Book Write-Up: No Place to Hide

W. Lee Warren.  No Place to Hide: A Brain Surgeon’s Long Journey Home from the Iraq War.  Zondervan, 2014.

W. Lee Warren was an American medic in Iraq during the Iraq War.  He treated Americans and Iraqis, including Iraqi insurgents.  He even met Saddam Hussein after Saddam’s overthrow.  This book is largely about the operations that he performed on Americans and Iraqis, and the carnage with which he came into contact.  Writing his story was a way for him to address his post-traumatic stress.

The most insightful parts of the book, in my opinion, were Warren’s spiritual and political reflections.  I could identify with his spiritual reflections.  He was once a person who believed that he had to look all-right to the outside world, especially Christians, even when things were not all right.  He learned, however, that there were things in life that he could not control, and that worship was coming to God in a state of honest vulnerability.

While Christian author Philip Yancey states in the book’s afterword that Warren leaves to others the debates about whether the Iraq War was right or wrong, Warren did offer political opinions about the war.  Overall, Warren struck me as rather ambivalent.  Warren believed that the Americans were the good guys, noting that Americans treated the enemy combatants who were wounded or dying, whereas the enemy did not do the same for the Americans.  Warren also indicates that he believes that the Iraq War was, at least in part, about bringing democracy to Iraq.  At the same time, Warren laments the torture that certain American soldiers performed at Abu Ghraib, asking what would have happened if they chose instead to love their enemies and end the cycle of sorrow and hate.  On page 275, Warren wishes that he could have asked both George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein if the war was truly worth it: “In the grand scheme of things, what have you gained from all the palaces and parades, from the bombs and the bullets and the dollars spent and the lives lost?”  Warren also reflects about how a number of Iraqis were becoming insurgents in order to feed their families.
This was a thoughtful book—-often technical, but thoughtful.

Note: I received a complimentary review copy of this book through the BookLook Bloggers (http://booklookbloggers.com/) book review bloggers program.  The program does not require for my review to be positive, and my review reflects my honest reaction to the book.

Nixonland 5: A Godly Leader?

On page 173 of Nixonland, Rick Perlstein states the following about Republican politician George Romney, who was the father of Mitt Romney, the Republican who lost the 2012 Presidential election:

“[George] Romney, a Republican who kept on getting elected in a Democratic state (he called America’s cult of rugged individualism ‘nothing but a political banner to cover up greed’), was a media darling.  The Mormon bishop with what Jules Witcover joked was a ‘full head of silvering Presidential hair’ made great copy: he didn’t work on Sundays.  He fasted before big decisions.  His granddad had fled with three wives one step ahead of the polygamy laws.  A new book of personal reminiscenses of JFK had just come out.  ‘The fellow I don’t want to run against is Romney,’ it reported him saying.”

What tanked George Romney’s Presidential ambitions was his statement that he had been brainwashed into supporting the Vietnam War.  Not only did that make him look weak, but many people may have thought that Romney was a phony after they heard that statement.  After all, one observer noted, Romney continued to publicly support the Vietnam War even after the time that he said he had concluded that he had been brainwashed about it!

But I can identify with why Romney was such a darling, and with how his religiosity actually contributed to his political stature.  My guess is that, in the eyes of many, being religious is an indication that one takes matters seriously—-that one takes morality and human worth seriously.  That is very attractive to me.  And yet, I can’t say that all politicians’ religiosity is attractive.  For example, I do not care for how many evangelical conservatives seemed to equate genuine Christian commitment with political support for George W. Bush.  George W. Bush said that he looked to his heavenly Father rather than his earthly father for advice on Iraq.  In my opinion, he should have consulted his earthly father rather than giving the impression that God was the source of his decision to wage the Iraq War.  Moreover, the haste with with he got us into Iraq arguably contradicts the virtues that one can associate with religiosity: gravity and carefully weighing one’s options in prayer before God so as to make the best decision and to minimize harm to human beings.

Jimmy Carter’s religiosity was attractive when he first ran for President.  Here the country was, recovering from the stench and corruption of Watergate, and this church-going man came along and gave the impression that he would clean up Washington.  But his religiosity may have gone sour, a bit.  I think of his sermonizing against greed.  People in those hard times did not want to hear a sermon, but rather they longed for hope and encouragement.

