On Terrorism
Opium production is up in Afghanistan and the Taliban, not coincidentally, is making a comeback. The day before these reports ran in the newspapers New York Times columnist David Brooks pointed out a flaw in the war on terrorism (News and Observer, 9-29-06).
“To his eternal credit,” Brooks wrote, “After 9/11 George Bush quickly understood that the terror threat was fundamentally an ideological threat; a product of deep historical consciousness. To his eternal discredit, he didn’t commit enough resources to successfully defeat and discredit that ideology.” Then he got down to brass tacks: “If we lived in a serious political culture, we’d be discussing what we’ve learned from Iraq and how to proceed. Instead, all of Washington is involved in a juvenile game of gotcha…The White House is still exaggerating the positive. Democratic senators purr like happy kittens as retired generals slam Donald Rumsfeld, and then stop up their ears when those same generals call for more troops and a longer war.
“Voters now confront a Republican Party that understands the breadth of the threat but has bungled the central campaign, and a Democratic Party that is quick to criticize but lacks an understanding of the jihadists and a strategy for confronting them.”
It’s a startling thought. While our soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, here at home our political culture can’t conduct a meaningful debate about how to win the war on terrorism.
On Terrorism
Opium production is up in Afghanistan and the Taliban, not coincidentally, is making a comeback. The day before these reports ran in the newspapers New York Times columnist David Brooks pointed out a flaw in the war on terrorism (News and Observer, 9-29-06).
“To his eternal credit,” Brooks wrote, “After 9/11 George Bush quickly understood that the terror threat was fundamentally an ideological threat; a product of deep historical consciousness. To his eternal discredit, he didn’t commit enough resources to successfully defeat and discredit that ideology.” Then he got down to brass tacks: “If we lived in a serious political culture, we’d be discussing what we’ve learned from Iraq and how to proceed. Instead, all of Washington is involved in a juvenile game of gotcha…The White House is still exaggerating the positive. Democratic senators purr like happy kittens as retired generals slam Donald Rumsfeld, and then stop up their ears when those same generals call for more troops and a longer war.
“Voters now confront a Republican Party that understands the breadth of the threat but has bungled the central campaign, and a Democratic Party that is quick to criticize but lacks an understanding of the jihadists and a strategy for confronting them.”
It’s a startling thought. While our soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, here at home our political culture can’t conduct a meaningful debate about how to win the war on terrorism.