A Poem For That September Day
They reached for heaven, those towers, tall,
And graced her ever-blue skies that morn.
And though under man’s ire they were brought to fall,
crumbling to ash; natures truest form.
They reached for heaven, those birds of man,
For no other purpose than what we prescribe.
Down below, shadows grace the land,
As they slip across our own sky.
As Elijah’s chariot, they took to heaven,
Four, themselves full, against their will.
And shepherded many more, that nine eleven,
Whether by building, or man’s metallic quill.
No words born by man’s tongue dare,
Do what is justly owed to that day.
Though many wish to try, and fare,
Well, in telling of their own soul’s decay.
For many nothing more need be said,
Than the feeling shown, by our cheek’s tear.
For those of us, who claim no dead,
Embrace the less fortunate, and admonish their fear.
-rj
Leave Afghanistan
I know RJ will vehemently disagree with me, but here is an op-ed I wrote about leaving Afghanistan that Daily Caller was kind enough to publish:
On Monday, a former professor and I were chatting, and the war in Afghanistan came up. I have been supporting a 100% pull-out from that country- as well as Iraq- for some time now, and think that with the General McChrystal issue hitting the fan (for the record, I support the president’s acceptance of the general’s resignation), it’s as good a time as any to post about why we need to leave the country.
First, we should leave for humanitarian/ethical reasons. We are sending servicemembers to that country to die for an Afghan leader who is corrupt, and whose brother is a criminal. What is our goal over there? The Afghanistan people are, at best, a tribal people with no real central government and no willingness to even have a central government. Being there to have access to Pakistan is just not a good enough reason anymore. Secondly, to (admittedly, hesitantly) quote a front page poster at Daily Kos, the worse Afghanistan gets, the less likely we are to leave. Since when does a proper cost-benefit analysis include sending good money after bad, and since when does honoring those who have valiantly served, been injured and/or died in Afghanistan include sending more young people to die without cause?
Secondly, we should leave because the American people don’t support this war. Oh, they say they do. But as New York Times columnist Bob Herbert described in December of last year, our support is minimal. Some money or other means of assistance is sent by those affected directly or indirectly by the war (friends and family with military members overseas, etc.) and some truly patriotic Americans, but most of the nation is satisfied with rhetoric pulled from blogs, talking heads and Associated Press articles. (Oh, yeah, and they have yellow ribbons on their bumpers.) As Herbert put it,
The reason it is so easy for the U.S. to declare wars, and to continue fighting year after year after year, is because so few Americans feel the actual pain of those wars. We’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan longer than we fought in World Wars I and II combined. If voters had to choose right now between instituting a draft or exiting Afghanistan and Iraq, the troops would be out of those two countries in a heartbeat.
Thirdly, we should leave Afghanistan because, despite the very good reasons for entering in 2001, Bush and Congress ignored Afghanistan for half a decade while focusing on Iraq. Whether or not we should have focused on Iraq is a different debate for a different time…but they failed to conduct the war in Afghanistan with efficiency, and President Obama is not improving things. Instead, as George Will pointed out this week, we have created a military for babysitting. Even with President Obama sending 30,000 troops over to the nation, we have a timetable. Since when has letting the foe know when it’s safe to come out become American policy? Obama’s mistakes are somewhat different than Bush’s…but they have the same consequences for our young people dying over there. Again, the cost-benefit analysis is not in favor of staying in Afghanistan.
Fourth, we just don’t have a clue as to what we’re doing, as pointed out by The Washington Examiner. Period. Is Karzai a good guy for us? It depends on the day. Are we trying to kill terrorists, or win the minds of the people? Um…the answer is unclear- ask again later. Is our enemy in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen or Afghanistan? I don’t think anyone really knows, despite what they may say. It could be all four. Are we going to invade Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen next, as a result?
After our conversation, my professor sent me an e-mail with the following title: “Until: 1) We decide to WIN wars again & 2) The Harvard kids also serve …this says it all.” He was referring to a recent Herbert column, in which Herbert talked about the courage to leave Afghanistan. The fact is that if we want to win wars, we should have a beginning, a middle and an end planned out. We should bring in enough troops. We should know the culture. We should not be convinced by elitists to enter a conflict- elitists whose their total involvement in war consists of debating on TV or making a profit off of the deaths of our countrymen. Pay the taxes to support the war, or do a USO tour, or encourage your child to join the military. Something. (On that note, great credit goes to people like Senator McCain and Vice-President Biden, whose children have served in post-9/11 conflicts, and especially to Senator McCain, who supports the war despite the risk to his family.)
I wasn’t alive in 1972, but my professor, my father and an increasing number of right-of-center individuals are saying the same thing- they’ve seen Afghanistan before. Of course- and it is now clichéd- it was called Vietnam, then. Since Bush took office, our debt has risen nearly 125%, with over 10% of that cost directly attributable to entering Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve lost thousands of young men and women. As much as it pains me to say it, the honorable thing to do is tactically retreat, starting tomorrow, and conduct a full pull-out from Afghanistan and Iraq, and honor our fallen by swearing to never, ever forget our first duty to the troops is to use them to protect our nation, not appease the egos and wallets that have benefited over the last nine years from our involvement in the Middle East.
My friend Tom Qualtere, who works for The Heritage Foundation, wrote an op-ed for Daily Caller back in March, and in it he said that Millennial/Generation Y Americans “are the 9/11 generation.” I agree with him, if only because the specter of 9/11 has dominated this nation’s, and our young people’s, thinking and culture since the towers fell. According to Tom, however, our duty is as follows:
But for those of us who’ve chosen a vocation on the home front, our support for them and their mission must be unambiguous and unwavering. It is time for conservatism’s 9/11 generation to fully embrace and defend the role that history has bestowed upon us and wear our hawk feathers more proudly than ever.
Tom and I disagree on many policy issues, and Afghanistan is one of them. He will undoubtedly respond to this opinion by saying we are letting the terrorists win by leaving Afghanistan. This would be the case if we just left Afghanistan (and Iraq) and forgot about the Middle East. However, when we leave, we must do so with the following assertions to the rest of the world (and our own citizenry):
- We are going to get the government out of the way and drill for oil within our national borders, build wind farms and build nuclear power plants. No longer will we send tens of billions every year to nations that support terrorism and hate us. While I do believe we went into Afghanistan and Iraq for good and ethical reasons, the fact is that part of that reasoning was for the benefits of oil for America. Well, take away the need for overseas oil, and we can start minding our own business for a change. Moreover, many terrorist organizations will have less money with which to fund attacks against us. This will take years, of course- but better late than never, and the sooner we start the better off we will be.
- The international community has for too long relied on our military. We have over 700 bases worldwide, and given our budget issues, this is unsustainable. If other nations- the same ones who criticize and condemn us if we don’t get involved (see Rwanda), but also if we do (see Iraq), with world affairs- want to utilize our blood and treasure, they can sign treaties and trade deals that give America a slice of the economic pie we have not asked for during our six-plus decades of world protection. Protection of other nations should be handled on a case-by-case basis, not with the assumption we will help every nation without such agreements. Supporting Kuwait in 1991, for example, was done because a) it was in our national interest, and b) because we had the ability to strike and win without a prolonged, expensive endeavor. Essentially, the cost-benefit analysis was positive.
- Protect our borders with some of the troops we bring home, among other good immigration policies (allowing border guards to shoot; encouraging legal immigration through incentives, etc.). Terrorists will have a hard time hurting us without being able to get in. Good, effective border policy will also give us the time to better our energy policies, as mentioned above.
- The jihadists will probably claim victory; after all, they drove out the “Great Satan,” much as they did with the Russians in the 1980s. This is a major concern, as 9/11 was the culmination of a nearly a decade’s worth of minor attacks that went unanswered by President Clinton. However, that’s where minding our own business and providing them with less money come into play, as well as the treaties I mentioned above. By minding our own business, we will blunt some of the jihadist propaganda. Secondly, without money they will have less success in attacking us in our own nation. Thirdly, should our intelligence see a threat, they can work with intelligence agencies in other nations and sign treaties and work together to deal with threats both before and as they arise. Lastly, should all else fail, we will have our own border control forces.
A clarification: I do not support an isolationist foreign policy platform, nor do I believe we have caused all of the world’s problems. The Middle East would have been a pit of peoples fighting among themselves even if America had never even sent a single dollar or troop there. However, other than supporting Israel and other allies with which we have treaties, or responding as we did after 9/11 to a direct threat on our nation, we should not be in that part of the world. The difficulty, of course- and this is why we have experts in government and the private sector- is striking the correct balance between leaving with our tail between our legs, thereby encouraging boldness by our enemies, and leaving with our heads held high without showing weakness. I think it is possible to do the latter by leaving now, though I admit the idea is balanced on a blade’s edge, and would require much delicate work.
It is difficult to say something is not worth vast amounts of effort- in this case, money and blood- put into it. It’s especially difficult when we have not won a major military conflict (except in 1991) since World War II. However, pride is only useful if those with the pride (i.e. politicians, think tank observers, etc.) are in the conflicts or are otherwise directly affected. Otherwise, the consequences of the pride are simply foisted onto those patriotic Americans who die or are maimed as a direct result of the pride. The delicate balance necessary to leave Afghanistan without handing a public relations boon to our terrorist enemies is an important step in owning up to the mistakes pride have bought us in the War on Terror.
*Originally published at DailyCaller.com.
Let’s Look At The Real Issues Facing The Country
Peggy Noonan writes a truly fantastic column in today’s Wall Street Journal. Some of the best bits are below:
The American version [[DS: of Britain's Question Time] might not translate so well. The Brits have a certain tradition of elegance in debate, and enjoy insulting each other. American politicians are more conflicted about obvious aggression, not about feeling it but showing it—it might not play well!—and so they tend to go under or over the line. “You lie!” “Yeah? Well you’re blankin’ developmentally challenged!” We will miss Fritz Hollings, the former Democratic senator who once said to then-Sen. John Glenn, in a presidential primary debate, “But what have you done in the world?”
If an American version could take place regularly, outside Congress and on neutral territory, as the gangs say in “West Side Story,” there could be benefits. It would momentarily force members and the president to focus together on what’s actually happening this week, and, more important, it might force members of Congress to be more familiar with the bills they support. They might actually have to know what’s in them and show a grasp of details. This might tend to produce fewer omnibus bills. “You expect me to know and talk about what’s in that? It’s 2,000 pages! Cut it down to 20 and give it a new name.”
Both our political parties continue, even though they know they shouldn’t, even though they’re each composed of individuals many of whom actually know what time it is, even though they know we are in an extraordinary if extended moment, an ongoing calamity connected to our economic future, our nation’s standing in the world, our strength and our safety—even though they know all this, they continue to go through the daily motions, fund raising, vote counting, making ads with demon sheep, blasting out the latest gaffe of the other team. Our political professionals cheapen everything they touch because they are burying themselves in daily urgencies in order to dodge and avoid the big picture.
America doesn’t need to be told that something bad will happen. America needs to be told what is being done, what will be done and what can be done, how together we’ll get through it, what information and attitude to take into the future. They don’t need to be made anxious, they need to be recruited into a common endeavor.
Instead both parties, understandably and yet wickedly, destructively, irresponsibly, use the nation’s safety as another issue on which to protect their political position.
But the tendency of both parties to default to politics when they think about terrorism—”You’re weak,” “No, you’re bellicose,” “You’re avoiding reality to advance some dreamy geopolitical vision,” “You’re exploiting reality to make cheap points”—cannot be heartening to the public.
The biggest historic gain of this administration may turn out to be that Democrats in the White House experienced leadership in the age of terror, came to have responsibility in a struggle that needs and will need our focus. It wasn’t good that half the country thought jihadism was some little Republican obsession.
But both parties should sober up. The day after the next bad thing, we will all come together, because that is what we do. Republicans and Democrats will work together, for a while.
It would be better to do it now. It is their job to do it now.
My uncle, a Chief of Staff on Capitol Hill, and I were talking about the state of political affairs in this country on Monday, and he pointed out how between an increasingly polarized media and an increasingly polarized political situation in Washington, DC, it is hard to work on the major issues. These issues include but are not limited to Social Security, Medicare, health care, energy and national security. Related to this point, Noonan said:
I think sometimes of the suburbs around Washington, which are planted thick with knowledgable veterans of government—old national-security and foreign-policy hands, patriots of both parties who’ve served within government, in and out of the military. How painful it must be for them to watch all this, knowing what they know and understanding that political party, at a time like this, means nothing. There is so much experience to share, and so much wisdom, from both parties. I wish those old hands had more say.
As I said above, this column is truly excellent. That said, Noonan does miss two key points that my libertarian friend Jon O’Neill pointed out. His first point was that the real issue at hand is that our officials are not following the Constitution. Secondly, we let ourselves be satisfied that the same officials who failed us on 9/11 (I would add that government officials also failed us regarding the economic crash in 2008 and America’s fiscal crisis) will take good care of us and our loved ones. To paraphrase Jon, this is folly.
I think Jon has hit the nail on the head- however, Noonan’s points are still very well-taken. Americans tend to ask “what,” which is important. But it is just as important is to ask “why” and “how.” Without these two, knowing the “what” of any situation is very, very limited.
Poem for That September Day
They reached for heaven, those towers, tall,
And graced her ever-blue skies that morn.
And though under man?s ire they were brought to fall,
crumbling to ash; natures truest form.
?
They reached for heaven, those birds of man,
For no other purpose than what we prescribe.
Down below, shadows grace the land,
As they slip across our own sky.
?
As Elijah?s chariot, they took to heaven,
Four, themselves full, against their will.
And shepherded many more, that nine eleven,
Whether by building, or man?s metallic quill.
?
No words born by man?s tongue dare,
Do what is justly owed to that day.
Though many wish to try, and fare,
Well, in telling of their own soul?s decay.
?
For many nothing more need be said,
Than the feeling shown, by our cheek?s tear.
For those of us, who claim no dead,
Embrace the less fortunate, and admonish their fear.
?
-rj
Never Forget
Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those that were lost during the tragic events of 9/11 and those over seas fighting against those that oppose our values and freedoms.
Never Forget!
