Blogger is at a rally in favor of American foreign policy, including regime change in Iraq ( Fall 2003 ).
Karen Loberg (Ventura Star) took the picture. It made the front page. He was famous for a day.
THE BLOG
of John Gelles
August 3, 2007
Wanting to Win the War on the Cheap:
Not a Good Idea
Copyrighted work, if any, reprinted here is for educational non profit purposes --- and at the teachable moment. It was offered free to me on the internet (as a member of a wide audience) and is copied here free to others adding to its value) --- it is fair use of the work
On August 3 I wrote to Amazon's 'political forum' a last hurrah to a discussion about -- 'Why have we not had a real mobilization to win an asymmetrical war?'
I wanted everyone to agree Chaney, Rumsfeld and Bush wanted no real mobilization of our economy and its industry -- they wanted to win the war on the cheap.
Now they have lost political power at home. With bad luck they will lose far more in future years -- they may even lose any ill gotten gain from privatization of some things that have no business being moved out of the non-profit area of government operation.
But, in this forum, the emphasis has not been on how to mobilize effectively to protect the American nation. Rather, it has been to express reservations about American power and intentions.
Whose fault is that. Obviously, my own. The horse we rode to war was not a war horse. He was a conservative Republican more interested in undoing the New Deal than in solving security problems for individuals and democratic nations. We have to change horses -- anti-New Deal Forces after WW II were able to change the constitution to prevent three terms as president even if we were at war.
But will the next horse be hawk or dove? And what of the larger picture far away from Iraq, Iran, and Islamists? What of Russia, China, the environment and global economic competition?
My first vote was for Harry Truman. My most recent was for John Kerry. I voted once for an independent (against Jimmy Carter for a 2nd term). I have never voted for a Republican -- except once for mayor.
With new found friendly leaders in France, Germany, and India, and the continued support of the United Kingdom and friends in the Pacific, we may craft solutions to the war that will justify its very high cost in human life.
I do not think Christopher Hitchens or I will ever see the ouster of Saddam Hussein as anything but a necessary, if belated, action.
Who is tough enough for me to want elected? Tough enough to protect American economic and military power from the ignorance of other leading voices and opinion makers? Tough enough to prevent attacks -- even by people who want to enter paradise by attacking the United States? Tough enough to convince the American people to reorganize their system of property, wealth, information and belief to raise the minimum standard of living many times higher than it is, and re-establish a huge middle class free of debt and unburdened by any taxes.
Where will that leave the rich and famous? Alongside Warren Buffet, modest, wise and lucky.
