Apparently I am not the only conservative that is less than happy with President Bush’s (and his administration’s) lousy communication about the war. See David Frum’s 8/23/05 post on this issue. Daniel Henninger posted an article on 8/5/05 practically begging the administration to leverage the passions resulting from the 7/7 bombings in London to help people understand what we are doing in Iraq.
I think the Bush team has missed many an opportunity to give Americans cogent reasons beyond the same tired rhetoric to support the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m not looking for propaganda or worn out phrases. I want solid up-to-date information on a regular basis that helps me understand what we’re doing over there and why we’re doing it. And I want it from our nation's leader, not just from journalists like Victor Davis Hanson.
Reliable poll numbers show that Americans’ support for the war effort is sliding. 20 years ago former President Nixon listed what a president needs to successfully prosecute a foreign war (see my post on this issue): 1) It must be vital to America’s national interest. 2) It must be winnable with the means that we have to commit to it. 3) The public and the Congress must support it. (See here #16)
Nixon noted in his book that in a democratic society a leader has a limited time to prosecute a foreign war because public opinion will inevitably wane with time regardless of how strong it was at the outset. For that reason, he says that it is absolutely necessary to have a set of objectives and an exit strategy clearly defined before committing to the effort. Many Americans feel that these two essential elements have been overlooked in the current conflict.
Nixon goes on to state that leaders cannot simply follow uninformed public opinion when defining national interests. However, it is the leader’s “responsibility to educate the people and the Congress about where our vital interests are and then gain support for whatever military actions may be necessary to protect them.” (See here #21)
Public opinion is turning against the war effort simply because the President and his administration are failing to provide effective communication and leadership on the issue. While the President has repeatedly said the same words over and over, it should be clear by now that he is failing to help the public understand our objectives.
The President needs to do something different. For the good of the country he needs to stand up and provide the kind of communication Nixon says a leader must provide. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to be Bush’s style. He has followed the same tack with Social Security reform and it isn’t gaining much support either.
Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) made news the other day by saying that Iraq is looking more and more like Vietnam (see here). Conservatives promptly trashed Hagel (see here), calling him a media lapdog and noting that he is merely starting his 2008 presidential campaign early. I think Hagel is wrong on some points, but he is correct that some parallels exist between Iraq and Vietnam.
In Vietnam we achieved a tenuous peace, but than threw it away, sacrificing millions in the offing merely to satisfy anti-war political sentiment at home. We could repeat the same mistake in Iraq, or we could stay the course as the President repeatedly says we must do (see here). But if the President is serious about the American people staying the course in Iraq he must regularly give them compelling reasons for doing so.
Please, Mr. President, stand up and lead.
23 comments:
Reach Upward - so nice to hear from you in the Agora and to share you ideas here. I too would like to hear more about the just reasons behind this war! But please note that President Bush spoke to the Veterans yesterday on this very subject and Rodky Anderson's pitiful ramblings got far more press and air than our Great President. Perhaps those who support this cause, while continuing to encourage the President to clarify our position and justify our efforts, should be calling on the media outlets in our country - including the conservative ones - to give full coverage to the President's words. Where is his speech posted? Where is it in print or on the air so that I might honestly appraise his efforts? The Presidential pulpit is not so bully anymore; not when a few hundred protesteres become the lead stroy thoughout the nation while the heroes, which I know Bush honored, are not even mentioned. Perhaps we should vent our anger on the lack of reporting not on our President as he cries out in this media imposed wilderness.
Lysis, thanks for your comments. I agree that the media could actually cover what the President says instead of giving it 7 seconds while giving Rocky & Co. 3+ minutes. You can see the full text of the President's VFW speech here. However, I agree with David Frum.
"The president could have made news yesterday by itemizing the reasons to regard Iraq more positively than most journalists do. He could have ticked off some of the achievements daily posted on the centcom.mil site. He could have teased details even out of the mainstream media.
