Encouraging Words
Time and time again Americans of all walks of life are, often if not predominately, encouraging our enemies in their efforts to destroy our nation and our way of life. In stating this do I mean to say that many are committing an act of sedition? Some yes, but the majority no. Our enemies have a misunderstanding of the nature of the disagreements between the political forces within the U.S., as do many of those actively involved in the disagreement. To explore this we need to look at only a few areas of our political or social discourse. For brevity, and relevance, the ‘War on Terror’ and ‘Iraq’ will serve in this instance.
There are reasons, of varying degrees of merit, to oppose the “War on Terror”. Primary among those is the pacifist belief that all violence, including in self-defense, is immoral, unethical or unjust. There are those who would argue that no state has the right to act on behalf of its citizens in a military manner or even that the state does not exist. And finally there are those who support the Islamist effort to alter our civilization. Opposition based on policies, strategies, tactics or outcomes however are not an honest representation of the beliefs of those who state them.
An example here would be those who state that they oppose the war because of the way the President has handled it. An intellectually honest opposition to the manner the President has conducted the war would not oppose the war, but rather the effectiveness of his implementation. Critiques in this light would be not only more helpful to the nation, but would better represent the ideals of those who state them. The Democratic Party, Senator Kerry, in particular, has failed to such a degree in this area that not only does it leave him incapable of contributing to the war, or discussion of it, in a positive way, he has become an aid to those who we fight against. Note that this is not the same as acting to aid the enemy; rather an inadvertent betrayal of his values and nation, such as he has them.
To oppose the War in Iraq the same merit based arguments of the pacifist, the sympathizer and those who question the sovereignty of the nation are available yet rarely stated. The more common argument, and one that is worth discussion, is to address the cause, aims and outcome of the War in Iraq and whether or not it is a just path for the U.S. and our allies to pursue. The time for this was before the war began. And many, like Senator Kerry, supported the effort at that time. At this point they present themselves as having been duped into believing that the War in Iraq was justified based on weapons of mass destruction and direct ties to al-Qaeda. The record reflects the fault in their argument and supports the Presidents position prior to and since the war.
The war in Iraq is, and always has been, an extension of the War on Terror. The initial justifications for the war, to confront and defeat a lawless warmonger who threatens the free world via failure to abide by his agreement which ended the first Gulf War, his abuse of the citizens of his nation, his use and possession of weapons of mass destruction and the likelihood that he had or would at some point assist Islamist terror organization in their efforts to attack the U.S. and our allies, show the war as a component of the War on Terror, not a separate or disparate act.
As such, criticisms of the war, as it unfolds in Iraq, should be clearly communicated to be criticisms of the methods and means rather than of the ideals behind the war or broad statements of despair and failure, which are baseless and show the lack of perspective and intellectual honesty of the part of those making them. That same despair does and will continue to show up in the press of the Arab world, and fuels the enemy to believe that as we did in Vietnam, we are failing to have the will to win. A more truthful argument against the merit of our invasion, just as during the Vietnam War, has not been provided, and just as in Vietnam, our enemy seeks not to win on the battlefield, but rather to win by defeating our will to defend our proclaimed values.
In penning this, so to speak, my intent is not to state that Americans are committing sedition. My intent is to attempt to understand and relate my understanding, as much as I achieve any, of the issue. In doing this, the lack of a principled argument from our political opposition strikes me as a weakness that cannot be ignored. Our real enemies suffer from a lack of argument and discussion in their faith and it’s outlook on governance and life, and to see the Democratic Party and many of my friends become just as intellectually immobilized by their disagreement or hatred of the right, or the President, tears at the tattered bits of hope for our nation that I hold onto so dearly.
