How to deal with Iran

By Rick Morris

Rumors have run rampant for years now that the Bush administration plans an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities before it leaves office in January 2009. Certainly, the move by the mullahs to acquire nuclear weapons is a frightening one that should be focusing our energies on how best to protect our interests in the Persian Gulf.

But military intervention is not the only avenue open to us in the area. My longtime friend Scott Pullins has announced that his Pullins Report is part of a wide coalition dedicated to pursuing other means of addressing our very real issues with the regime in Tehran.

Ironically, while I'm a bit unsure as to the utility of free and unfettered talks with Iran right now, I support Scott's general efforts 100%. As with his stance on the treatment of detainees, I may differ with him here and there, but I think his general focus is exactly right.

He and I have traveled down parallel political paths, which helps me to understand and to support his present direction a bit better. We were both of college age at the end of the Cold War and we were both very hawkish given the realities of the day. Essentially, while shooting in that war was rare and generally confined to proxies (i.e. Vietnam, Afghanistan), it really WAS a war and we needed to be on a war footing when dealing with a grim enemy which hungered for nothing less than world domination. Ronald Reagan's method of confronting the Soviets directly, which was totally unprecedented, was appropriate and it worked -- and Scott and I supported him.

But we are now in a different time. The conservative movement long ago fractured into the (completely dominant) neoconservative wing and my paleocon wing. The neocons never moved from the "war footing" mentality and seemed well before 9/11 to be searching for any excuse to project American military might upon the world. For all the talk about how Eeee-Vil Republicans tried to destroy the Clintons with the impeachment saga, the neocons stood behind Bubba steadfastly as he wagged the dog with a completely unnecessary war in the Balkans in 1999.

George W. Bush, about whom I can honestly say I was skeptical from the very beginning given my aversion to Republican Establishment figures, came to office promising a humble, respectful foreign policy. But, as the cliche goes, "9/11 changed everything."

The foreign policy "realists" that Scott and I scorned in our youth were wrong then -- I will always believe that. But, given today's circumstances, they are right in this climate.

I have said on The FDH Lounge program that George W. Bush and Bill Clinton each accomplished the same dubious action -- by opposite means. Clinton destroyed American deterrence in the '90s by turning a blind eye to each successive attack by bin Laden and establishing us as a paper tiger. Bush destroyed American deterrence by getting us bogged down in Iraq from the end of the first phase of the war in April '03 until he FINALLY delivered the surge in 2007 -- thus reestablishing us as a paper tiger after restoring our global prestige by winning swiftly in Afghanistan in late 2001. Imperial overreach and pacifism both lead to disaster and to America's enemies licking their chops.

The neocons are right in the very narrow sense about staying on the offensive against Al Qaeda worldwide and this is a job that our special forces should continue to be pursuing in every nook and cranny of the globe regardless of who gets elected president in November (although I'm admittedly scared that Barack Obama will not agree with this basic common-sense point). But starting full-on conflagrations against other governments without fully thinking through the consequences -- haven't we been here before? Every Deskbound Rambo who proclaimed in 2002-2003 that Iraq would be a cakewalk should be permanently prohibited from being taken seriously.

George W. Bush and Karl Rove, who openly dreamed of creating another longstanding Republican dynasty in the mold of William McKinley, have seen their dreams die in the sands of the Middle East much in the same way that Jimmah Carter's aspirations did. To the extent that their militaristic brand of neoconservatism is left to define the Republican party and the broader American Right, then the party and the movement will never recover. That's why, in addition to personal friendship, I support Scott's efforts as strongly as I do. The school of thought about what's best for this country, as well as the country itself, is too important to be left to the rotting corpse known as GOP leadership. Whether you support every individual thread of anti-neocon policy, it's time to get with the program and work for the clear best interests of this country. If opposition to rampant militarism is ceded to the peaceniks and pinkos, we all lose.

My Hatred Toward Ron Paul Supporters

By Tony Mazur

As Rick Morris stated in the post below, Ron Paul will withdraw from the presidential race. I know, I know, it's sad for us all, but I guess he didn't appeal to the majority of the people.

Ron Paul has been described as a Constitutionalist, libertarian, and, although I don't believe it, a conservative. Personally, I think he's a goof. There is no redeeming quality about Ron Paul.

However, I do not know what's more annoying, Ron Paul's political positions, or his idiotic supporters. When referring to the 2008 presidential race, I heard someone say that "Ron Paul is the only true conservative". As a fellow conservative, I am offended to be classified with this numskull. I support the War in Iraq. I greatly support the Patriot Act. How can you not support the Patriot Act? There are savages who want to kill us, and these dummies think our rights are being infringed upon.

Ron Paul backers are all the same, no matter what age they may be. He's quite popular among college students and ex-hippies. The typical supporter is usually a liberal or libertarian. He/she probably smokes a lot of pot, and believes in ridiculous conspiracies, like UFOs and the "bombing" of the World Trade Center on September 11th. That's kind of why there actually is a chunk of people who follow Dennis Kucinich. Chances are, they do a lot of internet blogging. Also, they are usually offended by anything remotely resembling criticism against Ron Paul. These are the people who shout to the world that they are moving to Canada if [insert Republican candidate] wins the election, but never follows through.

