From “Panic in Iraq,” Norman Podhoretz, Commentary, Jan 2006:
Like, I am sure, many other believers in what this country has been trying to do in the Middle East and particularly in Iraq, I have found my thoughts returning in the past year to something that Tom Paine, writing at an especially dark moment of the American Revolution, said about such times. They are, he memorably wrote, “the times that try men’s souls,†the times in which “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot†become so disheartened that they “shrink from the service of [their] country.â€Â
But Paine did not limit his anguished derision to former supporters of the American War of Independence whose courage was failing because things had not been going as well on the battlefield as they had expected or hoped. In a less famous passage, he also let loose on another group:
’Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. . . . Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses . . . . [T]heir peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain for ever undiscovered.
Thus, he explained, “Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head,†emboldened by the circumstances of the moment to reveal an opposition to the break with Britain that it had previously seemed prudent to conceal.
The similarities to our situation today are uncanny. We, too, are in the midst of a rapidly spreading panic. We, too, have our sunshine patriots and summer soldiers, in the form of people who initially supported the invasion of Iraqâ€â€and the Bush Doctrine from which it followedâ€â€but who are now abandoning what they have decided is a sinking ship. And we, too, are seeing formerly disguised opponents of the war coming more and more out into the open, and in ever greater numbers.
Yet in spite of these similarities, there is also a very curious difference between the American panic of 1776-7 and the American panic of 2005-6. To put it in the simplest and starkest terms: in that early stage of the Revolutionary War, there was sound reason to fear that the British would succeed in routing Washington’s forces. In Iraq today, however, and in the Middle East as a whole, a successful outcome is staring us in the face. Clearly, then, the panic over Iraqâ€â€which expresses itself in increasingly frenzied calls for the withdrawal of our forcesâ€â€cannot have been caused by the prospect of defeat. On the contrary, my twofold guess is that the real fear behind it is not that we are losing but that we are winning, and that what has catalyzed this fear into a genuine panic is the realization that the chances of pulling off the proverbial feat of snatching an American defeat from the jaws of victory are rapidly running out.
Both Austin Bay—and, more recently, General Abizaid himself—have danced around these points, and it seems to me that, almost to a fault, the military has been too gracious in their allowances for the kind of pointed, defeatist rhetoric that the progressive Dem leadership has been wielding in order to get out in front of planned, events-related troop draw downs (discussed in July by Gen Casey). Sadly, to do this, they’ve been forced to take the opposite tack of the Administration, which means that they are impelled to make the argument that these draw downs are a sign that the war is going poorly and that we must retreat (though, realizing how craven this makes them sound, they have attempted to skate a fine line and call “retreat” a “strategic redeployment,” etc), rather than admit that the draw downs were planned to coincide with military and political successes in Iraq.
Even more sad, however, is the reasons the Dem leadership have for doing so—which begins with a desire to regain power and ends with the ideological desire to see what they believe to be US militarism and “unilateralism” humbled, to see sovereignty weakened for the sake of a new governmental paradigm that they wish the US to be part of, a transnational bureaucracy run on consensus and treaty and an artificial assumption of equality that, at its core, mimics socialism.
For many of these progressive Democrats, the ends justify the means; and so while the means are often craven and dastardly, I believe that, in the minds of the ideological true believers, they think themselves to be acting in the best interests of the country—which from their perspective would benefit from being more beholden to international consensus.
I believe they are wrong on this point. Disastrously so. Which is why I continue to say so here, and why it bears repeating that I have the Constitution on my side. Similarly, I deplore the Machiavellian tactics the progressive left has embraced, which—when given the cover of philosophical and linguistic systems that tacitly permit for a dangerous strain of contingency and relativism (insofar as the very fact of non-contingent truth that is used to argue for the relativity of right and wrong in the abstract is then extrapolated out as a means of universalizing relativism, which does a grievous injustice to the local and particular)—takes on a patina of acceptibility from the self-styled elite, one that has spread so far as to take over the very organs of “objectivity” that were designed to keep the populace informed rather than actively and ideological “shaped.”
The fact of the matter is, true believers on the left wish our defeat in Iraq because such a defeat serves a greater ideological good; and the pragmatists in the Democratic party wish our victory to appear as defeat so that they can defeat the Republicans and regain a measure of power (beyond what they already have as a result of the strong ideological fellowship they share with the legacy media).
But in the process of making their play, they weaken us as a nation and endanger the lives of our troops. And for that they should be ashamed.
I saw Bob Bechel(sp?) make that claim on Fox w/ Tony Snow this morning, that any withdrawls we see in ‘06 show that we are running out, not that these are pre-planned deployments which result from success. Snow and the Republican weenie with them just let the lie slide, conceding the point that the only reason we would be moving troops out is that we are failing in Iraq.
