I don’t really have anything awe inspiring to write about the conflict in Israel, other than it’s more of the same:

1.) Hamas and Co. fire rockets at Israel’s civilian centers.

2.) Israel puts up with it for months and then finally answers back.

3.) The world condemns Israel.

I do not believe this will ever change and thus, it does not surprise me or shock me when it occurs.  However, the conflict does touch on something that interests me and that was an issue during the Presidential campaign: negotiating with rogue regimes and their leaders.

During the Presidential campaign, Obama stated repeatedly that he didn’t see the big deal in sitting down and talking with our enemies.  His supporters often contend that this is one of the reasons the world no longer respects us, because of our “you’re either with us or against us” mentality.  This type of thinking is standard on the Left: if only our enemies really knew us, they’d like us more; if we could just sit down and talk with them, everything would be okay.  (This is in the same league of delusion as “you fear what you don’t understand.”  As Reagan said of Communism, we fear it because we understand it all too well.)

Don’t get me wrong, diplomacy is very important - vital in fact - but it is not the panacea for world peace that liberals often make it out to be.  Diplomacy is simply a means to an end.  It is not the end itself.  Meeting together and discussing peace or even signing a deal dedicated to peace means nothing unless both signatories have the intention of holding themselves (and each other) to that agreement.  Often, diplomacy is simply used as a stall tactic to buy time to gain the upper hand or as a way of blackmailing the world.  History is rife with examples of such tomfoolery.  Three off the top of my head:

1.)  The USSR repeatedly signed arms control treaties with the US only to violate them from day one of the treaty.  In the mind of the Soviets, arms control treaties were a good way to halt US arms production and therefore provide time to increase its own arms superiority.

2.)  North Korea on several occasions has agreed to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for tangible benefits.  Each time the US has agreed and some bright leader (often Jimmy Carter) comes home declaring “peace in our time,” only to be surprised a year later when the North Koreans renege on their commitment.

3.) During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese (and their communist sponsers in China and the Soviet Union) pushed for negotiations and conferences in order to end the violence.  When it was agreed to meet with them, the North Vietnamese simply used the time to lick their wounds and reconstitute the war effort, continuing the war once the negotiations were over.

In any of these instances, the question is always the same: why would the hostile party agree to a deal that is in exact opposition to its desired (and often stated) ends?  Why would Hamas actually commit to the Western definition of peace when the stated purpose of its organization is to eliminate the state of Israel?  Why would North Korea commit to give up its nuclear weapons program when it is the only thing that demands respect from the outside world and can be used every few years as a negotiating tool to receive things from the West that it otherwise could not hope to receive?  Why would Iran, a state whose leaders have stated their desire to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, not want the most destructive weapon on earth?

It is also important to consider what is meant by “peace.”  Peace is not simply the absence of armed conflict.  Whereas to communism peace was defined as living in a world without capitalist oppression of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat, to the Palestinians peace is defined as living in a world without Israel.  By these definitions, the West could not actually be “at peace” with the Soviet Union nor could Israel ever be “at peace” with the Palestinians.  Any deal suggesting otherwise is fools gold.  Unless there is a concrete reason to hope that the ends of a particular country will change, there is simply no point in discussing the matter with them and negotiating a peace settlement.  In fact, its actually dangerous to do so because it gives the appearance of peace where no peace actually exists.  Rather, the enemy is using your delusion to improve his ability to kill you or otherwise achieve his ends.  It is false peace, more dangerous than no peace at all.

The main issue to understand is that the world is not like the United States and most of its citizens do not think like Americans.  Americans value law and order, negotiating in good faith and the importance of a man’s word.  However, most societies around the globe do not value any of these ideals.  When Americans sign something, it means they agree to adhere to it; if they do not, the other party can take them to court and force them to adhere to it.  However, in most societies corruption is the norm and bribes are simply viewed as a necessary step in accomplishing something.  Contracts are as flexible as the relationship between the two parties and generally speaking, there is no legal system to enforce the letter of the law.  So to the non-Western world, why not sign a treaty with the United States or Israel if it means a few months or years of being able to pursue one’s goals without the economic and military pressure to cease?  History shows us that in such cases the burden of proof is on the accuser to provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that said nation is violating the treaty.  Even with today’s technology, this is not easy to do.