In 2008, I thought that Republican Mike Huckabee’s religiosity was attractive.  He appeared to be a kindly man.  He was a pastor.  And he manifested a concern for the poor and illegal immigrants, something that I did not see too often among Republicans.  But, in my opinion, Huckabee became a right-wing shrill, one whose religiosity amounted to encouraging evangelical conservatives’ whiny persecution complex more than empathy or concern for the marginalized.

Personally speaking, I would like a President who fasts and prays—-not to the exclusion of learning, mind you, but as a way for that President to humbly acknowledge his or her limitations and the gravity of decisions.  But something else that attracts me is intelligence: I like for Presidents to display some intelligence on the topic of religion.  I don’t know if President Barack Obama fasts and prays, but I have been impressed by his thoughtful insights about religious issues.

Nixon in Winter 7

My latest reading of Monica Crowley's Nixon in Winter was about Nixon's discussions regarding the Gulf War in the 1990's.  I have two items.

1.  Why did Iraq invade Kuwait?  I appreciated Monica's background information on page 218:

"The foundation for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was laid during Iraq's eight-year war with Iran.  By the war's end, in 1988, Iraq owed more than fifty billion dollars to other Arab states and Western banks.  Kuwait had lent Hussein fifteen billion dollars, and most of the borrowed money was spent on augmenting Iraq's military machine.  Hussein had demanded that Kuwait write off its massive war loan to Iraq and help increase the world price of oil by not pumping in excess of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) quotas.  This excess, coupled with a general international oil glut, had lowered world prices and had, according to Hussein, caused Iraq to lose fourteen billion dollars in oil revenues.  He went searching inside the Kuwaiti border for oil, claiming that the reserves belonged to Iraq."

A lot of the information that Monica presents here overlaps with what conservative Charley Reese said in a November 18, 1990 column, even though Monica and Reese probably had different viewpoints about the Gulf War (my hunch is that Monica supported it, whereas I know that Reese was against it).  Both talk about Kuwait releasing oil into the market in a manner that would reduce the price of oil, thereby hindering Iraq from getting the oil revenue that it needed to recoup from its 1980's war with Iran.  And both mention the idea that Kuwait took oil reserves that belonged to Iraq.  Monica appears to be skeptical that this was the case, but Reese out-and-out states that "the Kuwaitis had advanced the border farther north and begun to take Iraqi oil."  Reese argues that Kuwait was acting so boldly because it realized that it would be backed up by the United States, as part of a strategy to destabilize Iraq's government.

Reese's column was in my local newspaper when I was a kid.  I remember that November 18, 1990 column as the first time that I encountered a different perspective on the Gulf War.  Granted, I was already aware that there were people who were against Operation Desert Shield.  They claimed that the war was about oil, and they expressed apprehensions about another Vietnam.  But Reese was the first person I read who explained Saddam Hussein's side of the story in terms of his invasion of Kuwait.

2.  A question that I have asked a couple of times on this blog is whether or not Nixon would have supported the Iraq War under President George W. Bush (see here and here).  My impression from reading Monica's account of her discussions with Nixon about the first Gulf War is that Nixon indeed would have supported the Iraq War.  Monica doesn't address this topic, of course, since this book was published in 1998, before George W. Bush was even President.  But she states that Nixon wanted for President George H.W. Bush to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and that Nixon called upon Bush to do so.  She also narrates that Nixon thought that Bush I and his Secretary of State, James Baker, were not acting quickly or decisively, but were spending too much time relying on diplomacy.

Beyond Peace 3

In a blog post that I wrote on Monica Crowley's Nixon Off the Record, I speculated about what Richard Nixon would have thought about President Bill Clinton's policies in Somalia, Bosnia, and Serbia.  In a post that I wrote on Richard Nixon's 1992 book, Seize the Moment, I wondered what Nixon's stance would have been on President George W. Bush's war in Iraq.

In reading Nixon's 1994 book, Beyond Peace, I see that Nixon was actually alive when Clinton was pursuing strategies in Somalia, Bosnia, and Serbia.  On Somalia, Nixon pretty much thought what I speculated that he thought: he believed that U.S. intervention into Somalia was a mistake, but that America's withdrawal from the country conveyed weakness.

