Defending Dick Cheney

Time for some in the GOP to stop wringing its hands over the Iraq War.

It was the right call and by 2009 was close to lasting stability.  Because of that, former Vice President Dick Cheney has every reason to speak from the high ground about Obama's failures there.

Imagine buying a junked car.  You give it extensive repairs with new parts, get it up and running.  It is relatively reliable if you do not put too much pressure on it and sensibly maintain it.

Then you sell it to an irresponsible owner who drives it for six years with no oil changes, no transmission service, no attention to coolant cleanliness or if it even has coolant.

What would you expect to happen?  The car would break down at the most inopportune time.

Iraq at the end of the Bush presidency had held free elections, despite terrorists' intentions to disrupt.  They had assembled a relatively democratic government.  Armed forces were being put together under the tutelage of the US military.  American troops remained in place, keeping terrorists at bay.  Advisers quietly urged the government towards good policy, albeit with mixed success.

Naysayers forget about the cruelty of Saddam, of his backing of terror, of his plans to leave his country's resources and military into the hands of his sadistic and psychopathic sons.  If that day had come, Iraq itself would be a dangerous source of instability in the region.

This Washington Post rebuttal of Cheney's thoughts on Obama and Iraq centers on the Bush Administration's original agreement to keep forces in Iraq until 2011.  It infers that Obama's task in renewing that agreement was impossible.  How hard did the president and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even try?

The State Department's fixation on oceans for the past few years indicates that its priorities are a bit out of whack.

Over six years, Obama turned his back on the fragile, but still developing government.  He did not negotiate a status of forces agreement to keep US troops in place.  American soldiers are the best ambassadors of our system and our way of life, whether fighting for the Iraqi people or simply talking about the US every day. The enemy also fears US troops, knowing that engaging our soldiers brings a potentially heavy price for them.

Obama sent mixed signals to the Middle East.  President Bush followed the Reagan tradition of using confident expressions of freedom and liberty to inspire the world. Obama went over there and ruminated about mistakes and problems that historically pale in comparison to the good we have done.

His going to Canossa was the first step in destroying the respect carefully constructed by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice.

Many will point to complaints, demonstrations, social media rants as proof that American policy was wrong because we were not loved.  They have it wrong.  America needs to be not loved, but respected. Respected for our power and the principles behind its use.

Iraq today stands at the edge of the precipice.  Obama abandoned it to a cruel fate and now considers a rushed last minute rescue, not because it is the right thing to do, but because Iraq's failure would hurt his legacy even more.

America cannot be the world's policeman.  Some situations, however, do call for action. Iraq was one such issue.  Had Bush's successor maintained a foreign policy based on engagement and respect rather than golf and celebrities, Iraq and the Middle East would be on a much firmer foundation today.

It's the Same Old Thing Over and Over

Yesterday I came across an old book entitled American Revisionists. When I started reading it, I came upon a tired old refrain. The president lied to get us into a war. His lies were meant to make his friends in big business richer. It was none of our business. The people we were fighting for were the real enemies and their freedom was not worth the blood of our soldiers. Our president lied to us and betrayed us to start a war that killed young men for no reason. Try and guess who they were talking about.

It could have been Lyndon B. Johnson. Vietnam was certainly an unpopular war that invigorated the anti-war movement like none we had seen since the 1860s. For that matter it could have been Abraham Lincoln who had to brave angry torrents of public opinion when he revised the meaning of the Civil War to include the freedom for slaves. Joe Kennedy, father of John, Teddy, and Robert, held those same attitudes about Franklin D. Roosevelt his entire life.

The target this time was Woodrow Wilson. He led us into World War I after an escalating series of moves by Germany to threaten the United States and cut off its trade with Europe at a pivotal point of vulnerability for the Allies. Until Germany started sinking our ships and trying to talk Mexico into a war with us, Wilson urged all Americans to keep an open mind. His goal going into the war was a breathtaking crusade to use American power to change the face of Europe and end their seemingly eternal cycle of warfare. The end of fighting saw the British and French ignore Wilson's ideals and impose upon Germany a treaty guaranteed to start another war in two decades.

Intellectuals and left wing editors slammed Wilson after research showed the Allies more guilty than originally thought and Germany to be more foolish than evil. Some of the criticism was valid, but by the 30s it reached a shrill crescendo. Some intellectuals blamed France for the war and Wilson for supporting them. France actually tried to avoid the war and was drawn in when Germany invaded it! Emotion had supplanted reason and it started affecting policy. Trouble in Europe inspired Congress to pass a series of acts to restrain Franklin Roosevelt's hand. Some even proposed that the US never enter a war without a national referendum.

Unfortunately this tied FDR's hands at the very moment that he needed freedom to act against the most deadly enemy we had ever faced. Years in which US action might have cowed Adolf Hitler were spent by FDR patiently undoing the damage caused by hysterical intellectuals and their effect upon the public. The lesson we learned between 1941-45 was that the world is smaller and potentially more dangerous. Our president needs to act to forestall aggression, not wait until it hits our shores.

The legacy of the Bush presidency is still playing out. Certainly he headed off a potentially disastrous problem that Saddam Hussein's psychopathic sons would have presented. At the same time he demonstrated the American will to act that enhanced our credibility among those that hate us. History should reflect that as a positive step in our history.

The Spirit of Man and How to Destroy It

When the liberal left wants to condemn the Iraq theatre of the War on Terror, often they say "We have no business telling other countries what to do" or "Things were much better when Saddam was in charge." Then the leftists turn around here and push for heavy taxation to make smoking less convenient or ordinances that will remove old cars from people's property.

It seems contradictory, this idea of where they stand on "telling people what to do." They do not mind Iraq's former government running amuck. When an individual longs for the simple joy of a cigarrette, or wants to tinker on an old car for ten years as a hobby, they scream "There oughtta be a law!"

Look closer and you see the connection in the idea of collectivism. Collectivism is the principle of order at any price. The price often asked is individuality paid towards the bill titled "Collective Societal Good." Leftists do not mind the idea of a Saddam Hussein run government because it maintained a collective that promised order to the vast majority of the people. Never mind those paltry few that suffered horrifically. They like it so much they want to impose collectivism on those of us in the United States.

Collectivism comes not at the barrel of a gun, but as on little kitten paws. It oozes into our societal thinking here and there. Collectivism does not overawe us with power at the beginning, but begs for our sacrifice and calls us greedy should we decide we want to keep what we earned. Collectivism asks us why we cannot sacrifice some of our freedom if it results in a common good defined by some authority. The Declaration of Independence articulates that the pursuit of happiness is one of our most sacred individual natural rights. It means we seek our own happiness through living our life in a state of liberty. Collectivists gain power by convincing us that happiness is a sin and that the accomplishments we worked so hard to attain were at someone else's expense even though all acted according to their own free will (an idea which collectivists try to undermine.) Mediocrity becomes a virtue and achievement something to ridicule and destroy if possible.

It is no accident that the liberal left supports ideas such as the Mineral County Courthouse being rid of junk food altogether rather than simply offering more healthy choices. When we cede the right to even determine what should be put into our digestion when and how often, what right do we have to speak freely or select our government?