[Peace-discuss] A conservative (but accurate) view of the war

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu>
To: "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 5:23 PM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] A conservative (but accurate) view of the war


American Military Policy and the War on Terrorism
by Karen Kwiatkowski

{This speech was part of a panel sponsored by the Future of Freedom 
Foundation,
Campaign for Liberty and the Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA) held on 
February
20th at the 2010 CPAC. The panel presentation was titled "Why Real 
Conservatives
Are Against the War on Terror."}

The phrase "war on terror" has been used to justify trillions of dollars in
spending, hundreds of thousands of new government positions, and thousands 
of
new government contracts. At the same time, the "war on terror" has produced
very little in terms of new technology or enhanced security, has vastly
increased the degree of national centralization, and has created many new
permanent trees and branches in the gnarled world of federal and state 
institutions.

The Congressional Research Service reported in September 2009 the cost of 
the
"War on Terror" since 9/11 at almost one trillion dollars. But they looked 
only
at the cost of the three military operations launched in response to 9/11. 
They
counted only the war in Afghanistan (9 years running), the war in Iraq (7 
years
running), and the overall effort to secure US military installations around 
the
world – not our borders at home, but our forward deployed empire.

While it is very costly, in both dollars and in terms of rule of law, the 
war on
terror is not a real war, in the sense that conservatives understand it. 
Yes,
our nation was assaulted, and on 9/11, our nation was undefended and 
vulnerable.
Our very expensive armed forces and our very expensive intelligence 
apparatus
failed to prevent or to predict what happened on 9/11. A conservative 
reaction
would have been to assess the situation from the perspective of what we had 
done
or not done, as much as to seek to avenge the attack. A wise and thoughtful
response would have been to unleash a criminal investigation, at home and
internationally, and to pursue the perpetrators, as we examine the 
institutional
failures and policies that made our country vulnerable.

Instead, even though we had a so-called conservative president, we did not
proceed as conservatives. We did not hold accountable or fire anyone in our
government, or our defense and intelligence institutions. We did not closely
examine our own foreign policy or our extensive intelligence and military
activities overseas, particularly the Middle East. We did not even devote
sufficient time and energy to investigating the crimes committed and the 
people
behind those crimes. Instead, our so-called conservative president, with the
backing of so-called conservative people, reacted pretty much as that other
party we have been rightfully criticizing here at this conference.

What we are talking about today is our reaction to 9/11 – because that is 
really
what the war on terror has been – a reaction, not a strategy.

This reaction, like most poorly thought-out reactions, has been anything but
conservative.

Furthermore, it has led to conditions and changes in this country that are
anything but those a true conservative would desire or hope for: Massive 
growth
in spending, new permanent and centralized government institutions, and 
worst of
all, an incredibly stupid militarization of the pursuit of terror.

It is the stupidity in the strategy that I want to briefly review. And to do
this, no one here needs to understand the least bit about military history,
tactics and strategy. You do not need to know about the Chinese general Sun 
Tzu,
because apparently no one leading the Pentagon is reading him.

Sun Tzu understood that understatement and deception is necessary in war.

He said, "Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be 
extremely
mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the 
director
of the opponent's fate."

Instead, our approach has been to almost randomly identify countries and
governments and very publicly, go after them. The only mystery of our 
military
and foreign policy since 2001 is in the minds of the American people, who do 
not
understand why the war isn’t won yet, and why the enemy seems to be 
expanding,
getting smarter, and hating us more.

Sun Tzu said, "If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain 
to
be in peril." He was right about that – but in fact you wouldn’t know it 
from
the obscene confidence and outright idiocy put out by the Pentagon, and 
eagerly
embraced by two presidents, one a so-called conservative, the other, a 
left-wing
socialist.

We – as conservatives – ought to care about getting back to an old kind of
normal – not creating a new normal of unconstitutional government, 
unsupportable
debt, and endless war. We should want victory in the "War on Terror" but
understand that victory must include a return to small government 
republicanism.
Sun Tzu wrote, "He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be
victorious."

But as I said, those creating, pursuing, advertising and selling the 
so-called
War on Terror have not read Sun Tzu, and cannot be bothered.

Von Clausewitz is another strategist we study in the military finishing 
schools.
One thing Clausewitz knew, that conservatives also know – is that, "The 
first,
the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and
commander have to make is to establish . . . the kind of war on which they 
are
embarking." But instead, we are still debating the question of "What is this 
war
on terror?" More and more we are asking, why isn’t it working, and when will 
it end.