Bechel is a snake dressed up as a Rotary Club glad-hander. He’ll argue for any lie which flops out of a left wing ass, and try to make it sound all common-sensy and down-home when the reality is that he is today’s version of the old fashioned ward heeler.
I say keep talking Howard and Bob. Keep running with the rope you’ve been handed. And then when the troops do return, are parading down Main Street to loud cheering, (if the Republicans have any brains), make that argument that they lost in Iraq. That rope you’re holding is the one you’re going to find yourself hung with.
If you want to talk that kind of shit about our finest people, that’s “fine” with me.
Not.Gonna.Happen. – They have no shame.
Time to stop dancing around the obvious. Progressive is simply a code word, disguise for communist.
Progressive Democrats are simply the latest revision of the Communist Party. The Democrats must either purge themselves (a fine Marxist concept) of the notion of no enemies to the left or find themselves marginalized into irrelevance. Making common cause with treason is not and never will be a winning strategy. No one respects traitors, not even the enemy. Time to out the scum, deny them cover and let them implode.
These are points that need to be made by folks in public life. People such as McCain and Lieberman, who refuse to addresss them, are refusing to confront Al Qeada’s most effective allies, the MSM and a big chunk of the Democratic party. These people should no longer be allowed to engage in a stealth campaign desinged to cripple American efforts. If they wish to oppose America they should have to do it vocally and on the record. Yes, I question their patriotism, and their courage as well.
And I just keep thinking that the Dems need us to go on a losing streak so they can get the starting quarterback position back and, in turn, get more blow jobs.
Too simple?
Podhie’s use of the word “panic” made me notice that it just doesn’t cost anything to “panic” anymore.
My point is we’ve lowered the cost of “panicking.” I can panic right now, while filing my nails, taking a cell-phone call, and planning my jobs for tomorrow.
Is this just the expected hyberbole that results from a good word’s overuse? Am I really panicked if my hair still looks good?
-Steve
Progressive is simply a code word, disguise for communist.
Incredibly ironic given your moniker their Bob.
I’m sure these dreaded commie progressives aren’t to concerned about you eliminating them in American political life though.
I mean heck, Fidel doesn’t and he’s runnning a pitifully poor and now unsupported communist dictatorship right?
I really think Godwin’s law should be revised a bit for those longing back to the good old days when the masses could be moved by a Red Scare.
I think Machiavelli is rolling in his grave over the tactics being used by certain Dems. He never advocated using ends to justify means in order to weaken the state a prince is supposed to be leading. The Dems have adopted a purely cynical approach without the larger concern for securing the state.
Did Davebo just make a back-handed racist slur against cubanbob. Or did *anyone* of Cuban ancestry suddenly become communist by default.
I’m sure that you’ll find a third alternative, Davebo. As a matter of fact, I *hope* that you do.
Because of the suffix on “Davebo’s” moniker, I assume he’s a mouth-breathing yokel.
Well, no—actually I assume that because of his comment. But if I tried to say so he’d undoubtedly accuse me of profiling against all persons of “-bo.”
The “progressives†(whatever the hell they are) only use relativism as a political tool. They use (and often bastardize) its precepts to find the “root cause†of a situation, which, amazingly enough, always turn out to stem from American policy/culture/… or the Joos, of course.
Universal relativism can be a useful tool to understanding distinct cultures, but that’s only because it challenges the observer to acknowledge and adjust to their own bias. Add the prejudice back in, mix it with a bit of hyper-partisanship and bingo, you have an intellectually dishonest framework for opposing any of your opponents initiatives.
They’re using a theory of amorality in a global sense to make an argument about American immorality at the local. Amazing.
I’ll not try a Red Scare, but I find it instructive that since the nomination of George McGovern, Democrats have beaten up on anyone who doesn’t adhere to the “progressive” line (see Jackson, Henry and Lieberman, Joe), which has largely consisted in silly exercises such as we see now over Iraq policy.
I remember the days of turning a blind eye to Cubans running amok in Angola and most of Sub-Saharan Africa; bug-eyed craziness over American nukes in Europe (but the Soviet SS-20s were just misuderstood salad forks); predictions of 20,000 American casualties in the first week of the first Gulf War (and then the SAME voices had the gall to point to overwhelming victory and say “See, we’re spending too much on defense–it shouldn’t have been that easy.”); now the same dolts who screamed “Quagmire” a week into the Afghan campaign now want a redeployment of troops TO AFGHANISTAN.
Lefties, please go read some histroy on soemthing other than your flower power version of Vietnam and get back to us. This stuff is giving me nosebleeds.
It’s like the Cold War all over again. Second time as farce, cf. Howard Dean.
