibson's "The Patriot" notwithstanding, the British were burning churches and homes willy-nilly.

And certainly moral men kill for ideas. We did it in the Civil War when the winning side was in absolutely zero danger of losing territory or anything else. After an unsuccessful attempt to convince a substantial portion of the population that the "Union" was worth getting killed over, Lincoln fell back on an emotional, and dare I say moral, crusade to eliminate slavery.

World War I, truly an elective war, had nothing to do with defending America. It was about the rights of small nations and captive peoples... assuming it was about anything.

Again, read soldiers' letters home. They don't mention protecting their homes. They do mention ending slavery in a substantial majority.

But this is mere window dressing and a diversion to the central issue.

Helprin takes an extraordinarily anti-historical position on the role of the military in forwarding foreign policy goals. A position that I reiterate is totally irrational and indefensible especially in the context in which he presents it. He studiously ignores the role ideas play in convincing 18 and 19 year old men to enlist in the Armed Forces, and no we're not all "simple men" a lot of us do think-- perhaps more than many would like to admit, and convincing the public that the deaths of those young men are worthwhile.

Once stripped of that veneer his article melts away. China? Do we have to stop what we're doing to prepare for war on China right now? Korea? Fine, South Korea tires of seeing itself as a vassal. That hurts us how? A pandemic? The war in Iraq prevents us from researching vaccines to emerging diseases? I'm sure that's news to the CDC which has the largest budget it has ever had for this activity. More security at airports and terminals? Fine. Tell the judiciary and the Congress to jump through the hoops to allow contr-Fourth Amendment searches and racial/ethnic profiling, but don't try to tie it into Iraq. It doesn't fit.

My apologies to the Board for the numerous misspellings in the previous two posts.  That's what I get for trying to do these things as soon as I roll out of bed.

Striving to do better in the future will include running comments through a spell-checker before hitting "Post".

But that has never deterred me.

Have we clearly defined who our enemy is?

Is it Al Qaeda?

Is it any organized terrorist organization?

Is it any organized terrorist organization that means harm to us, specifically?

Is it any state that supports, in any way, any terrorist organization?

Is it any state that is explicitly Islamic and which follows Sharia, whether or not they sponsor terrorists?

Maybe I haven't been paying attention but I haven't heard anyone suggest and Islamic state or the presence of sharia constitute casus belli, though if that were the case Canada would be on thin ice and this thread would be realistic.

As to the rest, of course they would be the target of diplomatic, economic, and ultimately military coercion. I don't see how you give some terrorists a pass.

Have we clearly defined the end state we want to see?

Not really sure in what context you're using "end state." Political? Military? Social? Economic?

Is our goal democracy in the middle east (and elsewhere), or is our goal to prevent people from attacking us?

I think there is the assumption that these outcomes are congruent.

If our goal is "democracy in the MIddle East", which countries have to be democratic before we can declare victory?

I may be wrong, but I haven't seen or heard that proposed as a goal in the GWOT. Obviously that would go a long way towards solving the issue.

What kind of democracy do they have to have?

"And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way."

What if instituting democracies in the middle east doesn't actually eliminate terrorist activity? Do we continue with our democratization?

Handle it like the Irish Republican Army, the ETA, and in the recent past the Rote Armee Fraktion, the Brigada Rossa, and the Japanese Red Army.

Setting as a standard that successful democracy cannot have terrorists present within its borders ignores the fact that nascent democracies are the most vulnerable to terrorist activities because the social and political institutions are fragile. It also makes failure inevitable. I understand that in many quarters that is an objective, it just isn't mine. The test has to be active and good faith cooperation with international and transnational efforts to eradicate terrorism.

If the terrorists go to other places, is our goal to then establish democracies in those places as well?

What happens if this ends up being everywhere on the globe?