I'm already hearing phony conspiracies about how the government is keeping Ron Paul out of the public eye. He's not Ross Perot. Ron Paul cannot affect the outcome of this coming election, even if he ran as a third-party candidate. Unfortunately, it's going to be either McCain or Obama, two candidates I'm dreading to see in the White House. I wish a viable candidate can go up against them, but it won't be the case. And Ron Paul isn't the guy.

Benoit family tragedy -- a look back

By Rick Morris

This column tackles the stages of grief a person goes through as a fan when somebody you admire passes away suddenly and shockingly -- and you find out that the person committed monstrous, heinous crimes and was completely unworthy of your respect. The person going through those phases was me, last June. I'm not someone who engages in a lot of writing about personal topics involving myself, but as a writer and someone fascinated by human psychology, I was really blown away by what I expressed at the time and I knew that others of similar interests would be enthralled as well.

Inspired by a couple of different factors (Jason's recent post about leaving thoughts on message boards and my realization that the first post-Benoit WrestleMania is just round the corner), I decided to revisit my thoughts at the time of the Benoit murder-suicide last summer. This blog was still almost two months away from being created, but I was posting regularly on the wrestling message board at SportsTalkNetwork.com. One of my associates at STN remarked to me that my participation in the Benoit tragedy thread almost amounted to a live-blog over several days as the evolution of my emotions and analysis was on full display -- the necessary background here is that Chris Benoit was my favorite wrestler and somebody I personally admired as an example of great perseverance in his career. I do find this as I look back a fascinating display of evolving thinking under unthinkable circumstances -- as fascinated as I am by matters of psychology, I find my thoughts and coping mechanisms to be really, really interesting.

Here is the thread with the comments of all posters on the Benoit tragedy from the STN message board.

Here's Part One of my thoughts, posted at 7:10 PM EST on June 25, when the earliest details were making their way out to the public:

"I am the typical internet smark. Benoit was my favorite.

I am just numb right now. So many in this industry drop dead early that it gets easier to accept all the time, no matter how much you were a fan of theirs. As with the Owen Hart tragedy, I'm struck by the fact that we're probably diminished as human beings for continuing to support an industry that takes such a toll on people. But I'll keep watching, as will 99.9% of us, so it's a sad commentary, I guess. I guess by next week we'll all start justifying again about how it's the life they chose.

I am taping tonight's RAW and will probably rewatch it a bunch of times. I know that Benoit spoke of his wrestling being like art, which is what I loved about him. I'd like to think that he would find it fitting and flattering that we will remember him for his body of work, but I can't be sure of that.

And I really, really hope that there was not any foul play here, although it certainly doesn't look good.

RIP, thoughts and prayers to the family."

Here's Part Two of my thoughts, posted at 9:48 PM EST that same night reflecting on Benoit and some unfortunate foreshadowing on my part:

"Carbon monoxide could certainly be possible, but since I tend to look at everything in life in terms of probability, here's what I wonder: what are the odds of something that would be noteworthy enough to make the news, albeit maybe just regional news, happening to somebody of his level of (relative) fame? It's not often that something that random happens to someone even marginally famous.

But, man, I really hope that this was just an accident. As horrible as this is with the three of them passing away, to have it be from any murder/suicide would be simply unbearable. To have arguably the greatest wrestler's wrestler ever be remembered not for what he gave us all these years but to be remembered by the mainstream as an unseemly tabloid headline -- I can't even fathom that.

As an example of what I mean by that, my best friend is not a wrestling fan, doesn't have much use for the business. But he was with me one time when I flipped on wrestling and he said, "That guy's your favorite wrestler? He's pretty good." I don't want people like my buddy who don't know or care about the business to know him as a tabloid headline.

But if it was ... I do believe that some good can come out of anything, no matter how small a trace. If this was a gruesome act of horror perpetrated from within that family, the slime from this will stick to the business and Vince won't get away with rationalizing what this business does to people. The long-overdue PR hit for operating the business in such a subhuman manner will come. As I said to a friend tonight, "The business is guilty until proven innocent." I think that's the only reason that we could even entertain the notion of he or his wife perpetrating this.

Again, I don't believe the murder/suicide theory, probably because I can't bring myself to do so. I think the police are obligated to start by checking for foul play, so I make no assumptions based on that.

I'll always remember Wrestlemania XX, watching it at Harpos, with all of us making the salt and pepper shakers jump on the table at the end as we pounded our fists yelling, "Tap, tap, tap." I can only speak for myself, but I was cynical enough to believe that HHH wasn't going to put him over, so I was so overjoyed when he did. I'll also remember getting my picture taken with him at the first Pillman tribute show (damn, when you add Pillman and Benoit to the "extended family," the Harts are right up there with the Von Erichs for tragedy). And I'll remember the fans giving him that shocking standing ovation at the end of the 2003 Royal Rumble match against Kurt Angle. That match was designed not to get him over, but to give Angle at strong win heading into Wrestlemania XIX. The spontaneous reaction was the ultimate rebuttal to those who thought his alleged lack of mic skills would keep the people from getting behind him enough to become a main event star.