On Bosnia and Serbia, I was right that Nixon believed that the region was important to U.S. interests, presumably enough to justify American intervention.  But what I learned in Beyond Peace was that Nixon considered Clinton's policies in that region to be a mistake.  Nixon says on pages 153-154:

"From the beginning of the war [in the former Yugoslavia] there have been excesses on both sides, but the cycle of violence began as a result of Serbian aggression against other former Yugoslavian republics----aggression for which the United States and its allies have consistently and repeatedly failed to exact a price.  As early as 1991, along with a number of other observers, I called upon the United Nations to lift the embargo against the victims of Serbian aggression.  The United States, the United Nations, and the European Community vacillated, equivocated, orated, condemned, and ultimately did nothing to counter effectively the Serbian onslaught...It is unfortunate that the United States did not take action in this protracted struggle until it was forced to do so by a public reaction to bloody images on television."

Essentially, Nixon says that Clinton, the UN, and the European Community were dithering in response to the Serbian aggression against the former Yugoslavian republics.  Nixon's criticisms remind me of former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick's critique of U.S. policies on the region in her 2007 book, Making War to Keep Peace.  And they also call to my mind the movie The Special Relationship, which is about President Bill Clinton's relationship with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.  In this movie, Blair publicly challenges Clinton to take more action on Kosovo, in a time when President Clinton is hesitant.

Nixon says on page 154 that the West would have intervened sooner to help Sarajevo had the people of Sarajevo been primarily Christian or Jewish, and his implication appears to be that the West was slow to act because of Sarajevo's large Muslim population.  In a time when elements of the right-wing have become frighteningly Islamophobic, in terms of condemning moderate Muslims and lumping them together with radical ones, this 1994 statement by Nixon makes me proud of him (whether or not it is entirely fair).

What puzzles me, though, is Nixon's statement on pages 154-155: "The siege of Sarajevo can have a redeeming character only if the West learns two things as a result.  The first is that enlightened peoples cannot be selective about condemning aggression and genocide...The other lesson is that because we are the last remaining superpower, no crisis is irrelevant to our interests.  If the United States had been willing to lead, a number of steps short of the commitment of ground forces----for instance, revoking the arms embargo----could have been taken early in the Bosnian crisis to blunt Serbian aggression.  Our failure to do so tarnished our reputation as an evenhanded player on the international stage and contributed to an image promoted by extreme Muslim fundamentalists that the West is callous to the fate of Muslim nations but protective of Christian and Jewish nations."

It's not that Nixon's sentiment by itself puzzles me: of course the United States should be concerned about genocide.  But it puzzles me in light of what Nixon wrote in Seize the Moment, and even in Beyond Peace.  Nixon appears to maintain that the U.S. should be selective about when it will intervene militarily----that it should do so only when its own interests are involved.  Saying that the U.S. should intervene to stop genocide (if that is what Nixon is suggesting on page 154) strikes me as a departure from that.  And, when he says that "no crisis is irrelevant to our interests", that makes me wonder if that's a blank check for us to interfere militarily anywhere there is a crisis.

Now onto the issue of the Iraq War under George W. Bush.  What would Nixon have thought about that?  On page 121 of Seize the Moment, Nixon criticizes German firms for being "the principal contractors for Saddam Hussein's network of hardened command bunkers."  That makes me think that, had Nixon been alive when Germany was refusing to back up the U.S. on the Iraq War, Nixon would have joined the conservative voices who argued that Germany was doing this on account of the business that it was doing with Iraq.  But would Nixon have supported the U.S. overthrowing Saddam Hussein and undertaking the task of nation-building?  I don't know.  Nixon in Beyond Peace seems to support regime change in Iraq, but here's the strategy that he advocates: "We should actively support the main opposition to Saddam, the Iraqi National Congress, as it seeks to force Baghdad to open up its political system.  We should offer Jordan increased economic incentives and a major role in the Arab-Israeli peace process as encouragement to turn off the spigot of trade until Saddam Hussein falls from power."  That's different from the U.S. directly overthrowing Saddam.  But, as I said in my last post on Beyond Peace, Nixon was open to changing his mind when he felt that situations changed.

Seize the Moment 1

I started Richard Nixon's 1992 book, Seize the Moment: America's Challenge in a One-Superpower World.  In today's post, I'll just comment on four passages that stood out to me.  Tomorrow, I'll write about Richard Nixon's views regarding post-Soviet Russia.

