So those of you who know me (which is everyone, because I'm pretty sure no one who doesn't know me personally reads this) know that one of the things I look forward to every year is NSDM at GenCon, and that I am fairly involved with the people who run the games, more than most other players anyway. To that end, I'm on the NSDM listserv, which is usually just people passing along various articles on national security topics. Every once in a while though, there's an article that strays a bit more into politics (which is a focus of the game too) and it will spark a (usually) fairly interesting and generally well-informed debate.
As you might imagine from a group of people who are, for the most part, ex-military or current military, the political slant of most people on that list is fairly conservative; there might be a few people more towards the center, but there's no one really on the far left, for the most part (and neither am I, really). However, that puts me in a bit of an odd place; I'm by no means the most "liberal" (in the current sense of the word) person ever, but I generally tend to be very socially liberal and I've not really been a fan of the Iraq War, as previous blog entries will show. That's not generally the prevailing opinion on the NSDM list (there are folks there that can find some virtue in Fox News, at the very least, which I would be hard pressed to do).
In contrast, in my daily life, most of the people I deal with on a regular basis are completely the opposite -- generally very center-of-the-aisle or left-leaning, though I'd hesitate to call any of them "liberal" in the Nancy Pelosi sense. Most of them have similar political views to myself, so it's a very different environment from an NSDM event or the mailing list there. Today brought up an interesting example of this, when someone sent a story to the list about John Murtha saying that Bush's "surge" was working, and indicated that it could end up being bad news for the Democrats, opening up a chink in their armor; the same person sent along the story about the Democrat-aligned questioners at the CNN/YouTube Republican debate.
Now, on the topic of the CNN debate thing, I suspect that's a lot more CNN being irresponsible and/or incompetent, not malicious. I'm less inclined to believe that about Fox News with their mysterious "mislabeling" of disgraced Republicans as Democrats and other journalistic problems, but I admit that's at least partly because I think most of the talking heads on Fox News are idiots; perhaps that's a bit contradictory. I certainly don't think it was anything on the scale of Karl Rove blaming the Iraq War on the Democrats. That said, I think CNN should have at least spent a little effort to make sure they weren't letting the Democrats stick their people in the Republican debate like that. On the other hand, I would much rather have candidates answer questions they aren't prepared for or that make them uncomfortable -- whether they are Republican, Democrat, or any other party -- than hearing them answer rehearsed pablum that tells you nothing other than that they love babies and hate criminals. It's a lot harder to say you think atheists cannot be patriots or citizens or that gays will ruin the military when someone who fits the exact description is sitting there asking you about it. I do think that CNN should have at least told these questioners to disclose their ties with Democratic campaigns, even if they let them ask the questions (which frankly is not really a problem, I think -- it would have been interesting to see it in reverse that the Democratic debate).
As far as the Iraq war, my feeling is that right now, we have two options being presented, and both are idiotic. The first, from the Republicans, is that we need to stay in Iraq, no matter the cost, until the job is finished -- but don't worry, it's not a big deal and we can totally keep this up for decades without impacting the American way of life whatsoever (to say nothing for our image around the world). On the Democratic side, the option presented is that we must withdraw from the country immediately because the situation is completely untenable and it will never be won no matter what, and it's only getting worse and worse, and our leaving isn't going to do anything to make it worse than it is already.
Now, while my opinion is closer to that of the Democrats than the Republicans, both are gross simplifications of the issue -- the truth of the matter is that it is probably possible to stabilize Iraq eventually, if we're willing to put the effort in to do it. The problem is, it isn't going to happen with things as they are now. It's not going to happen with 150,000 troops, and it's not going to be over in a few years. Chances are it will take a draft to get the number of people we need to put in the country, as well as a substantial shift in military funding from gee-whiz tech gadgets that get manufactured in Congressional districts to equipping, training, and paying soldiers much better than they are now. It won't be cheap and there will probably be a lot more body bags landing in Dover before it's over.
If the Democrats (or the Republicans) came out and laid out the facts, said it was possible but it was going to cost us dearly, and that stabilizing Iraq was going to require the same kind of commitment that the United States had to endure in order to win World War 2, that pulling out now would have long-term and possibly rather bad consequences for the Middle East as a whole, and that Americans needed to decide which of the two crappy possibilities they wanted to accept, they would have a nearly unassailable position. The problem is that half-assing it like we are now isn't going to accomplish anything but waste a ton of money and piss off the Iraqis, while not actually contributing the stability of the country or the region. The problem is that that isn't a position that can be articulated in a 15 second sound bite and it requires the voting public to make a difficult decision with no easy, good answers.