"Or, alternatively, the president could have skipped the good news and delivered a blood, sweat, toils, and tears speech: Yes things are hard, harder in fact than expected, but the stakes remain enormous - and here is why we must win, and why I am determined to fight this thing through to victory. That would be powerful too.
"As it is, though, he says nothing, and is perceived to say nothing, and soon nobody will be listening at all, if anybody still is."
I support the President, but he needs to do a better job of communicating.
Here is your "sound bit" - right out of Bush's speech to the veterans:
"Our goal is clear: to secure a more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren. We will accept nothing less than total victory over the terrorists and their hateful ideology.
Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. It is a vital part of our mission. Terrorists like bin Laden and his ally, Zarquwi, are trying to turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a place were women are beaten, religious and ethnic minorities are executed, and terrorists have sanctuary to plot attacks against free people. Terrorists are trying to block the rise of democracy in Iraq, because they know a free Iraq will deal a decisive blow to their starategy to achieve absolute power. The Iraqi people lived for three decades under an absolute dictatorship, and they will not allow a new set of would-be tyrants to take control of their future.
The response the people of Iraq have made a clear choice for all to see. In spite of threats and assassinations, more than eight million citiens defied the car bombers adn killers and voted in free elections. In spite of violence, the Iraq people are building a nation that secures freedom for its citizens and contributes to peace and stability in that region.
Points:
1. Peace for our grandchildren.
2. We fight for total victory over hate.
3. Iraq is a centyral front in the war on terror.
4. Iraq is a vital part of our "mission".
5. bin Laden and Zarquwi are trying to turn Iraq into Afahanistan under the Taliban - we must stop them.
6. We must stop the beating of women.
7. We fight to stop the execution of ethnic and religious minorities.
8. We must stop those who plot attacks (like 9/11) on America and other free peoples.
9. We freeded Iraq from a dictator.
10. The terrorists seek absolute power. (human justice demands they be stoped. No one needs to say that!)
11. We must no allow a worse dictator to take Saddam's place.
12.We must support our Iraqi allies; who have faced terror and murder to secure freedom.
13. The freedom of Iraq contributes to world peace.
14. The freedom of Iraq contributes to regional stability.
I wonder how much longer or more significant list you or your friend Dave Frum have in mind?
Let's get the Bush's word out!
I agree that we must all help to get Bush's message out. However, nothing in Bush's VFW speech is news to anybody. He needs to say things like, "This past week we:
-"Got X number of schools up and running.
-"Got electricity grids in city X, city X, city X functional.
-"Provided security for successful local elections in city X and city X.
-"Completed advanced training for a new class of Iraqi security forces. We now have X number fully trained.
-"Destroyed weapons caches in city X and city X.
-"Put X number of terrorists out of commission.
-"Flew X number of sorties in the Sunni Triange.
-"Killed X, a chief terrorist.
-"Destroyed X number of roadside bombs.
-"etc."
I'm not asking for anything that is classified. All of this stuff is already published on the Internet. FDR and Harry Truman used to do this kind of thing regularly on the radio during WWII.
While it would be nice for the mainstream media to pick this stuff up, I don't think it's realistic to expect it, especially if the administration doesn't even say it. The MSM folks treat reporting in Iraq like reporting a police blotter.
If every single murder or other reprehensible act that occurs in California were among the main national stories every day, we would soon all think that California is too dangerous to visit. But many people enjoy their visits to the state each year without being harmed. Similarly, MSM reporting in Iraq clouds the perception of the average American.
But we're not going to get the MSM to change. They are not soon going back to being pro-American like they were in WWII. We need a champion to stand up and deliver regular up-to-date messages with specific and timely examples of how we are progressing toward our goals in Iraq. That champion needs to be President Bush.