We're definitely going to talk about him on the next Lounge on July 1. I'm not saying that in the usual manner of my FDH promotion on these boards, because I'll honestly tell you that it may not be our greatest segment ever. I just need to vent a little bit to feel better personally."

Here's Part Three of my thoughts, posted at 11:28 PM EST that same night, as the unthinkable is settling in:

"Bizarre indeed, Liam. This is truly uncharted territory for this business.

It seems that we can't run from the truth of what apparently happened anymore. The phrase "where there's smoke, there's fire" really applies in instances such as these. Too much has come out, albeit on background, from police sources who must know everything already.

There are two innocent victims in a horrific murder/suicide and my favorite wrestler, someone who I admired for his work ethic and for his leadership skills in the locker room, is not among the innocents. It's a sign of how quickly things move in the Internet age that I've come to grips with this in a matter of hours. The trick now, for me and for so many, will be to separate our pleasurable memories that Benoit gave us from the man who murdered his wife and young son. We didn't know his true nature at the time, so we're not culpable for having admired him. But is it still possible on any level to admire his work?

I never thought that admiring a Chris Benoit match would be like trying to find merit in a painting by Hitler, but here we are."

Here's Part Four of my thoughts, posted at 7:42 AM EST the next morning, as the anger and betrayal are in full effect:

"Mike, I don't begrudge you that perspective. We all deal with things in our own way. I just don't share it.

I'll never deny what he did in that ring and the fact that I thought he was the best, largely because he could work any style convincingly. But as I said above, my enjoyment could only come because I did not know what he was capable of -- killing his wife and young, young son, these are such cowardly acts ... for me personally (and a great many others, I suspect), I'd be right there with you in mourning him if his final acts on this earth were not so despicable.

It's going to be so surreal going back and tracking in this thread what we said with what we knew at the time, because I was full of heartfelt sentiments towards him with my first few thoughts I posted. But now?

F Chris Benoit."

Here's Part Five of my thoughts, posted at 10:28 PM EST that next night. In this post, I recopy a column about the situation that I wrote for our FantasyDrafthelp.com blog:

"Posting here since word broke has been a kind of therapy for many of us. Certainly, my posts trace my thought process at the various stages of what I knew whe. It was kind of like an instant time capsule for all of us. I am glad that nobody on these boards has displayed the kind of idiocy I'm routinely seeing in other corners of the internet.

I did collect my thoughts somewhat for a short essay on the FDH blog. I'm reprinting here for the benefit of anyone struggling to make sense of their own thoughts right now.

'The eulogy that wasn't

24 hours ago, I was preparing a written tribute in this space for Chris Benoit and his family. In an admission that will admittedly brand me an internet smart mark, I will say that he was my favorite wrestler. The operative word here is "was."

My words were going to express the notion that my all-time favorite athlete, Steve Yzerman, retired almost a year ago and that I wrote a tribute to him. I was prepared to express how much harder it is to pay tribute to someone who's passed away than to someone who's retired ... until I learned the circumstances.

There are a million different perspectives out there about this tragedy, and I can respect all of them -- except for the immature clowns on message boards who either want to use the blood of innocents to bash pro wrestling fans, or, on the other extreme, to defend Benoit as "a good man who became sick at the end" and can't let go of the man they wanted to believe existed.

For those who only now know him as a tabloid headline, let me give you the meat of the tribute I was going to write for him. Chris Benoit was a man who said that he treated his profession as art, and many of us loved him for the way that he applied that philosophy to his matches. He almost never had a bad match, even with the least talented wrestlers in the industry. He could work any style in a believable manner. He gave us some of the greatest moments in wrestling history, whether it be the shocking standing ovation he was given at the end of the 2003 Royal Rumble, his Wrestlemania XX triumphant moment with the late, great Eddy Guerrero, his J-Cup highlights from Japan or any hundred other matches. He worked hard, set an example of how to be a professional for wrestlers coming up, and really shined with his leadership in that capacity.

Now for the parts I wasn't going to include ...

Because of what he did in the ring, the fact that his colleagues invariably cited him as one of the most respected wrestlers in the industry (the quintessential "wrestler's wrestler," if you will) and his quiet, humble nature, we all overlooked a few things. Like the fact that he got together with his current wife Nancy at the expense of her existing marriage (and his relationship with the mother of his other children) during the infamous "Kevin Sullivan booked his own divorce" period 11 years ago. And the obvious use of steroids, HGH, or any similar product to pack the unnatural amount of musculature on his relatively slight frame. Nobody's perfect, right?

Well, that's an obvious understatement right now.

In the end, Chris Benoit was all of those things, and that was all we knew at the time -- so it was valid to look at him with the great appreciation that we did. I don't begrudge myself the fun I had at the time from his efforts.

But now? Appreciating Chris Benoit for his work would be like appreciating Adolf Hitler for some paintings that he might have created. Benoit murdered his wife and child in cold blood before taking the coward's way out at the end of a rope. The details of last weekend, combined with confirmation of previous spousal abuse that was not publicly known until now, conspire to make this story keep getting more nauseating by the hour. He deserves none of the glory that many of us were ready to give him when we first learned of his demise prior to absorbing the gory details. He deserves ... well, exactly what he's getting right now and for eternity. Let's leave it at that.

