I’ll try a reading of this thing, and it won’t be true or false, merely speculative…. I notice, first of all, that Bush, over the past week or so, has made some truth-bearing statements: calling IOF a “catastrophic victory,” for example, is not an exercise in rhetoric–it’s not an oxymoron, say, or a “coincidentia oppositorum”. No, it’s a statement of exact fact, like the phrases “Pyrrhic victory” or “heroic surgery,” all of which aim to say something exceptional in a precise way. So, too, with the sentence “I don’t think you can win it” (i.e. “the war on terror”): I take this as the open acknowledgement of an indisputable fact–if only because this isn’t a war against an “enemy” that occupies a “front”. Perhaps it isn’t a war at all–in which case, of course, it can’t be won or lost (and whether it can even be fought is an interesting question).
(more)

Posted by: alabama | Aug 31 2004 23:37 utc | 3

Yeah alabama I almost posted in the same direction today.
Glad I didn’t because your perceptions are much more insightful.
But that won’t stop me from chiming in on a tangent:
For the first time there has indeed been some truth-speaking and hasn’t it been surrealistic to see both the Ds and the Rs foaming from the mouth and jumping feverishly?
It is as if someone lit both camps’ pants on fire.
Or– as if the emperor finally noticed he was naked.
This ain’t Andy Warhol anymore…this is a cartoon by Salvador Dali. Let’s hope the president gets back on script–else this country is going to suffer a nervous breakdown.

Posted by: koreyel | Sep 1 2004 2:44 utc | 5

Andrew Sullivan on the flip-flop:
“WINNING” THE WAR: Looking at the context of president Bush’s remarks yesterday on the Today Show does not undo the weird gaffe. Here’s the conversation:
LAUER: You said to me a second ago, one of the things you’ll lay out in your vision for the next four years is how to go about winning the war on terror. That phrase strikes me a little bit. Do you really think we can win this war of ter–on terror? For example, in the next four years?
Pres. BUSH: I have never said we can win it in four years?
LAUER: No, I’m just saying, can we win it? Do you say that?
Pres. BUSH: I don’t–I don’t think we can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the–those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in part of the world, let’s put it that way. I have a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand is to find them before they hurt us. And that’s necessary. I’m telling you it’s necessary.
The odd thing is that this really does sound like a parody of Kerry. And if Kerry had indeed said that, we would be hearing nothing else for weeks. And indeed, every time I hear the president talk extemporaneously about the war – his interview with Tim Russert last February was a classic – he does seem to have almost no conceptual grasp of what he’s talking about. Back then, he seemed flummoxed by the very concept of a distinction between a war of choice and a war of necessity. Now he seems to be parroting a Council on Foreign Relations confab on the permanence of terrorism.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 1 2004 4:50 utc | 7

If only there were time and inclination before the election to stir public debate about what Bush was probably saying: Even if and when al Qaeda is brought to the level of insignificance by our more serious efforts against it (and this must be endeavored) it is the herald of a global Islamic insurgency that will not end with it. What to do, long-term, about that insurgency and the sentiment that feeds it?
Bush says the answer is democratic reform of the Greater Middle East, of which Iraq and Afghanistan are part.
This initiative’s cost in blood and treasure, however, will be increasingly and mind-boggling high, the committment itself interminable, and the hopeful assumptions underlying it erected on very shaky ground.
It is our actions in and policies toward the Muslim world that must be re-examined. This is, indeed, the message that OBL tried, and failed, to deliver. Without this re-examination, there will be war for many generations – and it will flash with greater frequency here at home.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 1 2004 5:49 utc | 9

Ivan Eland at antiwar.com:
August 31, 2004
Bush’s ‘War on Terror’: No Lack of Imagination
by Ivan Eland
According to one of the main findings of the 9/11 Commission, the U.S. government’s failure to anticipate the grave threat from al Qaeda prior to the September 11 attacks was a failure of imagination. Since those attacks, however, the Bush administration’s broad “war on terror” has exhibited nothing but imagination.
To begin with, President Bush has the chimerical and dangerously naïve notion that al Qaeda attacks America because of its freedoms—that is, the United States is attacked for what it is and not what it does. All evidence is to the contrary. Both Western and Islamic authorities on al Qaeda tell us that the group attacks the United States because of its foreign policy toward the Moslem world. Osama bin Laden believes the U.S. military’s presence and actions in Islamic lands, as well as its support for corrupt governments there, are tantamount to a modern day “crusade.” President Bush’s disastrous use of the c-word to describe U.S. policy merely confirmed the obvious to many Moslems around the world. Repeated polls of the Islamic world demonstrate that intense anti-U.S. hatred is generated by U.S. foreign policy, not by U.S. culture, technology, or political and economic freedoms. In fact, those latter characteristics of U.S. society are often admired in Moslem lands.
The Bush administration’s immediate response to 9/11—invading Afghanistan, removing the Taliban regime, and remaining to remake the country—has been widely praised in the West. But on two separate occasions, instead of risking American casualties by using U.S. Special Forces, the Bush administration imagined that the unreliable Northern Alliance could round up al Qaeda fighters trying to escape from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Osama bin Laden and other dangerous high-level members of al Qaeda escaped and have not been rounded up in almost three years. Moreover, instead of hunting down the terrorists, leaving, and threatening to return if Afghanistan again becomes a haven for al Qaeda, the continuing American nation-building program in that country—as well as U.S. support for an unrepresentative Afghan puppet government—have fueled a resurgence of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Both are conducting a defensive jihad against what they believe is an infidel occupation of Islamic territory…

