Bryan Strawser

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Daily Telegraph: Kerry isn’t the Answer

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Telegraph | Opinion | Kerry isn’t the answer:

Britain has 9,000 troops in Iraq, hundreds of whom are being drawn into the less stable regions of the country at American request. For the foreseeable future, our troops will play a central role in the bringing of order to the liberated country. Mr Bush has made many mistakes in Iraq. But one thing is certain: Saddam Hussein has been deposed. Mr Kerry is not even sure that the Iraqi dictator’s tyranny would be over had he been President. “He might be gone,” is as far as he was willing to go in an interview with NBC last week.

Indeed, Mr Kerry’s position on the war could scarcely be more muddled. The Senator voted for the invasion (unlike the first Gulf War, which he voted against). However, last October, he voted against an appropriation to support American soldiers dealing with the aftermath of a war he had approved. He has said that Mr Bush failed to commit enough troops to Iraq, but at the same time has promised to start bringing American soldiers home six months after taking office. Who, then, will plug the gap? The French foreign minister, Michel Barnier, has said that France will “never” send its troops to Iraq, even if Mr Kerry does win. Germany is no less forthright. How does the Democrat candidate propose to “win” in Iraq – as he says he would – in such operational circumstances?

Mr Kerry has done everything to encourage the charge that he is stranded in the world of September 10. “We have to get back to the place we were,” he said this month, “where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.” That would no doubt be desirable. But nothing Mr Kerry has said suggests that he knows how to achieve this goal. The intellectual vacuum at the heart of his candidacy has profound implications for Britain’s strategic interests and the lives of our troops: in both cases, this country would be better served by the re-election of Mr Bush.

Lileks: Find Bin Laden

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As usual, James Lileks adds much to the debate over the elections:

I am certain Bin Laden fears a Kerry presidency more than a Bush second term. He knows – and I think we all know this – that Kerry would summon in the military guys, and say “I want you to find bin Laden.”

Uh – sir, I don’t quite –

“I mean it. Find him. ”

You mean, find him? Why – such a thing has never been considered, sir; we’ve just been waiting for him to wander into camp looking for directions, or perhaps to use the bathroom. That whole Abu Ghraib thing – well as you no doubt know, we were just trying to provoke him to set his ol’ beard on fire and run screaming into camp waving a big-ass scimitar, and then we’d be like all Indy on him and pow! Pow! But it never worked out. We never even had a Plan B. Find him? You serious? This is so totally unexpected! You mean, actually go try and get him?

“That’s exactly what I mean. And I have a plan.”

Sir?

“I want you to go here –”

Where, exactly? Your hand is covering all of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan on the map –

“That’s right. I want you to go here, and I want you to look for him. And when you see him, get him. ”

Is that the plan, sir?

“No, there’s more. See this? I’ve drawn a blue line, making a wide new river to his exact position. Send the Navy.”

Uh – yes. Yes of course sir. Anything else, sir?

“Yes. Take this hat. If he’s invisible, you’ll see him – but only if you have the hat on. Now find him! ”

NY Daily News Endorses Bush

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New York Daily News – Politics – Editorial: Right war, right time, right man:

Kerry’s votes for and against the war and his shifting campaign rhetoric raise grave doubts about what, exactly, a President Kerry would do in Iraq. He emphasizes persuading countries like France and Germany to join the war effort, but they have said no and never. He promises to prosecute the war better than Bush, but he has not gone beyond pointing out every setback in the conflict.

Most seriously, Candidate Kerry’s clearest position on the war undercuts the cause a President Kerry would be obligated to fight. As Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland put it: “Kerry’s repeated denunciations of Iraq as the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time weaken the moral and perhaps even the legal base for ordering Americans to continue to fight there if he becomes President.” World leaders — those Kerry intends to rally and those already committed — could not responsibly risk their citizens in a misbegotten fight.

At this critical juncture, America cannot afford such a lack of clarity — or even a hint that a President would revert to playing defense rather than staying on the offensive. Nor would it be wise to change commanders midbattle in Iraq and around the globe, replacing a tested leader with a man who would have to learn on the job under the most difficult circumstances. With so much at stake, that’s a transition not to be wished for.

