I took the following from Mark Steyn’s site. It was the “letter of the week” from one of Steyn’s readers. I have no idea how long the body of the email will remain on the site, but I have saved a private copy. I didn’t want to post the whole thing because it would violate fair-use policy. However, most of it is here.
I think the author is probably spot-on. Others have probably said similar things, but this is the latest example I have seen.
Anyway, let’s get to it:
John Adams once said that only about 1/3 of the American people were for the Revolution, 1/3 were neutral and 1/3 were against it.
This split is still the functioning system of the American electorate today. About 1/3 are hard core Democrat, 1/3 are hard core Republican and 1/3 are “swing” voters.
When a war breaks out, the swing 1/3 can be expected, if the provocation is sufficient, to swing to the side of the war, causing it to be prosecuted. However, once a war starts, the “2-year Rule” begins. Because no matter what the provocation, no matter what the reasoning, 1/3 of the population already opposes it and will begin immediately to attempt to end it, regardless of any other fact.
The 2-year rule states that majority support for a war will last a maximum of two years. This is because most Americans are not warlike in nature and only react after provocation. As time passes, the provocation loses its strength and the neutral 1/3 begins to swing naturally to opposition to the war. After two years, unless the war is clearly heading for outright victory, anti-war movements gain enough strength to serious effect the conduct of the war or even cause it to end.
…The Revolution was an exception. It lasted longer than two years due to the determination of the minority to prosecute the war combined with the decentralized nature of the government. The neutrals and anti-war Tories were unable to influence the leaders of the rebellion because there was no real centralized government to influence – the Continental Congress was totally controlled by the war faction and there were no elections.
…The American Civil War was torn with anti-war activity. Draft Riots throughout the north, large scale desertion in the south. Lincoln himself was doubtful of reelection and the Republicans did lose many seats in the Congress. It was only the Northern victories of the second half of 1863, the feeling of many that the North would win and the voting support of Lincoln by the Union Army kept the Republicans in power.
…The Second World War was also a partial exception. The Roosevelt Administration took massive steps to silence opposition, even to the point of exiling suspect ethic groups to “camps”. However, WWII by the time where the 2-year Rule would be effecting (late 1943) it was so obviously heading for a victory that most people continued to support it.
Korea was a prime example of these two principles working. In two years, the opposition to this war became so great that the Truman Administration was unable to even consider running for reelection and the Democratic Party candidate (the party of the war) was crushed by the Eisenhower campaign which promised to end the war.
Vietnam is another prime example. The anti-war movement forced Johnson out of office and it led to the election of Nixon. But Nixon failed to end the war fast enough and so it turned on him[.]
…The Iraq war is also becoming a prime example. With no clear-cut victory and no clear-cut end, the hostility to the war, regardless of the reasons for it, has grown to the point where the party in power has be removed by the electorate.
Thus, the lesson to be learned is clear. The U.S. can not go into any war without majority support and at the same time, the war must be concluded, within two years.
Iraq therefore is doomed. It’s been over two years and the majority now opposes it, regardless of the consequences.
Dave Schneider
Most of us are in the 1/3 that still support the war effort. We are all familiar with the people who never supported it. However, the 1/3 that can go either way have been lost. We can argue, as many of us would, that the MSM has unduly influenced public opinion against the war and that has made it look like we are losing everywhere when, in fact, most of the issues are in Bagdad(sp), but that doesn’t change the apparent facts.
If this man’s thesis is correct, the only kind of war we can fight in the future is one involving crushing losses to those we have issues with so we can finish quickly. I think we all know that if we leave Iraq, we’re going to have to go back relatively soon.
Next time it will be a slaughter.
The Republicans lost the election because of their greed and incompetence.
Nixon was chucked out of office after he pulled our troops out of Vietnam, btw…
We should have learned by now that no matter how carefully and “humanely” we prosecute a war, it is still a war, and war is ugly.
So the most humane thing to do is win it, win it quickly and decisively, and rebuild from there, secure in the knowledge that we did what we had to do, and that the cause was right and just. This means we need to be absolutely committed to the effort.
Bush’s fatal flaw, it seems to me, is that he really did want to be a uniter. But you can’t win over those whose hatred of you is so irrational. At a certain point, he should have recognized this, seen the writing on the wall, and concerned himself with the kind of victory that would have sent the right message to our enemies.
