BBC Internal Memo: Saddam Leader, Not Dictator
Sat December 20th, 2003 12:45 MSTIn yet another example of how far the great BBC has fallen, a BBC internal memo instructs reporters to call Saddam “the former leader of Iraq” and not to call him a “dictator”. The reason: technically, he was elected. I wonder if they apply the same rule to Hitler, who was also elected?
This is right up there with Reuters’ practice of refusing to call terrorists, well, “terrorists.”
When leading elite news organizations cannot get the most basic nouns right, is it any wonder that Europeans are so poorly informed about world events?
It was around the spring semester of 2000 (during the Clinton administation) that I started to read a lot about foreign policy from media sources on the web. I found that many of the foreign publications have very good coverage of issues relating to war and foreign policy. I have actually liked the BBC media coverage. One of the good things about them is that they do not allow themselves to be controlled by the government, and their reporting is very free - they are not afraid to criticize their own government, and to oppose the state (even though that’s where their funding and support is coming from).
I am a conservative, and I strongly opposed the foreign policy of Phony Blair and Slick Willie. I noticed that many British newspapers and publications - as well as other foreign media sources - were blasting their globalist, neoliberal, interventionist foreign policy. Now, I am also opposing the foreign policy of Blair and Bush, which I believe is actually a continuation of many of the wrongful Clinton/Albright/Blair policies. So, aside from what the BBC is doing on this particular issue, I think that their media coverage of war situations has probably been pretty good.
But that’s just my opinion…
Aakash,
I think you are very confused. The current Administration’s policy is radically different from the Clinton policies.
Clinton’s foreign policy was to do as little as possible to protect America, and rather use our power to further tranzi (transnational) goals. Hence he failed to recognize the strategic danger of terrorism, instead considering it a nuisance that should be combatted as a criminal affair.
Bush, after 9-11, recognized that we cannot defend ourselves against terrorism by using police actions after the fact. He created the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive warfare, and is hated by the Clintonites for doing so. Tony Blair, to his credit, came to the same realization.
If you think conservatives are not interventionist when it is necessary to defend the citizens of our country against lethal threats (9-11 was a far smaller attack than I was expecting), then you are sadly out of touch.
The real danger is Islamist terrorism coupled with Weapons of Mass Destruction. This is what Bush is fighting.
Engage your imagination. Does it suit our conservative principles to stay out of foreign affairs if the result is a release of weaponized smallpox that kills 100,000 of our civilians? That is one of the more credible threats. And they get worse from there… genetically modified flu could kill half our population. Terrorist smuggled nuclear weapons, which could not be traced to the nation which supplied them, could simultaneously kill all elected federal officials and hundreds of thousands of other citizens.
So if your ideology leads you to isolationism, then your ideology is that of the last century, which is exactly the ideology of the LEFT. This is why you are so happy with the foreign media blasting the US. The European media, including the BBC, are almost all leftist and anti-American.
So I think you are very confused about what Conservativism means. Perhaps you made the mistake of listening to the opportunist and nativist, Pat Buchanan. Perhaps you just read the wrong writers.
One of the good things about modern American conservativism is that we recognize the evil that man is capable of and are willing to fight it. Not being interventionist when it is necessary is being foolish… to the point of huge danger.
Finally, Bush is not a globalist. He is against the globalist treaties, while the European press you seem to like is for them. Bush is for America first, while the European left is anti-American and the American left is globalist.
The modern conservative movement was founded by William F. Buckley. His publication has a fine online site, National Review Online. I suggest you read it for a few weeks if you want to understand how real American Conservatives think!
Actually, William F. Buckley is one of the conservative leaders who has been recently criticizing the “national greatness” interventionism of the neoconservatives, whose political philosophy has been driving the Iraq war, and who wish for the administration to engage in more such wars in the near future.
The American Conservative Union (www.conservative.org) is our country’s oldest major national conservative organization.
They just published this news item on their website for their “Conservative University.”
While the leaders of the American Conservative Union did support the Iraq war, they oppose many of the policies that have been behind it. It is the neoconservative/neoliberal political philosophy that has been incorporated into President Bush’s positions on foreign policy, but that can change. The President has reportedly begun questioning the war hawks’ hard-line policies, and Karl Rove, recognizing the negative aspects of war-related situations, may have declared a moratorium on new wars for the rest of Bush’s term (”No Wars in ‘04“), much to the lament of people like Frank Gaffney.
It is about 3:33 AM, and I still actually have a ton of [overdue] work to do for this semester, but I will leave here a link to an American Conservative Union memo to conservative activists. This gives an overview of what conservatism is supposed to be about.
www.conservative.org/pressroom/ revitalizingconservatism.asp
In this follow-up piece, Dr. Devine responds to some of the neoconservative critics at the National Review (which was once a very good magazine, but has been declining in recent years).
And if you wish to dispute my points, that is fine, but it would be nice if you could do it like you did last time, and avoid the ad hominen statements. I am not “confused” about this (though there are a lot of people who are), and you have mischaracterized my positions. When you write:
If you think conservatives are not interventionist when it is necessary to defend the citizens of our country against lethal threats (9-11 was a far smaller attack than I was expecting), then you are sadly out of touch.