Those who subscribe to the peace delusion were defined by Lenin as “useful idiots,” blind to the real intentions of the Soviet Union, but useful in allowing the USSR to achieve its ends.  Sadly, the West is still populated with “useful idiots,” the majority of whom reside squarely on the Left of the political spectrum (see: Carter Jr., James Earl; Kennedy, Edward M.; Biden Jr., Josesph R.  The list is endless.)

Adding on to Walter’s point below, the myth of the government being able to “create jobs” is the “broken window fallacy” where the focus is on what is seen instead of what is unseen.

Paraphrasing, it goes as follows: if a store owner accidentally breaks his window, he must hire someone to fix it, thus providing that man with work. So it creates jobs right? Why not break more windows and thus, create more work for the populace? Because the store owner who is paying to have his window fixed cannot use that money for something else. As Stossel writes:

A broken shop window will create work for a glassmaker, but that work comes only at the expense of the cook or tailor the shopkeeper would have patronized if he didn’t have to replace the window.

In other words, if the store owner hadn’t broken his window he would’ve spent that money at lunch in a restaurant across the street or maybe bought his wife flowers on the way home or even put it in the bank to one day purchase a new home. As he spent his money on the window, he cannot spend it elsewhere.

Breaking proverbial windows to create jobs is the solution for failure. Only business owners can creates jobs that push the country forward. America did not become the world’s largest economy by having the government shuffle money around. Eventually, the electric car and alternative forms of energy will become realities because of human ingenuity improving technology to the point where it becomes profitable, not because the government raised taxes in order to subsidize the creation of the electric car or because the environmental lobby guilted the American people into taking public transportation. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the government setting goals for private industry or for the nation in general; however, to demand technological ingenuity with one hand while bailing out the auto industry with the other is utter foolishness. Would your teenager improve his grades if you bought him a car for getting a D on his report card?

A common fallacy on the Left is that the United States has never fought wars for humanitarian purposes, but rather only cynically goes to war when its national interests are at stake. This type of thinking results in “blood for oil” rhetoric that still has traction in many circles and is the primary complaint of those who wear Save Darfur t-shirts and blame the US for not stopping the genocide in Rwanda. Disregarding the question of whether or not it is ever prudent to go to war when it does not involve one’s national interests, the claim that the US has not is patently false. US History, particularly since World War II, presents countless examples:

The Iraq War/Persian Gulf War: If the US is as evil and manipulative as the Left seems to think, then why didn’t we just ally ourselves with Saddam? Why did we even have differing interests in the first place? After all, we were his allies in the 1980s when he was at war with Iran. Why wouldn’t we have simply allowed him to overrun Kuwait in 1990, benefiting handsomely from those actions? Because our foreign policy has never been as simple as pursuing the national interest.

Kosovo, et. al.: If our UN-backed foray into former Yugoslavia was not a humanitarian mission, than what is? Serbian Christians under Milosovic were exterminating Bosnian Muslims. Under Clinton, we bombed Milosovic into submission by targeting his energy resources in the middle of winter. Then UN/US troops were sent in to restore order. (Yes, this was not entirely a US affair, but the UN has never acted militarily without the United States. Do you really think the UN would’ve sent troops had the United States not been the primary actor?) But what does Yugoslavia have to do with US national interests? Nothing, but our foreign policy has never been as simple as pursuing the national interest.

Somalia: A small US force was sent in to stabilize the country and root out a few drug cartels. True, the horn of Africa is close to the world’s primary oil supply, but why not just let the country fall into disarray and deal with the victors like an 18th century European power would have done? Because our foreign policy has never been as simple as pursuing the national interest.