Part of the problem has always been that Bush was too worried about alienating all Muslims. But if, as we are constantly told, most Muslims are peace loving and moderate, then surely they should have understood that there is no room in civilized society for the terror tactics of the Islamists .
It would have followed, then, that those who balked were not truly moderates—and we could have found out once and for all who was with us and who was against us, even if they were forced to chose merely out of pragmatic considerations—though in Bush’s defense, he really did need to walk a fine line. Advertising this as a clash of civilizations (it is, by the way) would have been playing into the hands of Al Qaeda and its satellites, who have been hoping to refight the crusades.
Still, such clarity is crucial. The enemy must be properly defined, surreptitiously if not publicly. And I’m not convinced Bush ever really defined the enemy until very recently, when he began speaking of Islamofascism. And even that he’s backed away from a bit, soon after the PC patrol staged its phony outrage.
We fear being branded racists and xenophobes moreso than we are willing to protect our own freedoms. That is the legacy of the progressive movement and post-structural linguistic machinations becoming mainstreamed.
Bush a uniter?
He had an 88% approval rating after 9/11.
Then he pissed it away with cronyism, religious fanatacism and an accidental war…
I like Dan’s idea of deleting off-topic comments. Just saying, is all.
Well, cranky, you’re driving; it’s up to you. He’s been stinking up the place all day. You can nuke him till he glows in the dark for all I care.
So the most humane thing to do is win it, win it quickly and decisively, and rebuild from there, secure in the knowledge that we did what we had to do, and that the cause was right and just.
Er, what was the cause again?
Off topic, cranky?
You guys just don’t want to admit that if Bush was a better president and his supports less fanatical…the Republicans would still be running things.
Did you really expect a majority of Americans to fall for your thinly veiled racism?
Ever notice how monky eventually always proves your points for you?
Yeah, I’ve noticed. I wasn’t even referring to anything he’d already said, but I knew, eventually, he’d go off topic. It’s a compulsion with him.
At this point, I don’t think monky is adding anything to the conversation. Throwing out generalizations that even he must see as ludicrous is evidence that he is here to do nothing else but bask in the attention we pay him.
I think I’ll show him the door.
Bravo!
Ah, God bless ya, Jeff me boy!
yay!
sorry to go off topic there.
I really don’t have anything to add. all I can do is support my husband and let others know what he’s up to and why he(and quite a few of those also serving) feels it’s important. they aren’t stupid, they haven’t been duped, they truly wish to protect their loved ones and their country.
I couldn’t figure out how to do the deletions easily, and it would only apply to the “usual suspects,” if ya know what i mean.
Of all the comment threads in all the blogsites in all the internet, monkeyboy had to walk into ours.
If Rick had just been smart enough to toss Ilsa out on her ear the first night she walked into the Cafe American, think how much better off they all would have been. So too with monkeyboy.
We’ll always have Balloon Fence……..
I like the way you think.
I agree with the 1/3s analysis. But I don’t think Bush and the war suffered from Bush’s attempts to play bipartisan. Instead, I think it was the transformation of a conservative political party into a jingoistic, tax-cutting, arrogant (and in charge–that fatal catalyst the Dems will have to deal with now, at least in Congress–,) spend-o-rific, Grand Ole Party to God’s Own Praetorians, group of people who consider any oversight of the war to be unpatriotic. After all, what’s more unpatriotic than a war where political cronyism isn’t rewarded, government power isn’t increased, and civil liberties aren’t corroded?
If the outcome would have been planned, the costs of the war (deaths, injuries, credit rating, international image) wouldn’t be such a factor. Our troops are the best in the world, kicked complete ass and still do everytime an enemy is stupid enough to face us, and, all idiocy aside (How’s the federal pen, Ms. Englund?,) have our support. But this war in Iraq has been a debacle of bad political decisions.
We can leave right away, the blood will flow, and we’ll probably get Gaza East in the middle, a Non-Kurdistan in Name Only up north, and a Shiite southern part that should probably scare the bejeezus out of us. Or we could not leave (yet), the blood will flow, and we’ll probably still get that same partitioning (or we could actually promote it to some extent and look like it was part of our plan.) Or we can stay, our heads ripe with fantasies that the people of Iraq feel a great fervor toward their homeland, with its illustative history of autocracy, cartographic convenience for colonial European powers, and death squads for anyone who doesn’t quite agree.
