NIE and the War of Ideas

The Wall Street Journal editorial that Winfield posted below, shows how partisan operators can put their political spin on a generic intelligence report for political motives. Since certain cherrypicked portions of the classified NIE report were leaked and have become public, concluding that the invasion of Iraq has radicalized the Islamic world and succeeded in producing more terrorists as of Sept. 11, 2001, the debate over the war has intensified. The New York Times, Democrats and vested political interests are leading the charge accusing the Bush administration of executing a reckless invasion that is now a lost cause. As a result of this sudden rise of an apparent political smokescreen before the midterm elections, even some conservatives seem to be in a Kerryesque “flip-flop” mode on this issue.

Several retired officers who recently served in Iraq testified that Rumsfeld bungled the war, lies were fed to the public to gain support for the war, and we should have kept our focus on Afghanistan. Major General John Batiste testified in front of the panel sponsored by Democrats that had we not lost our focus to Iraq, we wouldn’t have fueled global Islamic fundamentalism and created more enemies. Colonel Thomas X. Hammes testified about the moral failure not to provide the best equipment for our troops. At the same time Senate Republicans circulated a statement by four retired generals that said, "(W)e do not believe that it is appropriate for active duty, or retired, senior military officers to publicly criticize U.S. civilian leadership during war."

I don’t blame anyone for a crisis of confusion in this “fog of war” including myself. I am a fan of Michael Savage’s brutally honest style of talk radio. The other day his discourse reverted to the classic argument that the invasion of Iraq was conducted for the purpose of benefiting Halliburton and enriching the coffers of the corrupt military-industrial complex. We should have stayed on mission in Afghanistan and used our skills in negotiation for a strategic alliance with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to act as a buffer for the real enemy, Iran, he argued. I think these arguments are spurious, being that corruption reigns throughout our government, not only in the defense sector. Since the New York State government Medicaid program has stolen $18 billion annually form the taxpayers in corruption and fraud, as I reported a few days ago, does it figure that we should stop funding the health care of our elderly and the uninsured? Additionally, if we focused exclusively on Afghanistan, how could Iraq, already playing host to al Queda in Iraq and the Mujahadeen refugees from the war in Afgahnistan, become an effective buffer?

In personal email correspondences from Bruce Kesler, he quoted some recent remarks from Secretary of State Rice. She valiantly went on the offensive stating in response to allegations that the war has fueled terrorist recruiting:

When are we going to stop blaming ourselves for the rise of terrorism?...Now that we're fighting back, of course they are fighting back, too...I find it just extraordinary that the argument is, all right, so they're using the fact they're being challenged in the Middle East and challenged in Iraq to recruit, therefore you've made the war on terrorism worse...It's as if we were in a good place on Sept. 11. Clearly, we weren't.

She insisted that we stay in Iraq until we finish the job. For her, victory means to “wipe out” the root cause of violent extremism that is festering in the schools, curricula and propaganda throughout the Arab world affecting brainwashing of the masses to the extremist ideology. This is the overall objective of the Bush administration if we're not forced by partisan politics to "cut and run."

But what inspired me the most was a short but moving speech, Time to Step Forward, delivered to Tufts Republicans at Tufts University. Robert Stacy McCain, a journalist from Massachusetts recounted episodes from the American Revolution where the patriots were losing an increasingly hopeless war. George Washington was the unpopular commander of the starving, sick, demoralized New England regiment which was falling apart, with all the signs pointing to looming defeat by the British army. As the soldier’s tours of duty came to an end, no one wanted to re-enlist. They just wanted to pack it up and go home. Then Washington said with his last gasp for hope:

You have done all I asked you to do, and more than can be reasonably expected, but your country is at stake…If you will consent to stay only one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty, and to your country, which you can probably never do under any other circumstance.

And then he told them that they were facing “the crisis which is to decide our destiny.” They all came forward and re-enlisted.

To win the war of ideas that is central to this debate we need to put partisan politics aside and refresh ourselves with the spirit of the American Revolution and our founding fathers who fought the battle of ideas before winning the revolutionary war against the British Empire.