“I also want to say very directly for the British people why this matters so much directly to Britain.
First, let us not forget that the attacks of September 11 represented the worst terrorist outrage against British citizens in our history. The murder of British citizens, whether it happens overseas or not, is an attack upon Britain.
But even if no British citizen had died, it would it be right to act. This atrocity was an attack on us all–on people of all faiths and people of none.”
Tony Blair 10/7/01 explaining the military action in Afghanistan
In the aftermath of September 11, when the soundtrack most appropriate to New York was the Pretenders’ “My City Was Gone”, the inspiring words of Tony Blair reminded us that we were not alone. Though surely not born great, and having done little or nothing to achieve greatness, George W. Bush had had greatness thrust upon him, and, for about three minutes he rose to the occasion, as the world rallied behind America and America used the moment to rally the world into multilateral action against what could only be called evil; it was truly the right war in the right place at the right time.
And then he blew it.
Refusing to believe his brinksmanship with Saddam Hussein had actually worked, George Dubya Bush undertook an ill-advised lone gunman invasion of Iraq, a country whose role in September 11 could best be described as amusement after the fact. In doing so, he undercut the resources committed to Afghanistan, a grievous error he has yet to correct. And, in place of his earlier multilateralism, Bush substituted a Trojan Horse, with the once great Tony Blair squandering the greatness he’d worked so hard to earn by unwittingly playing Bush’s Trojan Whore.
And, having derided multilateralism in favor of unilateralism, Dubya ensured that unilateral international action was the only kind we were capable of undertaking. Whether it was Iraq, the Kyoto Accords or The Law of the Sea Treaty, George Dubya preferred a foreign policy of “Aggressive Isolationism“, and each of his actions built upon one another to ensure that American exerted diplomatic influence in inverse proportion to its military power (a lesson the Democrats might want to consider when promising to revisit previously ratified trade accords), wielding a big stick while speaking in tone-deaf laryngetic tones to a world audience tired of his soliloquies.
The ying of that yang was also felt at home, as the rare moment of opportunity for true national consensus in the aftermath of a national crisis was squandered for tawdry short-term political gain. In the run-up to the Second World War, Winston Churchill formed a grand coalition with Labour Party Leader Clemente Atlee as his Deputy. Franklin Roosevelt invited prominent Republicans Frank Knox (the most recent Republican Vice Presidential candidate) and Henry Stimpson (a former Secretary of State) to run the Army and Navy. In both cases, this was done, even though their own parties had won the last election in landslide victories. Surely, this was the time for such a grand gesture by Bush.
By contrast, George Dubya had lost the popular vote less than a year before by half a million votes, and then won the electoral vote by having the Supreme Court put a gun to the Country’s head and demand either our signature or our brains on the contract. Wasn’t this the moment to ask Al Gore (or even Bill Clinton) to take over State or Defense? Instead, the policy of “Aggressive Isolationism” was implemented at home as well as abroad.
But “Aggressive Isolationism” and our involuntary quarantine by our former allies, was not always our destiny. To cop from the dust jacket of Beinart’s “The Good Fight: Why Liberals – and Only Liberals – Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again”, we once had leaders who believed that “America must lead the world by persuasion, not command”, George Bush believes the opposite, and American and the world are suffering as a result. Beinart posits an alternative “liberalism cannot merely define itself against the right, but must fervently oppose the totalitarianism that blighted Europe a half century ago, and which stalks the Islamic world today” and “an unyielding hostility to totalitarianism – and a recognition that defeating it requires bringing hope to the bleakest corners of the globe. And it means understanding that democracy begins at home, in a nation that does more than merely preach about justice, but become more just itself.”
In contrast to Dubya's Aggressive Isolationism, Beinart’s dust jacket argues that “American greatness cannot simply be asserted; it must be proved….That American leadership is not American Empire.” As Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. said in praise of Beinart, “The replacement of containment by the Bush Doctrine of preventive war…has screwed everything up with illegitimacy, tactical blunders, and utopian fantasy.”
But this week, we saw that the former allies who now disdain us may be saying “No, No No” to Uncle Sam, but still yearn for our powerful embrace. In the post-September 11 period, we briefly saw Western Europeans displaying American flags as an act of solidarity, rather than one of provocation; something rarely encountered since November of 1963. In the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, I never thought I’d see it again.
Today in Berlin, 200,000 Germans gathered at a rally and waived American flags without an iota of irony. It was Camelot all over again; this time with a "Dark Knight", as they profoundly wished for an end to George Dubya‘s dark night. Their lips might have still have been mouthing “No”, but they looked at Barack Obama and their eyes said “Yes, Yes, Yes”. Or maybe, "Yes We Can."
The Republicans aren’t merely taking cheap potshots; they don’t even get it.
Today in the “New York Post”, Ralph Peters proved how obtuse they are.
“Am I the only one”, he whined, “who's noticed the silence? Mere months ago, left-wing bloggers and demonstrators were wailing Support our troops, bring them home! seven days a week. Now their presidential candidate has announced that he won't bring all those troops home, but will simply transfer combat forces from Iraq to Afghanistan – expanding that war. (He's discussed possibly invading Pakistan, too.)”