…that is not what I am saying at all. I do support intervention when it directly serves the national interest, and when it is in self-defense. I of course supported the intervention in Afghanistan, and intervention elsewhere as a part of Operation Enduring Freedom. I do not, however, believe that Operation Iraqi Freedom meets this criteria, and if you believe that that, along with the views I expressed above, constitutes “isolationism,” then you are mistaken.
With regard to my views on foreign media, I was thinking not of “the foreign media blasting the U.S.,” but rather, about how the overseas press had blasted the policies of the U.S. government (like Clinton/Albright) these past few years. As I mentioned above, it was around the Spring Semester of 2000 that I started reading the online coverage - from a variety of sources, conservative, libertarian, liberal, domestic, foreign - of our government’s foreign policy (i.e. - the foreign policy of the Clinton/Gore and Albright administration). And many U.S. media publications blasted their interventionist foreign policy as well.
Now, a different administration is in office. However, many conservatives have been frustrated with the policies of the Bush administration - on a wide variety of domestic and foreign issues. (And yes, the criticism of the administration’s foreign policy comes from more that just “Pat Buchanan” - it comes from some people within the administration, and within the Pentagon and the military, and from wide variety of others.) Based upon his previous statements, it is possible that if President Bush had known what he does now, he would not have made the decision that he did.
I agree with your concerns about terrorist threats against our homeland. One of the biggest problems regarding our national security in recent years has been the issue of immigration and border security. Have you read Michelle Malkin’s book Invasion? There, as well as in many other places, you can see how our government has failed to address this issue. And, as people such as Fox News‘ Bill O’Reilly have pointed out, these problems are still not being adequately addressed and dealt with. This is where our priorities should be. Our borders are still very porous. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush deployed National Guard troops to defend our southern and northern borders. But are they still there? Why are we using our limited military resources and defense forces to protect the borders of just about every other major country on the face of the earth besides our own? Our military and defense forces have been very strained, in past years, and we are “stretched too thin,” as many conservatives, Republicans, and military leaders and personnel have been pointing out for the past few years, and continue to make clear today.
While I agree that military intervention should be used for self-defense purposes, I totally disagree that Iraq was the correct target for this. And I think that many other conservatives and Republicans actually agree with this, or are having strong doubts about whether this was a necessary war - whether it was necessary for the defense of our homeland, and our citizenry.
Wow - Now it’s already 4:21 AM. If I keep this up, I’m never going to get anything done… Anyway, that’s all that I have to say for now, and like before, I still am swamped with a ton of work, so I don’t know if I’ll have the energy or ability to discuss this more here. But it has been an interesting discussion. Thank you for expressing your opinions, and for this debate.
Good night… morning.
First, let me state what I think is the most important set of facts that should dominate ALL of our defense decisions:
The civilian population of our country is now and for the foreseeable future in grave danger due to the marriage of technology of WMD’s (especially contagious biological agents and portable nuclear weapons) and terrorism. Furthermore, there is no way that we can combat this threat at our borders. While I believe, as do most conservatives, that immigration should be controlled as much as possible, there is no way to secure our borders against WMD terrorism. I will repeat that: there is NO way to secure our borders against WMD terrorism.
The implication of this is that if we are to minimize damage in our country, we must act overseas, and we must do it ruthlessly and without fail, using whatever means are available!
Of course many conservatives disagree with Bush on many issues - mostly domestic. But few conservatives, and certainly few important conservatives disagree about Iraq.
Keep in mind that Bush had strong reasons to believe that Saddam:
had weapons of mass destruction
Had strong ties to terrorists including potentially Al Qaeda
Had a history of miscalculation that led to deadly attacks that involved us and our allies (and in one fortunate case, our enemy Iran). This was a rarely mentioned but extremely important factor because it affected his deterrability. Only once did he calculate right: when he tried to assassinate Bush 41, he expected no response from Clinton (although I suspect the reason he guessed this right was itself incorrect - in his world, a leader would not respond to an attack on his rival).
Planned to acquire nuclear weapons when the sanctions were inevitably stopped, because of his cynical use of Iraqi children as “victims of sanctions” and the eagerness of Europe to trade with him. We now know that there was a large amount of cooperation among WMD desiring countries, with many of their efforts hidden in Libya where no one was looking (although Debka reported it long ago).
Was continually committing acts of war against us (attacks on our aircraft) with apparent impunity, as far as the Arab “street” could see, and was seen by many in the Arab world as a hero, aiding the one cause of anti-america: pan-Arab nationalism.
Had a past history of destabilizing the region at great cost to us. For example, one of the stated reasons that led Al Qaeda to attack us was the U.S. use of Saudi Arabian territory to repel Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.
Thus, the attack on Iraq was easily justifiable without any “national greatness,” and in fact the US used national security reasons, not “national greatness” reasons as its justification for the attack.