1.  On page 30, Nixon says the following about the war against Iraq in the 1990's:

"Had we not intervened, an international outlaw would today control more than 50 percent of the world's oil.  While the United States could survive if necessary without Persian Gulf oil, Western Europe and Japan could not.  What happens to the economies of the other industrial democracies directly affects the health of our own economy.  We therefore could not have afforded to allow Iraq to control access to Gulf oil and blackmail the world through its choke hold on our oil lifeline."

This reminded me of a conversation that I once had with a professor at my undergraduate institution.  He was telling a group of us that the U.S. did not get a whole lot of oil from the Persian Gulf, but Japan did.  I replied: "I don't remember the government telling us that when we were fighting the Gulf War!"  The professor replied: "Of course it didn't!  Can you imagine how Americans would have reacted had they learned that American troops were being used as mercenaries for the Japanese?"

Nixon essentially acknowledges my professor's point, but, unlike my professor, Nixon believes that what happened in the Persian Gulf was relevant to our national interests, even if we could survive without Persian Gulf oil.

2.  On pages 62-63, Nixon says the following about Soviet support for Saddam Hussein's Iraq:

"In the Persian Gulf War, Moscow had to choose between supporting its traditional ally, Iraq, and retaining its newly won respectability in the West.  Though the Soviet Union helped Saddam Hussein covertly with military advisers and spare parts and sought to save him from decisive defeat through last-minute diplomacy, Gorbachev ultimately endorsed the U.S.-led coalition's use of force to liberate Kuwait and to cut Iraq down to size.  Gorbachev is not a stupid man.  Faced with a choice of Iraq or the West, he chose the West."

The reason that this stood out to me was that it called to my mind a right-wing article that I read against George W. Bush's war against Iraq.  Essentially, this article praised Saddam for cracking down on the Communists in his country.  It was interesting to me how this right-wing article was looking at Iraq through the prism of the Cold War, about a decade after the Cold War had ended!  In any case, though, I wonder how the author of that article would have responded had he (I remember it was a he) learned that the Soviet Union had been a major backer of Iraq.  A parallel case is evident in what the right-wing thinks about Israel.  For a long time, there were right-wingers (not all, or even most, but some) who equated Zionism with Communism----as if there's a conspiracy that is both Communistic and also Zionistic.  And yet, the Soviet Union supported Arab states.

3.  On pages 29-30, Nixon says the following about President George H.W. Bush's handling of the Iraq War in the 1990's:

"After he achieved his fundamental military objectives and even after he shielded the Kurds from Saddam Hussein's wrath, he avoided the quagmire of playing kingmaker in Iraqi internal politics."

Nixon appears to think that it was a good thing that Bush I did not proceed to topple Saddam Hussein.
What would Nixon have thought about George W. Bush's Iraq War in the 2000's?  I don't know.  On the one hand, Nixon thought that Bush I was wise not to get involved in Iraqi internal politics, which Nixon called a "quagmire".  Had Nixon been alive in the 2000's, perhaps he would have believed that the U.S. would be unwise to take on the responsibility of nation-building in Iraq.  On the other hand, I can also picture Nixon thinking that U.S. intervention in Iraq would be justifiable, since Iraq affected U.S. interests: if he were alive in the 2000's, Nixon may have bought into the idea that Iraq had WMDs and thus was a dangerous presence in the region.  I doubt that Nixon would have accepted the neocon agenda of making the world safe for democracy, however, for he argues in this book that democracy is not necessarily the best government for everyone.

On the one hand, Nixon probably would have been proud of Bush II for going over the UN's head to attack Iraq, for Nixon is rather critical of the UN in this book.  On the other hand, perhaps Nixon would have thought that Bush II was unwise to go into Iraq without enough allies, for Nixon praises Bush I for forming an alliance in the first Gulf War.

I can only speculate, based on what I've read thus far.  Later in this book, there is a chapter on "The Muslim World".  It will be interesting to see what Nixon says there.

4.  On page 83, Nixon says the following about Gorbachev's spending on the military:

"He has pleaded for Western tolerance of excessive military production, citing the monumental difficulties----particularly massive unemployment----in converting facilities to civilian production.  That argument crumbles under scrutiny.  Like most government spending, military procurement is nonproductive spending.  Because it does not produce any goods that consumers can buy, it acts as a drag on, not a stimulus for, economic growth.  Moscow would be better off shutting down defense plants and paying workers not to produce tanks and other equipment.  Then, the steel, electronics, and other inputs could at least be put to better purposes----such as, for example, alleviating shortages of consumer goods."

