Bush has committed numerous blunders of statesmanship. Two big ones concerned Iraq. First, he justified the war as a war of preemption, when the violation of the 1991 cease-fire agreement was legal justification in itself, not to mention the numerous UN resolutions over 12 years. There was no need to take the controversial step of articulating a new theory of war, which antagonized many “just war” adherents, including the Roman Catholic Church.

Secondly, he apparently thought that the American people are so stupid that they needed a single reason to justify the war, when in fact there were several reasons being argued within his administration. So, instead of having 3-4 reasons, including WMDs, we got just the WMD justification. (I guess we would all be confused trying to remember more than one.) As a result, he walked into his current public relations fiasco about WMDs.

At this point, it does not really matter whether Bush’s inability to be a verbal leader is due to bad advice from Karl Rove and the neocons, or just because he is a dunce. We were all supposed to be reassured in 2000-2001 that Bush would surround himself with top people and delegate responsibilities to them. He and his advisors were a package deal. Collectively, they are a statesmanship disaster, so it does not really matter how we apportion blame amongst neocons, Rove, Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice, etc.

I think I agree with Mr. Coleman. Bush made his big mistake when he was persuaded by Powell to seek UN approval. Once we did that, everything had to become fanatically legalistic to “prove” our case for war, with the focus on present discoveries of WMDs. We could imagine a very different scenario: In September 2002, instead of going to the UN, Bush gives a speech to the nation and the world. After going over the history of the Iraq war, the discovery of their nuclear program and other programs in the wake of the war, the inspections regime and the continuing attacks on our planes since the Gulf War and so on, Bush continues:

“My fellow Americans: The condition of the ceasefire in 1991 was that Iraq turn over all their WMDs. They have never done that. That fact by itself has given us the right at any time in the last 11 years to resume hostilities. We chose not to do that. War is a terrible thing, and we tried the UN inspections and sanctions route instead. But now, in the wake of the attack on America, this situation that we’ve tolerated for 11 years is no longer tolerable. We have lots of information that Iraq has and is still developing WMDs. We don’t have exact information on the state of their weapons because Iraq is a totalitarian regime and we have no one inside the country. But the mere fact that we knew that in the past they had them, that they have resisted inspections, that we have no way of knowing for sure what weapons they have short of our taking control of that country, and that we are now facing terrorist enemies who may seek to use any WMDs that Iraq may develop, makes the current situation intolerable. That, in combination with our 1991 ceasefire agreement with Iraq, gives us the right to act.

“We invite all civilized nations who share our commitment to freedom to join us in this fight. But the world should understand this: It was the United states, not any other country, that was attacked on September 11th. We cannot afford to sit passively while a rogue regime continues to possess and develop weapons and delivery systems that may either be used to blackmail other countries or transferred to terrorist groups to use directly against us and our allies. Therefore, with or without the help of other countries, we will act for our own defense and security.”

Had Bush taken this approach, we never would have needed the Security Council’s approval, never would have gotten into another round of fraudulent inspections, never had to face France and Germany and Russia’s betrayal of us over Resolution 1441, and so on—all those things that between September ‘02 and March ‘03 turned world opinion against us. In short, it was not Bush’s acting too unilaterally that got world opinion riled against us, it was our GOING TO THE UNITED NATIONS THAT DID THAT.

Just as it was not Israeli intransigence that turned the Palestinians into raving savages, it was the “peace process” that did that.

Personally, I think I would have been less hostile to the war in Iraq if the neocons weren’t constatnly harping about how we would createa democracy there. I always saw the main reason for the war being, not self-defense, but a messianic desire to recreate Iraq in our image.

I was also afraid that it would be used as a staging ground for similar conquests throughout the Middle East, again with the idea that we would recreate the entire region in America’s image, which I found to be a hubristic dream that would end in disaster.

By the way, I know that at one point, Mr. Auster, you thought that we could stop at Iraq, but later you seemed to change your position. Do you still feel the same way, or do you want American-imposed regime change throughout the Middle East? (I am fairly certain that even if you do, you do not have the same expectations of creating democracy that the neocons have).

