Left, Right---Who is RIGHT?

2/24/07

I was listening to a radio show the other night, I think it was Dennis Prager. He said something that rang a bell with me. He noted that to the people on the right, liberals are often wrong, misguided, ignorant of some facts or even in some cases, nieve. Liberals on the other hand, always seem to see the people on the conservative side as evil. It is barely possible in some cases to have a political discussion with a "progressive" without being called a NAZI or being accused of wanting to go find an old person and beat them up and take their Social Security check and mail it to Haliburton.
We on the right see the war as something to protect western civilization. We see a threat from radical Islam that is intended to bring all the joys of Sheria Law to our shores. We see a continual progression from Ayatollah Khomeini to Osama Bin Laden and to Iran and Hesbolla. On the left, they see this as a mistaken effort to impose our will on the peaceful religion of Islam and in particular a distraction from the only true battle in the war on terror, Afghanistan.
We see the effort in Iraq as a noble deed. We are trying, against awful odds to allow a people who were trapped in tyranny to live as a free people. We may not succeed, but we are the only country in the world that would even try. As I understand the other side, they do not understand we are in a global war that is still raging and will continue to do so for many years if not decades. They want to use the criminal courts to punish terrorists after the fact of an attack. After all, they say, it is largely our fault that we are the target of attacks.
The answer to the question of who is right will come from history. I am afraid that in the short term that history will be written by mostly supporters of the left in the press and academia. The long term will tell. Will we have chaos reigning due to a major conflict raging that could possibly have been stopped in its infancy or will our peaceful offspring's look back in horror? I know what I think and there are times when I am afraid, very afraid.

Reply To Mr. Tom Poteete, Letter 2/1/07.

2/5/07


Tom,
I have a few notes in response to your letter. You mentioned that William Buckley, Charles Krauthammer and Newt Gingrich have expressed concern about how the war has been run.
So what is new? Can you name a war in which everything went as planned? NO. One of the axioms of war is that no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.
People ARE allowed to disagree with the President and his plan. Even you. Even me. The difference is that while disagreeing with the tactics they agree with the strategy. Gen Petraeus is the commander on site and the President is giving him, as he has done with previous commanders, what he requests. George Bush is the Commander-in-Chief. He gets advice from his onsite commanders. He has agreed with most of us, the old plan was not working. What would you have him do? Should he simply pull all troops out or keep doing things that fail? NO.
I don’t know you but I suspect that you do not believe we are in a long hard global war against Islamic militants. That is, I think, one of the major reason that the people of this country are more and more against the war. They do not understand the implications of losing this war. When asked what the consequences of leaving without winning would be, a frequent response is "it couldn’t be much worse than it is now". Please people, remember what is at stake. If we leave Iraq without some stabilization of the situation there are many consequences. The short term, local, consequence is that there will be a bloodbath that would be difficult to imagine. If you don’t believe that, you are naive. One of the long term consequences is that the world will see that the US cannot be trusted to keep it’s commitments.
Unlike Vietnam there would be an additional price to pay. We would leave a county that cannot maintain itself and would provide a haven for terrorists with resources from Iraqi oil to plan and execute worldwide terror against the western world.
Brownback and Hagel have abandoned the President on what large numbers of Republicans believe is the single most important issue that exists. Some of them will show up in the polls as against the current policy but I haven’t heard any alternative idea except surrender under many different names. If you have a way to resolve this issue, provide it.
Name calling is not productive. The fact of the matter is that I have not been provided with any examples of name calling by responsible conservatives. No one is happy about how things are going but name calling by either side is not productive. We need to pull together and find a way to solve this sticky problem Otherwise we will be still trying to solve it when bombs go off here in the US.