This passage intrigued me because Jerry Voorhis makes a similar point in his 1972-1973 critique of Nixon as President: The Strange Case of Richard Milhous Nixon----namely, that military spending does not stimulate the economy because it does not result in the production of goods that consumers can buy.
But didn't military production get the U.S. out of the Great Depression?  How, then, could it be a drag on the economy?  It may have gotten us out of the Depression, but American goods had to be rationed during the War.  And in the war's aftermath, there was a lot of inflation, for there was a limited supply of consumer goods, yet there was increased demand for them as people returned home from the war, and as Americans desired to get back to normalcy.

I am not entirely convinced that military spending cannot serve as stimulus, to tell you the truth.  It creates jobs, since people are producing stuff for the military.  People with those jobs can then go on to spend money on consumer goods, creating a demand for them, and (hopefully) a supply.  The thing is, I wish that there were other ways to stimulate the economy than for the government to spend money on weapons that we don't really need.  If only government spending on infrastructure could employ more people.

Take It Back 5: The War on Terror

I was a little disappointed in the chapter on "National Security" in James Carville and Paul Begala's Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (copyright 2006).  The chapter had strengths: its argument (based on the concerns and actions of Al Gore and the Clinton Administration) that a President Al Gore would have prevented 9/11; its argument that the Bush Administration did not address certain vulnerabilities even after 9/11; its critique of George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq War; and its explanation of how the outing of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent put people's lives at risk and damaged certain U.S. intelligence projects throughout the world (i.e., if Valerie Plame is pretending to represent a company, and that company is revealed to be fake through her outing, what happens to the other agents who are pretending to represent that company, or the foreigners who act as if they are working with it?).  My problem with this chapter was that it did not adequately detail what should be done instead.

On some level, this is understandable.  If a number of Democrats were not too crazy about the Iraq War, then expecting them to come up with a solution to win it may be too much to ask.  As Bush asked about John Kerry in 2004, how would Kerry convince other nations to help the U.S. in Iraq, if Kerry publicly believes that the Iraq War was the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time?  Or, as Carville and Begala say on pages 118-119: "Democrats should set the bar for Bush in Iraq: victory.  They should support any request for funding for our troops in the field.  But they need not be shamed into silence merely because they don't have a silver bullet for a problem that has no obvious solution."

The thing is, Carville and Begala (at least in this book) don't seem to have a silver bullet for the War on Terror, period.  They offer good insights, but (as far as I can see) they provide no proposals as to how to utilize those insights to meet a coherent goal.  They mock Bush's simplistic view that radical Islamic terrorists hate us because they abhor the American way of life (which, in my opinion, is part of the reason that they hate us, but not the whole reason), and they refer to Michael Scheuer's statement that the Royal Family in Saudi Arabia steals a lot of oil revenues from its citizens.  But what do Carville and Begala want us to do with Scheuer's analysis?  How would they use that analysis in a coherent plan of action?

On pages 124-126, Carville and Begala advance good reasons for multilateralism: that our allies (even France) have helped us in catching terrorists, and that we need other countries in order to defeat Al-Qaeda, which is a global network.  But then Carville and Begala go on to say that "Democrats cannot be the party of the permission slip", that is, asking the rest of the world for permission to defend our country's security.  But what if we want to undertake a project to defend our security and other countries won't back us up?  Should we go it alone, or abandon the project altogether?  Carville and Begala probably don't believe that the Iraq War was necessary for the United States' security, but do they think that unilateralism would ever be justified?  They don't adequately address this.  They say that Bush lacks clear thinking on the War on Terror, but I wish that their thinking had been clearer in this chapter.

Overall, though, I'd say that the Democrats have recovered from any perception that they are inept on the War on Terror.  President Barack Obama was part of the capture of Osama Bin-Laden, he has authorized drones to take out Al-Qaeda members, and he has continued some of President Bush's surveillance policies, even while pursuing a policy of withdrawal from Afghanistan.  President Obama has also rebuilt relationships with other countries, such as Russia.  Detractors can argue that there are weaknesses to Obama's foreign policy, such as the disappointment that the Arab Spring has wrought, as well as the disaster in Benghazi.  And many leftists are concerned that drones have taken the lives of innocent people.  But, overall, Obama has had a strategy of fighting the War on Terror, something that Democrats seemed to lack for many years (or such is my impression).