As I’ve said before, how can I have a position on our Iraq/Mideast policy when I don’t know what it is? There is just no coherent discussion of what our policy should be, other than muddling through in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere. If there were a coherent position being taken by the administration or others, then one could form an opinion of that. But there is none. The Democrats of course have nothing to add to the debate except to say, in response to every problem, “Hand it to the UN.” So everything seems very vague and smudgy to me now.

My own preferences would be a combination of isolating and demoralizing the Moslem Mideast so that it can’t threaten the rest of the world. I’m very doubtful, as you know, of the prospect of “democratization,” though if someone laid out a reasonable argument for that I would listen to it.

In any case, the tremendous difficulties of running Iraq have proved wrong the fears of antiwar critics that we would try to take over most of the Moslem Mideast.

Regarding complaints about Bush, there is an interesting letter today discussed by Andrew Sullivan over at www.andrewsullivan.com (keep scrolling down) from a traditional conservative reader who points out that Bush is simply doing everything he campaigned on. He is not Reagan, but as the letter notes, he didn’t run on “Government is the problem, not the solution.”

Clark Coleman is dead on target. It may be worth pointing out that the Administration cannot even use the word “pre-emption” correctly. At least in nuclear strategy, where the term originated, a pre-emptive attack is designed to forestall a blow that has already been decided on and is about to be launched. For example: the American government learns that the Chinese plan to attack us in 36 hours — therefore we sensibly act to get in the first blow and minimize the damage to ourselves. This was not a pre-emptive war, but a preventive war; which is much harder to justify, and, in this case, the main justification given has evaporated.

I agree that much of the commentary on the Patriot Act has been exaggerated, at times to the point of hysteria. Much that has been attributed to the Act isn’t even in there. 90% of its provisions deal with foreigners, while the remain portions that affect citizens are primarily things like e-mail interception, (which we should have expected), and extended surveillance of personal finances. The latter we have had already thanks to so-called war on drugs, to fight money-laundering.

Rush Limbaugh is being targeted by one such provision known as ‘structuring.’ Banks are required to report cash withdrawals/deposits of $10,000, it is now illegal for a citizen to show a pattern of withdrawing money just under that amount. See also how the Patriot Act has already been used for matters having nothing to do with terrorism: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36348

Herein lies the warning. Like the dangerous expansion of civil forfeiture laws which the Fedl. govt. passed in the mid-80s — again, due to the ‘drug war’ — we see that such laws are passed under a certain pretense, which then represents an expansion of centralized govt. power for any and all purposes.

The other problem is, what’s next? Is the trend in the direction of liberty? Hardly. Govt. doesn’t steal the people’s liberties all at once, but gradually, in incremental steps that are not always clearly perceptible. As Rev. Samuel Webster warned in his Election Sermon, 1777: “Power, especially over-grown power, whets the ambition and sets all the wits to work to enlarge it. Therefore, encroachments on the people’s liberties are not generally made all at once, but so gradually as hardly to be perceived by the less watchful; and all plaistered over, it may be, with such plausible pretenses, that before they are aware of the snare, they are taken, and cannot disentangle themselves.”

Let’s make the one point about the Patriot Act that we all know to be true — it would never have been thought necessary nor would have passed WERE IT NOT FOR OUR IMMIGRATION POLICY. This is what Mr. Auster warned about in The Path to National Suicide.

The govt. is essentially telling us this: “For decades we have permitted a massive invasion of peoples into this land, without demanding their assimilation, who are incompatible with our Christian religious traditions, our Western cultural traditions, and our Anglo-Saxon legal traditions. And now we have created a mess that puts the survival of our country in jeopardy. But since we have neither the moral courage nor the will to fix the root problem, as you, the People wish, the only other solution is for we, the gen’l govt. to take more and more power to ourselves. And we’re going to do so, regardless of how you feel about it, because we know you aren’t going to stop us.”