I concede the point - and look forward to Bush's speechin Idaho today. But I am saddened tha our Commander and Chief must be reduced to a salesman and that even his most "loyal customers" are more interested in the pitch thanin the produce. I am reluctantly forced to admit that even freedom and justice can no longer be promoted "WORD OF MOUTH", but as Reach Upward points out - in a world of so mucn liable and musinformation, even the truth must be hawked to the ignorant.
Amen.
This will happen:
1The war will deteriorate into a Civil War.
2 Mr. Bush will be impeached but not removed from office.
3 The United States will once again lose credibility in the eyes of the world.
4 All this within the next three years..
I must say, I like this blog. I think it's the first right wing blog that doesn't bash anything and everything that dare question the Republican talking points. So congrats to a positive right wing blog!
I think it's a bad sign that Americans are left wondering why we are at war. War is serious business. I am none to eager to send my family, friends and neighbors off to die in the middle east for reasons unknown.
What's more sad, that American, especially those who lean to the right, are just now asking the most important questions. "Why should we sacrafice our children for a war"??
This should of been asked long ago.
And please Mr. Bush, please! Do not say we are fighting in Iraq to spread freedom! please do not say we are fighting to make America more safe.
If that were true, I will be eagerly awaiting for Mr. Bush's decleration of war on the Sauds, you know the people behind 9/11. (Not that I would like another war, but I think you get my point).
Mr. Bush please tell us the truth!
It seems that the reason the president is having such a hard time communicating the just reasons behind this war is that there aren't any.
"What is the noble cause?"
If there were one, the answer would have fewer than lysis' 15 points.
As for your "X" metrics, suggest reading Robert McNamara's memoir re: body counts -- another Vietnam parallel.
(And the difference between the MSM reporting of conditions in California and Iraq may have something to do with the fact that one can travel freely through CA -- murders notwithstanding -- but virtually no Westerners other than troops dare venture beyond the heavily fortified Green Zone.)
Anti-war sentiment at home had very little, if anything, to do with our withdrawal from Vietnam. Afterall, the people who objected most strongly to that war policy for the most part couldn't, until very late in the day, even vote.
That withdrawal was much more influenced by the domestic economic dangers and consequences that were beginning to become apparent, and the simple reality that we were expending significant resources year after year in a conflict that had become pretty much stuck in the same place -- and from which we were not getting any real return.
When the war really heated up in the mid-60s it was fat city times for the US. Most Americans were celebrating the most prosperous period in their lives and the country's history. It was a party that touched every class.
By the mid-70s, we were in another reality entirely.
The more interesting question about Vietnam isn't why Americans soured on it, but rather, why they supported it, or at least allowed it to go on, for so long -- year after year after year after year -- more than a decade really -- despite the fact the none of those years brought us much to show for our efforts, and the fact that any "benefit" for the country in "winning" would be, at the most, pretty abstract and unquantifiable.
My answer would be twofold -- 1) The unprecedented prosperity that I mentioned above, and 2) the draft and the unprecedentedly large cohort of (baby boomer) men available to be drafted. Both of those things made the war seem easily affordable for quite a long time.
This time around we don't have such favorable circumstances for a long, and inevitably frustrating, war, undertaken, like the Vietnam war, more for theoretical future benefit than as a response to a direct threat. We also have an "all-volunteer" military that the most ideologically committed class of Americans feels little or no obligation to serve in. Plus, we started the war off in shaky economic times -- and are continuing to fight it in an economic context that, while it shows some areas of improvement, still holds many potential, and in some cases novel, dangers.
In the long run these factors, and the political implications they may eventually have for those in power, will have much more impact on this war than Cindy Sheehan and her supporters. In fact, they will be the only things that really count.
Iraq had a constitution prior to the invasion.
Iraq had civil laws on the books -- secular, egalitarian family law -- on the books since 1959.
It is now likely that due to the invasion and handling of the occupation that Iraq will be pushed back 50 years regarding family law.
US will begin pulling out in 12 months, regardless of the situation in Iraq, in order to save the US military from completely breaking.
