Politics

Follow-Up On “Terrorism: What Kerry Should (But Will Not) Say”

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My response to commenter Herb Richter on this thread became so long that I decided to make it into a new post.

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Herb wrote:

Do you seriously believe that the terrorists would abandon months and months of planning because of a few statements by John Kerry saying that he would go after them as well?

I can’t prove that the terrorists would be deterred. However, I’d rather we didn’t run that risk, and it wouldn’t cost Kerry much to make such a statement. We are dealing with marginal effects here, not all-or-none. I think terrorists, on the margin, will be less likely to attack if we reduce the prospective payoff for an attack. One way to reduce that payoff is to eliminate any uncertainty about the harshness of our response.

As for your second point, I think it’s clear that the terrorists understand us in some respects but not others. They were, as you correctly point out, smart enough to plan and implement a large and tactically innovative attack on 9/11, yet they completely misjudged our response. I do not believe that we can predict reliably that they won’t attempt a Madrid-type attack on us. Indeed I am not certain that such an attack on us before the elections wouldn’t be effective in shifting votes away from Bush. I hope that it wouldn’t be but who knows. Given that Kerry is the only person who could state with authority what a Kerry administration would do, I think it would be prudent for him to make clear that a Madrid-type attack would not be effective. Subtlety and ambiguity on our part are not helpful in deterring an enemy who understands only explicit statements and forceful actions.

With respect to your third point:

While Al Qaeda may indeed perceive the Spanish election results as vindication for their tactics, should a democracy really let the fear of future terrorist attacks in other countries keep its citizens from ousting a government that it no longer trusts? If we no longer vote our conscience in an election because of how we think terrorists might perceive the outcome, democracy becomes a futile exercise.

The problem is that the terrorists are involved whether we want them to be or not. We no more have the option of ignoring how our domestic politics plays abroad than did Britons in 1940. Politics, as the famous aphorism puts it, is about the possible. Sometimes that means choosing the lesser evil. I don’t see why reelecting a flawed government that has a decent track record at waging war, as opposed to untested challengers whose alternative vision is, at best, indistinct, isn’t wise behavior for voters in a democracy.

Democratic politics means lots of people have a say in major decisions. Often the choices that voters get are between bad and worse, but the fact that the options aren’t as good as some theoretical alternative doesn’t make democracy a “futile exercise.” Nowadays the enemy gets a vote, too. Ignoring that fact won’t make it go away.

Terrorism: What Kerry Should (But Will Not) Say

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Whatever the precise odds that the U.S. will be hit by a Madrid-style terror attack before the November elections, the possibility of such an attack hangs over our public life like a cloud. Our leaders tiptoe around the specifics of the issue. Indeed there probably isn’t much that the Administration can do, beyond what it is already doing, at least in its foreign policy.

But John Kerry can help to deter such an attack. A pre-election terror wave would likely be intended to get Kerry elected and therefore to shift U.S. policy toward accommodationism. That might not be what would actually happen after an attack, but it’s probably what the terrorists expect.

Kerry could lessen the odds of an attack by reducing its expected payoff. He could do this by stating, unambiguously and repeatedly, that he rejects appeasement and that, if he is elected, he will redouble President Bush’s efforts to eradicate Islamist terrorists and the regimes that support them. Of course, to state the issue in this way is to make clear that Kerry is unlikely to follow through. (See Dick Morris’s analysis of Kerry’s political dilemma.)

In this regard, the fact that Kerry has had his running mate state publicly that some of America’s more flaccid allies prefer Kerry to Bush is reckless. It encourages the terrorists to see a big payoff if, as they see it, they hit us hard enough to get Bush defeated. NATO is weak, Chirac is weak — our enemies see this even if some of us do not, and will correctly conclude that a country that chooses weak allies is itself weak. The kind of political posturing that Kerry and Edwards are doing is dangerous, and for this reason alone they are not qualified to be elected.

Quote of the Day

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Peggy Noonan in the WSJ:

I do not feel America is right to attempt to help spread democracy in the world because it is our way and therefore the right way. Nor do I think America should attempt to encourage it because we are Western and feel everyone should be Western. Not everyone should be Western, and not everything we do as a culture, a people or an international force is right.

Rather, we have a national-security obligation to foster democracy in the world because democracy tends to be the most peaceful form of government. Democracies tend to be slower than dictatorships to take up arms, to cross borders and attempt to subdue neighbors, to fight wars. They are on balance less likely to wreak violence upon the world because democracies are composed of voters many of whom are parents, especially mothers, who do not wish to see their sons go to war. Democracy is not only idealistic, it is practical.

(via Instapundit)

Joke of the Day

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The World Court, an organization with neither legitimacy nor accountability, condemned Israel, a democratic country, for building a security fence that is saving lives every day. The Court’s head judge wrote:

. . . “The wall … cannot be justified by military exigencies or by the requirements of national security or public order.

“The construction … constitutes breaches by Israel of its obligations under applicable international humanitarian law. Israel is under an obligation … to dismantle forthwith the structure,” he said.

Where does this head judge, who is so concerned about humanitarian and legal obligations, come from? From China, a country ruled by an unelected clique of mass-murderers that lacks legitimacy and accountability and treats its citizens like ants in an ant farm.

It should long ago have become obvious, to anyone who has a clue, that the principal role of “international organizations” like the World Court is as weapons against the U.S. and Israel and other democracies that assert their right to defend themselves. These are the same organizations to which John Kerry and his political allies on the Left would grant increased resources and legitimacy. Bush, whatever his flaws, at least understands who our enemies are. The Democrats won’t be ready for national leadership again until they wise up in this area, and stop pandering to the idiots for whom it is always 1968.