Returning Bush to office is the wise course, The News believes, despite our sharp disagreement with his domestic policies. Those pale in comparison with the overarching challenge of securing the nation and preserving New York’s vital way of life. Of the two candidates, Bush has the clearer vision for accomplishing the goal, as well as the greater experience. He gets our endorsement.

Chicago Tribune Endorses Bush

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I know I’m a bit behind in this news, but the Chicago Tribune has endorsed the re-election of President George W. Bush. Some of the more interesting portions of their endorsement are:

Bush’s sense of a president’s duty to defend America is wider in scope than Kerry’s, more ambitious in its tactics, more prone, frankly, to yield both casualties and lasting results. This is the stark difference on which American voters should choose a president.

There is much the current president could have done differently over the last four years. There are lessons he needs to have learned. And there are reasons–apart from the global perils likely to dominate the next presidency–to recommend either of these two good candidates.

But for his resoluteness on the defining challenge of our age–a resoluteness John Kerry has not been able to demonstrate–the Chicago Tribune urges the re-election of George W. Bush as president of the United States.

[…]

Bush, his critics say, displays an arrogance that turns friends into foes. Spurned at the United Nations by “Old Europe”–France, Germany, Russia–he was too long in admitting he wanted their help in a war. He needs to acknowledge that his country’s future interests are best served by fixing frayed friendships. And if re-elected, he needs to accomplish that goal.

But that is not the whole story. Consider:

Bush has nurtured newer alliances with many nations such as Poland, Romania and Ukraine (combined population, close to 110 million) that want more than to be America’s friends: Having seized their liberty from tyrants, they are determined now to be on the right side of history.

Kerry is an internationalist, a man of conspicuous intellect. He is a keen student of world affairs and their impact at home.

But that is not the whole story. Consider:

On the most crucial issue of our time, Kerry has serially dodged for political advantage. Through much of the 2004 election cycle, he used his status as a war hero as an excuse not to have a coherent position on America’s national security. Even now, when Kerry grasps a microphone, it can be difficult to fathom who is speaking–the war hero, or the anti-war hero.

Kerry displays great faith in diplomacy as the way to solve virtually all problems. Diplomatic solutions should always be the goal. Yet that principle would be more compelling if the world had a better record of confronting true crises, whether proffered by the nuclear-crazed ayatollahs of Iran, the dark eccentrics of North Korea, the genocidal murderers of villagers in Sudan–or the Butcher of Baghdad.

In each of these cases, Bush has pursued multilateral strategies. In Iraq, when the UN refused to enforce its 17th stern resolution–the more we learn about the UN’s corrupt Oil-for-Food program, the more it’s clear the fix was in–Bush acted. He thus reminded many of the world’s governments why they dislike conservative and stubborn U.S. presidents (see Reagan, Ronald).

Bush has scored a great success in Afghanistan–not only by ousting the Taliban regime and nurturing a new democracy, but also by ignoring the chronic doubters who said a war there would be a quagmire. He and his administration provoked Libya to surrender its weapons program, turned Pakistan into an ally against terrorists (something Bill Clinton’s diplomats couldn’t do) and helped shut down A.Q. Khan, the world’s most menacing rogue nuclear proliferator.

[…]

Kerry, though, has lost his way. The now-professed anti-war candidate says he still would vote to authorize the war he didn’t vote to finance. He used the presidential debates to telegraph a policy of withdrawal. His Iraq plan essentially is Bush’s plan. All of which perplexes many.

Worse, it plainly perplexes Kerry. (“I do believe Saddam Hussein was a threat,” he said Oct. 8, adding that Bush was preoccupied with Iraq, “where there wasn’t a threat.”) What’s not debatable is that Kerry did nothing to oppose White House policy on Iraq until he trailed the dovish Howard Dean in the race for his party’s nomination. Also haunting Kerry: his Senate vote against the Persian Gulf war–driven by faith that, yes, more diplomacy could end Saddam Hussein’s rape of Kuwait.

[…]

This country’s paramount issue, though, remains the threat to its national security.

John Kerry has been a discerning critic of where Bush has erred. But Kerry’s message–a more restrained assault on global threats, earnest comfort with the international community’s noble inaction–suggests what many voters sense: After 20 years in the Senate, the moral certitude Kerry once displayed has evaporated. There is no landmark Kennedy-Kerry Education Act, no Kerry-Frist Health Bill. Today’s Kerry is more about plans and process than solutions. He is better suited to analysis than to action. He has not delivered a compelling blueprint for change.