What Paul Bremer did as head of CPA was disastrous and illegal. The US was forbidden by int'l law from throwing Iraq into the chaos it's in now. Remember Garner, replaced by Bremer?
Sadly, little of this information makes it into the mainstream media.
I listened with some hope to President Bush’s comments in Idaho yesterday, but my hopes were dashed by the response of the Media and its masters. Teddy Kennedy led the charge. He condemned Bush for cheerleading. But the attacks on Bush’s points and explanations were long prepared. Even your readers have them “locked and loaded”. It would do little good to count, counter point with the Anonymous contributors on this argument. But I will to show you that though, there are always answers, they usually are NOT accepted by those who have already made up their minds.
1) When President Bush uses the word peace it is a platitude – when they use it the word is a magic incantation that will make the enemies of America disappear.
2) The hate that is taught in the boys schools of fanatic Islam is not abstract – it is based on enforced ignorance and manifest in murder bombers.
3) Saddam was bankrolling terrorism and hiding and training terrorists before bin Laden was ever heard of. As I have said above – those who attack Bush use talking points not history.
4) As for "the Mission" – how about victory over those who would destroy the “West”? How about the peace so many are calling for?
5) The big boost Bush gave the Murderers was into the caves were they have or soon will die. That Anonymous poster thinks them stronger now that they are on the run and in hiding once more demonstrates that reason is not basic to the anti-war position.
6) As for the beating of women – is the poster claiming that the oppression of women is part of Islamic law, or just that he supports it and resents the efforts of those in Iraq and else where to end it?
7) War is never a good step, ask Abraham Lincoln – but some times it is the only step that will work – check out Hitler!
8) Bush has (so far) stopped attacks on the US – so they have not been provoked to more. Under the Clinton and Carter administrations attacks on America and its interests were weekly occurrences. Once again, Anonymous, saying it doesn’t make you words true. Those who know history – and current events - are safe from you misinformation, if not from the harm it causes.
9) As for freeing peoples from dictators – ask the Germans and the Japanese, and the French and Taiwanese whom they conquered, even our own American forefathers, if freedom from dictators was worth the cost. Many have shared Anonymous’ view that dictatorships are not worth defeating. Thus half the world lived in bondage for half a century, and Vietnam and North Korea still do. But else where millions died and freedom came to the (evil) Soviet Empire. To Anonymous – what a waist – to the world what a blessing, a gift of sacred sacrifice and love.
10) THEY say they seek absolute power, study the Islamic empire bin Laden envisions, read or listen to the rhetoric of the fanatics who call for your death as well as mine, examine the fruits of the Taliban and Saddam – then you will know them.
11) We agree!
12) If they choose Theocracy by democracy it is their choice. If they choose to work evil in the name of God – we can only hope that they too will face justice. Separation of church and state is not requisite for justice.
13) See above.
You see, Reach Upward, it is as I feared – explanation and justification only bring anger and canned responses from those who have determined that this war is a “monumentally colossal bad idea.” They did not come to this conclusion through reason nor the comprehension of the facts. Truth, to them, is a malleable commodity to be coined and spent as needed to purchase their peace of conscience. They have put on their blinders and will not see. Isn’t it amazing that the same heroes who fight for justice fight for them?
Leftwing – please don’t blame Reach Upward for my ranting. By-the-way, I look for the day that freedom, peace, and justice come to Saudi Arabia. Thank goodness there are some places were progress can be made without war, and thank God for a leader who can see the difference between such places and the ones in which we now MUST fight.
Lysis, thanks for your vigorous defense of our national values. Some people dislike hearing from those who believe in absolute truth, but I believe you have pointed out on your own site the problems with engaging in discussions with those steeped in relativism: there's no basis for a discussion. So I appreciate your strong stance.