We who appreciated Chris Benoit saw in him the good side of an industry plagued by repetitive and numbing premature death and general sleaze. We thought he stood for the positive side of what is admittedly a morally challenged industry. But in the end, he exemplified to the "nth degree" the open sewer that the business really is. It's a sad measure of how addictive the entertainment can be that so few of us (and I don't exempt myself from this) will abandon it in long-overdue outrage.'"

In the span of under thirty hours, I digested the fact that a man I greatly respected, someone who had provided me so many hours of great entertainment, turned out to be a vile, sick individual unbeknown to us all. My earlier thoughts were still of a type of hero worship that makes me wince to revisit it -- before my outrage kicked in fully. One of the truly outstanding posters on that board, Liam in England, said it best so succinctly when he called the evening the news broke the most surreal night of his 14 years of being a wrestling fan.

My lasting thought on the matter is that I am saddened by how little has changed. The WWE claims to be enforcing a strict drug policy, but still pushes wrestlers constantly with a 'roided-up look to them. If the greatest shock to the system the business ever endured, a matter that might be termed the "9/11 of the wrestling business" (not nearly on that scale, certainly, but purely in terms of the sadness and depression it caused to so many) couldn't bring lasting changes to benefit the performers who bring us such fun, what possibly could?

My Thoughts on the State of the Union Address

By Tony Mazur

In his eighth and final State of the Union Address, President Bush came out firing, flared nostrils and all.

I'm not a big fan of the non-stop applause breaks (there were roughly 70 of them). But when you look into the crowd from the overhead camera, you can see the divided room. The Republicans are standing and clapping, while the Democrats sat there, nodding off like Bill Clinton at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Ceremony.

Anyways, onto my thoughts.

President Bush brought up the fact that elementary school students are scoring higher on test scores than ever before. That includes African Americans and Hispanics. Democrats ripped on the president, saying the No Child Left Behind Act was a waste of time and money. It appears to be working now, isn't it?

Another topic was the Patriot Act. Since September 11th, 2001, there hasn't been an attack on American soil. We can thank the Patriot Act for that. There has been attempts to attack Los Angeles and other major cities in the United States, with no success. They tapped the terrorists' phone lines to stop the attack before it even started. They weren't tapping Joe Blow's cell phone in Middleburg Heights, Ohio. And if they were, what do you have to hide?

I'm glad Mr. Bush brought up the fact that we can find stem cells without aborting babies. You can find stem cells anywhere, not just from an unborn fetus. Us conservatives were all about stem cell research. We just didn't want to kill babies to do so, and we also do not want the federal government funding the research.

Can we start drilling for oil in America? Can we?

I only questioned a couple of parts in President Bush's speech. One of them was global warming. Global warming is a non-issue. Unless you can convince China to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being released, don't waste your time. Not surprisingly, the Democrats stood up and cheered loudly when the term "global warming" was brought up.

The President brought up an interesting stat. More than half of the World's food aid comes from the United States. I understand that we are global power, but can we stop being the global police? AIDS is running rampant in Africa, and it won't stop no matter how much money you send overseas.

I'm still not completely happy with President Bush's stance on immigration. I'm all about bringing Mexicans into America to give them jobs, but they should go through an extensive process before receiving a green card. Either they take these strides, or build a giant wall on the banks of the Rio Grande.

I personally think the recession is a bit phony. Just throwing that out there. Tell me what you think.

All in all, I think it was a good speech. President Bush has less than a year left in the White House until he hands it over to the next gentleman. His approval rating may be low right now (who regulates the approval ratings, anyway?), but I feel that in the next 10-15 years, George W. Bush will be vindicated as a great president. Wait and see.

Lllllloyd Carr drives into the sunset

By Rick Morris

Some of the Detroit Red Wings blogs I enjoy reading have a fitting nickname for Detroit Free Press columnist/author/talk show host Mitch Albom: The Delicate Genius. His writing talent and creative abilities are beyond dispute, but he doesn’t have an internal meter to keep his tendencies to become overwrought and maudlin in control. Witness his piece earlier this week bemoaning the circumstances surrounding the departure of Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr.

It is quite possible to buy into one of the larger points of Albom’s column: that Carr is a much nicer guy than his gruff public persona would indicate and that he is a rare figure in the sports world with a sense of perspective about the place of his profession. Certainly, Carr’s insight about the worth about sports vis-à-vis the rest of the world is refreshing and necessary, especially in a week when a jerk like Nick Saban wallows in self-pity and compares a football loss to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. But Albom, unsurprisingly, let his fondness for Carr take him too far in this article as he basically suggests that Carr was too morally pure for college football:

"Say good-bye to the good guy, maybe the last of them. Whoever coaches Michigan next will have to be more about business than Carr was, more about national titles, less about hospital visits, more about recruiting, less about philosophy. It is just the way the world works, and the world has moved quickly on Carr. In recent years, you could see the weariness showing on his face, in his jowls, in his eyes, which became steelier and angrier as the silliness grew in college football ... Remember, this is a guy who started in Ann Arbor in 1980, when ESPN was just a Connecticut cable experiment. In his time, he has seen the Big Ten grow to 11, the Rose Bowl go from Granddaddy to group member, and the goal of college football go from playing on Jan. 1 to playing on Jan. 7 ..."

