The Sophistry

In a recent post, Beldar asks if we are really at war, and then follows up with consequences of the answer for voters — particularly conservative voters. (HT: Big Lizards)

If you’re convinced in your bones that your sensations are accurate, that your current experience is reliable, that what you don’t know isn’t likely to hurt you, and that it’s safe for you to act in all important respects like our nation is at peace, then you’ve established an essential precondition, an essential premise, for a particular political decision:

If you’re convinced we’re not at war, then you’re absolutely entitled to insist that it doesn’t matter whether you vote in November 2008 for Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama or for John McCain. In particular, if you consider yourself to be a principled conservative, and you believe we’re at peace, then you’re absolutely entitled to withhold your presidential vote in its entirety, rather than cast it in favor of John McCain. Certainly he’s insulted you enough in the past; certainly he’s betrayed the principles you hold dear; certainly he’s been disingenuous and sneaky and self-righteous and petty, and he’s pretty damned unapologetic about all of that. He’s an old dog now, and he’d rather snarl than even try to learn any new tricks. It would just feel delicious to cast a spite vote against him, wouldn’t it?

*******If, by contrast, you understand in your bones that — despite all the indicia of peacetime I’ve summarized — we are at war; that our enemies are still alive and dangerous; that their lust for our blood is not only unabated but more inflamed by the events since 9/11/01; and that their entire existence is devoted to repeating and eclipsing the events of that day, then you don’t have that luxury. Your “feel-good” vote against McCain, or even your non-vote, carries too high a price.

I fully understand the depth of your loathing for John McCain. My own is considerable, and other than for his record as a Navy pilot and POW, such respect as I am able to summon up for him could serve as a dictionary-precise example of the phrase “grudging respect.”

But the immortal Winston Churchill had it right when, in response to a challenge over his wartime support of Joseph Stalin, he illustrated the need to prioritize one’s villains: “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”

McCain, if president, will continue to fight the Global War on Terror. Indeed, he will keep us on the offensive. This is the sole issue on which I have absolute confidence in John McCain. And I have equal confidence that either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will, for all practical purposes, refuse to fight it.

And that is the transcendent difference among the remaining presidential candidates. That is the issue in this election that is more important than all of the others combined. There are other things that are important, and from a committed conservative’s point of view, McCain is wrong, or unreliable, on many of them. Clinton and Obama, though, are wrong on most of them. And no matter how many of those issues they’re all wrong together on, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re at war, or the fact that Obama or Clinton wouldn’t fight it effectively.

As always, Beldar makes sense.  Which is why it’s almost redundant to write that sentence: Beldar = Sense.

Nonetheless, this wouldn’t be a Sophistry post if there were no questions to be had.  Simply agreeing Beldar = Sense is against the grain of sophistry in the first place.

The question is a variation of the same one that I wrote on earlier: Is John McCain the man to fight this war, or the last war?

There is no question that Beldar is correct that there are enormous and transcendent differences between McCain and either of the two Democrats.  He would prosecute the war vigorously, and stay on the offensive.  The Democrats would quickly seek ways to surrender and capitulate, for “peace in our times” or some such claptrap.

But one can ask whether this war against Islamists can be won that way at all.

It is my belief that we are engaged in what some very smart people are calling “4th Generation Warfare” (4GW).  The technical details are beyond the scope of this post (or frankly, beyond my competence as a non-military man) but what does emerge is the idea that one of the main weapons of 4GW is the media.  Rather than reducing the enemy’s will to fight through air superiority, military presence, and economic ruin, 4GW does so by manipulating the public sentiment directly.  Hence the whole notion that we are fighting for the “hearts and minds” of the Arab public.

Well, apparently the Islamists have far more success in fighting for the “hearts and minds” of the American public than we do, judging by the op/ed pieces, the so-called news stories, and by the opinion polls of the American electorate.

Hold that thought for a moment.

An orthogonal thought is something that Mark Steyn has been hammering for some time now, especially in his book, America Alone, but also in his recent speech at CPAC.  His point is that the War on Islamists is not fought abroad, but at home, through domestic issues.

As he says in his speech (I’m transcribing this, and I hope a full transcript is available soon):

Sometimes it doesn’t seem that there is any obvious connection between the War on Terror and the so-called pocketbook issues of domestic politics.  But in fact, there is a very precise relationship between the structural weaknesses of the modern Western world and the rise of globalized Islam.  In the developed world, the state has gradually annexed all the responsibilities of adulthood: healthcare, child care, care of the elderly, to the point where it has effectively severed its citizens from even our most primal instincts, including the survival instinct.

There is much more, but the point is clear.  If we are in a generational, existential war, then we cannot win it in Iraq, in Iran, in Syria, or anywhere outside of the United States.  We have to win it here, at home, by avoiding the descent into frail enervated permanent adolescence that the modern socialist state wants to impose on its citizens.

Is McCain the man to win that war?  Has he demonstrated a true commitment to freedom, to preventing the continuing slide into adolescence of the American public, not merely as a domestic issue to assuage fiscal conservatives, but as a component of the war on Islamists?

Combining the two strands of thought here, is McCain the leader we need who can fight a 4th generation war against a stateless enemy, leveraging the power of media, of entertainment, of popular culture, against an ideology that festers because of structural weaknesses in our society?

Or is he still operating under the outdated modes of thinking on war: soldiers, boots on the ground, air power, economic pressure, diplomatic maneuvering, etc.?

I think he could be.  But the jury is still out.

There is little doubt that McCain — even if he can’t fight a 4th generation media-centric warfare, and reform the nanny state — is infinitely preferable to the two Democrats.  At least he’ll win the third generation war of guns and bombs, whereas they would seek to lose that one right quick.

But his inability to rally the conservatives — who are the only people in the American political landscape who see the connection between Osama bin Laden and Hillarycare, who understands that middle class entitlements are a national security threat — is worrisome.  He has made appeals, and he has to continue to do so — not just for political gain, but to help Americans understand that he understands this is a war that cannot be won abroad with guns and tanks.  He must show the country and lead the people who have already been enervated by too many government programs and too much coddling by the government out of comfortable dependence into free struggle.

He has to start by first convincing the conservatives.  Then he has to show that he can get the media under control, working for our side for a change.  That will be a tall order for any Republican.  Finally, he must show that he has the political courage and the will to do the things not only unpopular with Republicans and conservatives, but unpopular with the American people, such as eliminating Social Security, Medicare, and the rest of the nanny state apparatus.

Is he that man?

I hope so.  I’m out of choices for 2008.

-TS