As far as nation-building goes… it’s a gamble. We may not succeed. But if we do, it will help reshape the middle east in a way that will lead to a dramatic decrease in the number of terrorists. I would suggest you recommend an alternative means of reducing the threat of terrorism. It is easy to attack an administration, it is much harder to provide alternatives. And although we should have less porous borders, it is a very dangerous folly to believe that this will prevent the most dangerous type of attack - contagious biological weapons. In fact, it is almost impossible to prevent even a nuclear suicide attack, without an enormous increase in inspections, literally using Iron Curtain technology along our huge borders, and putting out massive patrols along all of our seacost! I know enough about the characteristics of these types of weapons (biological and nuclear) to be reasonably sure of this assertion (c.f. this).
As far as the choice of Iraq vs. North Korea or Syria or Iran… that is a hard problem. I think that the Bush administration hoped to use Iraq as a strong lever to force those regimes (with the exception of North Korea) to stop supporting terrorists and roll back their WMD programs.
As far as “national greatness” - some of the neocons are too far in that direction. But the impression that their philosophy is the driving force behind the Iraq war is incorrect in my opinion, which is why so many conservatives like me support our efforts. Sure, some conservatives are annoyed that their voices are not being heard. This is always true in any administration - some individuals are excluded from power circles that they think they belong in. But don’t imagine that Donald Rumsfeld is a naive neocon! Colin Powell (who will leave the Administration whether or not Bush gets re-elected) has always been a bit too unwilling to use force.
I read the Weekly Standard along with many others. Notice that even the ACU article you cite does not say that the neocons have been driving the Iraq War, but rather that they are part of the influence. The mainstream press (of which you cite an obscure editorial) “discovered” the neo-cons about a year ago and made them the boogeyman for US policy. Somehow “neocons” have apparently achieved a miraculous power to make Bush do what they want, if you believe the articles.
In fact, Bush has plenty of non-neocons around who also support this war. I think that the paleocons are complaining about the tactics as if they are an ideology. The tactic of invading Iraq after Afghanistan is just that - a tactic as part of a general strategy. The tactic of attempting to create a democratic government is a tactic believed (by many, including myself) to be in our national interest, and again is part of a general strategy. That political and propaganda value is derived from this tactic is useful, but that doesn’t mean that the means were undertaken our of a misplaced altruism. In that sense, the neocon ideal of spreading democracy (NeoWilsonianism) may be a good idea in many cases, even if the thinking supporting it is naive.
Your cite of William Buckley is against Kristol’s overall tendency towards Wilsonianism, which is not the same as opposing the war in Iraq or how it is being prosecuted. As a long time reader of The National Review and The Weekly Standard, I have seen some criticism of the neocons in the former, and certainly disagreed with The Weekly Standard for its support of the Kosovo intervention (which I felt was not in our national interest and thus was misusing our military), but I have not seen an ideological criticism of the Iraq war. The Kosovo war was a classic mix of neoconservatism (fight the war to make things better for foreigners) and internationalism (make our allies happy). Iraq was anti-internationalist, in that it was a more unilateral action and its goal was explicitly to defend the United States.
Your cite on what conservatism “ought to be” is propaganda in the sense that it is intentionally misleading by misstating the arguments of opponents - The National Review did NOT advocate creating an American empire. It did explore the possibility that re-colonialism *might* be the only solution to rogue states is far from “for a revival of colonialism under U.S. auspices and the building of an American empire!” The National Review, unlike The Weekly Standard, rarely “advocates” a certain position. Rather, it is a journal in which conservative opinions with a certain flavor are aired. It certainly has some fixed editorial positions, but colonialism is not one of them. FURTHERMORE, the article exploring this concept did it solely within the principle of self-defense, which is a reason which every ideology should support. If the ACU doesn’t support action to defend ourselves, which was the basis of NR’s article, what good is it at all!
I find it hardly a conservative principle to lie, especially against fellow conservatives, and that is what the ACU did! It is not in the interest of the conservative cause in general, regardless of which flavor, for its advocates to be attacking each other with lies! I had a relatively uninformed view of the ACU up until now. That article disgusts me and certainly does not lead me to think of the ACU as being a contributor to the national debate! It reminds me of the factionalism of the communists… shall we next assassinate leaders of factions of our cause that we disagree with? Who volunteers to be Trotsky?
Nobody has ever imagined that Bush is a doctrinaire conservative. As I have said before, a doctrinaire conservative can not be elected in the United States. We must not misjudge the conservative tendencies of the population the way we did after the Gingrich revolution of 1994. To complain about Bush being himself is a waste of time. To have principled disagreements over the methods of our defense is one thing; to blame the defensive actions on other goals is incorrect. On 9-11, George Bush quickly and clearly understood the situation that we are in – something that many others have yet to grasp. And he has been acting on it. His advisors have a range of goals and ambitions and ideologies, which is normal in an administration. But Bush has a clear primary goal of defending America. He has a secondary goal of getting re-elected, and he has other goals in the domestic realm which are fuzzier.
As far as intervention in the national interest, do you believe that Bush intervened in Iraq because he felt it was in the Iraqi interest? I strongly doubt it, but that would be Wilsonian. If it was, why pick Iraq? Why not every dictatorship on the planet? If we agree that he felt it was in our national interest, then we are not dealing with Wilsonianism and hence we are not dealing with an ideological divide, as I think you posit, but an argument about tactics. This is far different than ascribing the war to some sort of ideological difference. If you really believe that Neoconservative neoWilsonianism was the cause, please give some evidence.