From the Left’s perspective (and, of course, I’m using a big brush), the bigger threat to their policies or to their vision of how America should look comes not from the Islamic jiddahists and terrorists but from the Bush Administration and the Right. It makes sense then, from this viewpoint, to devote more energy defeating the enemy at home then the enemy abroad.
Fundamentally, it seems to me, they believe that the terrorist threat has been greatly exaggerrated by Bush and that this much smaller danger can best be mitigated through law enforcements means and by working with our allies to alleviate the conditions that fuel anti-western sentiments (“I’m depraved ‘cause I’m deprived”). Bush’s policies as seen from this response are viewed as increasing the number of terrorists and not diminishing them.
Yes, it’s an contradictory series of statements. Viz., the threat has been used by Bush to scare us into supporting his policies AND Bush’s policies have multiplied the terrorist threat to us by enraging the Islamic world. It’s not much of a threat and it’s an increasing threat.
Go figure.
Anyway, when Dean (et al.) says that “Republicans are evil” and that “Cheney and Rove are guilty” while at the same time saying that, when asked about Bin Laden’s culpability in 9/11, “I don’t want to pre-judge Osama’s guilt” it all makes (strange) sense.
Makes sense, that is, if, like during the Cold War, one is more of an anti-anti-communist than an anti-communist.
SMG
Great post, Jeff.
Come on Jeff, you’re almost there.
Once you get rid of that last, forlorn, niggling hope that “I believe that, in the minds of the ideological true believers, they think themselves to be acting in the best interests of the country‗ You will be ready to understand the Democratic Party for what it has become.
They.
Do.
Not.
Whether they are petty little climbers willing to sacrifice the good of the country to their own short term political advantage, as in Lileks’ observation that they would rather lose the war than their committee chairmanships, or whether they are rigid ideologues insulated from reality by wealth, tenure or other insular communities, who actually see the welfare of this country as inimical to the rest of the world, not one of them, at core, gives the slightest hint of a damn for the safety, liberty and future of this country.
Once you understand that, these people make perfect sense.
Socialism, like fascism, holds the interests of society over the interests of the individual (fascism holds the interests of the State above all).
Liberal capitalism holds the interests of the individual supreme. In their bones, the left is anti-American as they can be.
:peter
word
No Juliette, I did not just make a back-handed racist slur against cubanbob.
It’s called an analogy. See, Iraq was ruled by a brutal tyrant supported by a small majority of it’s population. Cuba is ruled by a brutal tyrant supported by a small minority of what once was it’s population.
In Iraq, thousands opposed fled the country to Europe, the US and other places, much like in Cuba although a disproportionate number of those “refugees” fled to one place and decided to remake it into their homeland.
I have tremendous respect for the Cuban American community in several areas. They are industrious, entreprenurist, and most of all, they are steadfast nationalists. Though my extensive time spent in S. Florida leads me to believe the nation they are nationalist about is Cuba, not the US.
Hence the irony.
I’ve read lots of history, especially as it regards the impetus for the Vietnam war.
So will the entire mideast also topple like the dominos should we redeploy from Iraq?
I mean, with S. Korea and Japan now dominated by totalitarian communist regimes can we really afford to take the chance?
Perhaps you should follow your own advice on studying that history thing?
Whether they are petty little climbers willing to sacrifice the good of the country to their own short term political advantage, as in Lileks’ observation that they would rather lose the war than their committee chairmanships
Huh? It may be just me, but if Lilek thinks Dems are doing anything to “HOld on to their committee chairmanships” then I’d guess you could teach him a little bit about Civics 101. But then since you apparantly saw nothing ludicrous about such a statement, perhaps not.
Name one democrat chairing a single congressional committee. Tough eh?
Davebo,
I’m afraid you don’t make much sense. Juliette was referring to you finding irony in cubanbob’s handle and his equation: “progressive†= communist, which would only be ironic if you did indeed assume he was a communist because of his handle. I don’t think it was a racial slur but it is what it is.
I like this one, though:
… amazing insight. It’s almost as if they would prefer to live in their homeland. Crazy!
You’d have to explain what you meant by the rest. It’s a little unkept.
Davebo,
You seem a bit hyper-critical. Perhaps Lileks (if he said it) and wwwtam meant the possibility of future chairs, or maybe they are making one of your “analogies” to explain the Dem strategy.
Explain. I’m obviously too dim to understand babble.
Follow the dominos: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. Thailand beat it through force of arms (and I’d suggest because Thai culture and its deep ties to Buddhism didn’t go with with whatever the Reds were selling) and Burma beat it with one of the more reprehensible thugocracies around, so I’m unsure what you mean.
Please note that South Korea and Japan are not communist BECAUSE of U.S. intervention and troops.
