Pierre Legrand’s Pink Flamingo Bar

Democracy as a solution to terror.

Here is candidate Bush discussing nation building during a debate with Gore in 2000.

I don’t think so. I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I’m missing something here. I mean, we’re going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war. That’s what it’s meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops.

Sounds like a well thought out coherent idea of exactly what our military is designed to accomplish. When Candidate Bush uttered those words during a debate little did he know that 9/11 lay ahead. He had no idea that he would find himself betraying well thought out ideas on the use of our military not more than 2 years later.

To be clear I believe the war was necessary since Saddam and the Taliban were both actively aiding and collaborating with our enemies. But I question the desire to build democracies where only chaos has reigned for so many years. I am not alone in wondering such things, Endgame Conservatives by Jed Babbin in the American Spectator.

We understand that Islamic terrorism cannot threaten us significantly without the support of nations. We are impatient with Mr. Bush’s neo-Wilsonianism because it allows the enemy and its apologists to control the pace and direction of the war. We are unwilling to allow the prosecution of this war against the terrorist nations to be delayed for however long it takes for Iraqis to sort themselves out. It is impossible for them to do so while neighboring nations — Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia — actively interfere. Endgame conservatives don’t want to be caught in the web of failed nostrums of Vietnam. We won’t wait for Islam to be reformed or to win the hearts and minds of the mullahs in Tehran.

Further down in the article Jed Babbin makes the point explicitly.

Mr. Bush’s democratization strategy, naive and Wilsonian, has put us in the posture of strategic defense. His original formulation — that nations are either with us or against us — has been whittled away to a confrontation-cum-engagement strategy that enables Iran to offer cooperation in Iraq while buying time to build nuclear weapons.

We are pursuing a policy of democratization in the Middle East as part of the overall strategy to end the threat of terror attacks against the United States in other words, we are Nation Building. Contrary to candidate Bush’s words our military is deeply enmeshed in two countries attempting to accomplish what candidate Bush declared was not the military’s responsibility, nation building. Four years down the road some of us who advocated going to war are wondering is this wise in a part of the world that is driven by a religion which defines all parts of a persons life, including the political? A part of the world where the idea of rendering unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar runs counter to the religion which defines the majority of people in the Middle East. A part of the world where the very idea of equality of the sexes and of religion, one of the central concepts of Democracy, is unknown.

For those who have trouble with my assumptions regarding Islam I am simply regarding the evidence of its goals . For more concrete criticisms see Roger Kimball’s “Why the West?” Also don’t miss Amir Taheri’s “ISLAM IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH DEMOCRACY “. Let me provide a mere snippet and encourage you to read the whole thing. First Amir explains that it is good that the debate was being conducted in English since many of the languages from his part of the world had no words for several of the key concepts of Democracy. He goes on to discuss equality which is such a key concept of Democracy.

Lest us return to the issue of equality.
The idea is unacceptable to Islam.
For the non-believer cannot be the equal of the believer.
Even among the believers only those who subscribe to the three so-called Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Ahl el-Kitab) are regarded as fully human.
Here is the hierarchy of human worth in Islam:
At the summit are free male Muslims
Next come Muslim male slaves
Then come free Muslim women
Next come Muslim slave women.
Then come free Jewish and /or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian men
Then come slave Jewish and/or Christian women.
Each category has rights that must be respected.

President Bush has repeatedly emphasized the fact that Islam is a peaceful religion. He goes on to say that it has been hijacked by radicals that are perverting the tenets of Islam to suit their evil purposes. Nowhere does he explain how that idea of Islam as a peaceful religion compares to Islams record of conquest starting with Mohammed’s record of making war to win slaves and treasure . Never once does he explain how his idea of a peaceful Islam matches up to the startling record of armed conquest that Islam displayed from Mohammed’s raids of Meccan caravans to the Gates of Vienna where in 1683 the attempted Islamic conquest of Europe was finally put down. Never once does President Bush or his advisor’s explain that Mohammed himself would have been far more likely to associate with Bin Laden than to associate with the small but brave bands of Muslims calling for a reformation. Mohammed was likely a Islamist by our own definition.

It is clear that President Bush’s belief that Islam has been hijacked by radicals leads him to believe that if only the people of the Middle East could be liberated then the threat of terror would subside. Yet when polled the people of Islam have repeatedly shown high levels of approval for those who have murdered us in the thousands. Muslims, in states considered moderate such as Indonesia the most populous Islamic nation in the world, when polled as recently as 2005 showed a 36% confidence in Bin Laden. Admittedly this is better than the 56% confidence shown by the same group in 2003 but how much of that decline is due to disagreement with the policies of Al Qaeda towards “infidels” or does it have to do with declining interest because Al Qaeda seems not to be the “strong horse” anymore?