The administration has shown considerable subtlety in its operations and policy. It invaded Iraq, which has shattered many myths in the Arab world - especially with the humiliating surrender of Saddam. Saddam was especially dangerous for the reasons given above. Such a person, unpredictable and irrational (his miscalculations), cannot be allowed to control WMD’s, and that is the main reason he was attacked. Not “national greatness” but threat, pure and simple. I should think that would be obvious.
Other countries represent different problems, and have been approached differently.
North Korea, surprisingly, is more rational in its foreign policy than Iraq was (i.e. it is more deterrable, as shown by Kim Jong Il’s hiding underground for weeks during the Iraq war). It also represents a vastly greater cost if we choose military means to defang it, because doing so will almost undoubtedly result in the deaths of millions of innocent South Koreans (I have seen the NK flag from Seoul - that’s how close they are) and thousands to millions of Japanese. Thus triggering such an event, even looked at from the standpoint of the coldest and purest national interest, would be extremely costly to us and damaging to our national interest – even if events occur which leave us no choice. The reason is the cost in lives to us, the enormous cost to the economy of the world, and the not unimportant potential for the loss of critical allies (and of course the difference between friends and allies was well noted by Disraeli and I am not confusing them), and depending on the circumstances, the real chance of being completely abandoned in our war on terrorism by the rest of the world (and as much as we disapprove of the posturing and outright sabotage of some in Europe, their police and security agencies and those of many other nations are cooperating very tightly with our own – and the loss of that would be tragic).
Iran represents another problem. It is a much larger country than Iraq. It is the world’s greatest supporter of terrorism, and is planning to go nuclear. But it also has a population which strongly favors the U.S. and hates the current government. U.S. strategy there is to, on the one hand, try to prevent the acquisition of deliverable nuclear weapons by Iran via diplomatic, economic and covert means; to deter Iran with the implied threat that a major WMD terrorist attack on the US will result in immediate and devastating attacks on ALL countries which might have supplied the terrorists (except Russia and China, which hold too high a deterrent against us); and to further the overthrow of the current government. Whether this will work or not is a serious question - I am skeptical.
One threat, Libya, has suddenly been removed as a direct result of Bush’s policies, as this clearly shows. Typically, the anti-Iraq war media will probably not publish this, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that anti-Iraq war conservatives ignore it also. But when you see this, you realize that one of the critical goals of the Iraq tactic has already started to work - the deterrence of WMD possessing dictators.
Finally, I can see how people would have qualms about invading Iraq, because it was not an immediate, obvious threat. But post 9-11, we cannot wait to be attacked. And to assert it was not done out of national interest (as opposed to national greatness, whatever that is) reasons, is simply wrong. I would also suggest that any analysis of the decision about Iraq be made in light of the state of our knowledge about Iraqi WMD’s, and its restart capability when the decision was made, not today. 20-20 hindsight is not meaningful.
As far as other issues…
I agree that our forces are strained. I and many others believe we should increase the size of our armed forces, due to the dramatic threat we face. In my opinion, we should be mobilized a la WW-II (although not that many personnel), because we face a threat that is enormous. Furthermore, it may at some point be very strongly in our national interest to occupy and attempt to civilize (in the sense of destroying Islamofascism) larger countries than Iraq. For example, what happens if Pakistan (population around 160 million) becomes unstable? It has nuclear weapons and delivery systems. What do we do? What would paleocons or whatever the ACU is do? What if we are forced to go into Iran, again due to the terrorism/WMD nexus? What if we have to take over Cuba (another almost certain possessor of sophisticated biological weapons)?
I would hope that you have suggestions in this area.
Now, let’s get to another topic… big/small government. Bush is not a conservative on this issue. He is a moderate (which is still a hell of a lot better than a leftist). I again assert that a small government conservative cannot get elected in today’s United States. This is an observation, not an ideological assertion. Since conservatives, at their core, are supposed to be more in touch with human nature than the left (human nature is immutable vs. the “blank slate” ideology), we must deal with the world as we find it, not as we wish it. And that means that if we are interested in achieving our goals, we must be willing to accept compromise along the way. I would also point out that Ronald Reagan was not a small government conservative. He was a believer in major parts of the New Deal throughout his presidency. He never reduced social spending, just reduced its rate of growth. He did, however, have less faith in government’s abilities than does George Bush, and I find this a negative in the Bush column.
Also, Bush is a social conservative.
So, we have a president who is a foreign policy conservative (in spite of assertions of Wilsonianism), a social conservative and a domestic moderate.
Not bad.
Finally, I would hope that conservatives of all stripes recognize that internecine battles should be fought in a minimally disruptive manner. The left is much, much worse than any stripe of conservatism, so I don’t think we should be viciously attacking members who don’t adhere tightly to one particular flavor!
As I indicated above, I do not have very much time right now, but I will quickly respond to a couple of your statements.