True, Carr’s career coincided with the period in which big money (TV deals, endorsements, sponsorships, alumni organizations, etc.) really ran amok. Point well taken. But to suggest that Carr might be “the last good guy?” What hyperbole. What garbage.

Frankly, one need look no further than Michigan’s archrival to disprove this idiocy. Jim Tressel has worked every bit as hard to uphold academic standards as Carr and has done every bit as much for charitable and educational organizations (both of his parents were heavily involved in education, as is one of his brothers) and has been equally concerned with trying to uphold a good image for his university. Granted, Tressel has suffered his share of off-field embarrassments from his players over the years. But Carr has had a number of wanna-be Terrell Owens types with big mouths over the years (i.e. Mike Hart, Braylon Edwards, Charles Woodson) and he never suffers in some quarters the way that Tressel does for his players’ failings.

Again, I don’t have a problem with what the main thrust of Albom’s column seems to be. College football has become a lot sillier and more like a circus in the last quarter-century – although some coaches have continued to thrive in this climate without selling their souls. And Carr has probably been one of the good guys in the game and has a record better than many. But Lloyd Carr, when it was all said and done, was unable to be any better or worse than a mirror of what was happening in Columbus. When they had a horrible big-game coach in John Cooper, he thrived. When they had a great big-game coach in Jim Tressel, he folded. Frankly, it’s very unfair to the rest of college football to find in Carr’s failures evidence of his nobility. Whether Mitch Albom believes it or not, Lloyd Carr is not a better man than Jim Tressel just because The Vest has pounded him year after year.

Pakistan debacle exposes our overreach

By Rick Morris

I wonder how many people heard the news that Pakistan President/General Pervez Musharraf’s seizure of power over the weekend and assumed that he led off his announcement with a little sample from Jay-Z (THIS … IS … STATE OF EMERGENCY!). Nobody? Just me?

Regardless, the move represents a major black eye for the United States and exposes in humiliating fashion once again the consequences of our imperial overreach over the last five years.

In justifying the Iraq War, Bush administration officials disparaged the policies of their predecessors (including the president’s father!) over several decades in “tolerating” the repressive regimes of the Middle East. The deposing of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, we were told, represented a radical change in how we would utilize our power in the Middle East. No longer would we dirty our hands by dealing with repressive dictators and Third World thugs – freedom was now on the march! The president’s second Inaugural Address made this theme the centerpiece, which came as a surprise to pundits of the time.

Although it’s hard to remember clearly though the fog of our hard times in Iraq over the next two years, George Bush did have some momentary wind at his back as he took his victory lap in early 2005. Iraqi elections had just been held, and the images of jubilant voters waving their ink-stained purple fingers at the camera were compelling. Also at about that time, in a part of the world not far away, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine peacefully toppled a corrupt government trying to cling to power by illegitimate means. Shortly thereafter, the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon drove out the brutal occupiers of Syria by rallying the country in protest. No less a Bush Administration critic than Jon Stewart wondered aloud whether Bush might be on to something with his insistence on the mandatory, immediate and unfettered institution of democracy anywhere and everywhere.

But inevitably, the moment did not last and the world was reminded again why sager minds had resisted the suicidal path of placing Wilsonian democracy above all else that Bush had embraced. Homicidal Hamas won the Palestinian elections and turned the Gaza Strip into even more of a terrorist hub than it had been previously (which really says something!). Iraqis subsequently elected tribal leaders and warlords to their government who, to put it mildly, had no appreciation for the sacrifices our country had laid down for them. The democratic experiment in Afghanistan was fraught with difficulty as well, with a similar ingratitude from many who we had freed there as well.

Granted, we had no choice but to promote democracy in Afghanistan as an alternative to the terror state we rightly annihilated after 9/11, but we should not have become so intoxicated by the early signs of success in that country that turning decades of established policy on its head could ever become an attractive option. After driving the Taliban from power, we were at a stronger point strategically in the world than we had been at any time since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and arguably the most powerful position since our arrival as a world power with our decisive presence in World War I. We accomplished in weeks what the mighty Red Army could not all throughout the ‘80s and we rebuilt the credibility that had been squandered by Bill Clinton’s cowardice in the ‘90s in the face of terrorist attacks on our interests worldwide. We had the world in the palm of our hands in early 2002, while still maintaining the sympathy of peoples everywhere in the wake of the devastating attack we suffered the previous autumn. Since the security and prosperity of the American people and free peoples everywhere depend on U.S. capacity for deterrence against war and terror, the tragedy of 9/11 had yielded, however briefly, a better world in its horrific aftermath.