When my wife read over the first draft of this essay she wondered why I was dredging up statements made by candidate Bush 6 years ago. People change and so do circumstances and so she implied it would be natural for them to re-examine their premises and decide on a different course. No doubt this is true to some certain extent but to me the sort of fundamental changes we saw in candidate Bush and President Bush deserves a serious look and at least perhaps even a protest or two from his supporters. After all when we choose a President we must consider his words at the time of the election as some sort of indication regarding where he might lead us. Most of us agreed with his sentiments then. I suspect that many would agree that candidate Bush and President Bush are separated by a divide that none of us saw coming. A divide that many of us are extremely uncomfortable with and probably would not have supported had we known.

Claudia Rosett in a Sept 27, 2001 Opinion Journal article, Against ‘Nation Building’ Finally, a coherent post-Cold War foreign policy. cited candidate Bush’s understanding that nation building was not a task for the US Military. She specifically states:

If you actually listen to what Mr. Bush keeps saying, this war is not a utopian quest to fix every problem on the planet, or even to redeem most of the sadder nations. All the signs are that Mr. Bush has a plan more focused, and more viable. This is a fight to establish civilized international codes of conduct and persuade all relevant parties that they will pay an unbearably high price for such rogue behavior as helping terrorists.

From my reading of the 2nd Debate between Candidate Bush and Vice President Gore this is an accurate representation of what President Bush led us to believe were his beliefs regarding military action. For instance using the transcript available here one can see he is very clear about his feelings towards nation building, here are several exchanges relating to committing troops that illustrate the point:

MODERATOR: Well, let’s stay on the subject for a moment. New question related to this. I figured this out; in the last 20 years there have been eight major actions that involved the introduction of U.S. ground, air or naval forces. Let me name them. Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo. If you had been president for any of those interventions, would any of those interventions not have happened?

Gore response snipped for brevity and additionally because the man has gone stark raving mad. Pretty soon I suspect he will be giving speeches on the new favorite topic of all the smartest Leftists, 9/11 was an inside job.

MODERATOR: Sure, absolutely, sure. Somalia.

BUSH: Started off as a humanitarian mission and it changed into a nation-building mission, and that’s where the mission went wrong. The mission was changed. And as a result, our nation paid a price. And so I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation-building. I think our troops ought to be used to fight and win war. I think our troops ought to be used to help overthrow the dictator when it’s in our best interests. But in this case it was a nation-building exercise, and same with Haiti. I wouldn’t have supported either.

MODERATOR: You said in the Boston debate, Governor, on this issue of nation building, that the United States military is overextended now. Where is it overextended? Where are there U.S. military that you would bring home if you become president?

BUSH: First let me just say one comment about what the vice president said. I think one of the lessons in between World War I and World War II is we let our military atrophy. And we can’t do that. We’ve got to rebuild our military. But one of the problems we have in the military is we’re in alot of places around the world.

Rebuilding our military is an interesting comment that perhaps deserves an entire article. Lets simply note that military spending as a percentage of GDP has not shown any great increase, indeed it remains at or near the lowest level it achieved during President Clinton’s term. The facts show the story of a nation unwilling to dedicate the same percentage of funds towards its own defense as it did when a substantially more rational enemy was faced across the Rubicon. (1990=5.6, 1991=5.0, 1992=5.2, 1993=4.8, 1994=4.3, 1995=4.0, 1996=3.7, 1997=3.5, 1998=3.3, 1999= 3.3)Defense spending in 2006 remained at 3.7% of GDP a level not far from the lowest point of the Clinton years and which we were led to believe by Candidate Bush was too low.

One might be forgiven for wondering how much different Iran would be acting right now if they understood that we had the 24 Divisions we used to sustain in 1980 instead of the paltry 10 that we have now. How might they be behaving if they understood that we were configured and trained to go against two major powers (China and Russia at our strongest who in retrospect were a great deal more rational than our current crop of enemies) at once much less two incompetent countries in the Middle and Near East. Those who point to increases in our Defense budget might want to explain how it is we got down to 10 Divisions? Exactly what are we supposed to do if N. Korea decides to get antsy? But I digress… President Bush has not delivered on the promise to stop the atrophy of our military. Indeed events have conspired to aggravate the problem that Candidate Bush was so rightly concerned about and President Bush has not rectified the issues and furthermore shows no inclination to admit error. Finally regarding this issue of spending, how can we be at war when our military spending as a percentage to our GDP is near the lowest levels in history? Are we so arrogant that we believe we can fight a war of survival on the cheap?

Lets get back to the 2nd Bush Gore Debate for some more insights into candidate Bush’s beliefs prior to becoming President.

MODERATOR: The use of the military, there — some people are now suggesting that if you don’t want to use the military to maintain the peace, to do the civil thing, is it time to consider a civil force of some kind that comes in after the military that builds nations or all of that? Is that on your radar screen?