First off, I realize that defending our borders alone is not going to be enough to keep our nation safe. But the security of our homeland does begin at our boundaries, and that is one area that has been very, very much neglected in recent years, and continues to be today. Our immigration and entry system has been in shambles, and there is still a great, great deal of reform that needs to take place in this area. And there are reasons aside from terrorism concerns that our borders must be safeguarded. President Bush recognized this when, following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he deployed National Guard troops to defend our northern and southern borders. But there is still an extremely great amount of reform and improvement that needs to be done in this area, and this administration has to do a great deal more in this regard. Michelle Malkin’s Invasion should have a lot of useful information about this issue… There are a ton of other sources available.
Also, I want to addres your statement that: “…few conservatives, and certainly few important conservatives disagree about Iraq.”
Because of the impressions that the media has given us, and due to other factors, there are many people who believe this. But it is absolutely not true, as I have been pointing out for over a year now. I have written and spoken about this issue many times…
Iraq was a different war from those in our nation’s history. Liberals and Democrats were actually also divided about this matter, as were conservatives, and many Republicans. Of course, it was much more difficult for Republicans in leadership positions to take a firm stance against this war, because the administration is Republican, but many GOP members of Congress expressed strong doubts about this operation, even though they may have ended up voting for the October resolution regarding military action. But voting in favor of that resolution was not endorsing the war. U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), a respected war veteran, voted in favor of that resolution, but continued to oppose the war even after that. On Christmas Day last year, this weekly syndicated column by GOP leader Jack Kemp (R-NY) came in my local newspaper. It was then featured on the website of Empower America, a leading conservative organization for which he is the co-director. (Mr. Kemp is also a leader at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.) That article was listed, along with the other latest columns by Empower America’s leaders, at their website, with the caption, “A persuasive case has not yet been made to go to war with Iraq.”
In the late months of 2002 and the early months of 2003, there were deep divisions within the Bush administration, and within the Pentagon as well, about the war. As I pointed out in this guest blog entry, and as has been pointed out in many news and opinion items, there was a strong opposition to the drive towards war from the non-civilians with the Pentagon, and from some of our military leaders and veterans groups. The Pentagon was opposing the drive towards war, and urging restraint and caution. At the same time that many of the war hawks were urging that the war be quickly started, our military leaders were pressuring our government leaders to put off the Iraq invasion, or cancel it altogether. Many current and former U.S. military generals opposed and warned against this war.
Many of those from the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations opposed this war. Col. James Webb [JamesWebb.com], a well-known war hero, who is highly respected by our military personnel and veterans, is an expert on defense issues and also a distinguished writer, of columns as well as novels. In the Reagan administration, he served as an Assistant Secretary of Defense, and then for a time as Secretary of the Navy.
Colonel Webb gave a speech last November at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, in which he talked about many issues (Col. Webb is known by our Navy officers as a major hero) and in which he urged that we not attack Iraq. It was reported in the news that the students and faculty there were quite receptive. I also twice saw Col. Webb on television after that speech, and both times he made clear his opposition to the war. See the following articles by Colonel Webb on Iraq:
Heading for Trouble: Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years?, Washington Post, 9/4/02
War in Iraq Turns Ugly: That’s what wars do, New York Times, 3/30/03
I included that information is this guest blog entry, along with info about other pro-defense, pro-soldier organizations and individuals who opposed the Iraq war. Please take a look at that entry for more about this.
For example, there is the Center for the National Security Interest:
National-Security.org
CNSI is a conservative, pro-defense organization headed by military veteran and defense expert David T. Pyne, Esq., who is also a conservative columnist, and is (or was recently) the Executive Vice-President of the Virginia Republican Assembly.
Many Gulf War veterans also opposed this war, some due to controveries that arose following the first Gulf War regarding allegations about battlefield toxins, and the treatment that many veterans say that they received with regard to the government’s handling of their situations.
Check out the website of the American Gulf War Veterans Association:
GulfWarVets.com
AGWVA is a pro-military organization that is clearly headed by conservatives (Dave and Joyce Riley vonKleist), who also have a radio show, called The Power Hour.
Statement by Capt. Joyce Riley vonKleist, RN, BSN (USAF, Ret.)
“The American Gulf War Veterans Association joins with the British Gulf War Veterans and Families Association of the UK in taking a firm stand against the possible war in Iraq.”
In that guest entry, I also included Col. David Hackworth [Hackworth.com], the renowned American war hero, soldiers’ advocate, and military expert, whose famous ‘Defending America’ column [see the archives here] and books are read by many of our military personnel and veterans. Col. Hackworth is famous for having been decorated more times than anyone else alive today.
It’s best to contain Saddam, Hackworth says, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Nov. 16, 2002
(also here at Jewish World Review)
Col. Hackworth: A Warrior Against Gulf War II, Newsday, Jan. 24, 2003
Military.com, the a major military issues-related website, has had many columns published on it that are critical of the Iraq war, and of the policies of the current administration, in the war’s execution. In addition to carrying Colonel Hackworth’s column, they also publish the columns of military historian and conservative leader William S. Lind, who is also the Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation, one of our nation’s major conservative think thanks.
