This morning I read a letter to the WSJ by Newt Gingrich. Even though I dont see any similarities between Presidents Bush and Lincoln, Gingrich raises some interesting points (and some confused arguments).
I agree that we arent winning the "war on terror" the President started 5 years ago. I also agree that the problem is not a matter of time and that "stay the course" is not going to get the job done. (It is interesting to see how Gingrich argues that stay the course is a failure but blames the "government bureaucracies" not the president for its failure.)
Rather then go through the whole article, I realized that it raises an issue that I started to write about just last week. Winning.
There is a lot of talk about how we cant afford to lose the war but very little talk about what winning would actually look like. How can we agree on a strategy before we agree on the goals, on what success means?
In actual wars, one state fights another until one state is destroyed or surrenders. Is that possible here? Can you fight an ideology until it surrenders? Is a single man like Osama really capable of destroying America, as Gingrich implies? Does it make any sense to compare this struggle with Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia?
Gingrich talks about metrics for measuring performance and he talks about "defeating the enemies of freedom in Iraq" but what does that mean? He never says and neither has anyone else, from either political party. Republicans raise the bogey-man to scare us and Democrats just try to say its not that bad or that the current policies suck.
My assumption based on the rhetoric is that winning to Gingrich means killing everyone who doesnt agree with us. This is a scary idea and completely impractical. Gingrich talks about replacing the dictatorships in Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Syria as well as disarming Hezbollah - equally impractical ideas.
With elections coming up, it would be good to know what we are fighting for and what we need to do to declare victory. I seem to be the only American that doesn't know the answers to those simple questions.
Bush and Lincoln
September 7, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Five years have passed since the horrific attack on our American homeland, and, still, there is one serious, undeniable fact we have yet to confront: We are, today, not where we wanted to be and nowhere near where we need to be.
We see these first two factions today. The Kerry-Gore-Pelosi-Lamont bloc declares the war too hard, the world too dangerous. They try to find some explainable way to avoid reality while advocating return to "normalcy," and promoting a policy of weakness and withdrawal abroad.
Most government officials constitute the second wing, which argues the system is doing the best it can and that we have to "stay the course" -- no matter how unproductive. But, after being exposed in the failed response to Hurricane Katrina, it will become increasingly difficult for this wing to keep explaining the continuing failures of the system.
Just consider the following: Osama bin Laden is still at large. Afghanistan is still insecure. Iraq is still violent. North Korea and Iran are still building nuclear weapons and missiles. Terrorist recruiting is still occurring in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and across the planet
President Bush today finds himself in precisely the same dilemma Lincoln faced 144 years ago. With American survival at stake, he also must choose. His strategies are not wrong, but they are failing. And they are failing for three reasons.
(1) They do not define the scale of the emerging World War III, between the West and the forces of militant Islam, and so they do not outline how difficult the challenge is and how big the effort will have to be. (2) They do not define victory in this larger war as our goal, and so the energy, resources and intensity needed to win cannot be mobilized. (3) They do not establish clear metrics of achievement and then replace leaders, bureaucrats and bureaucracies as needed to achieve those goals.
...
Beyond our shores, we must commit to defeating the enemies of freedom in Iraq, starting with doubling the size of the Iraqi military and police forces. We should put Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia on notice that any help going to the enemies of the Iraqi people will be considered hostile acts by the U.S.
Further, we should make clear our goal of replacing the repressive dictatorships in North Korea, Iran and Syria, whose aim is to do great harm to the American people and our allies.
The result of this effort would be borders that are controlled, ports that are secure and an enemy that understands the cost of going up against the full might of the U.S.