I agree that those that have their minds made up have canned talking points and that their minds will not change unless something dramatic happens. I sense, however, that there is a good sized middle ground that needs regular education about our efforts in the Middle East. There's the "natural man" that wants inconvenient issues to go away so he can return to his normal pursuits. But many of them will respond to duty when they understand how important it is.
" if the President is serious about the American people staying the course in Iraq he must regularly give them compelling reasons for doing so"
Those "compelling reasons" must be true.
The problem this President has is that he has presented one compelling reason after another -- and one after another they have proven, in reality, to be false.
I read a lot of conservative commentary, and I am beginning to suspect that many of the administration's supporters believe that PR can trump reality, and that attitude may be more important than actions or facts. Or, perhaps, raised in a culture so steeped in PR, marketing and salesmanship, they have difficulty distinguishing between PR and reality?
For instance, they will assert that critical speech harms the war effort, yet, at the same time assert that war supporters' unwillingness to enlist, which has led to serious recruitment short-falls, does not.
They worry less about the negative things that are happening on the ground in Iraq, and more about whether the President is saying enough positive things about it here.
It is this kind of thinking that led the administration to puff the facts and inflate the reasons for war in the first place. And it is this kind of thinking that has destroyed their credibility.
Found this blog while trolling DU; you might get a mini-lanche from the DUmp!
I agree with the premise of your post; that the administration needs to do a better job of countering the Left's marketing of their politics about Iraq.
Of course the Left is going to complain about American military forces being engaged in hostilities when they're not over-seeing them.
America becomes almost as enlightened as Nazi Germany when the Left is in the governing minority.
I'm hoping most people are taking a 'big-picture' view about why we went into Afghanistan and Iraq.
Events may require expanding the liberation...
But the grimy political considerations of using military force must not be ignored; though the MSM isn't yet dead, they're still a considerable voice for marketing the dove-wing of the Leftie Democrat party.
I've seen enough video demonstrating how the Left would prosecute a "war" against terrorists and those that give them sanctuary... holding hands and candles at sunset singing "We Shall Overcome"...
Thanks to the internet, the MSM may no longer have the power to shake political will to keep up the fight against the enemy...though they're desperately trying, again...whenever the West would dare to defend their way of life.
No sane person Wants War, but when it's thrust upon you, you dare not back down.
I'm prepared to be at least as patient with the missions in the ME, and elsewhere, as the U.N. and the Left had been with sanctions, inspections, and stone-walling.
It's clear that this is and has been a global confrontation for quite some time, and people weren't previously aware of the Lefts' complicity in bringing 'activism' of their world-wide political ideology to a head on a sunny Tuesday morning in September.
The United States apparently needed a slap in the face to realize it.
It's no wonder the Lefties at DU and the Moonbat Mecca down in Crawford truck in Joan Baez to wail about how it'll always be 1969 for them; the clock starts at 12:01 AM Sept 10th, 2001, and counts backwards.
I'll book-mark the blog and check for moonbats...
*MK*
From anonymous *MK* to Truly Anonymous, above my post...
" " if the President is serious about the American people staying the course in Iraq he must regularly give them compelling reasons for doing so"
Those "compelling reasons" must be true."
MK sez: Yes, they must be plausibly true to a plurality of the projected electorate.
Despite the consternation on the Left, the United States is yet a country where public, and worldwide public opinion, remains an important consideration in shaping policy. But I'm sure you knew that, unless you pay dues to $kinner...>;)
Truly Left Anonymous sez: "The problem this President has is that he has presented one compelling reason after another -- and one after another they have proven, in reality, to be false".
Anonymous *MK* sez: the operative word here is 'compelling'.
To the Left, the fact that an American president would threaten to rip-open one of the Lefts' hidey-holes sent them into a continuing apoplexy... after he went through all their channels to allow the UN to stone-wall for Saddam while Saddam's Mukhabarat worked over-time getting rid of incriminating ties to justification for Saddam's down-fall.
Saddam is quite the sympathetic figure among the moonbats in Mecca.