The Washington Times did at least two pieces, shortly before the war began, about how there was major conservative opposition to it. That is one of our nation’s premier conservative newspapers, and it has had many columns by conservative (and libertarian) commentators who opposed the Iraq war published in it. For example, Arnaud de Borchgrave, the an editor of the Times and a very distiguished conservative leader and foreign policy expert, firmly opposed this war.
As I have pointed out in previous blog entries, the TownHall.com and World Net Daily columnists were split on the issue of war with Iraq, with a significant number in favor of it, a significant number opposed, and a significant number who did not indicate strong feelings one way or the other. TownHall.com (which was started by the Heritage Foundation) and WorldNetDaily are two of the most popular sites for conservative commentary from right-wing columnists.
U.S. Congressman John Duncan, Jr. (R-TN) gave a great speech on this very issue:
Conservatives Against a War in Iraq
According to Congressman Duncan, “A strong majority of nationally-syndicated conservative columnists have come out against this war.” I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, but I would say that there have been a large number of them on both sides of the issue.
The week that the war began, I spoke to a director at Young American’s Foundation about this issue. YAF is one the leading organizations that assists conservative youth across the country. He confirmed much of what I have been saying. He was aware that many conservatives were opposing the war, including several of the YAF staffers, and several of their popular speakers. (Though, let me clarify, YAF as a whole does not take an official stance on this issue.) And what about Accuracy in Academia, another well-known organization that deals with campus issues for students? That organization also does not take an official stance on this issue, either. However, Daniel J. Flynn, the well-known conservative speaker and author and leader of Accuracy in Academia, did not support this war. Mr. Flynn recently had a conservative book published, entitled Why the Left Hates America. He also is well-known for opposing the loony left-wing anti-war protestors and the Hollywood leftists. He has written many articles about them, which have been published in National Review and other publications, and has also been on television to oppose these leftists, such as Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. But although Mr. Flynn opposes the anti-war leftists, he also opposed the Iraq war.
So the claim made by some that the major opponents of the war have come from the left may have been true for the war in Afghanistan following 9/11, but it is undoubtedly not true with regards to the war against Iraq. Some time ago, on the discussion board of a leading conservative Illinois web publication, a Republican precinct committeeman stated “There is strong conservative tradition that is against this war.” And when I said that to the guy from Young America’s Foundation, he said that I was preaching to the choir.
As late as February, some White House advisors were looking for a “way out” of the war. The Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert (R-IL), stated that: “Some Republican members [of Congress] want a vote on military action and some of those say they would, at this point, vote against such action.”
The revered General Norman Schwarzkopf (”Stormin’ Norman“) was also opposing this war. (Although, close to the war, he did say that he had changed his mind after Colin Powell’s presentation to the U.N. in February 2003. However, based upon what has happened since then, it is very possible that the General opposes this war, or had strong doubts that it was the right thing to do.)
But with respect to members of the Reagan/Bush and Bush 41 administrations, there were others who spoke out against the Iraq war, or who were counseling restraint during the time running up to it.
It was strongly suspected that former President George Herbert Walker Bush was one of the major Republicans who was counseling his son to question the advice of the hard-line war hawks. Check out this piece by conservative columnist William Safire (a strong supporter of the Iraq war) about the differences between the elder and junior Bushes with respect to the Iraq situation. President George H.W. Bush has long opposed this type of war for regime change in Iraq, and when the idea arose in 1998 (when we went to war with Iraq in “Operation Desert Fox”), an OP-ED piece was published in Time magazine, written by former President Bush and Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who was his National Security Advisor, which re-iterated the case against removing Saddam from power, which pertained to the decision that they had made in 1991. Mr. Scowcroft openly opposed the recent Iraq war, as he made clear in this widely-circulated OP-ED piece for the Wall Street Journal, in which he warned that a war like this would have terrible consequences. Just a month or two before the war, former President Bush (41) gave a speech at a New England university; that speech concerned many topics, but during it, he hinted at problems that could result due to a war like this. The political and foreign policy philosophy that Bush 41 believes in was more like Lt. Gen. Scowcroft’s, and it is different from that of the war hawks within the Bush administration, who convinced the current President Bush to do this war. As I’ve said before, it is possible that if Bush 41 were in office, rather than his son, the Iraq war would not have occurred.
President George W. Bush was undecided with respect to this war for awhile after 9/11, and he had competing advice from different parts of his admnistration, and from the military leaders as well. Based upon his previous statements (see here and here), it is possible that if President Bush had known what he does now, he would not have made the decision that he did. As I noted above, the President has reportedly begun questioning the war hawks’ hard-line policies… And Karl Rove, recognizing the costs and negative aspects of war-related situations, may have declared a moratorium on new wars for the rest of Bush’s term (”No Wars in ‘04“), much to the lament of people like Frank Gaffney. President Bush surprised some observers by how long he took to decide that we were going to war with Iraq (many thought that we would be in there months earlier), and it is unclear whether he will follow the advice of the neoconservatives, neoliberals, and other war hawks with regard to their desire for more of these types of wars. I think that you would want that he does do that, but it is not known whether he will or not.
Anyway, the intent of this comment was just to respond to those two points that you raised. However, I see that it has probably taken me over one and a half hours to do this… ;-(
Basically, I just wanted to clarify what I meant regarding border security and immigration reform (2nd paragraph above), and I wanted to address your claim that most meaningful conservatives were behind this war. (In reality, both liberals and conservatives were divided on this war, and I think that even the libertarians were as well. Our military leadership and veteran community was also divided about it, as those resources above indicate.)
That was the purpose of this comment entry. For the rest of the debate, it will have to wait for awhile.
(At least it isn’t past 4 AM right now!…)
Thanks once again for this discussion, and for your input and viewpoints.
Although you marshall a remarkable number of quotations (no wonder you have no time :-), you fail to address the issue itself - why you view the war as a violation of conservatism. Furthermore, it would appear that Bush-41 people, especially Scowcroft were the most active conservative opponents… but Bush-41 was a less conservative administration than Bush-43. I was aware of the arguments of the Bush-41′ers and found them unconvincing.
In any case, as I said, the Iraq war was a subtle issue.
As far as “major conservatives” go, while it is possible to go quote picking among them, I still don’t find that convincing. The debate before the war was complex, and the situations fluid, and many people said several different things at different times.
However, I have never been a fan of argument by authority. Perhaps I understated the conservative opposition to the war, but there I am sure that the majority of conservatives were in favor of it, and a surprising amount of the criticscame from Bush-41′ers, who would have been condemning their own prior work if they supported the war. In any case, we are arguing history - a history where we were both reading what folks were saying and came away with different impressions.
BTW, my experience with the veteran and military community (and I’m a member of the former) has been that most were in favor of this war. Sure, there were some generals with other opinions. There always are.
So it appears we are in agreement about the border (more should be done, but enough cannot be done), and we are in disagreement about the history of dissent prior to the war, which frankly is irrelevant to any important issue.
If you think that the war is against conservative principles, why not state which principles and why, and then we can debate it. I don’t want to debate with Brent Scowcroft or GHWB. They are has-beens. When GHWB left Saddam in power, I knew then that we were going to have to fight Saddam again, so why should I listen to GHWB’s advice. I understand why he left him in power, but it was short-sighted. Sometimes pure real-politik has seriously political and diplomatic repercussions.
I want to debate the principles and the facts as they exist. This started when you asserted that the Bush/Blair foreign policy was a continuation of the Clinton/Blair foreign policy, and I took exception (heck, I took took offense) at that. I am baffled as to how one can equate the two. So lets discuss that too.
Again, throwing quotes at me just doesn’t cut it. What counts is the real rationales, the real events, and the real consequences.
But I’ll mention a bit about the Clinton FP/Bush FP equivalency assertion. Clinton’s foreign policy was pretty clearly one in which he sought to avoid foreign distractions, until he needed them due to the Lewinsky affair. Also he was seeking a Nobel Peace Prize and a place in history. I don’t think his motives were substantially motivated by US interests, because I think his character was too defective to operate that way. When we examine his actions, we find him doing actions that gained him the applause of the international community (and applause is food to a narcissist like Clinton) - namely, going into Kosovo. We also found him lying, up front, about what was involved (we were going to be there 1 year, which was obviously wrong at the time - we are still there). He avoided punishing Saddam for his attempted assassination of GHWD, his continuous attacks against our aircraft, and his vicious attack against our Kurdish allies (who were supposedly under our protection) - leaving the world with the impression that we were weak. He only launched a major attack on Iraq when we the Lewinsky situation was getting out of hand, using our military as political pawns, leaving the world with the impression that we were as short of pinciples as the French.
Al Qaeda attacks against us (such as the first WTC attack which was intended to kill 100,000 people and involved a chemical weapon which was innfective because it was destroyed by the explosion) were not taken seriously. Rather than recognize the threat, Clinton dealt with the attacks as law enforcement actions, and the fact that terrorists had violated the long believed principle that terrorists would not attempt large casualty counts was ignored. The FBI was focused on domestic (read right wing) terrorist threats.
Bush, on the other hand, has a visionary foreign policy, even though it was created as a result of a catatrophe. He immediately recognized that this was a major struggle - one of special qualitites and special dangers - and reacted accordingly. There is really no correlation between the two policies.
For example, to compare the invasion of Kosovo (a “humanitarian” war where we didn’t even let our pilots fly below 15,000 feet) with the toppling of Iraq is wrong. These are radically different events, undertaken for radically different reasons. That they both involve nation building is again not because they are the result of the same kind of thinking, but because the first was a wilsonian fantasy, and the second is a tactic in a much larger undertaking. That the neocons are more optimistic about the odds of success than the paleocons is interesting, but irrelevant.
My challenge to you is to prescribe (preferrably without quotes) a proper policy to deal with terrorism. I assume you agree with me that it is the most critical foreign AND domestic policy issue of our time. If not, we should discuss that.