For three years, Bush has kept Americans, and their government, focused–effectively–on this nation’s security. The experience, dating from Sept. 11, 2001, has readied him for the next four years, a period that could prove as pivotal in this nation’s history as were the four years of World War II.

That demonstrated ability, and that crucible of experience, argue for the re-election of President George W. Bush. He has the steadfastness, and the strength, to execute the one mission no American generation has ever failed.

The Boston Globe, on the same Sunday two weeks ago, endorsed John Kerry. Truly, I expected nothing less – he is, after all, the hometown candidate. And, the Boston Globe, for all of its protests to the contrary, is a very liberal newspaper. So their endorsement of Senator Kerry was not a surprise to me.

I was shocked though that 90% of their endorsement was about domestic policy and hardly mentioned the real issues in this election: National Security, Terrorism, Foreign Policy. In my mind, and the minds of many, these are the three intertwining issues that will define the next four years for the United States. Then again, we are talking about the Boston Globe here…

In any event, I was quite pleased with the Trib’s endorsement of President Bush’s re-election – and their thoughts and ideas closely reflect my own.

GAME TWO IS IN THE BAG

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He did it again – undergoing surgery on his tendon in order to pitch this game – just as he had for game 7 of the ALCS in New York. And once again, he delivered – in the midst of pain, bleeding, and the risk of permanent injury to his ankle. Courage? You bet.

“I care so much about my teammates that I’ll do anything that I have to do to contribute – to help this team”

– Curt Schilling

The Boston Globe reports it as follows:

It might have been the last Fenway Park game of the magical 2004 season. And if it was, there’ll be a parade in Boston sometime before Election Day . . . perhaps the grandest celebration in 374 years of Hub history.

Curt Schilling, the gifted, gritty veteran who has given whole new meaning to red sock, hurled Boston’s Laughing Gas House Gang to a 6-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the second game of the World Series last night. The Red Sox lead the best-of-seven, 2-0, and if they can win twice in the next three days at Busch Stadium, the Sox will have their first World Series championship since 1918.

In other words, put pink champagne on ice, but keep it corked. The Cardinals were 53-28 at home this year and Red Sox Nation would do well to remember 1986, when the Sox won the first two games of the World Series at Shea Stadium only to lose four of the last five to the New York Mets. The Sox have not been in a World Series since that fateful event.

The 37-year-old Schilling, who said he came to Boston to win a World Series, pitched six innings of four-hit, one-run (unearned) ball, working again while blood seeped into the white sanitary hose that covers his sutured right ankle. The surgical procedure, designed to stabilize a dislocated tendon in Schilling’s ankle, worked for the second time in less than a week. It was a franchise-record, sixth consecutive postseason win for Boston.

Tx Schilling G2 All

The Red Sox won again, by the way, 6-2 at Fenway Park here in Boston. Tomorrow is an off day with three games up next in St. Louis.

I BELIEVE.

Woodward: 21 Questions for Kerry

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Today’s Washington Post contains an article by Bob Woodward outlining his attempts to interview John Kerry about his stance on Iraq and how he would have approached the issue as President – had he been there instead of President Bush.

Some background from Woodward:

In August, I was talking with Kerry’s scheduler about possible dates. On Sept. 1, Kerry began his intense criticism of Bush’s decisions in the Iraq war, saying “I would’ve done almost everything differently.” A few days later, I provided the Kerry campaign with a list of 22 possible questions based entirely on Bush’s actions leading up to the war and how Kerry might have responded in the same situations. The senator and his campaign have since decided not to do the interview, though his advisers say Kerry would have strong and compelling answers.

Because the interview did not occur, it is not possible to do the side-by-side comparison of Bush’s record and Kerry’s answers that I had envisioned. But it seems to me that the questions themselves offer a useful framework for thinking about the role of a president who must decide whether to go to war.

Beyond the appearance of Senator Kerry ducking this interview – I found Woodward’s questions to be difficult and hard-hitting. Here’s a sample of the first few questions:

1. On Nov. 21, 2001, just 72 days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush took Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld aside and said he wanted to look at the Iraq war plans. Bush directed Rumsfeld not to talk to anyone else, including the National Security Council members and the CIA director.

