Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Pathological Proportionality
A long, long time ago — almost three months to be precise —President Obama spoke at West Point, where he declared that, “[T]he United States will use military force, unilaterally if necessary … when our people are threatened; when our livelihoods are at stake; when the security of our allies is in danger.” Then, as if sensing the sort of creeping moral clarity that rattles the metaphorical fine china at the New York Times, he added that, “…in these circumstances, we still need to ask tough questions about whether our actions are proportional and effective and just.” Question: What constitutes a proportional response to the beheading of an American journalist?
I am presently writing this from a Waffle House, next to a truck stop, next to a Wal-Mart Distribution Center in Monroe, Georgia, next to … something. Amidst the warm accents and friendly banter, I heard a gentleman at the next table tell the elderly lady at the counter that lately he’s begun praying each day for a “hedge of protection” for his family, his community, and his country against the 7th century interlopers who even now seek to bring us all into their world of brute idiocy and savage darkness.
The problem, of course, is that at least a portion of that “hedge of protection” depends on a military that is currently handing out pink slips to its field grade officers, national borders that are no longer sovereign (so as to expedite the importation of cheap labor for one party and cheap votes for the other), and a Commander-in Chief-who is currently on track to play more rounds of golf than Tiger Woods. Another question: Is the dismantling of the nation’s defenses proportional to a threat which the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff now describes as, “…beyond anything that we’ve seen?”
As long as we’re on the subject of proportionality, was there anything especially proportionate about the Department of Homeland Security’s recent deployment of six vehicles full of agents to Statesville, North Carolina to forcibly seize a family’s privately owned Land Rover because it allegedly violated EPA emission standards?
Stay with me here, because I’m also wondering about the proportionality, last month, of the town of Livingston, Illinois, (population 850) involuntarily hosting two armored vehicles, a DHS unified command post that set up shop at a local school ground, beaucoup border patrol and DHS agents, and two helicopters, including one Black Hawk. The cause of the invasion? A terrorist plot perhaps? Drug cartels, perhaps, freshly armed from Attorney General Eric Holder’s Fast and Furious venture?
Nope, sorry. It was all in an effort to nab one Robert Godsey, who was charged with possession and distribution of, “visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.” You may put him under the jail as far as I’m concerned. He garners only disgust from me. But does the doctrine of proportionality require a juggernaut of military magnitude to facilitate the apprehension of one guy with a laptop?
Asked about the lopsided display of force, spokesman Jim Porter quipped, “It’s better to be over-prepared.” Accepting that statement for the sake of argument, is it somehow more noble to be overprepared against a domestic pervert and underprepared against fanatical barbarians who crucify children, enslave women, and slaughter innocents by the thousands while stating their intent to wreck havoc in our country? It’s a curious concept of proportionality indeed that leaves Americans simultaneously vulnerable to the heavy hand of the state as well as the murderous ambitions of foreign invaders.
That the sadistic butchery of ISIS has caused even Secretary of State John Kerry to stop criticizing our allies long enough to describe the fanatics as the very epitome of a “savage” and, “valueless evil” has become a source of concern for Associate Professor of Political Science Michael J. Boyle, who wrote in the New York Times yesterday that:
After 9/11, the Bush administration’s repeated use of the language of good and evil played directly into the hands of Al Qaeda. For years, the jihadis had portrayed themselves as engaged in a war against the Christian West and preached that America intended to invade and occupy Muslim lands. Mr. Bush’s calls for a crusade against radical Islam, combined with the occupation of Iraq, confirmed that narrative and gave Al Qaeda a boost in funding and recruitment that sustained the group for nearly a decade.
It seems, however, that the professor’s analysis holds up only as long as we address existential threats using a misbegotten sense of proportionality. President Reagan’s definitive upbraiding of the Soviet Union as the “evil empire” might have struck Professor Boyle as a “gross simplification,” crystalizing as it did the stark distinction between free men and slave masters, but it heralded a doctrine of disproportionality that won the Cold War. Whether or not Winston Churchill’s unyielding characterizations of Adolf Hitler spurred an uptick in Nazi funding or recruitment, the salient fact remains that it was the disproportionate application of power that won World War II. On the contrary, it was the reticence of the West that gave Al Qaeda its boost and it was the operational surge that sent them packing.