Posted by: Pat | Sep 1 2004 6:10 utc | 11

@RossK
I think Bush wants to bring attention to the foreign policy issue he is (naively, sincerely) passionate about: greater Middle East reform – by the hand of the US.
It’s a losing proposition (the reform, not the campaign tactic of bringing attention back to it), but he owns it and Kerry can’t reject it.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 1 2004 6:48 utc | 13

RossK, just picture a meeting of Bush, Cheney, Powell and Rumsfeld. Powell, at this stage of the game, can remain completely silent–he needn’t say a word. Rumsfeld and Cheney can say whatever they want, but mostly they’ll want to get out of the room and continue discussions with their lawyers about damage control. (Powell, when the meeting’s over, will get on the phone with Negroponte to discuss the fate of Iraq–how to spend all those billions recently captured from the “nazis” in the Pentagon.) And Bush? Well, he’s like a kid in the middle of a bad divorce: he can give out those olive branches to everyone, and say whatever he wants about war, just these guys will cetainly listen, but there’s no eye-contact, no handshake, and no pleasantry passed among them. Just call it a “catastrophic success.”

Posted by: alabama | Sep 1 2004 6:55 utc | 15

@RossK
“Sorry Pat, just can’t make myself go to that deepest of dark places tonight”
I hear ya. My husband, a Republican, prefers NPR to conservative talk radio.
Eventually, however, one has to engage and refute their ideas AS THEY THEMSELVES present them.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 1 2004 7:38 utc | 17

And (to drive my point home) where are the architects and purveyors of this keystone plank at the convention: Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Franks, Powell, Bremmer, Sanchez…if it was working, they’d be up there.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 1 2004 8:36 utc | 19

RossK, I’d be surprised if Powell stayed in government after January. I think he’s fighting his last fight–that he’s taken it as far as he can. He certainly has no future in the Republican Party. But McCain’s a different animal. He’s been out of uniform for thirty years, and he’s a seasoned, political civilian (hell, a survivor of the ancient S&L scandal!) But Powell–when did he retire from military service? Ten years ago? This has to make a difference. McCain probably chats with a civilian neo-cons like Wolfowitz. Powell would probably walk out of the room before that could happened.

Posted by: alabama | Sep 1 2004 14:54 utc | 21

TNR’s Peter Beinhart
09.01.04
EXPECT LESS: TNR crack reporter-researcher Marisa Katz has done a little research and found an interesting thing about John McCain and Rudy Giuliani’s speeches. Neither of them, despite defending the war in Iraq in detail, mentioned the word “democracy.” There were plenty of references to “freedom” and some to governments that were “accountable.” But no mention of the signature phrase so central to Bush’s vision of the war in Iraq, and the war on terrorism in general. It’s a testament to how much Republicans have tacitly ratcheted down expectations for the Iraq war, even while claiming to believe in it more than ever.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 1 2004 16:21 utc | 23

Alabama,
It certainly would not be appropriate for Gen Sanchez to speak at the RNC you are right about that, whether it is legal or not I have no idea. The others certainly can should they want to.
I can not speak for Anna Mist but do think he/she is referring to the “America is safer because I invaded Iraq” plank.

Posted by: Dan of Steele | Sep 1 2004 16:32 utc | 25

@Dan of Steele
It would not be legal for Sanchez to campaign for anyone.
Ever watch the audience in a State of the Union speech? The heads of the military services always have front row seats. They’re the only ones who can’t applaud or participate in a standing ovation. They cannot give endorsement, or give the impression of endorsement.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 1 2004 18:00 utc | 27

Sorry, b real. The Franks interview is at captainsquartersblog.com.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 1 2004 18:22 utc | 29

@Dan of Steele
“I know for a fact that the Republican party is promoted in the military and not always covertly.”
It certainly is not promoted BY the military as an institution. (There was a serious crackdown on public criticism of the president during Clinton’s tenure – public criticism that included unkind bumber stickers and t-shirts.)
Any commander that coerces his troops into voting one way or another deserves to be strung up by his toes – but this requires that someone actually register a formal complaint.
Dan, you bring back bad memories of the bullies, nut cases, and frustrated autocrats that one does – or did, when I was in – run across in the Army.
It is, sometimes, an organization best appreciated from a comfortable distance.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 1 2004 19:21 utc | 31

So Mr and Mrs and Meister Rovian want to be seen like the British in NIre?
Oy!

Posted by: RossK | Sep 2 2004 6:40 utc | 33