I would dispute the notion that terrorists can just go other places. They aren't supermen. They need access to several things to be a potent force. Not an all inclusive list but 1)a banking system that will not or cannot cooperate with international law enforcement, 2) a host government willing to allow them to train and recruit openly, or unable/unwilling (there is a difference here, the Republic of Ireland was never willing to allow the IRA to operate but it was unwilling to crack down on them) to prevent them from doing this, 3) an ideology (gee, here we go with the ideas thing again) that is attractive to some number of persons.

This narrows the potential areas of flight to remote parts of the Philippines and Indonesia and to the various failed states in Africa and possibly Burman.

Does the Just War doctrine authority war for ideas?

"you (and he) are either for the war or you're against it.

So there is no position of "for the war but critical of its prosecution"? It is inconceivable? an impossibility in your mind, and reduces immediately to simple opposition?

President Bush doesn't need any more "pressure" from either side -- he needs support, as do our soldiers."

If he gets no pressure from his allies, then all thr pressure will come from the Left. Naturally, he will tend to move left.

What say you about Helprin other recommendations? -- That we increase our military budget? that we remove ourselves from civilian centers and repair to nearby but less populated areas? What is your response to arguments such as this: "Our aims should be less ambitious and more defensive. Were they disciplined to be so, they would also become more pertinent, justifiable, and attainable. We as a people surely should not wish to possess the Islamic states or convert them to our way of seeing things, politically or otherwise, but rather to insist absolutely that they refrain from attacking us . . . When the consequences are as grave as the potential for nuclear and biological warfare has made them, the slightest support, tolerance, or sympathy for terrorism directed at the United States should qualify the state manifesting them for open operations, its government for replacement, and its military as a target."

I do not regard Helprin's arguments as something aking to ex cathedra, and I am perfectly willing to entertain counter-arguments; but so for you have failed to address his central ideas with any vigor; and have prefered to chicane and heckle rather than confront and refute.

Gee, I must be cleverer than I thought.  I haven't TRIED to "chicane" anyone.

Friendly suggestions about how we might more efficiently prosecute the war are one thing, attacking the President is quite another.  And I doubt Mr. Bush will move very far to the left, in any event.  And remember, I castigated the left as well.  Such is the nature of support rather than destructive criticism.

And I'm all for increasing the military budget, but not by subjugating the economy, by which I suppose you and he mean raising taxes.  A little farther down on this thread, docj puts it succinctly, when discussing whether to raise taxes or:

... cut spending so that our priorities no longer reflect a "September 10th" government.  To suggest that we cannot sustain the GWOT with an overall domestic tax burden higher than FDR ever had at his command is silly.  We have problems not with our level of taxation, but rather with the spending priorities of our government (including those set by GWB).

$2.2 Trillion should be plenty to fight a sustained GWOT while providing the essential services of the federal government.

As to this:

"that we remove ourselves from civilian centers and repair to nearby but less populated areas?"

What for?  Are we going to lay seige to Bahgdad and starve them out?  Maybe we should bring in seige machines and hurl flaming stones at them.  Maybe, if we send our troops to Saudi or even Navy ships anchored in the Gulf, no one will get hurt.  What's the point?  You and Helprin seem to think there's such thing as a bloodless war.  Wrong.

You ask further:

What is your response to arguments such as this: "Our aims should be less ambitious and more defensive..."  

Funny, reading your link to Angelo Codevilla, I find that HE is castigating President Bush for just the opposite -- not ambitious enough and forcing our Marines into a "static defense".  So, you are at odds with your own sources -- no heat, no light.

Besides, I've dealt with Mr. Codevilla (and your own tepid "arguments") thoroughly in my diary entry entitled "On Victory and Peace".  Read it and learn...

...my friend.  Since few people pay only federal taxes, the OVERALL tax burden is what concerns most of us taxslaves.  And you're right, a trillion here and a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money, regardless of whether it's 1, 1.2, 1.9, 2, etc.  Keep up the good work...

...recall, Turkey decided not to allow the U.S. to use southern Turkey as a kick-off point to invade Iraq from the north at the start of GulfWarII.  Could this be interpreted as deference to those states which indeed do sanctify sharia and jihad?  Or were they just hoping to stave off retaliation from them for aiding the Great Satan?