Instead of Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz our strategy has been more theatrics 
than
tactics, and running on a script written by those who stand to benefit from 
more
government, and more government spending, than those Americans who are
fundamentally conservative and who in their hearts, do value the 
Constitution –
which is to say – the majority of Americans.

 From a Pentagon standpoint, it was fortunate that the Pentagon was one of 
the
9/11 targets. Had the Pentagon not been targeted, and had it emerged 
unscathed
on 9/11, it is likely that serious questions would have been asked about why 
the
premier and best-funded military, with the best and most highly funded
intelligence agencies in the world, was a blind paralyzed sitting duck on 
9/11.

Instead, no serious or probing questions were asked about the 
appropriateness of
our massive military-industrial complex. After 9/11 the so-called 
conservatives
in charge – instead of taking wise counsel – did what any decent Democrat 
would
do. They threw unlimited piles of money at a largely undefined and 
misunderstood
problem.

Some in the GOP are still wondering why the Tea Party movement evolved. Didn’t
people already have a conservative political party representing their 
interests?
Well, the GOP promotion of the war on terror using big contracts and bigger
government, trampling the constitution, all in the name of fear and empire –
none of this approach was conservative.

Beyond being anything but conservative, the war on terror as we have 
conducted
it since 2001 is simply not succeeding. In many of our overseas 
battlefields, we
are creating and growing new terrorists, and smarter terrorists. We are
increasingly exposing our own weaknesses in terms of occupation and
counterinsurgency, and even as we institutionally learn from our mistakes, 
it is
always too slow, always after the fact.

We – as conservatives, no less – seem to be supporting a vague and extremely
Clintonesque policy of global nation building. We keep hoping that putting
another one of our crooked guys in charge of a country will work, and we 
keep
hoping that military and economic blackmail can keep the locals in line. 
That’s
just idiotic.

It may be that our military policy is not designed to reduce terror at all, 
but
is instead simply designed to evolve hand-in-hand with the so-called "war on
terror," in order to maximize the opportunity for growth of American
intelligence and security institutions. Permanent institutional growth.

Many predictions about the next decade have been made in the past weeks. One
thing not predicted for 2010 is a reduction of American forces, or fewer
American interferences and entanglements overseas. No one is predicting the
ending of America’s illegal wars, or even the ending of a front in just one 
of
the illegal wars.

Curiously, government spokesmen are aware that this is exactly what 
Americans
want, and are beginning to pander. Case in point is JCS Chairman Admiral 
Mullen
on The Daily Show last month discussing how we are coming out of Iraq in 18
months, and how the US military is 40% smaller than it was at the end of the
Cold War.

Mullen represents his case well, but unfortunately he was lying. He is lying
about leaving Iraq – even Obama has stated that a minimum of 50,000 American
troops will permanently remain in that foreign country. He is also lying 
about
the size of the military.

In 1988, about a year before the end of the Cold War, a Congressional 
Research
Service chronology of military spending put the DoD take at $451 billion (in
2005 dollars). In 2009, DoD got $10 billion more, with a budget of $460.5
billion (in 2005 dollars). The real military budget in 2009 was larger, not
smaller, than at the end of the Cold War. But there’s more, namely the 
modern
habit of funding any actual wars the DoD may be fighting through separate
supplemental Congressional appropriations and authorizations.

Admiral Mullen also mentioned on the Daily Show that our uniformed military 
was
smaller today than at the end of the Cold War. It’s true, we do have about 
750
thousand fewer troops than we did at the end of the Cold War. However, for 
the
past 20 years, we have been outsourcing all kinds of formerly uniformed
specialties and subspecialities. As one conservative economist correctly 
wonders,

"…was [the outsourcing] really about saving money? Or was it a way to ramp 
up
the effective size of the fighting force without having to institute a draft 
or
some other means of increase the size of the military (e.g. increasing pay
substantially)? And perhaps sending a few, more than a few actually, bucks 
in
certain directions?"

The future – especially the future for people who love and value American
liberty – is in danger. It is in danger in part because we did not pursue, 
and
are not today pursuing, a conservative approach to reducing anti-American
terrorism and ensuring the guilty were indeed punished for their acts.