This isn’t to say that we should eschew an effort to understand our enemies, their ambitions, and their ideology, as well as their tactical and strategic strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, a smart and decisive victory requires such knowledge. Nor do I maintain that every aberration on the national security landscape needs to be addressed with a wrecking ball. I do, however, maintain the following:
1. A civilization worthy of the name — a civilization that responded to the holocaust with the words “Never Again” — has an affirmative obligation to utterly destroy those responsible for the genocide of Christians and Yazidis.
2. The debate on whether or not to control America’s borders has been intriguing, but at some point theoretical conjecture yields to reality, be it with a secure border or a major attack on American soil. It’s time to influence that reality on favorable terms while we still can.
3. I register again my disagreement with both former President Bush and former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. I’m not the least bit interested in a “light footprint.” If it’s important enough to put American lives at risk, it’s important enough to achieve total victory. Proportionality be damned. I want a foot print the size of Godzilla’s. When the stakes are of existential consequence, one must so thoroughly punish the enemy that they will never want to even think about tangling with you again. Anything less is to consign the next generation to fighting a battle we should have finished (a point which I wrote to George H.W. Bush at the conclusion of Desert Storm).
4. Contrary to President Obama’s assertions, the term “ending wars” ought not reside in the lexicon of American policy. Wars are either won or lost. The President bragged ad nauseum about “ending the war” in Iraq, as opposed to winning it, thereby squandering victory, reanimating the enemy, and renewing the threat to the homeland.
5. Messrs Obama, Kerry, and Hagel ought to have their microphones turned off every time they wax indignant about the primitive monsters of ISIS who hide behind their little black veils as they slaughter the defenseless. After all, words with nothing behind them are little more than requiems. Let their actions speak for them instead, proportionality and all, and let us see, clearly and without their rhetorical fog, the measure of their opposition to the encroaching night.
Published in General
” . . .words with nothing behind them are little more than requiems. Let their actions speak for them instead, proportionality and all, and let us see, clearly and without their rhetorical fog, the measure of their opposition to the encroaching night.”
Like you, Dave . . . those friends and family members who stare into the unknown . . . do so with the sense of anger and dark-forboding that I find in your words.
My husband and son are in the basement now . . . changing out the water storage drums in preparation for . . . . who knows? Wish we had a true leader in the White House.
“…and let us see, clearly and without their rhetorical fog, the measure of their opposition to the encroaching night.”
I fear we already have seen the measure of their resolve.
David,
Robert P. George agrees with you.
Mark Levin agrees with you.
From the Ivory Tower to the Grass Roots this one is a no brainer. Only the no brain in the White House could equivocate with this.
Regards
Praying that a just God will deal with us according to his mercy rather than according to what we deserve is about all we have left.
We gnash our teeth in frustration with the idiots in our administration.
I’ve concluded that no pol capable of war-winning resolve will ever be elected president in this country.
The late great Lee Rodgers often spoke of his frustration in this regard. “We should’ve gone into Iraq, hanged Saddam ourselves, killed anyone else acting hostile toward us, then pulled out. Leaving behind a warning message: “Don’t make us come back, or you will be VERY sorry!”
There’s a great deal to be said for that. Our foreign policy has been reduced to such ineffectiveness that our enemies know that if they trifle with us, they will get a new power grid, new schools, new infrastructure, etc.
Maybe we need to start a war here so we can get some of those things. Of course, I hear reconstruction didn’t go that well last time…
the mere fact our current Washington regime has the naïve credo that we can have a peaceful and well behaved world, aside from scratching my head wondering where in the hell they got that concept from, I also can’t figure out what, if anything, they gleaned from high school history.
That the West in general, and the US in particular, is responsible for the world’s ills. Perhaps they view themselves as avenging angels, sent to rectify things and take the US down several notches. Problem is, they didn’t fully account for who or what would fill the void.
Oh, Dave, you know this administration is In-It-To-Win-It. I’ll bet any day now Attorney General Holder will announce his intention to hire additional defense attorneys to handle a projected increase in ISIS-related cases. (I guess I meant “win” the hearts and minds of any Progressives losing faith in Obama’s committment to putting America in its “proper place” within the international community.)
The counterargument, Dave, is that our restraint may not mean anything to the terrorists, but it does mean something to the local populations … and we need the locals’ help (chiefly for intelligence). We depend on the locals to mark out the targets. A big, sophisticated gun is useless if you don’t know who to shoot it at. So we don’t want to anger the locals. That’s what the theory of a light footprint depends on.
