Most of the anti-war people I speak to don't have a clue why we went to war in Iraq, so they fallback on the familiar  cliches: Bush lied, Cheney and Halliburton, etc. I've condensed my reasons for going to war argument to this:

1. Before 9/11 the Middle-East nations supported terrorism, or were indifferent to it.
2. Until 9/11 the USA did little about terrorism and whatever it did do was defensive in nature.
3. The Administration decided after 9/11 that it was in the nation's best interests to go on the offensive against terrorism.
4. There were two possible strategic targets: the terrorist organizations which were decentralized and elusive,  and the host/supporter regimes. The Administration chose to take action against what for many reasons they judged to be their best and most productive target: Iraq.
   A. Iraq had already been identified by the world community as a rogue state and actively supported terrorist groups.
   B. Iran was a larger threat but a more powerful and costly target.
   C. Syria was a client of Iran.
5. By invading Iraq the US would force a regime change,  give notice to the Middle-Eastern nations that  the US would take military action against those states that supported terror organizations, and place a "big stick," as Teddy Roosevelt called it, right in the middle of the region.

This explanation of the reasons why I support our war effort always elicits the same reaction: I never heard that before, or something similar.

I’m an old Liberal of the Jack Kennedy school. I associate that old Liberalism with the belief that America was a blessed nation with an obligation to promote liberty and justice. Those ideals were tested when the Soviets blockaded Berlin and the USA went to the rescue, and again when the Soviets tried to place missiles in Cuba and we took measured military action. When Black Civil Rights were obstructed in the South President Kennedy sent in the federal marshals, and when the nation recognized there was a cancer of organized crime it was institutionally targeted by the administration. When President Kennedy set a national goal of going to the moon, industry responded with great energy and society with great enthusiasm.

I’m reminded of that scene at the end of “Saving Private Ryan,” when Tom Hanks’ dying wish is that Ryan “Earn this!” That generation of old Liberals who had fought World War II were like Private Ryan – they were doing their best to “Earn this.”

New Liberals aren’t so dedicated to old Liberal policies. The new Liberals aren’t very interested in confronting America’s enemies abroad, and although they keep up the Civil Rights rhetoric there isn’t much real abuse to protest. Organized crime has mostly been relegated to cable TV shows, and NASA is pretty much just another federal program. So what are the new Liberal issues and goals?

Read the postings at the Huffington Post or listen to Air America and you’ll find plenty of invective and anger. New Liberal anger is primarily preoccupied with President Bush and other Republicans in office. They’re hunger is for media approval rather than the old Liberal’s hunger for liberty and justice. New Liberals are fixated on popular opinion, especially moving polling statistics in the right direction. They’ve forsaken the old Liberal policies of liberty and justice and attached themselves to trendy issues that invoke politically correct buzzwords like sexism, stem research, second-hand smoke, and global warming. New Liberals are clearly more concerned with politics than anything else.

While the old Liberals were fueled by the lesson’s of World War II, the new Liberal burns with the lessons of Vietnam, but perhaps more importantly with the lessons of Beatlemania. That may sound incongruous, but the power and use of feel-good social causes learned in the 1960s has deeply influenced the Boomer generation. Neo-Libs are much more products of Boomer-era popular culture, while old Liberals were rooted in traditional culture - such as religion, the beliefs of the Founding Fathers, the values taught by the Boy and Girl Scouts, and the symbols of American exceptionalism.

Neo-Liberals believe that Conservatives are motivated by greed and bias, that America should leave other nations and cultures to their own devices, and that European-style socialism provides a better path to the future than traditional American ways and means.

I much prefer the old Liberalism, and I think Jack Kennedy would feel the same way.

Okay, I get it. we're in a different kind of world war than we've ever been in before. This isn't war by governments, or war for territory, or a bully war. We're in a war between cultures.

It's tough to wage war against a culture. No one in power seems to know how to define it, much less wage it. The administration is fighting where they can, with what they have, but I can't help feeling it is just too little. I don't see how a miliary victory alone can prevail.

Some seem to understand that we are in a world wide cultural war better than others. I think Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Krauthammer, and Caroline Glick, among many others, get it. But I don't think the President or his spokesmen get it -  at least it isn't apparent that they do. Most of the MSM don't even recognize that we are at war at all. They report as if we are engaged in a politically motivated adventure.

To win this cultural war, the people of the world are going to have to wage it. Dissenting Americans are going to realize that there are greater stakes at risk than politics.  American Muslims need to  choose sides in  a way that  sends a clear message to other Muslims around the world.  When  Asian-Americans  wanted to show the world where they stood in WWII, they formed the 442 Regimental Combat Team and showed the world where their loyalties were in a way that couldn't be misunderstood. American Muslims could send a much needed signal of where they stand to world-wide Islam by demonstrating in the streets when terrorist acts and atrociities occur.

