We need to get out, but only when we have established a stable government.
Otherwise, we loose.

(The Yankees won in the 11th. Yay!) Mr. Pipes might be correct if the staying power of America is tested by the Iraqis in the form of, for example, constant successful suicide attacks. Tonight the History Channel reported that American Army recruits cannot endure the physical training of their fathers, but the Army must accept them anyway.

In addition, the Democrats are at the President’s throat over the war in Iraq. If the economy does not improve, the President might lose to a Democrat, who will probably pull out of Iraq after getting empty promises.

Instead of turning Iraq over “the sooner, the better”, how about setting the absolute minimum requirement that we find and kill Saddam (capture being doubtful), the country has at least a short period of time to absorb the implications of “Saddam is not going to make a comeback”, AND we have time to completely inventory the huge munitions caches, which still might include WMDs? Also, as a minimum, we have to finish training police and military forces of sufficient size to avoid chaos and anarchy after we leave.

Perle seems a bit too hasty on this to me.

There is just terrible confusion in our Iraq policy now. How can ordinary members of the public form an opinion about it, when the administration and policy experts are themselves so confused and fail to ennunciate a clear direction one way or the other? It seems to me the Administration is drifting every which way. Which makes the Schadenfreude of the Anti-War Party spilleth over.

Also, that’s Daniel Pipes, not Richard Perle. The confusion is understandable, since Pipes’s father is the historian Richard Pipes.

That’s pretty weird. Before Pipes was nominated to the Institute of Peace it seemed like his writing was generally anti-islamic and in favor of military “conquest” of the Middle East. Now he is essentially calling for withdrawl from Iraq? I cannot reconcile this. Maybe Iraq really is such a phenominal disaster that even those who once advocated invasion and occupation are changing their minds? Does anyone have insight into this?

There is no Schadenfreude in this section of the anti-war party. Nor have I seen it in a PJB column, or a Charlie Reese column or even in a Justin Raimondo column. There used to be outrage, now I think there is just sadness.

Daniel Pipes never called for the “conquest” of the middle east, even if lurid paleoconservative rhetoric tried to claim that that was the secret agenda of anyone whom they labelled neoconservative. He has been “anti-Islamic” only in the sense of recognizing the threat Muslims pose to our security long before the rest of us caught up.

I applaud this column. We are simply unable to run Iraq as a colony for years and are probably also unable to install “democracy” there. Regimes which threaten us should be destroyed and replaced, with the warning that we’ll return if we have to. I don’t think we have the will or ability to do anything else and as long as they leave us alone I don’t care what the Iraqis do.

How Mr. Young could deny the sick, gleeful hatemongering of, for example, a Justin Raimondo, is utterly beyond me. This shows the lack of critical self-awareness on the part of the Anti-War Party, particularly regarding the way its leading figures have poisoned public discourse by treating the war debate as an opportunity to indulge in a continual outpouring of resentment against “imperialist neocons” instead of engaging in the serious and responsible public debate about the issues facing us that was urgently needed. For members of the Anti-War Party, no opponent of the war can ever do wrong; their motto is, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Even the French are as innocent as the driven snow in their eyes. Thus one war critic said the anti-French attitudes among war supporters are unfair, since all France had done was “fail to endorse” the administration’s policy! The reality of course was that France engaged in an unprecedented deception and betrayal of the United States by signing Resolution 1441 (thus suckering the U.S. into a delay of several months in starting the war) and then turning around and refusing to enforce the resolution while stoking anti-American sentiment in Europe and Africa. Yet for the Anti-War Party, all France did was “fail to endorse” us; therefore American anger at France is wholly unjustified and simply a symptom of neocon war fever and American self-righteousness.

There is a deep moral and intellectual flaw on the part of the anti-war right which is damaging both to the right and to America. One’s duty is to point this out and call for correction, even if everyone else on the right disagrees with what one is saying.

As for the question regarding Daniel Pipes’s apparent break with conventional neoconservative thinking on the war, my sense is that Pipes does not share the utopian views of other neoconservatives about the capacity of America to spread American democracy to the whole world and to assimilate the whole world into America. Though he has not fully articulated this view yet, I think he is closer to the traditional understanding that Islam and the West are different and incompatible civilizations, and that our foreign policy and immigration policy should reflect these realities.

Schadenfreude is the enjoyment of others’ misfortune. What this has to do the “the French”, I have no clue. Maybe Mr. Auster is refering to Chronicles ‘buy French’ campaign. Since this campaign was begun before the war, at the height of the silly anti-French campaign of the ‘conservatives’ in the US, it is hard to see what is has to do with enjoying the damage the US is encurring now. In fact, I think Chronicles has stopped their campaign, as events have made the situation far less laughable now that Americans are dying because of neo-con promoted (if not devised) policies.

In fact it is impossible to see how the anti-war right could be indulging in schaden freude, when the people they claim to be concerned for are suffering the actual schade (i.e. the working class, non-elite troops that are being killed and horribly wounded daily). As far as I can see, the neo-cons and the politicians who listened to them have suffered no real schade. If, say, Richard Perle was to actually have to stop milking his connections and the taxpayers, and get a real job, I would perhaps indulge in a little schadenfreude.

In my reference to Schadenfreude I’m speaking of something straightforward which any unbiased person would recognize. Examples of this would be when the journals of the anti-war right have leapt victoriously on each killing of U.S. troops in Iraq and cried, “See? It’s a complete disaster and fiasco and quagmire as we said it would be. The neocon imperialists are finally and definitively discredited. Bring the troops home.” Just as they refused to engage in a responsible and comprehensive debate of the pros and cons of this grave national issue before the war, they refuse to engage in such a debate now. They have become an “adversarial culture” of the right.

The responsible advocates for war in Iraq are in a difficult situation that seems to be getting worse. Their reasons for the war are valid, but their supporters are not as vocal and motivated as the anti-war advocates. The war advocates are not motivated by anger or resentment but by cold rational logic (not that the anti-war advocates are wholly controlled by these emotions). The pro-war anger has diminished because 9/11 is now over two years ago. With the ongoing deaths of our young people, the anti-war advocates have had a daily reminder that their fears are coming to life. The anti-war advocates are justifiably angered about the deaths. I suppose the pro-war advocates need to get angry also if they wish to see this war through.

An idea for the pro-war advocates to consider is get angry with Mr. Bush and pester him about his miserable failure to communicate the huge victories (for example, the brave and magnificent drive by the Marine infantry and the outpouring of good will towards Americans by most Iraqis). In particular, it seems Mr. Bush’s body language is all-wrong. WE ARE AT WAR. He should act like it more. Maybe he should drastically scale back his efforts on domestic politics (except protecting the borders), forget about getting reelected (stop landing on aircraft carriers, for example), and focus almost all of his time on the war effort, particularly selling the war.

Americans are dying, yet life is proceeding as though Americans were not dying. It is very similar to what happened during Vietnam, for those viewers who are too young to remember. It seems the least we can ask of our leader. His smiling, strutting, and hand-pumping seems excessive under the circumstances. People are not going to take the war seriously unless America’s leaders demonstrate with actions how grave the situation really is.

This hopefully will not appear to be moralizing from on high. These ideas are just that, ideas. Their value will depend on their validity as tested here.

This has gone long, but the pro-war camp needs assistance in this extremely important debate.