After 9/11 – a ruthless, tragic, terrible event, burned into our minds and 
our
hearts – the United States had alternatives. We could have, as we had done 
in so
many other cases of terrorism, pursued the criminals through the system of 
law
enforcement. This would have meant a slower process, a process that would 
have
been less emotional and less political, and would have required 
international
police and intelligence cooperation. After 9/11, we had the sympathy of the
world, and strong offers and guarantees of their support. It would have 
taken
time – although in retrospect, this approach would have taken far less time,
less money and destroyed fewer lives and livelihoods than what we really 
did. A
conservative approach would have saved trillions of dollars. It would have
educated Americans on the rule of law and the Constitution, rather than 
blinding
them to it. And a conservative approach, because it cares about history and
culture and community, would have ensured that Americans more deeply 
understood
terrorism, and how to prevent it. Instead, we are repeatedly lied to by our
government, on everything, but particularly on the real lack of success, the
real cost and the extreme risk of our ongoing and endless "War on Terror."

Rahm Emmanuel has famously said, "you never want to let a crisis go to 
waste,"
and he is right, from a government’s standpoint. I hope that from a
conservative’s perspective, Rahm’s words are an abomination. But in fact,
looking at the policies of the Bush and Cheney administration regarding
terrorism, with Obama continuing them enthusiastically, I am beginning to 
have
doubts as to whether conservatives in this country really understand what it
means to be conservative.

Had our government not seized the opportunity that the 9/11 crisis 
presented,
and had the Bush Administration spent that political capital on a serious 
legal
and criminal approach to catching and punishing the 9/11 terrorists – by 
now,
almost nine years later – in the very worst case scenario, we would be in 
the
same place we are today. Lots of bad guys picked up, some convicted in 
trials,
others held with trials pending. Certainly, many people would have been
released, as we have done with a good number of those who had been held 
without
charge or evidence in Guantanamo. Best case, this whole episode would be 
behind
us, and the money not spent on security might have gone to reduce the 
deficit or
support tax cuts.

Had we taken the conservative fork in the road back in 2001, we would not 
have
enraged other nations, insulted entire cultures, violated our own 
Constitution
and sacrificed on a bloody altar what we like to put forth as American 
honor. We
would be living in a world where our 1.4 trillion-dollar debt ceiling could 
be
reduced, not raised. We would be living in a world without an overgrown 
defense
and intelligence structure, with no blurring of lines between civilian law
enforcement and the military. We would be living in a world where, having 
not
killed women and children, not having interfered with the domestic politics 
and
trade policies of third-world countries in far away places, and having not
destroyed our onetime reputation as a free nation – we would be clearly 
safer
from terror aimed against us.

But the United States is led by a media and power elite that is, in fact, 
not
conservative. It is instead vested in doing exactly what it has been doing,
growing in power and increasing its take from the national till. For these
agencies, the war on terror is working just fine.

How might we, as conservatives today, really begin to fight terrorism? 
First,
get a Secretary of State who speaks for the founding father’s preferred 
policy
of free trade with all and entangling alliances with none.

Second, if a secretary of war is required, appoint one who will make his 
sole
mission the security of the United States, rather than the security and
continued expansion of the defense industrial establishment.

Third, conservatives, of all people, have the responsibility to understand 
both
rule of law, and to understand our own American history, both the good and 
the
bad – and keep the light of freedom burning at home. This means we have to 
be
leading the charge at home to reduce our illegal empire abroad for reasons 
both
financial and constitutional.

Instead, of course, the Republican Party has become identified with big
government, empire, excess spending, and overpriced and counterproductive
defense strategy. As the American people wake up to this reality, they will
naturally reject the philosophy that is behind the modern GOP approach.

If the GOP intends to remain relevant, it must deliver. The nearly 
decade-long
experiment in government growth called "the war on terror" has been a cruel 
joke
that history will rightfully blame on the Republican Party. It’s not 
working,
and conservatives – as well as libertarians and independents and democrats – 
can
all see that. But only old-style conservatives and libertarians are truly in 
a
position to offer a reasonable alternative. And that alternative is to 
energize
real conservatism in our defensive strategy and foreign affairs, and to
rediscover the sound advice of Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz, and more than ever, 
our
founding fathers.

February 23, 2010

{LRC columnist Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF
lieutenant colonel, has written on defense issues with a libertarian 
perspective
for MilitaryWeek.com, hosts the call-in radio show American Forum, and blogs
occasionally for Huffingtonpost.com and Liberty and Power ... Copyright © 
2010
Karen Kwiatkowski}


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