Mr. Moore,
As I indicated at the start and end of that last comment entry, that (what you mention in your last comment) was not the purpose of my last comment; the purpose of my comment from last night was strictly polemical - to clarify my views regarding border security and immigration, and to express disagreement to your assertion that few conservatives disagreed with President Bush about Iraq. Even within the Bush administration, and among those advising the President, there were deep disagreements over the Iraq issue, as those resources linked to above show. I know for a fact that major conservative organizations, think tanks, and columnists were divided over the issue of whether to go to war in Iraq… Some conservative organizations, like Young America’s Foundation, the Independence Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Empower America, and Soldiers for the Truth, had situations in which their leadership was split about the war - some supported it, while some opposed it. (Even at what is regarded as a pro-war organization - the Heritage Foundation - there were those, such as Dr. John C. Hulsman, who firmly opposed this war. And by the way, even National Review Online has published columns, from writers such as Doug Bandow, against the Iraq war.) The staff of Human Events magazine, the long-running national conservative weekly, was also divided on the war; I think that the Editor-in-Chief, the Pulitzer Prize-nominated conservative commentator Terence Jeffrey, opposed it. Other conservative think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Insitute and the Center for Security Policy, strongly supported the Iraq war. And yet other conservative organizations, such as the Free Congress Foundation, the CATO Insitute (yes, I know that they’re libertarian, but they are listed in the links section of the official Republican National Committe website), Polyconomics, The Conservative Caucus, the Center for the National Security Interest, and the American Gulf War Veterans Association, opposed this war.
By the way, there is a good listing of major American conservative organizations in TownHall.com’s Citizen Groups web page:
www.townhall.com/citizens
As you can see the conservative “citizen groups” listed there had varying views about the war; also, many took no firm position one way or another on it. Same goes for their famous listing of conservative columnists.
So the purpose of the last comment was primarily polemical… One thing that has very much been frustrating me for well over a year now has been the popular misconception that the major opposition to wars, such as the Iraq war, comes from only the Left. I have been afraid that many in the public would get that impression, even though it is not true, and I have been vigorously trying to debunk that myth in my past writings, blog entries, and comment posts for some time now.
As leftist writer Christopher Hitchens (a very strong supporter of this war) said, regarding the Iraq war:
“There’s a good deal of conservative opposition to this. In fact, most of the actual opposition in Washington to the war is from the right. And nobody cares what the left or the peaceniks think. Their arguments aren’t considered to be worth listening to.”
By the way, the conservative one of the Hitchens brother, Peter Hitchens, has been a strong opponent of the socialist Blair government (in England, it must be much better for conservatives who opposed the Iraq war, since someone like Blair was still in office; if Clinton or Lieberman were in office right now and had done this war, I think that there would be a lot more conservatives and Republicans who would be openly critical of it…). Mr. Hitchens (the conservative Peter, not crazy Christopher), wrote this column about the war for the Spectator in London.
Anyway, to get back to the subject, that was the purpose of that above comment, to address your aforementioned statement. I think that you (along with many others) have underestimated the amount of major conservative and military opposition (and strong doubt) regarding the Iraq war. The reason that I did not address your overall points regarding the issues of preemptive war and the threat of terrorism, are the reasons that I mentioned in my comments above… That will have to wait - although, I have written about these topics before. (I just earlier today did a semi-lengthy comment, currently second from the bottom at this thread at RightWingNews.com, regarding the Libya issue, and the threat posed to America and the world due to nuclear weapons, and the “Islamic bomb.” And I did briefly mention the issue of preemptive war in our previous comment discussion here.) Perhaps I will do a blog entry or article some time in the future with my prescription for dealing with these issues; I have dealt with that in some of my past writings, though. But right now, I have 2 incompletes (possibly 3!), and that is, out of the 4 courses that I took this semester. (In other words, I only finished the course work for one or two out of my four courses…
My instructors, though, have been gracious enough to give me extra time… See, that’s the benefit of having “wishy-washy liberals” or Clinton Democrats as instructors - things like punctuality, and consequences for failure to complete assignments on time - well, those aren’t enforced too strictly. 
I am on the verge of finishing one project, but I still have one more to do, a dialectical journal, on a book about Clinton and leadership!
And come to think of it… I haven’t done my Christmas shopping yet!! Darn it…
Well, thanks once more for your intelligent and insightful points, and for this discussion. I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to continue it any time soon, but anyway - I hope that you and yours have been having a great holiday season.
Thanks, and Merry Christmas!!
No comments on the above. When you get your homework done and your incompletes complete, come on back and we’ll chat some moore.
Merry Christmas
The comment stated how far the BBC has fallen. That statement is correct. The BBC has vast resources, but virtually that whole organisation has been taken over by a very left/liberal viewpoint. While one may complain about bias perhaps in places like News International and its sisters, Its important to recognise the BBC for its failings.
At one time it had reporters who did just that. Now they report, with a vengeance and also with a modus operandae.
If the BBC can attack any leader, party, country, and be anti western at the same time, it will do so.
One should note that British Service men and women refuse to watch the BBC becuase of the bias in reporting. Even now, the lack of comment on the excellent work BF do in and around Basra is quite amazing. Compare this to the time given to the anti war marches, or to the people who appeared on the BBC with a very biased viewpoint.
Sadly, channel 4 seems to have fallen to similar low levels of independence. Its rather side that the media is now politically activated in its reporting instead of having a good old fashioned independant, detached commentary.
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