America needs political leadership that understands, explains, and leads the American people as is needed.  As we enter the 2008 Presidential race, I hope those who get it right show themselves.

Okay, we're in a different kind of world war than we've ever been in before. This isn't war by governments, or war for territory, or a bully war. We're in a cultural war.

It's tough to wage war against a culture. No one in power seems to know how to define it, much less wage it. The administration is fighting where they can, with what they have, but I can't help feeling it is just too little. I don't see how a miliary victory alone can prevail.

Some seem to understand that we are in a world wide cultural war better than others. I think Victor Davis Hanson, Charles Krauthammer, and Caroline Glick, among many others, get it. But I don't think the President or his spokesmen get it -  at least it isn't apparent that they do. Most of the MSM don't even recognize that we are at war at all. They report as if we are engaged in a politically motivated adventure.

To win this cultural war, the people of the world are going to have to wage it. Dissenting Americans are going to realize that there are greater stakes at risk than politics.  American Muslims need to  choose sides in  a way that  sends a clear message to other Muslims around the world.  When  Asian-Americans  wanted to show the world where they stood in WWII, they formed the 442 Regimental Combat Team and showed the world where their loyalties were in a way that couldn't be misunderstood. American Muslims could send a much needed signal of where they stand to world-wide Islam by demonstrating in the streets when terrorist acts and atrociities occur.

America needs political leadership that understands, explains, and leads the American people as is needed.  As we enter the 2008 Presidential race, I hope those who get it right show themselves.

All of us are deluged by media pundits touting their perceptions and analysis about controversial issues and events, the vast majority proclaiming failure and defeat,  occasionally a success, in our foreign affairs and domestic politics.

They usually get it wrong.

The reason: pundits are like pedestrians at the sea shore,  making judgments about the great oceans based on the waves they observe crashing against the shore.

What pundits really see and comment upon is the daily news as it is reported by the MSM, and that means they're not getting the big picture - just a glimpse of what's happening down at the water's edge.

A few observations:

The Left values popularity, the Right values conviction.

The Left strives to feel morally superior, the Right strives to be morally superior.

The Left prefers to play defense, the Right prefers offense.

The Left is rooted in popular culture, the Right in traditional culture.

The Left values what people think, The Right values how people behave.

The Left identifies truth through popular consensus, The Right identifies truth through experience and argumentation.

The Left strives to criticize, the Right strives to understand.

The Left is self-righteous, the Right is angry.

The Left embraces the ideals of the 1970s-era counterculture, the Right distrusts them.

Feel free to add your own observations.
 

David and Goliath in Milwaukee

While gnashing my teeth over the events in the Middle East tonight, it brought back memories of something that happened some fifty years ago in my neighborhood in Milwaukee.

My old neighborhood, now known as Sherman Park, was a melting pot of first and second generation immigrants, and what little ethnic tension existed was masked by the general peacefulness of the 1950s.  

There was one exception: a 16-year old German kid named Hahn, who bullied all the smaller kids, but reserved his greatest abuse and terror for the Jewish kids. I was once sitting with another kid, named Howard, in the stands watching a softball game at the park, and Hahn came up behind us and pulled Howard’s head backwards bending his body into a big arc. Howard’s feet were trapped under the seats in front of us and he screamed in agony. Hahn wouldn’t let up until some older kids approached. Another time I saw Hahn hang a smaller kid upside down on a wire fence until the kid threw up.

Hahn was a tall, beefy kid, looking exactly the way you’d expect a bully to look. Perhaps, something like Goliath must have looked to the Biblical Jews. There was a David in the Neighborhood, too. Or so it turned out. His Name was Billy, and he was a little kid for his age, but had somehow acquired powerful arm and shoulder muscles of the kind Popeye would get when he ate spinach.

Billy was on the school lawn hitting out a softball to a pal, when Hahn and his younger brother showed up. Hahn cursed out Billy with a stream of anti-Semitic invective and ordered him to get lost. He wanted to play ball in that spot and he used the baseball bat he was holding to poke at Billie. It was at that moment that Hahn became a Goliath, and Billie became a David.

Our young David responded to Goliath by whacking him with a full swing on the side of the head. Goliath went down in a heap into a pool of his own blood.

The sirens brought every kid within miles to the schoolground and we all saw Hahn being loaded into the back of the ambulance, and Billy into the back of a police car. Hahn’s younger brother was just standing and crying.

Hahn recovered, but was never quite the same, and he never bullied again. In fact, there was no more bullying in that neighborhood at all. Hahn’s kid brother had a change of heart for the better, too. He went around apologizing to all the Jewish kids for his brother’s behavior and turned out to be a pretty good guy.

Why did the current circumstances in the Middle East summon up this 50-year old memory? I think either you intuitively understand that, or you just don’t understand the relationship between the Israelis and the Goliath’s that surround them.