Take It Back 4: The Iraq War

My latest reading of Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future, by James Carville and Paul Begala, was about national security.  Essentially, Carville and Begala criticized how George W. Bush's handled 9/11----both the events leading up to it and also its aftermath----and also how Republicans who never served in the military have smeared Democrats who have stellar war-records.

In this post, I'll talk about my evolving view on the Iraq War.  There was a time when I would defend George W. Bush against his detractors and haters.  See this post as an example of that.  Do I regret doing that?  Not at all.  There are two (and often more) sides to every story.  Why should I assume that a left-wing narrative is the only one that's legitimate?

Just looking at the claims that Carville and Begala made in my latest reading, I could find articles that said something different from what Carville and Begala were saying.

----On page 93, Carville and Begala say that Cheney repeated the claim that a senior Iraqi intelligence official met with 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta in Prague, even though Czech authorities said that was false, and CIA and FBI officials investigated and found no indication that Atta left the U.S. during the time in question.  For Carville and Begala, the implication of this was that Cheney was lying to get us into a war.  Here, however, is Cheney's account of why he initially believed that Atta met with the Iraqi official in Prague, only later to repudiate that view.

----On page 95, Carville and Begala say that George W. Bush out-sourced the hunt for Osama Bin-Laden to local warlords in Afghanistan, which allowed Bin-Laden to escape.  According to this article, however, information after Bin Laden's death has shown us a different story.

----On page 114, Carville and Begala say that "It was Democrats who stood and fought when the Bush administration tried to eliminate imminent-danger pay and family-separation pay for the 148,000 troops in Iraq."  According to this, however, the Department of Defense had "an alternative proposal to maintain total compensation for those serving in a combat zone, or in direct support of a combat zone, through increased use of Hardship Duty Pay (HDP)."

Who's right, and who's wrong?  What's fact, and what's propaganda?  What is a legitimate claim, and what is an unfair attack, or spin in defense of a certain position or party?  I'm sure that people could go more deeply into these issues than I have done here, and than has been done in a number of discussion forums.

In my right-wing days, while I was skeptical about left-wing narratives about Bush and the Iraq War, there were seeds that were planted that led me to have second thoughts about my "yay rah Bush" attitude.  I was learning about the horrors of war, as I watched TV and read stories and heard about people who had lost life and limb, and my conservative friends' dismissal of those horrors with the platitude of "War is hell" did not cut it with me after a certain point.  In 2008, I was gravitating towards John McCain and Sarah Palin, and one thing that attracted me to them was that they either served in war (in the case of McCain) or had family that was serving in war (in the case of both McCain and Palin), and that differentiated them in my mind from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who, as far as I know, did not have family in the wars (but I'm open to correction on this).

There were other factors as well: my enthusiasm about Ron Paul; my reading about anti-war conservatism; Bill Clinton's discussion of the waste of money that was occurring in Iraq; the fact that politicians with stellar military records were speaking out against the Iraq War, and efforts to smear them were becoming old, if not tacky (which is an understatement, I know); how Halliburton was costing taxpayers a lot of money; the Iraqi woman in Fahrenheit 9/11 who lost a loved one as a result of our bombing and pleaded to Allah for justice; etc.  I still believe that there is more to the story than the "Bush lied, people died" mantra that leftists used to repeat.  But I concluded that there was more to reality than what I was hearing from the Bush Administration and right-wing media, too.

Newt Gingrich's Real Change 8

I finished Newt Gingrich's Real Change.  In my latest reading, Newt talked about what we should have done after September 11, 2001.  Essentially, he said that we should have educated the public about Islamic extremism, which would have convinced even people on the Left that defeating radical Islam coincided with their own value of tolerance.  Newt also says that we should have gained foreign allies and made the U.S. Government more efficient so that it could handle the War on Terror more effectively, and that we also should have built roads in Afghanistan and modernized the country "so farmers could make money without relying on the illicit heroin trade for a living" (page 296).

I'm not sure what I feel about the War on Terror nowadays.  It really hasn't been on my radar lately, to tell you the truth, though I'm sure that it's still on the radar of those who lost loved ones in 9/11, or who lost loved ones in the wars that we fought to prevent another 9/11.  I agree with Newt that our government should be efficient so that it could protect the country.  As far as going into other countries and effecting regime-change goes, however, I'm not sure how reliable of a policy that is, since it breeds resentment, and it takes a lot of money and effort to keep anti-American forces from gaining ground----and, even if we win for a while, the anti-American forces can still come back.

