What Ever Happened To Pragmatism?
The standard definition of this term is, "A practical, matter-of-fact way of approaching or assessing situations or of solving problems." Let's apply that notion to the conduct of the war against Islamic fundamentalism.
The DisLoyal Opposition claims that the NSA terrorist surveillance program is a "wholesale violation of civil liberties," and "exercise in Big Brotherism" that lets the feds read all of your email and tap all of your phone conversations and then drag you away in chains if it so chooses on any trumped up charge of "terrorism," no matter how far-fetched or baseless. "It's a police state!" they shout, and demand that it be shut down as fascistic and useless in combatting terrorism.
Read it for yourself:
But remember the three foiled Islamikaze attacks revealed yesterday? Or the 2003 al Qaeda plot to release sarin nerve gas in the New York subway system? According to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS), it was NSA "domestic eavesdropping" that was instrumental in preventing that attack. Which is, after all, both its avowed and actual purpose. Something no less a Donk than Senator Dianne Feinstein was compelled to admit:
So, does that mean that Fat Albert and Senator "Leaky" and Russ Feingold would rather let Islamist terrorists butcher and gas Americans by the multitudes then acknowledge credit to the President they detest for "connecting the dots" and saving who knows how many civilian lives? The very thing they claimed Bush didn't do prior to 9/11? Keep Americans safe and make up lies about Bush or force Bush to stop protecting American lives and then blame all the ensuing grisly deaths on his dereliction/negligence/incompetence? They don't seem to be making any headway with the former.
How about Iraq? The Democrats have insisted for years now that we can't win there, that we can't defeat or even surpress the "insurgency," that we're just grasping handsful of sand, that by resisting terrorists we're actually breeding more of them, that their victory over us is inevitable, and why keep taking casualties for no good reason, so let's just cut & run.
But...this sort of war, assymmetrical warfare, is even more heavily dependent upon intelligence-gathering than the conventional variety. It requires boots on the ground, and the investment of time - time spent amongst the local populace, winning them over as intel sources, understanding the culture, "measuring the lay of the land" as it were.
We invested the time, we gained humint resources, and we finally bagged Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with a motherlode of information that rolled up the entire foreign terrorist network in Iraq, including several additional top AQI poobahs. The "insurgency," never viable in any strategic sense, is now tactically necrotized as well.
There's no way a rapier strike like this could have been conducted from fricking Guam. You might as well send MurthaForce to the !#$%^&* Moon, ready to strike in Iraq at several day's notice. Heck, that's still too close, sent them to Jupiter or stash them on a long-term comet or something. After all, we don't want the terrorists to see them coming.
Unless they are literally as nutso as they make themselves sound on a daily basis, the Donks have got to know this. So the only logical conclusion, apart from mass clinical insanity, is that they want to abandon the Iraqis like they did South Vietnam, they want their own country humiliated and prostrated, they want the Islamists to follow right on our fleeing heels and resume slaughtering us on our own soil (with no terrorist surveillance program to interfere with their efforts), all so they can turn around and blame it all on George W. Bush and use that to regain power.
The irony is that there is far less pragmatic about the means to the Dems' concept of victory (political) than there is to everybody else's (win the war). We can only hope and pray that Dubya's resolve in the latter can reapproach his enemies' determination in the former - no matter how insidiously ridiculous it becomes.
The DisLoyal Opposition claims that the NSA terrorist surveillance program is a "wholesale violation of civil liberties," and "exercise in Big Brotherism" that lets the feds read all of your email and tap all of your phone conversations and then drag you away in chains if it so chooses on any trumped up charge of "terrorism," no matter how far-fetched or baseless. "It's a police state!" they shout, and demand that it be shut down as fascistic and useless in combatting terrorism.
Read it for yourself:
FEINGOLD: If the right wing really believes in this country that, Rush Limbaugh and others, that they can somehow try to turn the president's reputation around by saying, "you're darn right he violated the law, and it's a good thing," I think they're just as confused as they are about their Iraq politics. People aren't buying it anymore, so not only do I not regret it, I felt an absolute obligation to do it.It compels no such thing. It is perfectly legal and within the warmaking powers of the Executive. And I don't see what Senator Depends is complaining about, since it's Quakers and babies and nuns that always get pulled aside in airports and wanded and have their shoes ripped open and are given cavity searches while the swarthy fellows who require a quart of phlegm each to pronounce their names get fast-tracked through the boarding process, because anything else would be "profiling," and "profiling" is wrong.
LEAHY: My concern is when we see peaceful Quakers being spied upon, when we see babies and nuns who can't fly on airplanes because they're on a terrorist watch list put together by your government.
GORE: What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law, repeatedly and insistently.
But remember the three foiled Islamikaze attacks revealed yesterday? Or the 2003 al Qaeda plot to release sarin nerve gas in the New York subway system? According to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS), it was NSA "domestic eavesdropping" that was instrumental in preventing that attack. Which is, after all, both its avowed and actual purpose. Something no less a Donk than Senator Dianne Feinstein was compelled to admit:
Well, I think the chairman said what could be said about it. I don't think anybody doubts that there are people that want to do us harm, that there are those that want to launch these attacks. They will if they can. And so, you know, there's the need for eternal vigilance, and I think Senator Roberts is correct, the terrorist surveillance program is an important tool in this area. [emphasis added]
So, does that mean that Fat Albert and Senator "Leaky" and Russ Feingold would rather let Islamist terrorists butcher and gas Americans by the multitudes then acknowledge credit to the President they detest for "connecting the dots" and saving who knows how many civilian lives? The very thing they claimed Bush didn't do prior to 9/11? Keep Americans safe and make up lies about Bush or force Bush to stop protecting American lives and then blame all the ensuing grisly deaths on his dereliction/negligence/incompetence? They don't seem to be making any headway with the former.
How about Iraq? The Democrats have insisted for years now that we can't win there, that we can't defeat or even surpress the "insurgency," that we're just grasping handsful of sand, that by resisting terrorists we're actually breeding more of them, that their victory over us is inevitable, and why keep taking casualties for no good reason, so let's just cut & run.
But...this sort of war, assymmetrical warfare, is even more heavily dependent upon intelligence-gathering than the conventional variety. It requires boots on the ground, and the investment of time - time spent amongst the local populace, winning them over as intel sources, understanding the culture, "measuring the lay of the land" as it were.
We invested the time, we gained humint resources, and we finally bagged Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, along with a motherlode of information that rolled up the entire foreign terrorist network in Iraq, including several additional top AQI poobahs. The "insurgency," never viable in any strategic sense, is now tactically necrotized as well.
There's no way a rapier strike like this could have been conducted from fricking Guam. You might as well send MurthaForce to the !#$%^&* Moon, ready to strike in Iraq at several day's notice. Heck, that's still too close, sent them to Jupiter or stash them on a long-term comet or something. After all, we don't want the terrorists to see them coming.
Unless they are literally as nutso as they make themselves sound on a daily basis, the Donks have got to know this. So the only logical conclusion, apart from mass clinical insanity, is that they want to abandon the Iraqis like they did South Vietnam, they want their own country humiliated and prostrated, they want the Islamists to follow right on our fleeing heels and resume slaughtering us on our own soil (with no terrorist surveillance program to interfere with their efforts), all so they can turn around and blame it all on George W. Bush and use that to regain power.
The irony is that there is far less pragmatic about the means to the Dems' concept of victory (political) than there is to everybody else's (win the war). We can only hope and pray that Dubya's resolve in the latter can reapproach his enemies' determination in the former - no matter how insidiously ridiculous it becomes.
posted by JASmius at 6:04 PM
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