Vietnam/Korea: While the US entered these wars (the latter backed by the UN) in order to “contain communism,” how was it in the US interest to draw the line at Vietnam and Korea? They are not great powers. They have few natural resources. One could argue that they are in semi-strategic locations, but they are not geopolitical necessities where spending 13 years, billions of dollars, soft power reserves and hundreds of thousands of lives could make sense in light of the national interest. Even if the Domino Theory was proven true (which history proved otherwise), why not cede Indochina and Korea to Communism and draw the line at Japan or India, countries far more vital to US national security? Because our foreign policy has never been as simple as pursuing the national interest.

And this is only since World War II, arguably the only war in US history, other than the wars for independence (1776 and 1812) and the Spanish-American War (1898), that revolved around the national interest. I am not suggesting that the U.S. has only operated out of humanitarian motives. But to suggest that it has only acted out of selfish motives (to gain/secure territory, to gain/secure resources or to simply increase its power) is not true and vastly distorts the character of the United States. It is a myth perpetrated by those who believe:

A.) the United States is an imperialist nation that is the primary obstacle to world peace

B.) the United States is no more moral than any other state actor, the former Soviet Union included

C.) war is always wrong

D.) pursuing the national interest except when preserving the existence of the state is immoral

E.) A combination of A, B, C and/or D

If the United States believed in Realpolitik or Raison d’Etat, whatever is in the best interests of the state is moral, it surely would not operate in the manner it has/does. It would not have entered into conflicts in far off places for supremely moral objectives that have little impact on the national interest. It would not have limited its own power and freedom of action by creating an international body designed to oversee world affairs and eliminate the outbreak of war. It would not have attempted to “democratize” nations with large oil reserves, it would have either taken them over or simply dealt with whomever happened to be in power, regardless of his human rights record. Russia and China operate in this manner. For all their preening, the nations of Europe generally operate in this manner. The United States does not and never really has. We fight on principle, more often than not, to our own detriment.

The first Thanksgiving occurred when Captain John Woodlief led the newly-arrived English colonists to a grassy slope along the James River and instructed them to drop to their knees and pray in thanks for a safe arrival to the New World. It was December 4, 1619, and 38 men from Berkeley Parish in England vowed:

“Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.”

Thank God always for his provision.  We have been truly blessed.

A Russian analyst has predicted that in addition to handing the reigns of the global economy to Russia and China, the United States will be so divided that it will actually break up into six states, separated as follows:

the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

While the economic aspect of this projection is probably more accurate than I would like to believe (although I don’t why China, a burgeoning economic powerhouse, would allow the Russian mafia state with no manufacturing or technological capability to be part of its global domination), regarding geopolitics, I think the Russian analyst is confusing US history with his own. While regionally divided on many social and economic issues (although in many ways the division is more urban/rural than east/west), the United States is not the Soviet Union.

The “stan” countries of the former USSR had absolutely nothing to do with Russia. They were simply colonized by the tsar and forced to speak his language. The first real chance they had to separate - when Russia was absolutely at its weakest point militarily - they ran. (And the running is not yet over as Chechnya has sought independence since 1991.) They became Soviets by brute force.

While cynics (and liberals) argue that the United States was colonized in a similar manner, its not as if there are smoldering pockets of natives around the country that are simply waiting for their chance to overthrow the state and return to their nomadic way of life. Whatever else it is, the United States was founded primarily on an idea. Nothing has shown that the regions of the country are no longer committed to the basics of that idea. While the US does have regional, social, religious and economic fault lines, it has always had these fault lines (that’s one reason why we have two houses of Congress). One could argue that these divisions are growing, but I do not believe they are growing to the extent that the central states, for example, will all of the sudden secede and form their own country. Despite our differences, the regions truly have too much in common and too much at stake to break apart. I have absolutely no doubt that, when tested, we’ll bind together.

At minimum it will not occur because the six-state arrangement would place Los Angeles and New York (the only two cities that liberal elites on either coast really care about) in different countries. That alone would cause riots in Hollywood.

Interesting commentary over at Powerline regarding whether or not Obama’s cabinet appointments, thus far give evidence of his intention to govern as a centrist. The main point:

It is fun to throw back at Obama certain of his quotes about bringing in new players, and it is even more fun to chide Obama’s less astute lefty supporters to the extent they complain about a “betrayal.” But it is quite premature to infer from the selection of Clintonists that the left gained little by working to elect Obama or that Obama will serve up a third Bill Clinton term.

My two cents: I believe that Obama will go as far left as the country will allow. While I believe he is a strange mix of leftist ideologue and pragmatic realistic, I believe first and foremost (like most politicians) that he is a popularity hound. Thus, I believe he will govern primarily based on opinion polls and approval ratings more than anything else. In that way I do think his term will appear like Clinton’s (unprincipled); however, I think there’s much more of a calling for a far-left agenda (anti-market, wealth redistribution, pacifism at all costs, environmentalism uber-alles) now, on the eve of Obama’s reign, than there ever was under Clinton in the “vacation from history” known as the 1990s.

Thomas Sowell has a new article up at National Review regarding the new American right: the right to win. It covers a nice smattering of issues all relating to the leftish notion that if someone isn’t happy, then somehow injustice has been done.

As the election approached, pundits warned that, if Obama lost, there would be riots in the ghetto. We will never know. But since when does any candidate have a right to win any office, much less the White House?

The worst of all the reactions from people who act as if they have a right to win have come from gay activists in the wake of voter rejection of so-called “gay marriage,” which is to say, redefining what marriage has meant for centuries.

It’s good stuff. The Liberal/Libertarian notion that “you can do anything you want until it begins to invade my rights” doesn’t really work in a reality where we all generally have to share the same streets (and neighborhoods and schools and land). At some point, in areas where people’s lives intersect, society as a whole must decide between what behaviors it believes are detrimental and those that it believes are beneficial to the common good.

Interesting commentary with lots of poll data about why American Jews instinctively vote with the Left, despite the seemingly obvious danger in which that places the state of Israel. The key paragraph:

To the question, ‘Would you support or oppose the United States taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons,’ 47% of Jews said they’d oppose America moving to save Israel from nuclear annihilation, 42% would support it, and 11% were unsure.

This is perhaps the clearest indication that a significant segment of the Jewish community either doesn’t give a damn about Israel or is delusional.

A few personal anecdotes (for whatever they’re worth):

I went to high school with many ethnic Jews (about 22% of my school in fact) and while many brought unleavened bread to lunch during passover week, most could not tell me what passover was all about. They knew the ethnic side of the story, at least the food part of the deal, as many, understandably, complained the entire week - but the ones I spoke to did not know its history. Being an evangelical Christian, I knew all about the lamb’s blood on the door post and the angel of death “passing over” these homes on the eve of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, but most thought I was crazy and just looked at me with blank stares as if to say: “Lamb’s blood? Whatever man, I just know I have to eat bad food during this week.” Some even commented that I was dead wrong. “Passover had nothing to do with that,” they said.

In graduate school I encountered a woman of Jewish heritage who told me that the only reason the United States protects the state of Israel is because the Christian fundamentalists in this country believe that Jesus Christ will return to the temple mount to usher in the end times (as if somehow Christ couldn’t descend from heaven, return to Israel, rebuild the temple, and establish his kingdom on earth without it being in the hands of the Jews or without the United States’ support). She seemed to believe that supporting the state of Israel equated to ushering in a Christ-centered end times, rather than simply supporting the Jewish state’s right to exist. As she didn’t believe in Christ, then she couldn’t support Israel. I found her reasoning rather puzzling. While she can certainly believe whatever she wants about the end times and Jesus Christ, she seemed to believe that the state of Israel was a Christian thing and should not be of Jewish concern.

I think most American Jews share this sentiment. They are ethnic Jews only. They eat unleavened bread, they don’t eat pork, they send their children to Hebrew school to learn the language, they throw bar/bat mitzvahs for their 13 year-olds, but they generally aren’t religious Jews and they largely, surprisingly, do not seem to care about the state of Israel. Or as the article stated, maybe they do care and it’s just not their top priority or they’re delusional.

That’s the bumper-sticker I want!

This is relatively old news, but gross misconceptions about the Iraq War continue to pervade the public discourse (primarily on the left, although in fairness the right doesn’t appear to know how to counter the misconceptions effectively). Plus, during the election I believe that it was an area where McCain allowed himself to be tied to President Bush unnecessarily, thus benefiting Obama.

It appears to me that the mantra “Bush lied, people died” has become the common wisdom on the Left and has become the main argument for withdrawing troops immediately from the region. (Note:what passes for truth on the Left generally amounts to a pithy statement about a complicated issue that can fit onto a bumper sticker).

“Bush lied…”

Webster’s dictionary defines a lie as

an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive.

Thus, in order for the “Bush lied” part of the maxim to be true, one of two things must be true:

1. Bush knew absolutely that Saddam did not have WMD

2. Bush believed it highly likely that Saddam did not have WMD

Now, the judgment that Saddam had WMD hung on several points (at least those that are unclassified):

1. The human source known as Curveball, an Iraqi who claimed (falsely as it turns out) to have inside knowledge of Saddam’s chemical and biological weapons operations. His primary claim was that Saddam had reconstituted his chemical/biological weapons program via mobile facilities.

2. Satellite photos that indicated the presence of heavy-duty flatbed trucks, forklifts (necessary for transporting chemical weapons) and decontamination trailers (in case of emergency) at Al-Musayib, known prior to Operation Desert Storm to have been a chemical weapons facility.

3.The fact that the intelligence community had failed to accurately assess Saddam’s chemical, biological and nuclear programs (which proved to be extensive) prior to the Persian Gulf War in 1991. As the intelligence community had failed to accurately assess his weapons programs previously, analysts overcompensated and made leaps of faith that should not have been made.

4. Saddam relied on various deception campaigns (including the expulsion of UN weapons inspectors). He wanted the West to believe that he had WMD. Obviously at the time, the West did not know that they were deception campaigns, but hindsight is 20/20. (Note: the motive for these deception campaigns is still unclear. In the collective Western mind it makes no sense to fake that you have WMD when the world’s superpower says that it will invade your country and kill you if you have WMD, but clearly Saddam’s decision-making calculus was different. He called our bluff, thinking we would not invade, and it didn’t work out in his favor. We misread him and he misread us. Most believe that Saddam wanted the West to believe he had WMD because he wanted Iran (and his own people) to believe that he had WMD as a deterrent to a threat on his power and as a status symbol.)

None of this is meant to excuse the US Intelligence Community or President Bush from relying on false intelligence reports to invade Iraq in 2003. The intelligence community (and the intelligence communities of nearly every other country in the world) simply blew it. The “slam dunk” clanged embarrassingly off the back of the rim. However, relying on the experts who turned out to be wrong does not amount to “Bush lied.” Ultimately, it is the President who makes decisions, so the responsibility does lie as his feet, but it does not amount to lying as he had no reason to believe that his experts (and those of all his allies) were wrong. His experts simply got it wrong. [As an aside, this amounts to an intelligence error - incorrectly assessing something to be true when it is false - and not an intelligence failure - failing to adequately warn or prepare the executive for a situation that occurred.] Similar to when FDR’s experts failed to alert him to the possibility of a Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, when Truman’s experts failed to anticipate that the Chinese would intervene on behalf of North Korea, or when Kennedy’s experts told him, two days prior to the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba, that the Soviets would never attempt to place missiles in Cuba. (Note that all three examples are of Democratic administrations, two of which caused mass casualties and one brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, yet these three presidents are never reviled as “the worst President ever.”  On the contrary, the first two are widely considered to be in the top ten and JFK is held up by the liberal establishment as a great man and wonderful leader, an agent of change if you will.)