Questions: If a President Kerry wanted to look at war plans pertaining to a particular country or threat, how would he go about it? Who would be included? What would the general war-planning process be in a Kerry administration? Was it reasonable to look at Iraq at that time?

2. The CIA was asked in late 2001 to do a “lessons learned” study of past covert operations in Iraq and concluded that the CIA alone could not overthrow Saddam Hussein and that a military operation would be required. The CIA soon became an advocate for military action.

Questions: How can such advocacy be avoided? The CIA argued that a two-track policy — negotiations at the U.N. and covert action — made their sources inside Iraq believe the United States was not serious about overthrowing Saddam. Can that be avoided? How can diplomacy and covert action be balanced?

3. In January 2002 President Bush gave his famous “axis of evil” speech singling out Iraq, Iran and North Korea as threats.

Questions: Was this speech too undiplomatic? How would a President Kerry frame the issues and relations with Iran and North Korea? Do you consider these two countries part of an axis of evil now?

4. On Feb. 16, 2002, the president signed a secret intelligence order directing the CIA to begin covert action to support a military operation to overthrow Saddam, ultimately allocating some $200 million a year. Bush later acknowledged to me that even six months later, in August, the administration had not developed a diplomatic strategy to deal with Iraq.

Questions: How should military planning, CIA activities and diplomacy (and economic sanctions and the bully pulpit) fit together to form a policy?

Woodward is not only the consummate insider – he’s clearly a tough interviewer. I’d love to read the Senator’s answers to these questions.. but I guess he’s too afraid to answer them.

Bill Whittle on Deterrence

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Last week I finally posted a longish post about the war that we’re in. While it took me many weeks to put those thoughts onto virtual paper – Bill Whittle, in a fantastic essay in two parts, has written something far beyond what my poor skills as a scribe can fathom.

Some excerpts:

And all of this rage and fury and spitting and tearing up of signs, all of these insults and spinmeisters and forgeries and all the rest, seem to come down to the fact that about half the country thinks you deter this sort of thing by being nice, while the other half thinks you deter this by being mean.

It’s really just that simple.

Now if sociology were a real science, we could set up experiments. We could, in fact, do what just about every one of us – Liberal or Conservative — has, in our heart of hearts, secretly wanted to do: send that 50% of idiots on the other side packing – I mean, really packing, as in, out of the country, for good — and let history show we were right after all.

We imagine an America made up exclusively of tough-minded Conservatives would be a far better, a safer and stronger place, than an America composed of nothing but compassion-filled Liberals.

They, of course, think precisely the opposite. And I have, over the past two years, determined that internet comment threads do not hold the answer to this predicament. Theirs, and ours, are usually just cheerleading sessions, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing but a soothing reduction in blood pressure brought about by the narcotic high of being agreed with.

We can’t, alas, deport all the left wingers and they cannot, damn it, silence all the right wingers. We are stuck with each other. Each sees the press as biased toward the other, and each gapes in awe and amazement that the other side could possibly feel the same way.

And although we can not run an experiment to look into the alternate futures to glean the best result, to determine the relative benefits of being nice or being mean – for those, ultimately, are the choices, believe it or not – we can at least look back to see which seems to have produced the best results in the laboratory of history.

It all comes down to carrots (liberals) or sticks (conservatives). By the way: if you’re in a rush and need to run, here’s the spoiler: You can offer a carrot. Not everybody likes carrots. Some people may hate your carrot. Your carrot may offend people who worship the rutabaga. But no one likes being poked in the eye with a stick. That’s universal.

I’m a stick man. I wish it were different. But part of growing up – in fact, the essential part of growing up – is realizing that wishing does not make it so.

Folks, it’s time to reach down deep and get in touch with our inner adult.

And another:

This line, this doctrine – either you’re with us or the terrorists – has drawn derision and scorn from the nuanced sophisticates from around the world. What they refuse to see is that in one brilliant stroke it cuts the camouflage away from terror, and in effect neutralizes the very lever that makes International Terror so effective a tool: deniability. More on this in a moment.

I sat amazed at the confidence and the vision President Bush outlined in that speech. I remember saying out loud, to no one in particular, “I was wrong about this man.” A few of the grips nodded in silence. None of us took our eyes off the TV screen.

You simply have to read what he’s written. Part One and Part Two.