Our previous Iraq War FAQ column addressed the crumbling of our military deterrence in the sands of Mesopotamia in the last half-decade. But equally damaging to our deterrence has been the disintegration of our diplomatic capacity. While promoting the “Freedom Agenda” as the cornerstone of our foreign policy efforts worldwide, we have done ourselves terrible damage by blowing our hard-won credibility:

^ While pronouncing democracy as a vital and non-negotiable concept in our dealings with repressive regimes, we never seriously challenged Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf states we rely on so completely – and the world noticed.

^ We talked tough on North Korea and said that we wouldn’t reward that murderous regime for their behavior – until we did – and the world noticed.

^ Now, we have rewarded Musharraf’s backsliding from democracy not with the calm backroom diplomacy that would have been available to us had we not made such a fetish out of imposing complete democracy anywhere as soon as possible but with the impotent whining of a country whose bluff has just been called – and the world noticed.

In its haste to pronounce George W. Bush as the Ronald Reagan of his time, a designation that could have seemed fair for as long as six months after 9/11 but now seems a grotesque insult to the Great Communicator, the American right has embraced the imperial overreach that has so damaged our national interest these past few years. This is largely because the neoconservative wing of the movement has taken hold almost completely in the 2000s and driven out the traditional adherents of the Old Right, who believed that the only relevant question to ever be asked was “does this serve America’s vital national interest?” Contrary to what today’s “mainstream” conservative followers remember, Reagan’s presidency featured a blend of neoconservative and paleoconservative policies (for example, while Reagan believed largely in free trade, he did not allow Harley-Davidson to be victimized by cutthroat foreign competitors). His United Nations ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick, famously distinguished between authoritarian regimes (bad guys aligned with us) and totalitarian regimes (bad guys working against us). Once upon a time in this country, we used to put our own national interest ahead of sweet-sounding ivory tower dreams about filling the world with daisies and democracy. Now, in a world in which we have disavowed working with authoritarians who could be useful to us, we have been exposed as powerless without them. Did that decision make us safer? I think not.

The Iraq War: An FAQ

By Rick Morris

The Iraq War is the single most divisive issue of our time, with most elements of it still remaining confusing to the American public nearly 4 ½ years into this conflict. As previously stated, my position on domestic and international issues is that of the paleoconservative, as opposed to that of the somewhat militaristic neoconservative wing which dominates the Republican Party and the pacifist philosophy of the Democrats. I believe strongly that the paleo position is the one most in touch with the approach of the American people on this most difficult of matters. As such, I’m going to apply my paleo philosophy to the dominant questions of this war and create a “Morris Report” of sorts. On The FDH Lounge program this Sunday night, we will hold a straight up-or-down vote on the contents of my answers to ascertain what my fellow Lounge Dignitaries think. I believe that they will agree with me that it is a fairly accurate unified position of what the American people feel deep down about this war.

Was the initial invasion a mistake?

This is the question that sets the tone for how almost every person reacts to everything that has happened since – which is certainly not wise. It is also a question which most people consider to be a fairly easy one in one direction or the other – which again, is certainly not the case.

On the positive side of the ledger, we must admit that by 2003, Saddam Hussein was wiggling its way out of the post-Gulf War “box” that we had fashioned for him. Aided by the usual leftist demonstrators in this country whining about the effects of U.N. sanctions on the Iraqi people, Saddam was constructing a strong case of “punishment fatigue” in the world community. As we have subsequently learned, Saddam made a mockery of the Oil-For-Food Program by getting governmental and non-governmental stooges from England, France, Russia and a number of other countries to help him evade the world body’s limits on his weapons programs. If left in place in 2003, Saddam Hussein would surely not be nearly as boxed in by the U.S. and the U.N. as he was in the initial years after the first war.

Additionally, we must disregard the spurious surface logic of anti-war demonstrators that Saddam, as the perpetuator of a secular regime, could not possibly be in cahoots with terrorists who were religious fanatics. The Middle East as a whole is rife with countless examples of the old phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” – and among anti-American actors in that corner of the world, the United States and Israel are always the instruments of the devil no matter what. So every time you hear a leftist raise the differences between Saddam and terrorist groups as evidence they would never work together, you are listening to the perfect embodiment of smug faux intellectualism. Hussein’s Iraq did have links to numerous terrorist groups and even had training facilities in Baghdad – although this admittedly was all-too-common in the Arab world and there was in all likelihood no connection between Saddam and 9/11. While it seems like more jihadists are materializing there every day, we are killing a boatload of them in Iraq and our successes in Anbar province at the expense of Al Qaeda have reversed most of the propaganda gains they chalked up during the war.

The other obvious positive involves the fact that many stretches of the country, especially those in the Kurdish north, are better off than they were before our invasion and most people in the affected areas are greatly appreciative of our help. And it should not be minimized that, although chaos has ensued since the war began, we saved Iraq from genocide by Saddam Hussein. This actually starts the segue to the other side of the ledger, however, since mass killings take place in other regimes around the globe and our country has never thought of itself as a global policeman.