Some make the argument that the Bush administration pressured the intelligence community into giving them the answer they wanted to hear, namely that Saddam had WMD. This is a joke.

1.) This would also mean that the intelligence communities of Britain, France, Germany, and Israel (among others) were also pressured to provide “the right answer” to the Bush administration. Seeing as they did not want the US to invade Iraq (and at least Britain provided troops as well), why would they do that? You’d have to believe in really large conspiracy theories (such as “blood for oil” to believe this.

2.) What respectable person in their right mind knowingly distorts the truth simply because they are nagged about it? Just because a question is asked often doesn’t mean that the answer should change if the truth remains the same. (eg. is Churchill dead? Yes. Is Churchill dead? Yes. Is Churchill dead? Yes. Is Churchill dead? No, he’s actually living in my attic.) It’s absurd. Analysts aren’t teenagers at a party bowing to peer pressure to smoke pot, they’re professionals who make these sorts of difficult judgments for a living. Do they have their own biases? Certainly. Do they personally favor policy decisions over others? I’m sure they do. But do they deliberately distort the truth because the President asks them if they’re sure about a particular issue? No.

Other issues to address:

“The war is unjust…”

While there are additional reasons, for the basic reason that it’s never morally wrong to depose of an authoritarian leader who slaughters his own people, I believe the Iraq War is just. Now, one can make the argument that the Iraq War is imprudent, but making the argument that God’s idea of justice would somehow side with Saddam is laughable.

“The US should withdrawal immediately…”

The American people generally did not turn against the war until it realized that it would not be an easy victory and that if Saddam didn’t have WMD, they didn’t know why we were fighting it (a communication/leadership failure on the part of the administration). Well, the US should not withdraw troops immediately simply because the war is difficult or because the President relied on faulty intelligence. The reason the US invaded Iraq was to depose of Saddam Hussein who (mistakenly) was believed to have WMD that not only would have destabilized the region, but that he would give (or threaten to give) to non-state actors to use against the United States. Now, as it turns out, that judgment was incorrect; however, now that we’ve deposed Saddam, it would be morally unethical to just up and leave because its easier for us to do it that way. The fact that we have to stay and clean up the mess has nothing to do with the fact that Saddam didn’t have WMD.

Consider a parable: The local police break down the door of a house in the neighborhood, storm into the residence and kill the husband/father as he tries to escape, setting the house ablaze in the process. The police were after the man because they believed that he was the ringleader of a drug cartel. This turned out to be false upon subsequent analysis, but it was discovered that the husband/father had not only beaten his wife over a period of twenty-five years, but that he had also sexually abused their children, their neighbor’s children and had threatened all those in the neighborhood with violence, even killing some in order to establish his authority. Legally, the actions of the police were probably wrong as their judgment (or probable cause) for obtaining the warrant was incorrect. But morally, it’s hard to fault the police as they did away with a horrible man. Nonetheless, the police cannot simply leave the wife and children to fend for themselves because the man they killed (while deplorable) was not the ringleader of the drug cartel as they had initially suspected. That would be morally reprehensible. The right thing to do is for the police to buy the family a new home and seek counseling for the wife and the children while ensuring that the neighborhood is safe and stable enough to avoid becoming a target of nearby neighborhood gangs.

“It wasn’t prudent for the US to invade Iraq…”

Now, that’s an argument with some merit that should be discussed in detail by the American public and by the country’s leaders. Most would agree that this question, too, has nothing to do with whether or not troops should remain in Iraq until the situation is fixed. (If you accidentally break a window under false pretenses, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stay to fix the window.) Sadly, this is not the debate that rages in our society today, nor is it the debate that the presidential candidates had on the campaign trail or during the debates. Essentially, the debates devolved to:

Obama: the war was a mistake (for unspecified reasons - presumably either because Bush lied or because it was a war for oil or because Americans are capitalists and capitalists are always imperialists or cynically because it was the message that won him the primary) and we should withdraw immediately, apologizing to anyone within earshot that we’re a terrible nation filled with mean-spirited, angry, bitter people who can’t speak languages other than English.