I’ll take door number two.
..it would have been unprecedented.
You don’t plan outcomes, you can only hope for them.
Forgive me, Pablo. Sorry for the inconvenience my misuse of “outcome” may have caused. It’s almost as bad as if I didn’t use “is” clearly. By “outcome” I didn’t mean just “wha’happen next?” but a series of plans for what the military will do after invading Iraq. There was a lot of mopping up, securing essential points, et cetera. But there wasn’t a lot of big plans for what do do with the country of Iraq. And that is largely a political question, and it was answered, in my opinion, in a poor manner.
And when you send in tens of thousands of troops, you damn well should plan for an outcome. Or more than one. Maybe all of the more probable potential outcomes. To say, as you do, that “You don’t plan outcomes, you can only hope for them” is avoiding responsibility. Semantics may be on your side, but reality demands either better English usage on my part or a different government.
As i have been saying for a while now, Bush has been fighting this war like LBJ fought ‘Nam. It’s simply a waste of time and money to act like this is some silly game of tag.
Why was Bush silent while the Dems and the press covered him in a blizzard of bullshit?
Why is Sadr still alive? Why aren’t we bombing the crap out of mosques that are crammed with weapons? Why are those twenty-odd terrorists who were in a graveyard still alive? What was Bush thinking when he let the population run riot after Saddam fell? Why did he wait so long to go after the insurgents?
Why? Because we have no balls! It’s just that simple. Bush is afraid of the whiney little children in the MSM and the Democratic party. It’s hard to run a marathon after yuo’ve tied your own shoelaces together.
The USA is losing all credibility, and Bush is running around the world beating the bushes (no pun intended) for John Murtha and John F(ing) Kerry. Are we really going to negotiate with Iran and Syria? Why doesn’t Bush just send us all a cherry bomb to stick up our own butts and detonate? Iran and Syria??? Did Bush lose an election, or did he have a lobotomy?
I was and am totally behind what we are trying to do in Iraq, but why don’t we do it, instead of playing patty cake with those murderous savages? Once we run away like sissies, we are schtupped.
I am still convinced that this war is winnable, but as long as the vast majority of Iraqis are convinced they can’t trust us (apparently with good reason), why should they stick their heads up and endanger themselves and their families? Does anyone actually believe that a very top heavy majority of 25 million Iraqis actually don’t want to live in peace and security? How many people will die after we run away this time?
If we’re not determined to kick ass, why bother to even put our boots on?
And yes, I do blame the MSM and the Democrats. If you listen to them, black is white, and white is black.
Bastards.
Does “Give it back to the Iraqis to run” ring a bell, jon?
You can also fight low intensity proxy conflicts like afghanistan in the 80’s or the terrorist states of central america. Those can go on for awhile, even despite congress cutting funds, if you can find some iranians to sell missles to.
jon;
While much of your comment was overheated political partisanship, I agree with the basic premise that we went to war in Iraq with a fundamental naivete about post military processes. Whether this was due to an intellegence failure with regards to the planning and execution of the Fedayeen insurgents or a critical lack of planning for post war organization (or both) it was most certainly a mistake. Forming governments based upon a political system that has scant experience in that part of the world is a time consuming and complicated enterprise. Throw in the sectarian divisions and you have the formula for our current situation.
That having been said, I do not believe that the left has helped by framing the argument with “blood for oil,” “Bush lied, people died,” or in displaying an stunning and worrisome ignorance of the nature of the jihadist threat. Your language above reveals a purely partisan take, a hard headed obsession with denigrating the “powers that be” instead of dealing forthrightly with the real issues of the GWOT. The end result is the inevitable response from those of us who feel that, despite the flaws, there was a singular and reasonable purpose to this enterprise beyond cronyism and neo-con chest thumping.
As long as your side of the aisle is significantly more interested smearing and second guessing, the feces with continue to be flung by both sides. I do, however, appreciate a “troll” post that at least attempts to make an argument in some depth rather than just exclusively engaging in either provocative sound bites, off topic sniping, or digital chest thumping.
If we’re going to be off-topic, monkeybaby, a thief is worse than a racist.
The typical American voter these days is an armed robber. This is called progressive.
> Instead, I think it was the transformation of a conservative political party into a … tax-cutting ….
How dare anyone cut taxes.
I wonder if there is any situation in which cutting taxes is the right thing. Is there any tax rate that they believe is too high?
I think we should make it a rule that anytime anyone mentions, in seriousness, the “corrosion” (or some like term) of “civil liberties,” one should be compelled to offer concrete examples.
Because otherwise, all they are doing is spitting up loaded buzzwords meant to insinuate malfeasance without having to show any.
Scaremongering, in other words.
And we all know that that’s solely the province of chest-thumping neocon war profiteers.
KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY BLOODLUST, HIPPIE!
Lol, Andy, that choice little piece of irony went right by me!
Let’s see, now …
tax cutting = jingoistic (speaking of jingoistic, spend some time at Kos, FireDogLake, or DU)
tax cutting = arrogant (’cause nothing says high brow elitism like allowing citizens to keep more of their earned income.)
tax cutting = Spend – o – rific (self evident irony)
ad nauseum
Maybe we can continue to play the “what does tax cutting equal?” Baby Killing? Tequilla Benders? Blood Diamonds? Nudist Colony Rashes?
Discuss…
Taxcutting equals putting tyrants out of business so they can do something useful, commensurate with their abilities, like mopping up Wal-Mart.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Those were completely different situations with completely different contexts and completely different objectives.
Other than that, and a half-dozen other differences that I just don’t have time to explain to an imbecile like you, it makes perfect sense to apply those solutions to the current scene.
but you’re still arguing that since things haven’t gone perfectly or well, somebody obviously didn’t plan. If you can point to any war that was exectuded perfectly because it was so well planned, I’d love to hear about it.
a thought has struck me lately that some people must live absolutely charmed lives because they have these expectations that everything should go according to plan. if anything goes wrong it’s because of poor planning, not unpredictable circumstance.
Every solder knows that plans ain’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Else, “no plan survives first contact with the enemy” would not be a military axiom. Else, initiative and improvisation would not be military virtues.
There was some discussion of the ‘el salvador option’ for Iraq a few months ago. But I’m not saying that we should do these things. I’m saying that americans can quite stomach the low intensity conflict of supporting terrrorist regimes.
And yet they have all those wargames and excercises and logistics and plans.
And yet they have all those wargames and excercises and logistics and plans.
I’m afraid if I ask you your age, you’ll tell me.
I think it’s called training.
You know, of all the stereotypes of military people, taht they don’t plan, thats the sillyest one ever.
I never said tax cutting was equal to anything else, just that it wasn’t conservative while at the same time enacting massive spending programs. That’s all. Taxes getting lower is a good thing, unless it makes the debt such that it will require tax increases in the future. And yes, that was a purely partisan series of comments, but it was what I saw in the party that supposedly suffered in the nation’s war effort from too much reaching out to people like me. And I was an early supporter of the war.
As for corrosion of civil liberties, how about wiretaps? Are you being listened to? Am I? Will warrants be revealed? Are there any warrants? The government lied about the scope and the scale of the taps. Chilling effects and all. And then there’s air travel. Watchlists of terrorists are ridiculous. They are just names. So some people–some absolutely innocent American citizens–get taken off flights because they share names with aliases or accomplices or some code name given by possible terrorists, while actual terrorists would use fake identification knowing that this person they just made up isn’t going to be on any watchlist. Then there’s the USAPATRIOTIC act, which would be okay with me if it had a line about “all the expanded powers for law enforcement, at all levels, granted by this act may only be used to prosecute and sentence terrorists.” Instead, it became the bend over and give your rights away act, since it allows secret evidence searches with suppressed warrants and other measures (now often seen in the GWODrugs, most recently amongst Atlanta’s nonegenarian classes) that I’m sure no one would complain about if they were used in anti-gun sweeps by a, just sayin’, President H. Clinton administration. Plus, she could listen in on the phone calls of people who happen to go to a church where the preacher doesn’t sufficiently condemn anti-abortion violence. I know that that may not be concrete enough, but the potential for misuse of power created by the actions of this administration can be summed up in that way: How would Hillary (or Sharpton/Boxer/Murtha/Byrd/whowever you fear most) use this power? If that gives you any pause, then it should give you pause now.
jon, perhaps this info will put you a bit more at ease?
“There’s only one way to be sure. Nuke if from space.”