But … but …
All the more reason why you don’t abandon the locals, and why you get agreement with the locals and keep working with them, and you maintain a relationship with them. You don’t pack up and leave and thumb your nose at them on the way out.
The current reputation of the United States is that no one can depend on us. Our promises mean nothing. The promises only last until the next administration, which tries to get into power by rejecting everything the current administration does, so every promise has an expiration date: i.e., November of the next election.
Nice of you to answer your argument for me, KC. You are ever the gentleman. On a somewhat similar note, perhaps the locals will be forthcoming with intel if they understand themselves to be pointing our big sophisticated guns at the bad guys instead of at them. But they need to know that one way or the other, the guns will be blazing and that it is in their best interest to help us direct them appropriately.
An ancillary point, if I may. I suspect that our restraint very definitely means a great deal to the terrorists — something akin to a green light for more terrorism.
Yes indeed. There are a set of strategic calculations in play: how much cooperation will restraint buy us, valued against the leeway it allows the enemy? Plus, you have to consider the opposite side of that coin: how much will aggressiveness induce the locals to turn on us? We’re not playing with all cards on the table; the general’s murder recently alerted us to another problem – that is, if the locals are within our tent, and they can provide intelligence to the enemy against us. Some of them are spying on us from the inside.
Now that everybody has decided that we can’t be trusted … how much can we trust them? You have to assume that that all of the players are looking out for themselves, and that the guys who used to your friends may be willing to trade that familiarity for good deals from other players.
Damned snake pit.
I am presently writing this from a Waffle House, next to a truck stop, next to a Wal-Mart Distribution Center in Monroe, Georgia, next to … something. Amidst the warm accents and friendly banter, I heard a gentleman at the next table tell the elderly lady at the counter that lately he’s begun praying each day for a “hedge of protection” for his family, his community, and his country against the 7th century interlopers who even now seek to bring us all into their world of brute idiocy and savage darkness.
This is a very astute analysis of the dichotomy of 21st century life.
A reading from Isaiah struck me last week as topical:
I don’t fundamentally disagree, but just a few points. No President since R.R. has had the stomach for utterly destroying anything, heaven forbid they be viewed as anything but kind and empathetic. The same can be said, with few exceptions, about the Flag officers in the military.
The skirt chasing four star who designed and executed “the surge” testified before congress that the surge would, “avoid and unfavorable outcome.” It does not sound to me as if he had victory or the utter destruction of the enemy in mind. You can get cockroaches to scatter by turning on the light, the size of the light is not that important. This does not solve your cockroach problem. Today the situation is as bad or worse than after 9/11. After nearly 50k warriors killed and disabled it is perhaps time to rethink the strategy. If we double down now, remember who will be Commander and Chief. We stood little chance of victory with Bush in charge, even less with this yahoo. In my opinion avoiding the appearance of an unfavorable outcome or making some sort of moral statement is not sufficient reason to sacrifice more young lives.
On the light footprint vs. heavy footprint issue, an important factor is what you are doing with those feet.
If you are not willing to do some serious killing of the enemy, that heavy footprint only means you are giving the enemy more targets.
Great piece, Dave! Moral clarity…
Dave, Truer words you’ve never spoken. One thing you have that is currently lacking in our fearless leaders is common sense. As time goes by in the good old USA that trait becomes more and more prevalent, which is sad.
Dave,
I don’t know if you caught Robert Zubrin’s satiric piece at NRO.
No Disneyland for ISIS and happy meals for the Peshmerga. Meanwhile in Europe they are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Unfortunately, Mr. Zubrin is right on target.
Ben Rhodes truly is the junior varsity. He is the best that the Obamites have. Wow, isn’t that frightening all by itself.
Regards,
Jim
If it’s important enough to put American lives at risk, it’s important enough to achieve total victory. Proportionality be damned.
Amen.
LATE BREAKING UPDATE:
Ben Rhodes and Josh Earnest are two star players on the Obamite Junior Varsity.
Check out Josh Earnest completely destroying the meaning of an english sentence as he refuses to admit ISIS is an imminent threat to the US.
Wow, just incredible. Ben to Josh and Josh to Ben. What razzal dazzal. What sheer stubborn stupidity.
Regards,
Jim