Freedom and Hope and Opportunity

America is supposed to be about freedom and hope and opportunity. That's what John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were selling and we ate it up. There's not a single candidate for President who is selling anything approaching the American ideal. All the Republicans have is fear. All the Democrats have is despair. Where's freedom and hope and opportunity? Did 9-11 kill those too along with 3000 Americans? We survive in the world by being "a shining city on the hill." Since 9-11, all we've offered the world is death and military oppression. We need someone to steer us back onto the path that makes us proud and the envy of the world. We defeat global Islamist terror by maintaining our ideals of freedom and hope and opportunity. Freedom from fear, hope for prosperity for our children and the opportunity to achieve both.

The US military throughout our history has had only one role. To kill and destroy the enemies of freedom and hope and opportunity. Armies don't build civil societies; people build civil societies. And they build them based on freedom and hope and opportunity. We can't remove tyranny from the world one dictator at a time. All we can do is encourage people to fight it themselves by our example and our support. We can't deliver the world from evil by doing evil ourselves. Everytime we use war as a solution to a problem, we get nothing but fear and suffering and despair. Wars are at times necessary, but should be used sparingly and only for a specifically stated purpose. Giving the President an open-ended declaration to use force was a huge mistake. We need to withdraw that declaration and work towards a more positive solution. One that replaces fear and suffering and despair with freedom and hope and opportunity. I believe that was the message of Baker-Hamilton. I am looking for the Presidential candidate who can offer that.

The "Surge" in Shambles

The so called "surge" was not the plan of the military commanders on the ground in Iraq. The "surge" was not cooked up by military planners in the Pentagon. The "surge" was dreamed up by a policy dink at the American Enterprise Institute. When the commanders on the ground refused to sign on, they were moved aside and replaced by commanders who would do what they were told.

Now that he has met the enemy face to face in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus has scrapped the new Iraqi Security Plan. The plan called for Iraqi security forces to take the lead. That has been dropped. The plan called for accelerated training of Iraqis. That has been put on hold. The plan now calls for US military forces to take full control of the entire country, and then turn over control to Iraqi forces. Iraqis will not control the security in the country by the end of the year, contrary to pronouncements by the Iraqi Prime Minister.

The US military doesn't have the personnel necessary to carry out this new plan. By the end of the summer, Gen. Petraeus will be asking for and getting further deployments of National Guard troops to the war zone. There will be no troop withdrawals from Iraq before 2009. And, if John McCain is elected President, those troops will remain until far into his presidency. There is no foreseeable end to our engagement in Iraq.

The troop surge is only about two-thirds deployed, but military casualties have doubled over the past two months. The Shiite militia are laying low, so sectarian killings are down. But they will wait only so long before rejoining the fight. The US military is right now at this moment Balkanizing Baghdad, walling off Sunni and Shiia districts. It is not stopping the suicide bombings, it is only concentrating the targets.

Our troops are in an untenable situtation. It is an entirely proper military strategy to withdraw and reassess the situation. But President Bush is intransegent in his blind religious fervor to save Iraq from itself.

How much more treasure and blood must be wasted before Congress exercises its Constitutitional authority to put a stop to this fiasco? Congress had to give authority for this war to start and Congress can withdraw that authority anytime it sees fit. Only Congress can declare war and only Congress can declare peace. The blood of brave American soldiers is on Congress, now.

The blood of the innocent Americans who will be killed as a result of our failure in Iraq is solely the responsibility of George Bush.

Enforced Democracy

In an article entitled "Let Freedom Ring" about additions to Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech, Time wrote, "The sober, wise Wall Street Journal editorialized for still another: "The freedom of every people to reject any or all of the other four, for themselves, if they so desire." Reason: "Democracy will become the political salvation of the race, if and as it is voluntarily embraced by non-democratic peoples and adapted to their respective conditions, but never if it is made a pretext for an attempt at enforced conformity.""

The War in Iraq is doomed to failure. Democracy can't be forced with the barrel of a gun. The people of Iraq are incapable of democracy. Democracy will only come to Iraq after a significant period of transition. You can't go from totalitarianism to democracy in a single step. The situtation in Iraq will only improve when Iraq gets a strong-willed leader who can force the competing factions to cooperate. The current Iraqi administration is too weak to survive long without the backing of the United States.

The democratic process brought totalitarianism to Germany in 1932. So, after 1945, western Germany was able to reestablish democracy in pretty short order. Japan had no tradition of democracy, but there was a populace compliant to the will of its emperor and when he endorsed democracy, the people willingly followed. Iraq has no history of democratic institutions to reestablish and there is no unifying political force to lead the people of Iraq to democracy.

John McCain is right. There will be dire consequences for failure in Iraq. The War in Iraq was a monumental mistake and there will be a heavy price to pay for that mistake. The "surge" is only delaying the inevitable unpleasantness and wasting American lives and treasure. One of those consequences, the terrorists following us here from Iraq, can be avoided if the President would enforce existing immigration laws. They can't attack us here if they can't get here. Security at all foreign US installations has to be significantly increased. And, Americans have to be strongly warned about their vulnerability overseas. We can't prevent the consequences of our failure, but we can prepare for them.

We must also learn three vital lessons from this fiasco. First, never give a President a blank check for aggressive action. There must always be clear objectives and a certain exit strategy. Second, nation building is not an acceptable use of the US military. It always backfires and further endangers us. And we must learn the unpleasant truth that not everyone in the world wants to be an American.

The world did not change on 9-11. Only the United States changed. There is still a military dictatorship in Pakistan. The people of Darfur are still suffering. Global temperatures are still rising. Poverty and AIDS are still rampant across Africa. The only thing that changed on 9-11 is that Americans realized that the world is a truly dangerous place and that no place on the planet is safe. That danger is largely of our government's own making. And, just as the Roman Empire couldn't protect its citizens everywhere in the world, the United States can't either. And, because of Iraq, the world will be an even more dangerous place and there is even less that the United States can do to protect us. Ramming democracy down the throats of the Iraqi people doesn't help.