The negative side needs far less explanation, because these points have been drummed into our heads for most of the duration of the war. Let’s start with Iran, which unquestionably has a nuclear weapons program underway and has always been a graver strategic threat to us than Iraq. Iran is much stronger without the Iraqi counterbalance in the Gulf region, and has been emboldened by sectarian rivalries in Iraq and the fact that we have gotten bogged down there and are automatically less of a threat to confront them militarily. The strengthening of the mad mullahs of Iran outweighs our total gains in and of itself. And all of our enemies in the Arab world have reveled in the propaganda gains we have handed them during the course of the war, with the Abu Ghraib scandal topping the list. These enemies have also had forces coming in and out of Iraq all throughout the war as that country has served as the training ground for urban warfare that Afghanistan used to be.

But from there, we have a death toll of what will likely exceed 5,000 of our best and bravest and an injury assessment several times in excess of that. As brutal as this statement may be, death and destruction are inevitable in war, and we lost far more men than this at the Battle of the Bulge alone. But with the Axis powers posing a global threat, we knew that this blood had at least been shed for a vital and necessary purpose. Unforgivably, we cannot with certainty say the same of our fallen heroes in Iraq. To add insult to their deaths and injuries, many units were not properly equipped with body armor and other defense against the merciless enemies we have faced – and they were saddled with a failed status quo policy for almost four years until the 2007 troop surge turned the tide somewhat. The years of wasted motion while we lingered without a credible counterinsurgency strategy represent one of the greatest blunders in American history. We have an exhausted military, with much degraded and destroyed weaponry needing to be replaced at great cost. And we have soured the American people on the very concept of war when it may be necessary in our clear national interest against some other entity in the near future. The overreach of the 2000s has been every bit as damaging as the pacifism of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘90s.

We addressed the blood, now let’s examine the treasure. It’s almost inevitable that over $1 trillion will be spent in the desert of Mesopotamia by the time we cease serious combat operations. At a time of reckless pork-barrel federal spending (the bill for which will be passed on to our grandchildren), underfunded port security and a looming entitlement crisis that will bankrupt this country soon enough anyways, it’s more than an understatement to say that we could sure use that trillion dollars back.

So the answer, while not as overwhelming as the knee-jerk anti-war protestors would have you believe, is that the decision to go to war was not worth it. Even given the fact that the intelligence community for whatever reasons put forth the notion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, every other justification for war was flawed even when viewed through the lens of the time (and I was one who was queasy about our decision to invade). As addressed above, we had no semblance of a counterinsurgency strategy to follow the first part of the war when we would topple Hussein. We willingly put ourselves in a position to be ganged up and marginalized in the world community by opportunists in the French and German governments and countries looking to assert themselves on the world stage at our expense in Russia and China. We put all of our propaganda hopes on the swift success of democracy, when centuries of human history have shown it to be an institution that can only work well amongst a people who have taken the time to embrace and understand it. Democracy itself has been discredited in the eyes of countless Arabs, a blunder of historic impact. And by toppling a minority Sunni government and empowering the Shiite majority, we ensured that their co-religionists, our enemies in Iran, would inevitably be strengthened. Of course, the neoconservative war theorists believed that we could march right into Iran after we pacified Iraq, but we’re years away from that possibility as the Iranian nuclear program becomes more of a threat each day. Also, the Sunni-Shiite-Kurd rivalries frozen by the Saddam Hussein dictatorship were very reminiscent of the Balkan feuds kept under the surface by Communist rule – as it turned out in both instances, once the totalitarians were gone, vicious rivalries never firmly settled reemerged with a vengeance and toppled any attempts at regional stability.

On balance, the war was not worth it, certainly in retrospect and arguably at the time. Given the best we are likely to still accomplish in Iraq, it is very unlikely that history will be kind to the decision to invade.

Did Iraq possess weapons of mass destruction?

Notwithstanding the answer to the first question, and the fact that the absolute consensus seems to be that they did not, I am still a bit uncertain on this issue. Rumors have floated for years that Baathist thugs trucked the WMDs across the Syrian border to be stored by their allies in the Damascus dictatorship. It seems highly unlikely that the Bush administration would keep that information under wraps, especially given its need to defend an unpopular war – but, with the urgent imperative to keep Israel from engaging in shooting wars unhelpful to us in Iraq, anything is possible. Even if Iraq did have WMDs, however, I still believe that we should have held off on invading, at least at that time – because we did face reality and realize that invading North Korea was a bad idea and we haven’t invaded Iran (yet).

Should we own up to the fact publicly that the idea to go to war was a mistake?

No, there’s nothing to be gained by it in any sense, morally or logically. First and foremost, we would be dishonoring our troops by undermining the rationale of what we professed to be accomplishing with their blood. The wounded and dead and their families don’t deserve that, not by a longshot. Also, any goodwill we would regain with any erstwhile allies would be more than negated by the fact that our enemies would be emboldened by a public admission of failure.

Has this war damaged our deterrence factor?

No question about it. Sadly, it ruined the incredible level of deterrence we earned by accomplishing in months what the Soviets couldn’t in several years by wining in Afghanistan. Every tinpot dictator on Earth feels emboldened by the fact that Uncle Sam has his hands full with a ragtag terrorist network in Iraq – and since deterrence is more critical to keeping America safe than almost any other factor, we are likely to pay a dear price for our failures to date and will pay a bigger toll in the future if we can’t earn back more respect for our military capabilities by the time we inevitably draw down in Iraq. And a war-weary American public will be that much harder to rally when we face a legitimate threat, due to rationale for this war that was thoroughly discredited in their eyes.

