The American Spectator

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Mr. Babbin has hit the nail on the head, once again. Short-term political expediency has trumped long-term benefits to the American people. It has become more important to U.S. politicians to protect their current positions or gain advantage for higher ones than it is to protect the people they are sworn to serve. To do that, they, Democrats and Republicans alike, have decided to present themselves as anti-war adherents.

People like Senators Biden, Kerry and Kennedy, have been trumpeting the lie that the administration lied concerning intelligence prior to the invasion of Iraq. The truthfulness of these accusations having been crushed by Bob Graham's assertion that the Senate Intelligence Committee was presented with contrasting intelligence reports as was the administration. That the Congress came to much the same conclusion as the administration has become lost on them.

People such as Senator McCain are doing their part to destroy the war effort, and anything else that would increase the safety and security of this country, with bills and amendments handcuffing our intelligence gathering efforts by limiting our interrogation techniques to forcing terrorist captives to watch re-runs of Sesame Street. Why? Does he actually believe that such restrictions will make the world a safer place? Or is the Harold Stassen of the 21st century simply ramping-up for another Presidential campaign?

The Bush administration, apparently lacking access to historical web documents has, strangely, adopted a Nixonian response to this nonsense. They give every appearance of climbing on the bandwagon. Troop draw-downs in six months? What happened to not even discussing a timetable for troop withdrawals until the Iraqi security forces are showing that they can handle the terrorist elements within that country without assistance? What happened to the stipulation that American troops will be active in Iraq until a duly elected Iraqi government requests their removal?

Has anyone noticed that radical Islamic terrorist organizations have come under very effective attack by foreign governments of late? Apparently not our leading politicians. They aren't even playing the same game as the rest of the world. While they play their petty power games and jockey for position in a single country, the rest of the world is involved in a fight for survival. There is a world war in progress pitting radical Islamic jihadists against the West, moderate secular Muslims and the rest of the world. Nuclear weapons are potentially coming into play and still these people are blinded by short-term personal gain. Just as in Vietnam, where the anti-war movement caused the war to continue for five to eight years longer than it should have, abandoning Iraq too quickly will result in many more American deaths than "staying the course."

p>Should our politicians succeed in achieving their short term goals at the expense of the future security of the people of this nation, I am sure that someone will remember their actions. br> -- Michael Tobias br> Ft. Lauderdale, Florida /p>

Jed Babbin has written a strong column, but I think it is a mistake for our side to make the arguments of the other side, even to demonstrate their danger. Our side needs to be making our case, not commenting on their case.

We need to keep in mind that no Arab army has ever had any real combat power in the modern sense. That is why Israel has been able to win all its wars, particularly the first one. Yes, there have been isolated successes -- the Arab Legion trained by the British and the Egyptian Army of 1973 using a very-well-thought-out Russian strategy. But those examples were temporary. They are the exceptions that prove the rule. Creating an effective Iraq army is in no sense returning to the status quo ante, but rather creating an entirely new social organism. Yes, it has taken longer than we expected, but we probably underestimated the task.

There is an excellent resource in the polemical wars that is not being used to its best advantage. And that is the daily White House briefing. The Administration should start using that forum as a video blog -- having principals come in for short periods when they have something topical to say. For instance, it would have been very much to the point to have Dick Cheney "drop in" after the Joe Wilson editorial in the NY Times in the summer of 2003 and say "we are still looking through our records, but I can say to you today that I have no idea who Joe Wilson is, I have never met him, I have never seen any report by him if one exists, and I certainly did not send him on a mission to Niger." And then take questions for, say, 5 minutes and then duck out. I think this could be done frequently during the week. One imagines Condi dropping in to offer a comment about some incident in Gaza; Rumsfeld dropping in to add some information about what is happening in Iraq; perhaps a returning soldier from Iraq meeting with the president dropping in for 5 minutes to give an update on the activities of his unit there and take questions. This would be less formal than a press conference, but a high profile opportunity for various people to advance the argument for the Administration and comment on topical events.

p>Bush cannot carry the entire load. To my knowledge, this has never been done in the past -- by Churchill, by FDR, by Woodrow Wilson, by Lincoln. They made infrequent public speeches within the context of general support for the war (less so in the case of Lincoln). The "team" needs to advance the argument and let Bush be ONE but not the ONLY player in that drama.

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