BUSH: I don’t think so. I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I’m missing something here. I mean, we’re going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war. That’s what it’s meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops. I strongly believe we need to have a military presence in the peninsula, not only to keep the peace in the peninsula, but to keep regional stability. And I strongly believe we need to keep a presence in NATO, but I’m going to be judicious as to how to use the military. It needs to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the extra strategy obvious. (Emphasis mine)

So then we find ourselves deeply enmeshed in Iraq and Afghanistan attempting to fulfill the very ambition that we were led to believe by Candidate Bush was such a contradiction to the military’s primary duty to fight and win war. To further compound the difficulties of our ambition we are attempting to change a region whose primary identifying mark is a religion that prides itself in standing apart from others, those it calls infidels and apostates. What sort of arrogance is it that declares that Islam will reform to suit a system of government that respects the rights of individuals when Islam subsumes the individual to Allah’s will. Here is Amir Taheri again on the subject of Islam and Democracy .

Those who claim that Islam is compatible with democracy should know that they are not flattering Muslims.

Do we believe that the followers of Islam have been asleep though the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution? Did they miss the Emancipation of the Slaves in the United States some 140 years ago? Saudi Arabia as late as the 1960’s continued to allow slavery. We act as if Muslims have been children asleep for the last 500 years. Perhaps they have seen what we have to offer and have decided that what we have gained is not enough to let go of what they hold dear?

So then what are we to do? Perhaps “The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli” can lend some insight.

Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you.

Indeed it would seem that we are not feared. Those countries who we consider our allies in this war, allies not because we protect their corrupt regimes or those who merely remain allies as long as the money flows but allies based on shared philosophy, are seen as weak by the enemy. How else can you imagine a country so weak as Syria being bold enough to test our will by delivering arms and terrorists to attack the US Armed Services and our allies in Iraq? What else explains Iran boldly delivering weapons to Hezb’allah to attack Israel. Who would have imagined back on 9/20/2001 when President Bush spoke these words so forcefully:

We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

That nations like Syria, Iran and others would take an active role in murdering US Soldiers and our philosophical allies with absolutely no penalty from the very same administration that uttered such a call to arms. Could it be that our enemies looked to that very same speech and saw the contradictions? Did they see immediately that which took me five years to understand? In those contradictions did they understand that no nation led by such contradictions should be feared? Is not a clear philosophy one of the most basic requirements of victory?

For almost 5 years I have considered President Bush’s speech on 9/20/2001 to be just the right speech at just the right time. Now I wonder if President Bush was being honest with us. Did he notice the contradictions in that very speech? For instance when he spoke these words:

They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.

Was President Bush being ironic? Ok I shouldn’t be flippant, I know he wasn’t being ironic but my gosh exactly how does one condemn the so-called radicals in Islam for wanting to expel Christians and Jews while in the very same breath mention Saudi Arabia and Egypt? Should I remind you, my gentle readers, that both of those nations have laws that restrict the rights of Christians? Indeed in Saudi Arabia merely wearing the cross can get you killed. Wouldn’t it have been at least consistent to have condemned those nations whose actions lead to the same end state as those rascally impatient radicals?

Both want to reach the same nirvana, no Jews or Christians in the world and especially not living next door. One wants to murder us till we are all gone the other being just a touch more rational understands that it might be more prudent to achieve their aims a bit more slowly. Are we merely upset at the so called radicals methods and not their desired end state? Did the Bush administration understand that attacking the end state might implicate a few of our allies?

At this point I should mention an article that has had a huge impact on my views on this war. “The First Terrorist War” by Vanderleun spelled out in precise terms exactly where the true battle lies. But let me quote from two paragraphs to show the power of this essay and to also encourage you to read the entire article.

Through the violent attacks of a Radical Islam, two religions have been brought into conflict. The first is that of Islam, a faith that at its core requires absolute submission from its adherents, and looks towards the subjugation of the world as its ultimate apotheosis. As the youngest of the monotheistic religions, Islam is at a point in its development that Christianity passed through centuries ago. And it is not with Christianity that Islam is currently at war. Islam is saving that for the mopping up phase of its current campaign. The religion that Islam has engaged is a much younger one, the religion of Freedom.

As a religion Freedom has been gaining converts since the success of the American Revolution enabled it to go forth and be preached to the world. Freedom is easily the most popular of the new religions and historically converts nearly 100% of all populations in which it is allowed to take firm root. This is the religion which we have lately brought to Iraq.

The Military is designed to fight and win wars exactly as candidate Bush declared. But to accomplish this we must have some knowledge regarding who it is we fight. Attempting to identify friend or foe between those whose only difference lies in their methods for achieving their “end state” has caused us incredible confusion and no doubt has emboldened our enemies.

Total War or nuking all the muslims and other childish attempts at strawmen.

Some say that we needed allies to win this war and on that point there can be little argument. But can we afford to hold our noses and bear the stink of tyranny in the quest of questionable allies? What do we lose in the process of turning the other way while supposedly close allies continue to act in ways towards their people that if we faced such acts would cause us to go to war? Put simply if we are fighting Al Qaeda to prevent them from forcing their way of life upon us how do we stand allies who already accomplish either all or much of that crime against their own people? Are we merely fighting a method or an end state? Is it only the fact that Al Qaeda engages in wholesale murder that causes us to reject their demands or do we reject their view of the world? Could we accept their view of the world if they did not engage in murder to achieve it?

We are at war with those in Islam who believe it is their duty to convert by sword or word the entire world. We are at war with the idea that any religion can take the place of a government by the people where the rights of the individual are guaranteed by law and that is understood to be inviolable by any religion. Perhaps Islam can stand beside Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism in our world but can it accept that all of them stand to the side of any government which guards against the depredations of any single religion declaring it has the right to guide in every detail?.

Candidate Bush was right, our armies are not meant for building nations. Especially for people who simply have no desire for the sort of nations we understand and can show them how to build. The people of the Middle East are not children nor are they stupid, they have merely chosen another way to live. They have seen our world and apparently rejected it.

We need to get over the shock of such a revelation. We must realize that we are in a race for our very lives. This foolish attempt to moderate a religion that has not moderated in its history before a band of fanatics from that very religion gain access to nuclear weapons, which should they gain only 5, would change our world into a nightmare, is pure folly. Stating the problem so plainly leaves me wondering exactly what sort of nonsense our nation is engaged in right now.

Some say that it is only a small minority who actively seek our destruction and yes that may be true in the sense that any Army is smaller than the population that supports it. But polls around the Muslim world show a level of support for those who would murder us in our sleep that might shock you if you bothered to look. For instance in Indonesia a supposedly moderate Islamic State Bin Laden received a 58% vote of confidence in 2003 and yes it went down to 36% in 2005. Hitler gained power in Germany with right around 37% of the vote.

So instead of Nation Building perhaps our time would be better spent waging fear instead of freedom. Our softness has allowed the fear of our might to morph into a joke told by thugs the world over. Attack the United States in the heart of it’s cities murdering thousands on national TV and they will engage in a national debate on whether they deserved it or not. Plant a plane full of innocents, some of whose throats you have slashed in front of their children, into the Pentagon the very heart of the Military and instead of righteous anger blowing down paper thin thugs holding office by force in the Middle East we will engage in debates on how to respond. We are no longer men instead we have become exactly what Bin Laden and Saddam told their troops we are, Paper Tigers who flinch at shadows and thrust at allies.

Perhaps we are at a point where our very softness will encourage Iran or Syria or North Korea to give terrorists the tools to bring down the obstacle to their collective dreams. Maybe instead of trying to moderate fanatics we should be instilling fear into the hearts of the old men who run those governments. We could accomplish this in part by increasing our defense spending to the point that no country or group of countries in the world would imagine that we are overextended. By spending above 6% of our GDP on the Military we would be sending unmistakable signals to the world that we are serious about defending ourselves.

But signals alone won’t be enough. We must also get in the habit of not asking for forgiveness when we defend ourselves. This would be done by striking without warning or permission against those countries who themselves declare us their enemy. Shaking off the ropes of our Lilliputian jailers in the UN would send an unmistakable signal that the giant has been aroused and we aren’t feeling charitable we have this right because we realize that we face an existential threat which demands war of the sort we have not waged since World War 2. Furthermore the same courtesy should be extended to those other countries facing the very same set of enemies we face. The time for chastising Israel when she defends herself is over.

Let those in the world who mean us and our allies ill, fear us. After some maniac in a backwards near third world country makes threats against us and our allies instead of a kabuki dance beginning with the UN, the very next pre dawn period finds B2’s prepping the battlefield for what is to come. No apologies, no explanations beyond the fact that in this day and age the United States will take all threats from possible nuclear powers seriously. No we will not be loved but we will be feared and then ultimately respected. We will prosper with respect.

“The idea that Islamic Warrior ie terrorists have no nation is incorrect for two reasons. All muslims belong to Islam and as such belong to the greater nation the Ummah. The sacred text of Islam, the Qur’an , uses term, ummah, to refer to the community of believers. The term is used to describe both individual communities, both great and small, of faithful Muslims and to refer to the world-wide community of believers-in the latter sense of the term it is synonymous with dar al-Islam, or “The House of Islam,” which refers to the world Islamic community.”

Tags: 2008, Anne Applebaum, BlogDesk, Cheney, Clinton, Hamas, Hesballah, Hezballah, Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Israel, Khomeni, Loose Change, McCain, Muslim, Pajama Media, President Bush, Saddam, Sam Harris, suitcase nukes, Syria, terrorism, terrorist, Washington Post, WMD

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