What are the similarities and differences with the Vietnam War?

Similarities

^ Both wars lost the support of the American people, in part because many opportunistic and unprincipled politicians have succeeded in defining it narrowly as an unpopular president’s war as opposed to a venture in which we are all invested.

^ In both instances, American forces received inadequate military direction for the first several years of the war as the enemy utilized brutal terrorist techniques.

^ Our ineptitude at “telling our story” has cost us dearly on the global stage, as our rivals for global influence scheme and try to take advantage of our distraction.

^ The massacres in Southeast Asia that followed our pullout would be mirrored on a horrific scale in Iraq – additionally, our global prestige and deterrent threat would take an immense beating by pulling out of Iraq in defeat the same as in the Vietnam aftermath.

Differences

^ Without a military draft, opposition to the Iraq War is not as visceral because nobody can be sent involuntarily.

^ The North Vietnamese and Vietcong were never going to follow us to America and continue the war here after winning. The jihadists in Iraq want to kill Americans wherever they can and prefer a 9/11 type of attack on our soil.

^ Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon were, for better or for worse, guided in Vietnam by knowledge of war they obtained firsthand in the military in World War II. George Bush’s military experience, such as it was, during the Vietnam era, did not infuse him with any battlefield lessons for the Iraq War.

Was the surge a good idea – and should we stay with it?

Yes and yes. This goes back to the unfortunate initial point about how one’s conclusions about whether we should have gone to war initially color people’s perceptions about what to do now. Regardless of whether anyone wants to admit it or not, we as a country own this war and the successes and failures, not merely George Bush and Dick Cheney. The surge of American forces has been successful enough that it’s possible to state with some confidence that if it were applied four years ago that it might have brought the war to an end in a reasonable period of time. The immense danger evident if we leave in allowing Iraq to devolve into an unchecked terrorist breeding ground and de facto satellite of Iran (in Gulf-bordering part of the country) justified our decision earlier this year to “double down” and try to salvage something from the disaster of the previous few years. Even after years of our sleepy inaction that allowed Iraq to spiral downward, we have still made great success in retaking key parts of the country and lethally countering terrorist networks. True, we can’t sustain the surge forever with our manpower limitations, but we can and must build on our progress for at least another six months so that we can try to ensure the situation we leave behind is not a festering sore.

Is Iraq legitimately a part of the Global War on Terror?

It is now. While it probably wasn’t involved to a critical degree before our invasion, it certainly is at the moment given Al Qaeda’s vast efforts to rebuild their network to full strength using Iraq as the main focus. Our battles against jihadists there are the same as any we fight around the globe, covertly or otherwise. Distinctions that politicians seek to make between terrorists in Iraq and others around the globe are artificial and a deliberate attempt to confuse the stakes we face so that our defeat might seem more palatable.

Can we still win in Iraq?

If by “win,” we mean leaving behind a country that is not a completely failed state and not a threat to its neighbors or us via terrorism, then the answer is yes. If by “win,” we mean leaving behind the vision of flourishing Jeffersonian democracy previously preached by George Bush and his neoconservative missionaries, then the answer is no. Fortunately, our military and civilian leadership seems to have pulled its collective head out of its collective posterior, so we now have a realistic chance to salvage the aforementioned modest definition of success from our years of hell in the sand.

Have people forgotten? Uh, yes.

By Rick Morris

(EDITED TO CORRECT TYPO)

While there are other subjects certainly worthy of comment on The FDH Lounge blog right now, it would be unseemly not to save them for another day. It is September 11, the day which so many of us vowed we would not forget in the awful autumn of 2001, but which too many of us certainly have. And while there are legitimate doubts as to whether this country has consistently acted in its own best interests since then (and I have said that I firmly believe we have not), nobody thinking with a clear head can pretend that we are not engaged in a brutal struggle worldwide with the jihadists who want to replicate 9/11 on a grander scale on our soil -- and nobody thinking with a clear head can pretend that a humiliating end in Iraq will be George Bush's failure alone and not something that all of us will be haunted for for generations. It's one matter to want to hold people accountable for our mistakes -- it's another altogether to pretend like so many pinko blogs that our successes and our failures as a people are not something that we ALL own.

So today, it 0nly seems fitting to post the lyrics from Daryl Worley's song "Have You Forgotten?" -- because the majority of us are back trying to live in a September 10 world.

I hear people saying we don't need this war
I say there's some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground?
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start preaching
Let me ask you this my friend

CHORUS 1
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

They took all the footage off my T.V.
Said it's too disturbing for you and me
It'll just breed anger that's what the experts say
If it was up to me I'd show it every day
Some say this country's just out looking for a fight
After 9/11 man I'd have to say that's right

CHORUS 1
Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

I've been there with the soldiers
Who've gone away to war
And you can bet they remember
Just what they're fighting for

CHORUS 2
Have you forgotten all the people killed?
Some went down like heroes in that Pennsylvania field
Have you forgotten about our Pentagon?
All the loved ones that we lost
And those left to carry on
Don't you tell me not to worry about Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten?