The post today by Townhall's Matt Lewis commenting on a post by Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic online regarding war being a long term foe of conservatism is dead on.
Anything that requires funding of such magnitude, regardless of what it is, will result in larger government and more spending. Defense happens to be more of a conservative concern than it is liberal, and so conservatives tend to let it go because of the consequences for not paying any attention to it, or for cutting back.
If any part of the Reagan coalition--fiscal, defense and social--should be feeling on the outs lately it is the first. While the social conservatives might be the most vilified, or even be the most vocal, they have, in George W. Bush, the best president for social causes in decades. Because of 9/11, the defense conservatives have also had their way. Meanwhile, spending has increased, the Bush tax cuts will soon expire, and there is no end in sight with runaway government.
Social and defense conservatives shouldn't push agendas that take the fiscal part of it offline. If they do, then their own agendas will not long survive, and the backlash, which we're seeing, can be severe.
Truth to tell, I have always been uneasy about a war of preemption. This kind of warfare has no end, and it causes issues with any government, even friendly, and even our own. Are we going to call martial law in the US as a part of a crackdown of terrorist cells that might exist in this country? Our freedoms relating to air travel and other things have been eroding--when you can't take a bottle of shampoo on board a plane that is more than a couple of ounces for fear that it will be used to blow up the plane, there is a serious issue.
Terrorism should be thwarted, and it should be stamped out, but not at the expense of what makes this country great. And civil dissent, the ability to present an opposing view, even a radical opposing view, is allowed under our Constitution.
Blowing up people and buildings is a crime. Plotting with the intent to execute such a plan is a crime. Putting people in jail or executing them before they do either is not allowed. That gets into Orwellian territory with Thought Police, or a more recent take, the Minority Report. Since we don't have infallible mind readers running around, solving crimes before they've happened, anything akin to it would ultimately fail, and when that happens, a backlash ensues and the pendulum swings to the other end of the spectrum where it's impossible to prosecute anyone or anything, including a war.
There are plenty of people out there, organizations, governments, that would love to see America fall. I believe we are partially to blame for that, but not to the extent that some would claim. The deep seeded hatred for all things Western that exists in the minds of the most radical Jihadists would not entirely go away if we were to just disappear from Iraq or other Muslim strongholds. However, lousy intelligence at best, or being lied to at worse, as a basis for going to war when the truth--whatever it be--is the least possible political option, doesn't give us the high ground to work from, either.
Iraq, is a mistake we will have to live with. It will cost us billions, if not trillions of dollars by the time it is said and done, and I'm still waiting for the upside. I am among those who believe we shouldn't have gone in the first place. However, now that we're there, we better see it through to a stable Iraq and better hope against hope that it makes a difference in a region which is use to war, oppression and domination by outside forces, and yet has survived for millenia pretty much as is.
I like the idea of speak softly and carry a big stick. The threat of retaliation, of total annihilation, is effective, and certainly less costly and destructive than actually carrying it out. It also makes us look less of a bully, regardless of the provocation. We may be fully warranted in our reactions, but because we are the most powerful country on earth, our actions will always be measured against our own standards, not by the standards of which the rest of the world holds, or measures themselves.
And when we claim this and that to be our guiding principles, and then we don't adhere to them, regardless of the justification, that is how we are viewed. Not only by those around us, but soon, by ourselves.
Most of us don't understand how invading a country a world away protects our own interests, because the fight is not here, or closer to us. We could understand the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, even if that wasn't the mainland. We could understand a strong showing of force to those who instigated or harbored the terrorist organizations responsible for 9/11. What we couldn't understand was toppling a regime, albeit a murderous dictator, when Al-Qaeda was not present, and weapons of mass destruction were not verifiable.
So now we have a mess we're obligated to clean up. Not just to keep Al-Qaeda from festering their now, not just out of obligation to the Iraqi people and their lives we're responsible for upheaving, but because we're the United States of America, a people of laws, a people of higher standards, and because we believe in making right whatever wrongs we've caused and because we believe in finishing what we started.
I certainly hope we think several times more about going to war with Iran than we did with Iraq. I also hope we won't be frozen with indecision if and when war is the option we must take. Rogue states with nuclear weapons capability is a threat the rest of the world, not just us, should not take lightly. Those European countries who did not learn their lesson through the bombing and occupation of Nazi Germany, who would prefer to coddle or turn a blind eye, thinking it will be well with them in the end, that they will somehow be spared the destruction and suffering of those who oppose the rogue regimes, will find that their neutrality will not save them and that those they underestimated will make hard taskmasters, and the freedoms they didn't manage to give away on their own through their socialism will be utterly and completely removed from them.
In my mind, though, there is still a difference between a posture of defense, and a policy of preemption. I think the former is provided for in the constitution, and may require mobilization of troops and assets on occasion. All of it should be strategic. None of it should be done lightly or on a whim, or done without a clear understanding of the consequences, the cost and the risks of not only failure, but escalation. Does our provocation make things better, or only make things worse. Do we bring an end to hostilities, or only fuel them.
With out all three legs of conservatism, the coalition does not exist. Without fiscal restraint governing what we do with our social and foreign policies, we lurch into liberalism. To be liberal is not only to think a few know better than the masses on how to run their lives, it is to think that the masses should fund the programs that benefit the few. We have been way to liberal with our federal spending of late, and that includes the war. And it will cost us. Not just in terms of dollars, not just in terms of elections, but the way our own countrymen perceive the cause of conservatism. The latter may be the highest price of all, because it signals the end of our democracy, with no one to blame but ourselves.