Does America Deserve Its Leadership Role?

The debate America needs: "Does the United States deserve to exercise a degree of global leadership after the disaster of Iraq? If so, how should it wield this leadership? These are not surprising questions to anyone who has watched the disaster of Iraq unfold before their eyes. But within the American foreign policy community, this is unsettling stuff. Since the end of the cold war, the assumption of global leadership has been so deeply ingrained in the bipartisan foreign policy consensus that few critics, if any, believed it was possible that one catastrophic error could make things fall apart."


This nonsense reminds me of that famous conversation from Casablanca:


Major Strasser: You give him credit for too much cleverness. My impression was that he's just another blundering American.

Captain Renault: We mustn't underestimate American blundering. I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918.

GOP Revolution: It's a Wrap

GOP Revolution: It's a Wrap | The American Prospect: "The pendulum has swung, the Republican revolution is over, and every day the list of battered and retreating combatants continues to grow. This was a big week: Former House Speaker Denny Hastert and former GOP House Conference Chair Deborah Pryce announced their retirements. And, of course, 'boy genius' and Friend-in-Chief Karl Rove, the general who was to consolidate all the Revolution's gains into a singular enduring triumph, cried uncle and announced that he, too, would leave the White House for the warmth of more time with his family. Rove leaves before Labor Day, before the Petraeus report, before the president's new strategy in Iraq has had a chance to work, and before the Great GOP Realignment. Exeunt Hastert, Pryce, and Rove. The end.... I can look back and pinpoint the beginning of the end. The guesses and gambles with which the administration approached Iraq, and its mind-numbing lethargy and incompetence on Katrina are the depth charges that blew the façade apart. But it was Social Security that started the fire."

Rumors of his demise are greatly exaggerated. Mr. Samuel coins the term "Bushism" as he extols its collapse. Unfortunately, Mr. Samuel is incorrect on two counts.

First, "Bushism" is nothing new in the full panoply of American history. His administration blends Jeffersonian, Wilsonian, Hamiltonian, and Jacksonian policy in degrees varied issue by issue. Jefferson sent the US Navy to war against radical Islamic terrorists of the high seas in the Mediterranean. Wilson invaded Russia to support democratic counter-Soviet revolutionaries, and invaded Mexico in an attempt to foster civilization there. Bush also shows elements of Hamiltonian and Jacksonian flare in his view of economic and military instruments of power. No, "Bushism" is not extraordinary, nor is "Bushism" at an end. These ideas will continue to play important roles in future administrations. In fact, much like the Reagan and Truman administrations, history will likely remember President Bush in a much higher regard than the "instant history" of polling. Bush may have lost a pot or two, but he stands to win the tournament.

Second, Mr. Samuel's characterizations of Iraq and Katrina are woefully deficient. Images of a flooded school bus fleet and revelations over time about state and local government folly have largely vindicated the federal government's handling of the Katrina disaster. Likewise, time will reveal the verities of our Iraq activities as Iran's complicity in the unrest is made known coupled with the defeat of Al Queda in the region. Just as few strategic gaffes of WWII come to mind in contemporary memory, so will few remember Iraq's mistakes in the future. 8 decades ago the British created the issue called Iraq, and 8 decades hence this war will be viewed for what it is: a necessary and unavoidable confrontation between the forces of construction and the forces of deconstruction. "Bushism" is no facade, but a construct on firm footing.

Mr. Samuels is correct about one thing, though. Social Security played a major role in garnering opposition for Mr. Bush. When that foolhardy program comes home to roost in 40 years, Bush's failed effort to revamp the system may be remembered favorably as the system goes bankrupt. The 'Greatest Generation' left its great grandchildren quite a mess to deal with, and Bush was one of the few who saw it and tried to clean it up at his own peril.

Padilla Conviction Leaves Unanswered Questions

Padilla Conviction Leaves Unanswered Questions - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com: "Padilla had been arrested at a Chicago airport in May 2002, after returning to the country from Pakistan via Switzerland. One month later, armed with sketchy (and what turned out to be disputed) intelligence that he had been dispatched by Al Qaeda to set off a dirty bomb inside the United States, President Bush in one stroke of the pen essentially declared Padilla an “unperson,” a man with none of the basic constitutional rights that is guaranteed to every other U.S. citizen. As an enemy combatant, who Bush said posed a “continuing, present and grave danger” to the country, Padilla was to be held indefinitely without being charged with a crime or given any right to defend himself while the U.S military interrogated him."

The Left has precious few remaining arguments against the current administration's handling of terrorists, but this is the one you'll probably hear most often. This dubious argument intentionally omits key facts. First of all, the "unperson" claim is an appeal to Habeas Corpus "rights." In fact, Habeas Corpus is not a right but a privilege under the Constitution, and it is subject to revocation. "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." According to this principle, public safety and preservation of society trump individual liberties under certain cases of arrest of dangerous actors. Second, the fact of WWII precedent is omitted. The USA captured German spies in the US during the war, and the FDR administration "in one stroke of the pen" secretly remanded the spies to a trial by a special tribunal of 7 US Generals who sentenced several of them to death, one to life in prison, and others to decades in prison. I'd wager few on the Left would ever remind us of FDR's secret pen-stroke precedents.

KILLING FOR CONGRESS

KILLING FOR CONGRESS By RALPH PETERS: "The bombings were a sign of al Qaeda's frustration, desperation and fear. The victims were ethnic Kurd Yazidis, members of a minor sect with pre-Islamic roots. Muslim extremists condemn them (wrongly) as devil worshippers. The Yazidis live on the fringes of society. That's one of the two reasons al Qaeda targeted those settlements.... the second reason for those dramatic bombings was that al Qaeda needs to portray Iraq as a continuing failure of U.S. policy. Those dead and maimed Yazidis were just props: The intended audience was Congress.... The foreign terrorists slaughtering the innocent recognize that their only remaining hope of pulling off a come-from-way-behind win is to convince your senator and your congressman or -woman that it's politically expedient to hand a default victory to a defeated al Qaeda."

Padilla Convicted of Terrorism Support

Padilla Convicted of Terrorism Support: "U.S. officials said Padilla, while incarcerated in a military brig in South Carolina, admitted exploring the dirty bomb plot. But that evidence could not be used at trial because he was not read his rights and did not immediately have access to an attorney."

Paulson sees more bad news ahead - Aug. 16, 2007

Paulson sees more bad news ahead - Aug. 16, 2007: "WASHINGTON (Fortune) -- Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson predicts that the 'current strained situation' in the markets 'will take time to play out, and more difficult news will come to light. Some investors will take losses, some organizations will fail,' he says in remarks that will appear in the forthcoming issue of Fortune. But, he stresses, global economic fundamentals remain healthy, providing a solid base for financial markets to continue to adjust. 'The overall economy and the market are healthy enough to absorb all this,' he notes."

Breaking news from 1922: 'Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.'

Inside the Beltway -- The Washington Times, America's Newspaper: "D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: 'Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.' The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention 'great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones,' and 'at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared.' 'This was one of several such articles I have found at the Library of Congress for the 1920s and 1930s,' says Mr. Lockwood. 'I had read of the just-released NASA estimates, that four of the 10 hottest years in the U.S. were actually in the 1930s, with 1934 the hottest of all.'"