Except Barack Obama has never said otherwise. Yes, he opposed the war in Iraq from the start, but as he told a shocked anti-war rally in 2000:
“Let begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.
The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.
I don’t oppose all wars.
My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.
I don’t oppose all wars.
After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this Administrations pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.
I don’t oppose all wars.”
And clear as day, during the primaries, Obama made it known during nationally televised debates that he didn’t rule out military action in Pakistan or Iran. He also made clear that those things would not be his preference. By contrast, in Iran, the Republicans seem to be publicly salivating for war, although in McCain’s case, he may just be drooling involuntarily.
Barack Obama is a Peter Beinart Democrat; someone who can restore American Leadership because he believes in American Honor, someone who understands that the first step in leading any alliance is to listen to your allies if you want to keep them.
Peters is complaining about the lack of outrage from Michael Moore Democrats, although there's certainly been more than a little whining from those who finally got past Obama’s dulcet tones and pretty words and actually listened to what he’s been saying all along.
But Peters is partly correct; most of the left will swallow hard and vote for Obama. The insane Republican policy of fighting wars everywhere, on the cheap, but not cheaply, lest profit margins be endangered, has left them no other choice.
Of course, Peters has a different theory. “The left has nothing against foreign wars (as long as they don't have to fight in person). They just want to pick our wars themselves. The problem with Iraq wasn't that America toppled Saddam Hussein, but that George W. Bush did it. I've been saying it for years: Had Bill Clinton done the job, the left would've celebrated him as the greatest liberator since Abraham Lincoln.”
Of course, this is idiotic; the war in Afghanistan that Obama wants to surge was begun by George Bush and supported by every Democrat in Congress but one.
And, actually, this was what Michael Moore had to say about Clinton’s actions in Kosovo:
“We know Clinton is lying to us. We know there is no 'Holocaust' taking place”
“What a sad, pathetic man Bill Clinton is. Though many have criticized him for dodging the draft, I actually admired the fact that he refused to go and kill Vietnamese. Not all of us from the working class had that luxury, and tens of thousands of our brothers died for absolutely no damn reason. For this "anti-war" President to order such a misguided, ruthless — and, yes, cowardly — attack is a disappointment of massive proportions.”
"Now is the time for all of us to stop Clinton and his disgusting, hypocritical fellow democrats who support him in the war. It is amazing to watch all these "liberal" congress members line up behind the President. In a way, I'm glad it's happening; if only to show the American people there is little difference between the Democrats and the usually war-loving Republicans. aren't you getting a kick watching the Pat Buchanans and the Henry Hydes sounding like pacifists. These politicians can change stripes at the drop of a hat (or bomb) because, ultimately, they are the same animal, participants in a one-party system that tries to foll the people by going by two names ("Democrat" and "Republican")"
If anything, the answer to Peters’ comments about Democratic partisanship in selecting which wars we support is “J’accuse”.
When it came to stopping genocide in Kosovo and Serbia, it was the Republicans in Congress (McCain a proud exception) who overwhelmingly refused to lend Clinton their support; support which was gladly rendered in parliaments all across Europe to a President who understood how to build alliances abroad (if not at home).
In the 2000 election, it was George Dubya Bush who uttered semi-obscene sneers about “Nation Building” as if it were a communicable disease (perhaps because Clinton had left such things to the experts instead of the profiteers).
And it’s on the subject of genocide where the Republicans are surely at their worst.
The McCain campaign has stated that Obama has no right to call for the world to never forget the lessons of the Holocaust, because Obama would rather withdraw troops than stop genocide in Iraq.
Forget for a moment about Bosnia and Kosovo. Forget for a moment that Obama recruited former foreign policy advisor Samantha Powers to his campaign precisely because of her work in the area of genocide. Forget for a moment that Republican administrations previously ignored Saddam Hussein’s genocide against the Kurds when he was seen as a useful ally against Iran. Forget that George H.W. Bush encouraged sugar plumbs to dance in the heads of Kurdish leaders when he felt they would be handy in his own anti-Saddam efforts, only to pull the rug out from under them and leave them to Saddam’s tender ministrations. Forget that the current ethnic strife in Iraq only exists today because of our successful effort to turn the country into another Yugoslavia by removing its far less benign version of Tito. Forget that even during the primaries Obama specified that the timetable for troop withdrawals was subject to revision and/or suspension based on changing facts on the ground. Forget lack of Republican action to do anything about genocide in Darfur and the Congo.
Forget they must. It takes either amnesia or Alzheimer’s to be a Republican today; luckily they have a nominee who displays signs of both ("Yugoslavokia? I'm not making that mistake again; it's the Yugo Republic"), tut-tutting about Obama speaking in Germany when he’d done the same in Canada, while his minions get all hot and bothered over Obama calling himself a “Citizen of the World”, echoing the shameful communist-inspired words of that pinko Ronald Reagan.
Meanwhile in Berlin, I could swear I heard a crowd chanting “Ich bein ein Amerikaner”.
Does this mean, “I am a Hamburger”?
Probably not; that would be the wrong city.
(Thanks to Roscoe Conway Tarantino for reminding me about the non-universiality of the metric system–the original title referred to a "quarter pounder")