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December 06, 2004

The Miseducation of Peter Beinart

I pushed this post back up to the top because I wanted to link to this post by Steve Gilliard. The main idea? Liberals didn't have a problem with going into Afghanistan. It's the way it's been handled (along with Iraq) that's causing the problem for them.

There's been some heated talk around the blogosphere over this piece by Peter Beinart. Beinart's thesis is that Democrats and liberals don't take terrorism seriously enough. Further, that liberals don't take foreign policy seriously enough.

Beinart goes through several historical examples..from World War II and the threat of fascism to communism and the Soviet Union...where Beinart feels liberals haven't given these threats their proper due.

Beinart suggests that the Democratic Party should purge itself of the likes of Michael Moore and MoveOn, who he accuses of not supporting the invasion of Afghanistan (which I personally believe is incorrect--Moore was critical of the installation of Karzai, but has gone out of his way on Afghanistan, as is my understanding). Beinart believes the "dove-ish" liberal factions of the Democratic Party are it's albatross..keeping it from shaping itself in the way it ought in order to win elections and effectively deal with America's foreign policy:

But there is little liberal passion to win the struggle against Al Qaeda--even though totalitarian Islam has killed thousands of Americans and aims to kill millions; and even though, if it gained power, its efforts to force every aspect of life into conformity with a barbaric interpretation of Islam would reign terror upon women, religious minorities, and anyone in the Muslim world with a thirst for modernity or freedom.

"Little liberal passion to win the struggle against Al Qaida"? On the contrary, I think there's a great passion for liberals to vanquish Al Qaida. My belief is that liberals think Al Qaida won't be vanquished through Cold War style warfare and forcing nations into democratic governments, as the conservatives are currently attempting.

Beinart accuses grassroots Democrats of believing that this struggle is a "mirage" or a distraction. I think he gets that partially correct. Dems and liberals that I know consider IRAQ a distraction..and make a fundamental distinction between Iraq and fighting the terrorism that came to our shores. In fact many see Iraq as making the potential for making terrorism greater.

Beinart really goes hard after Michael Moore...who seems to be the new boogeyman for people looking to come after liberals. He accuses Moore of trying to downplay Islamofascism. The problem with this argument is that Moore's points have merit: Islamofascism isn't inherently the same as Communism. It doesn't have the appeal to spread like Communism did. Further, Islamofascism hasn't the same nation state style support that Communism had.

MoveOn is another target of Beinart. I've been on MoveOn's list pretty much since it's inception and I've never once recieved anything from them indicating they were against the Afghan invasion. So if they were...they sure weren't telling the membership about it. It would seem they didn't do much to protest it in any event. It's rather weak to attack them for a stance that if is true..wasn't even apparent to it's membership.

Frankly, I find this piece really lacking in understanding of the beliefs of the vast majority of liberals. Liberals don't believe Al Qaida (who hides in Pakistan and Afghanistan) can be stopped by attacking Iraq (where they didn't exist). Further, liberals tend to believe that going to war against feelings (terrorism) and entities other than nation states is a grave error.

Personally I believe Clinton's approach (law enforcement and covert military operations) were a much more effective way to deal with Islamofacism and terrorism for a number of reasons. We didn't damage ties with important allies, we didn't incite floods of new recruits to terrorist groups and hundreds of thousands of civilians didn't have to die at the hands of our military.

Todd from Centerfield began a discussion on that blog on this topic that I think is pretty interesting. I also noted a few days ago a discussion on Kevin Drum's blog on this topic as well.

Frankly, I think it's conservatives who don't take terrorism seriously. They choose neat little labels like "The War On Terror" to market it to the American people. They haven't caught Bin Laden. They haven't stopped the funding to Al Qaida. They most certainly haven't purged the Taliban or rebuilt Afghani infrastructure, as promised. They've gone into Iraq and created an untenable situation over there. They've created many more reasons (and recruits) for terrorism than we had when Clinton was in office. They use terrorism as a bludgeon to win elections and take away civil rights.

If we're ever going to take terrorism seriously as a nation, it looks to me like we'll need liberals to take charge of government first.

Posted by Carla at December 6, 2004 02:28 PM