What I appreciated about Newt's commentary was his statement that we should go beyond such platitudes as "stay the course".  I myself blush when I consider that I bought into the "stay the course" platitude.  But I did so because I thought that I had to choose among the options that were presented to me, and one side was saying that we should "stay the course", whereas the other side was saying something different.  But there's nothing wrong with critiquing how we "stay the course", if we choose to do so.  I applaud those who did that, such as Bill Clinton, who criticized the mismanagement of money in the Iraq War.

Newt Gingrich's Real Change 4

In Newt Gingrich's Real Change, I read Chapter 9: "An Example of Real Change and a Failure to Change: Giuliani's New York City versus Iraq as Contrasts in Change Leadership".

1.  Regarding Rudy Giuliani, Newt essentially argues that Mayor Giuliani of New York City and Boston police chief Bill Bratton developed strategies that dramatically brought down the crime rate in New York City.  Critics have maintained that Giuliani does not deserve all or any of the credit for this decrease in crime.  I've heard some say that Giuliani's police chief brought down the crime rate.  Others maintain that the national crime bill that passed under President Bill Clinton brought down crime on a national level, including in New York City.

Newt himself does not assert that Giuliani deserves all of the credit.  After all, Newt states on page 104 that "thanks to the efforts of Mayor David Dinkins [who was Giuliani's Democratic predecessor], there would be 4,000 more policemen joining the force..."  But I agree with Newt that Giuliani deserves some credit.  On page 104, Newt talks about how Giuliani and Bratton proposed for anti-drug units to work at night, which was when the drug dealers worked.  That sounds like a reasonable way to fight drug crimes.

2.  What interested me in my reading of Newt's commentary on Iraq was how Newt and the advocates for the policies that he criticized had some of the same goals.  At least that's my impression.  Both did not want for the Americans to appear to be imperial aggressors or occupiers in Iraq.  Newt, for example, praises White House envoy Zalmay Khalilzad for attempting to organize an interim Iraqi government consisting of Iraqis, but Newt believes that these efforts were obstructed when American bureaucrats entered the picture and botched up attempts to rebuild the country.

But I think that even those Newt criticizes did not want for America to be seen as an unwelcome and imperialistic presence in Iraq.  Newt acknowledges that a small number of troops were able to topple Saddam Hussein in an effective manner, but he believes that more American troops were needed to help Iraq rebuild and to keep the country safe.  Those who supported keeping the number of American troops in Iraq low, however, did so because they did not want for Americans to become tied down in the region (as occurred in Vietnam), and perhaps also because they did not desire to appear imperialistic.  Newt criticizes the American Army in Iraq for focusing on the training of Iraqi soldiers rather than countering insurgents, but those who emphasized the training of Iraqi soldiers probably did so because they wanted for Iraqis to take charge of their own country and security so that Americans would not have to run the country, creating resentment among Iraqis who would see Americans as occupiers.

Memorial Day 2008

When people talk about the soldiers who have given their lives for freedom in America, I wish that they'd elaborate. I mean, Saddam Hussein didn't threaten to conquer the United States. Neither did Al Qaeda. They couldn't take us over and establish a Muslim dictatorship, right? Probably not, but they were able to disrupt American society in a number of ways. A nuclear missile in their hands is not an attractive prospect! So are our soldiers fighting for freedom in America? Well, they're fighting for our survival, and we need to be alive to enjoy freedom, so I guess, in a sense, that they are.

With certain other wars, I'm not too certain. How did Serbia affect us? Or Somalia? For these missions, we weren't really fighting for the freedom of Americans, but for the lives and freedom of others. So, in those cases, we are fighting for American values, but not really for the benefit of Americans themselves.

The necessity of our wars is continually debated. Was World War II necessary to protect American freedom? Yes, if you believe that Hitler stood a chance of taking over the United States (as occurred in that Star Trek episode with Joan Collins). No, if you think that Russia and Nazi Germany could have destroyed each other, without us intervening.

How about our wars in Korea and Vietnam? I guess we were fighting for American freedom, on some level. We didn't want Communism to expand, since eventually it could reach us. Our desire was to show the world that we were strong, not weak, for that could protect America better. But we lost Vietnam, and we're still around to tell the tale. The loss of all of those lives really served no purpose. It was unnecessary for our protection. And the South Vietnamese lost out because we did not win.