That being said, the attempt to paint every foreign policy question as another Vietnam is as tired as it gets. Let’s go down the list: Angola (some sell job by Frank Church on that one), Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada (!), Gulf I, Colombia, Afghanistan, and now Iraq. As you know, IF you’ve read history, the parallels are kind of skimpy.
And as for the Dems and committee chairs, I believe the point is that they would wish a defeat to gain the chairs back. Or did we write too fast for you?
The dominoes in the middle-east toppled a long time ago, we are trying to set them back up.
Davebo  And of course Lileks couldn’t possibly have meant they wanted them back, could he?
And I note you didn’t even try to address the rest of the point.
Excuse me, Davebo, but could you go back to the alternate universe you came from? We have enough nuts and loons around here as it is.
Thank you.
Marc Cooper, of Pajamas Media fame and a committed (but usually sane) leftist, notes the following about his “day job”:
Perhaps you would like me to catalogue the wingnuttiness that I bump into day-to-day at my more respectable job with The Nation: writers who believe that there’s a burgeoning national Russ Feingold for President movement; that Castro’s Cuba is really more democratic than Schwarzenegger’s California; that it’s a pity the Soviet Union collapsed; that a new book critical of Mao must be written by the CIA; that it’s just fine and dandy to have an anti-war movement managed by acolytes of Kim-Il Sung; that we must provide material support to the armed resistance in Iraq, and so on and so on ad infinitum
And you think your job stinks?
SMG
SteveMG  well, they might be on to something about California. Or at least Los Angeles…
Wishbone—You left out Panama…
I know it’s mixed in with a lot of other drivel, but this isn’t just wingnuttery or willful blindness to reality, it’s support for treason. For making war upon the United States of America.
At The Nation.
Can we question their patriotism now?
TW: Beside my’self’.
You’ve forgotten Noah, that this country no longer recognizes treason. It is one of those New Age ideas, loyalty to one’s country is so obsolete.
Nowadays, even if they even head to the country to help the enemy firsthand, we’ll even do our best to rescue them when the knife winds up at their throat. Afterall, noone’s responsible for their actions, even treason.
“Nowadays, even if they even head to the country to help the enemy firsthand, we’ll even do our best”…
…my God, well, that’s what 8 hours of studying for finals does to you…
Nothing to be ashamed of.
There’s no shame in opposing an unjust war.
There’s surely no shame in opposing an endless occupation that is’nt doing much than building up an ever-increasing casualty list.
As for Norman Podhoretz; the idea that there are any kind of parallels between the Revolutionary War and the Iraq war is absurd on its face.
First off, only about a third of colonial Americans supported the aims of the Revolution. About a third opposed it and another third didn’t give a damn.
Forget inapplicable history lessons.
Today over 60% of the Americans oppose this war and it doesn’t look like things will get better in terms of public support anytime soon.
Does anyone actually believe (outside the brain-dead Neocons), that Iraqis will stop killing each other for partisan or sectarian reasons just because the US sponsers an “election” or a “constitution”?
Or for that matter, that a stable government will come out of Bush’s nation-building, absent US troops?
At what point is anything concrete ever going to be “won” in Iraq? Is the break-even point 2,200 US casualties? 3000 US casualties? 5,000 US casualties? At what point will the Neocons (who rule Mr Bush’s policies) finally decide that they can’t accomplish their goals?
As I’ve said before in my comments. The Neocons view US troops as cannon-fodder to be used up in support of their pipe-dreams.
Most Americans have a different view….
Wishbone.
Interesting choice of countries there, especially for someone apparantly espousing the “spreading democracy throughout the world” point of view.
So, you list of several countries which held elections that didn’t result in your preferred outcome, and then call them communist dictatorships.
Well, I guess you get what you wish for, even if you don’t get what you wish for. Frankly I’m amazed you left out Iran.
And Grenada? ROTFLMAO!
Carl, are you certain you’re not muddling Podhoretz’s analogy here?
And Davebo – surely you’re not seriously contending that Wishbone’s depiction of the regimes in question as dictatorships is arbitrary?
When they become trading partners instead of sparring partners.
Hey Carl? Can I ask you a question? And, if you would please, just a yes or no response. Are Islamic terroists evil?
Carl,
That 60% number is bogus. The question was “Do you approve of the way the war in Iraq is being conducted by the Bush Administration?” The only choices were yes or no. If you ask the SAME question but give multiple choices: “no, we should disengage as soon as possible; yes, we are doing fine; no, we need to be much more aggressive in pursuing our military goals in Iraq” you will find that your 60% drops to about 35%. Nice try, though.
Another 4 KIAs today, Charlie. Think about it. You can read about it on the CNN site.
You gonna go on believing the crap put out by the right-wing think tanks–that this war is garnering majarity support? That its winnable in any concrete sense?
Time to declare victory, as we used to say during the Vietnam era, and get out!