Sadly, that doesn't appear to be what anyone wants to hear.
As you might imagine from a group of people who are, for the most part, ex-military or current military, the political slant of most people on that list is fairly conservative; there might be a few people more towards the center, but there's no one really on the far left, for the most part (and neither am I, really). However, that puts me in a bit of an odd place; I'm by no means the most "liberal" (in the current sense of the word) person ever, but I generally tend to be very socially liberal and I've not really been a fan of the Iraq War, as previous blog entries will show. That's not generally the prevailing opinion on the NSDM list (there are folks there that can find some virtue in Fox News, at the very least, which I would be hard pressed to do).
In contrast, in my daily life, most of the people I deal with on a regular basis are completely the opposite -- generally very center-of-the-aisle or left-leaning, though I'd hesitate to call any of them "liberal" in the Nancy Pelosi sense. Most of them have similar political views to myself, so it's a very different environment from an NSDM event or the mailing list there. Today brought up an interesting example of this, when someone sent a story to the list about John Murtha saying that Bush's "surge" was working, and indicated that it could end up being bad news for the Democrats, opening up a chink in their armor; the same person sent along the story about the Democrat-aligned questioners at the CNN/YouTube Republican debate.
Now, on the topic of the CNN debate thing, I suspect that's a lot more CNN being irresponsible and/or incompetent, not malicious. I'm less inclined to believe that about Fox News with their mysterious "mislabeling" of disgraced Republicans as Democrats and other journalistic problems, but I admit that's at least partly because I think most of the talking heads on Fox News are idiots; perhaps that's a bit contradictory. I certainly don't think it was anything on the scale of Karl Rove blaming the Iraq War on the Democrats. That said, I think CNN should have at least spent a little effort to make sure they weren't letting the Democrats stick their people in the Republican debate like that. On the other hand, I would much rather have candidates answer questions they aren't prepared for or that make them uncomfortable -- whether they are Republican, Democrat, or any other party -- than hearing them answer rehearsed pablum that tells you nothing other than that they love babies and hate criminals. It's a lot harder to say you think atheists cannot be patriots or citizens or that gays will ruin the military when someone who fits the exact description is sitting there asking you about it. I do think that CNN should have at least told these questioners to disclose their ties with Democratic campaigns, even if they let them ask the questions (which frankly is not really a problem, I think -- it would have been interesting to see it in reverse that the Democratic debate).
As far as the Iraq war, my feeling is that right now, we have two options being presented, and both are idiotic. The first, from the Republicans, is that we need to stay in Iraq, no matter the cost, until the job is finished -- but don't worry, it's not a big deal and we can totally keep this up for decades without impacting the American way of life whatsoever (to say nothing for our image around the world). On the Democratic side, the option presented is that we must withdraw from the country immediately because the situation is completely untenable and it will never be won no matter what, and it's only getting worse and worse, and our leaving isn't going to do anything to make it worse than it is already.
Now, while my opinion is closer to that of the Democrats than the Republicans, both are gross simplifications of the issue -- the truth of the matter is that it is probably possible to stabilize Iraq eventually, if we're willing to put the effort in to do it. The problem is, it isn't going to happen with things as they are now. It's not going to happen with 150,000 troops, and it's not going to be over in a few years. Chances are it will take a draft to get the number of people we need to put in the country, as well as a substantial shift in military funding from gee-whiz tech gadgets that get manufactured in Congressional districts to equipping, training, and paying soldiers much better than they are now. It won't be cheap and there will probably be a lot more body bags landing in Dover before it's over.
If the Democrats (or the Republicans) came out and laid out the facts, said it was possible but it was going to cost us dearly, and that stabilizing Iraq was going to require the same kind of commitment that the United States had to endure in order to win World War 2, that pulling out now would have long-term and possibly rather bad consequences for the Middle East as a whole, and that Americans needed to decide which of the two crappy possibilities they wanted to accept, they would have a nearly unassailable position. The problem is that half-assing it like we are now isn't going to accomplish anything but waste a ton of money and piss off the Iraqis, while not actually contributing the stability of the country or the region. The problem is that that isn't a position that can be articulated in a 15 second sound bite and it requires the voting public to make a difficult decision with no easy, good answers.
Sadly, that doesn't appear to be what anyone wants to hear.
Teeling people that whatever happens, things will suck, is a good way to lose votes. So instead you tell them "things will suck if you vote for the other guys, but we have the solution and all will be bunnies and rainbows".
Honesty is rarely the best policy in politics. People don't want to be told the hard truth; they want to be told shiny, happy lies instead.