Virginia Speaks

For Bush, Again

Richmond Times-Dispatch Oct 17, 2004


On September 11, 2001, Americans awoke to a lovely dawn. Reality soon roused them from a long slumber. The airliners slamming into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania countryside supposedly shattered American innocence. Ignorance more accurately describes the pre-attack attitude. The incidents did not represent something unprecedented, but were instead the latest battle in a war only one side had been waging for a decade and more.

The days following the enormities found a wounded nation ready for decisive action. Flags displayed everywhere reflected love and resolve. If the image of firefighters raising the Stars and Stripes resembled the iconography of Iwo Jima, then the reference was apt. The first responders fought as shock troops. In the war against jihadism, the nation must be an army of everyone.

A man few would consider eloquent gave voice to the nation's strength and abiding goodness. His addresses during a memorial service and to a joint session of Congress lifted a land that is not simply a country but a cause. The ceremony at the National Cathedral concluded with "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and the sword - terrible and swift, righteous and just - descended upon the Taliban, the sectarian extremists who consorted with Osama, al-Qaeda, and other blaspheming goons. We did not start this war, the speaker explained, but the hostilities will end in a manner and at a time of our choosing. The posters and the bumper stickers said, "United We Stand!" Yet protesters took to the streets at the very beginning, eager as ever to blame America first.

The troops persevered.

Progress proceeded on a scale that defied dispensers of gloom. The defense of America translated into liberation for Afghanistan. Schools reopened; women discarded the burqa; the people prepared to govern themselves. This is not to say the campaign transformed Afghanistan into Sweden - or that it soon will. Nevertheless, Operation Enduring Freedom addresses root causes. Remember World War II? Germany and Japan rejoined the community of decent nations only after their armies were crushed. Redemption took many years. The twin goals in the new war are to kill jihadists and to create opportunities for decency. While the operation remains incomplete - indeed uncertain - the burden must be borne.

The focus also fell on Iraq. An official described Saddam's ties to al-Qaeda not as direct involvement in 9/11 but as the encouragement of a climate conducive to anti-Americanism and to shedding the blood of innocents. Anyone who denies this is a fool. Terrorism takes comfort from many sources. Not a faithful Muslim himself, Saddam made common cause with jihadists. Baghdad offered sanctuary to evil masterminds; Saddam rewarded the families of assassins who slaughtered Israelis. He based his state on fear. Mass graves stand as his monument.

The forces purporting to promote human rights did not promote the happiness of Iraq's populace. For many years Republican and Democrat alike had linked Saddam and weapons of mass destruction; for many years Republican and Democrat alike identified regime change as a U.S. priority. The armies came, the regime collapsed, and Saddam was found in a spider hole. The usual suspects found fault. If not all Iraqi civilians greeted the troops entering Baghdad with garlands, all did cheer the toppling of their tormentor's vulgar statues. The failure to find the advertised WMDs undermined confidence. But pre-emption defines a valid doctrine. The WMD situation exacts a toll - and is being exploited by those wrong in every foreign policy debate during the Cold War and since.

Winning the peace is more difficult than winning the war. Policy-makers have erred, often grievously. As is common during armed conflict, ambition sometimes has superseded judgment. The grunts pay the price, as do Iraqis yearning for peace. Yet mistakes do not nullify Operation Iraqi Freedom's virtues. Failure would suggest unsettling truths about civilization and culture. Perhaps certain clashes made inevitable by man's fallen status can achieve no higher purpose than the physical destruction of a sworn foe. Is that what idealists desire? Jihadism represents challenges resolvable neither by diplomacy nor by calls to reason, nor by a UN corrupted by institutional vanity. The "War on Terrorism" is a misnomer. The enemy is the ideology of jihad.

Many see an electorate divided - the coasts against the middle, the metros against the retros. The enemy is less clever but perhaps more astute. He detests blue states as much as he detests red. As the U.S. prepares to vote in the 2004 elections, this issue overwhelms all others.

. . .

Tangential aspects of the past four years can be discussed in brief.

Tax cuts offered gratifying relief, and may have given the economy the jolt that prevented a mild recession from growing worse - maybe even turned the economy around. Despite requisite anti-jihadist spending, the deficit dismayed those who for decades sincerely believed GOP rhetoric regarding budgets. Although the No Child Left Behind Act troubled skeptics of federal education schemes, Washington for once enacted standards and demanded accountability.

Calls to increase production of domestic energy supplies, particularly in Alaska, served U.S. economic and strategic interests; added emphasis on conservation would have been desirable. The healthy trend of judges nominated not to make the law but to apply it ran into unconscion- able filibusters. The politics of personal destruction, yielding not to the counsel of better angels, failed to abate.

. . .

Voters must choose.

The post-9/11 world lacked the consolation of being able to summon Winston Churchill from the wilderness. Here and there voices had warned of the gathering storm. The perceptive few lacked national platforms and even among their own parties did not receive the recognition bestowed upon those more adept at wowing activists, factionalists, and nuts. The national press gave scant coverage to those whom history would prove tragically right. The nation splits among 9/10 citizens and politicians, 9/12 citizens and politicians (and, with the latter, the handful who were 9/12 before 9/11).

One ticket repre- sents the mentality of 9/10, the other of 9/12.

The choice is clear.

On November 2, re-elect George W. Bush.