And at DU.
I could fisk the rest, but what's the point?
The Left is never going to agree with responding to an attack upon the United States that goes beyond holding hands and candles at sunset...
*MK*
...I'd be remiss in mentioning to readers how far gone the Left is in de-crying and denying what the attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001 have done to their agenda.
Recent exhibit-A is always going to be Ward "White-Man" Churchill's pronouncements in his 'scholarly' tome and radio interviews imploring America to understand that the victims of terrorism are really and truly "Little Eichmanns" (Adolf Eichmann was a chief-deputy of Reinhard Heydrich, who reported directly to Heirich Himmler about the answer to the Jewish Question.
Eichmann's report at the infamous Wannsee Conference in a Berlin sub-urb in the spring of 1942 led to an efficient and accelerated program of coercing Europe's Jewish community leaders to participate in their own destruction.
This is what we're up against people... the Left almost un-ashamedly (for now) compares our kick-ass United States miltary forces, and the victims of Our Enemies, to our enemy 60 years ago.
Hitler was a shit-stain upon Humanity, but about the only thing he was worth was preliminary reconnaisance for guaging the will of a democracy to fight-back!
The Left, at least on DU, vigorously defends known plagiarist and Caucasian male Ward Churchill.
Some denounce him as a dangerous tool; it might invite the sweeping search of an intellectual spot-light upon certain Leftist or leftie-sympathyzing presumptions.
They're still smarting and reeling hard from what the American voters told them in the Autumn of 2002, and again in 2004, despite their vandalism, violence, and cheating.
The Left seems to have completely made a political break from persuading people of the superiority of their ideas... all that's Left is to criticize all that might point out the Lefts' historical affinity for brutal collectivism, on the Right and Left, for many decades.
When is the Lefts 150 Years up?
In the grand-scheme of things, it's entirely appropriate the Left gets to snivel, cajole, and under-mine for 150 years.
As always, Leftism will pretend to offer "Peace".
"Peace", to a Leftist means the cessation of resistance against something Criminal...
"Peace" to a Leftist means there should be less cops and a struggling military.
The Left isn't all that fond of the United States to begin with, considering all the impediments to their absolute strangle-hold were prevented by the Founders!
But the un-resolved battle between the supposedly co-equal branches since Marbury vs. Madison 1803 means the Democrat is more desperate than ever to codify the will of Ideology over that of the voters.
Actually, I understand that mentality, and am somewhat sympathetic to it, but only because the Courts are likely to take a pronounced and long-lasting glance to the Right.
I'm fortunate to be alive at this time, to see a superior way of organizing society be rejected by primitives, and their pampered sympathyzers...
All because of the peripheral considerations of politics, has the Left left themselves self-bereft of a way of finally convincing the voters since 1972 that Maybe America Sucks!
Maybe America Sucks!
That's an undeniable and in-controvertible Leftist position... it's what they always go for first, last, and always...
Ward Churchill is an idiot (moonbat, even).
Why are we in Iraq?
Saddam did indeed support (anti-Israeli) terrorists.
Why are we in Iraq?
Saddam was a brutal murderous dictator who gravely punished his Iraqi (Shi'ite, Kurdish, rival Sunni) political opponents.
Why are we in Iraq?
Saddam had no WMDs nor active WMD program nor delivery vehicle to reach American soil; in fact, Saddam had never attacked America directly (Timothy McVeigh killed more Americans than Saddam in Gulf War I!)
Why are we in Iraq?
America was attacked on a sunny Tuesday morning in September, by primarily Saudi terrorists trained in Afghanistan, serving a Saudi terrorist mastermind sheltered by the Taliban and Pakistani secret service.
Why are we in Iraq?
This peacenik wants to know why Osama bin Laden is still at large. This taxpayer wants to know where to go to get our $200B back.
And why don't conservatives who seek to avenge 9/11 and who decry wasteful government spending share my outrage?
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