Are the current wars necessary? Again, that depends on whom you ask. Some think we are defeating Islamic extremists who can threaten America's safety. Others maintain that we're only making the Muslims madder, which imperils Americans even more.

Whether or not we are persuaded of the necessity of war, I hope that all of us can admire and respect those who gave their lives. I can say that Vietnam was a waste because we lost, but American servicemen still laid down their lives believing that they were contributing to freedom, of both Americans and also the people of Vietnam. In terms of the current war, I respect those who voluntarily go to Iraq and Afghanistan, for that demonstrates a selflessness that is beyond me.

War is debatable in many cases, but we should still honor those who gave their lives in it. They believed that they were fighting for a good cause. And perhaps, in a number of cases, they truly were.

Bush Lied?

The Associated Press has an article today entitled Study: Bush, aides 'propagated' false information about Iraq. According to the article, the Center for Public Integrity recently released a study that found "935 false statements by eight top administration officials that mentioned Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, or links to Al-Qaeda, on at least 532 separate occasions."

Apparently, the CPI is trying to argue that Bush deliberately lied, for it said in a statement that its study calls into question "the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were merely the unwitting victims of bad intelligence." The study maintains that there was intelligence in 2002 that contradicted the Bush Administration's claims. Although Cheney asserted in that year that Iraq unequivocally had weapons of mass destruction, former CIA chief George Tenet states that the Vice-President's statement exceeded the CIA's assessments at the time. And a 2002 assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which Tenet confirmed, found an absence of any "compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al-Qaeda."

I have three points.

First of all, why is this news? We've heard this tape before. Critics of President Bush have long chanted the mantra that "Bush lied, people died." The slogan has been on bumper stickers since at least 2004.

Second, the Center for Public Integrity is not exactly an unbiased source, for it receives money from leftists such as George Soros and Bill Moyers (see this documented article). I'm not saying that its claims should be ignored, anymore than one should disregard the arguments of neoconservative publications like Commentary and The Weekly Standard. My problem is that the Associated Press is presenting this study as if it's the product of a non-partisan group, which is hardly the case. The study is from a leftist group repeating the typical leftist line. There is nothing newsworthy about that.

Third, the study seems to rely a lot on the words of George Tenet. Okay. Allow me to do the same. An article in the April 27, 2007 New York Times states the following about Tenet on WMDs:

"Mr. Tenet takes blame for the flawed 2002 National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s weapons programs, calling the episode 'one of the lowest moments of my seven-year tenure.' He expresses regret that the document was not more nuanced, but says there was no doubt in his mind at the time that Saddam Hussein possessed unconventional weapons. 'In retrospect, we got it wrong partly because the truth was so implausible,' he writes." (emphasis mine).

Bush doesn't sound like a liar to me, at least not in Tenet's account. According to Tenet, there was intelligence in 2002 claiming that Iraq had WMDs. And, in his recollection, there was no doubt in his mind that Saddam Hussein possessed something dangerous. Retrospectively, as far as Tenet is concerned, any other idea appeared implausible at the time. Maybe that was why so many prominent Democrats voted to go to war.

Regarding links between Saddam and Al-Qaeda, in an October 7, 2002 letter to Senator Bob Graham of the Intelligence Committee, Tenet affirms the following:

"Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qa'ida is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank. We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa'ida going back a decade. Credible information indicates that Iraq and al-Qa'ida have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression. Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al-Qa'ida members, including some that have been in Baghdad. We have credible reporting that al-Qa'ida leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire W.M.D. capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qa'ida members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs. Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of a relationship with al-Qa'ida, suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action" (see C.I.A. Letter to Senate on Baghdad's Intentions).

So Tenet thought that there was a working relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. And we know Bush was lying from what, again?

So Bush was not deliberately lying. On the issue of WMDs, he was misinformed. That doesn't mean that he was totally wrong, since there existed a strong possibility that Saddam was trying to create weapons of mass destruction. Why else did he go to Niger for help? Also, although the 9/11 Commission Report presents the relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda as somewhat stormy, it does offer examples of the two working together and seeking to establish a stronger bond (see The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 61, 66). So the Center for Public Integrity is wrong to depict Bush's claims as thoroughly false, just because they contradict its selective, one-sided interpretation of the past.