Lying and the Meaning of Victory
Iran: "Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda" - Michael LedeenWhile I have been very grateful to see Chris Mathews on Hardball talking rather animatedly about "neo-cons" I do feel a bit dirty about it. Political television admits to only a few categories - left, right, moderate and maybe once every decade or so a populist. I almost understand why so many neoconservatives feel so defensive. How would, for instance, the New Left like it if half the shows on cable spit out "New Left" with astonishment and disgust every few minutes.
But then I read these pieces:
Just three days before Pearl Harbor, on Dec. 4, 1941, the Chicago Tribune and Washington Star-Ledger broke the story that FDR had already drafted a plan for war with Germany, a plan that entailed a 10-million-man army invading Germany by the middle of 1943. Democrats and Republicans alike saw this as further proof that FDR had been lying all along. Some suggest that a U.S.-flagged schooner sent into Japanese waters that same day was intended to provoke a fight. Roosevelt got Pearl Harbor instead, which was a surprise but nonetheless "rescued" the president, in Hofstadter's words, from the "dilemma" of needing to start a war the American people opposed.
Does this make FDR a bad president? No. While I have my problems with FDR, most historians are right to be forgiving of deceit in a just cause. World War II needed to be fought, and FDR saw this sooner than others.[snip]
If Bush succeeds — still a big if — the painful irony for Bush's critics is that he will go down in history as a great president, even if he lied, while they will take their paranoia to their graves. - Jonah Goldberg
Jonah's piece is nearly a satire on what Straussians supposedly believe. The war needed to be fought - so says Jonah. But it is precisely the incredibly abstract and implausible case for War that Michael Ledeen makes; one that makes no sense to ordinary conservative, that causes the Lie to be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.
Instead of a defense of deceit, Michael Ledeen offers us victory as distraction. His most recent on NRO is subtitled "If you want to win the debate, win the war"
I lamented that our great national debate on the war against terrorism was the wrong debate, because it was "about using our irresistible military might against a single country in order to bring down its leader, when we should be talking about using all our political, moral, and military genius to support a vast democratic revolution to liberate the peoples of the Middle East from their tyrannical rulers. That is our real mission, the essence of the war in which we are engaged, and the proper subject of our national debate."
[snip]
Like it or not, we are in a regional war, and it cannot be effectively prosecuted within a narrow national boundary. There will never be decent security in Iraq so long as the tyrants in Tehran and Damascus remain in power. They know that the spread of freedom is a terrible threat to them, and that if there were a successful democratic Iraq, their power and authority would be at risk. That is why they are waging an existential war against us in Iraq.- Michael Leedeen
Michael Ledeen is in the grip of ideology. This is the sort of sloppy thinking that made the Communists think that their revolution was an irresistible force of history. "The proletariat, once stripped of false consciousness, is a threat to the bourgeois everywhere." Yada, yada, yada. And alternately, that it was constantly under siege: "The bourgeois anywhere is a threat to worker's everywhere." This is why, Ledeen can drop all pretense of defending America with America's military and say:
Active support of the democratic forces in the Middle East would be the right policy, even if there were no terror war, and even if Iran were not a shallow breath away from atomic weapons. It is what America is all about.
Faster, confound it.- Michael Ledeen
Nothing that opposes Ledeen's definition of freedom must be allowed to exist - even if it is benign to the United States and our interests.
Conservatives need to drop these guys, quick. They are doing terrible harm to our reputation by making us look like liars, ideologues and revolutionaries. Forget it, I'm glad MSNBC and everyone else is piling on.
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Politics
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Source: A lie for a just causeWhat if Bush did lie, big time? What, exactly, would that mean? If you listen to Bush's critics, serious and moonbat alike, the answer is obvious: He'd be a criminal warmonger, a failed president and — most certainly — impeachment fodder. Even Bush's defenders agree that if Bush lied, it would be a grave sin. For example, the Wall Street Journal recently accused Harry Reid & Co. of becoming "Clare Boothe Luce Democrats" for even suggesting that Bush would deceive the public. Luce, a Republican, -
Source: Engage!The proper debate has still not been engaged, and the administration's failure to lead it bespeaks a grave failure of strategic vision. The war was narrowly aimed against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. But, as President Bush himself said after 9/11, it was logically and properly a war against both the terrorists themselves and against the regimes that foster, support, arm, train, indoctrinate, and guide the terrorist legions who are clamoring for our destruction.
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Related: "A Lie for a Just Cause"Faced with the possibility of presidential lying (remember that phrase from a few years back?) on a matter of national security, Goldberg evinces all the pathetic sycophancy of a royal panegyrist without any of the associated rhetorical ability. The Goldbergs of the world deserve presidents like George Bush--and so do we, as long as we tolerate their crimes. The difference between kings and elected autocrats is that kings at least put some store by their honour and reputation, perhaps because th
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