McCain: the war was not a mistake, because the Iraqi people are now free. It was going poorly until I supported the surge. We should stay there until the job is finished. (However, this completely bypasses what makes Americans the most upset: we entered the war based on faulty intelligence.)

The winning debate answer for McCain: you’re right, we relied on faulty intelligence to invade Iraq (thereby distancing himself from Bush) and that was a mistake [although as an aside, one could make other arguments to support an invasion of Iraq - violating UN resolutions, etc]; however, this does not change the fact that we need to win the war now that it has begun. However, this proves (as does 9/11 and other intelligence gaffes of the past twenty years) that our intelligence system needs to be reformed. Namely, we need to place more emphasis on human intelligence. As Americans, we’ve grown spoiled, thinking that we can keep peace and solve all problems without getting our hands dirty by engaging in the shadowy world of espionage. Some have gotten intellectually lazy, relying on wishful-thinking that the United Nations, a morally bankrupt, feckless organization that can’t and often doesn’t enforce its own resolutions, is the answer to all the world’s problems. Nevertheless, Bin Laden & Co. now view Iraq as the primary front against the free world and we must view it that way as well. We cannot leave, thus handing the war to the terrorists, simply because it did not go as smoothly as we planned and simply because it was not fought properly from the outset. We are a united country today because Lincoln refused to allow the South to secede, despite the fact that he mishandled the war (by appointing feckless generals like McClellan) for the first three years.

In sum: I am not advocating that war should never be questioned. But when questioned, it must be done so responsibly (not done so to undermine a particular policy while US troops are in the field) and the debate must focus on the right questions. “Bush lied, people died” is a ridiculous statement made by the ignorant and intellectually bereft who place a political party and ideology above their country’s best interests. It misinforms the (already ill-informed) American populace and distracts from the necessary debate: was it prudent for the US to use force (as opposed to a combination of other tools of tradecraft) to contain Saddam even if turned out that he had WMD?

Good communication is a staple of good leadership. It is the ingredient that moves the country with purpose, separating the great presidents from the good presidents. It is well-reasoned, bold, rooted in historical truths and in touch with the realities of this fallen world.

While I do not believe that Bush 43 has been the worst president ever (usually postulated by someone who couldn’t name 5 presidents between Jefferson and Kennedy, let alone describe their policies), I think we can all agree that he has not been a good communicator. I do not mean this in the same way with which Saturday Night Live, Michael Moore and the liberal establishment has so much fun. I mean that Bush has not done a good job of presenting his case to the American people. He has not presented a message that is well-reasoned, bold, rooted in history, philosophy or national purpose and given repeatedly with conviction. The president is required to be the chief educator and in this regard Bush has failed miserably. Many times, his administration has simply hid its head in the sand and allowed the media to lambaste its proposals while the people slowly start to nod their heads, eventually won over by conspiracy theories, unsubstantiated myths and poor logic.

People want to believe. A good communicator merely has to tap into that vein. Thus, the infatuation with Obama. But it remains to be seen whether Obama has the gifts of leadership and communication - I mean this sincerely not as hyperbole - because his words thus far have been empty. They mean nothing. Even disregarding his countless policy shifts from his days as Illinois Senator and campaigner in the Democratic primary to his campaigning for president as a “centrist,” his words are mere boilerplate. Obama has already begun to backpedal because it is unlikely that he will achieve even 20% of his stated goals. Most are simply unachievable, either because they are unaffordable, unpractical or against the reality of human nature. He is the perfect candidate for the MTV generation:

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide for the sick… This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

Poetic? Sure. Well delivered? I suppose. Presented with conviction capturing that deep longing within us? Perhaps for some. But specific and unequivocal? Not so much. Courageous in the face of adversity? Not really. Rooted in history and experience? Absolutely not!

In contrast, listen to The Great Communicator sixteen years before he achieved the presidency:

The entire speech can be found here.  The speech transcript here.