What The Heck Is He Talking About?

One of my problems with President Bush is that he so often says things that make no sense.

I'm not talking about his famous grammatical gaffes or neologisms like misunderestimate. I'm talking about the way he continually makes bold pronouncements that, while delivered with force and determination, don't actually have any rational content.

I heard a couple of these on the radio this morning, sound bites from his Independence Day speech to troops at Ft. Bragg. Like this:

We will never back down, we will never give in and we will never accept anything less than complete victory.

How very Churchillian! So strong! But what is he talking about? Complete victory? Where? What does that look like? It's not like we're trying to take Berlin, and will know when we accept the surrender of the opposing army.

When I heard the sound bite, I thought he was talking about Iraq. You could, perhaps, imagine a definition of 'complete' victory there, though it would still be pretty vague, and hard to know whether you were accepting something "less than complete."

Maybe "victory" would be something like an elected government able to stand on its own, though how do you know that about a government, really, and how would you know which day marked "V-I Day." The administration has been loathe to define exactly what victory in Iraq would be. In this very speech, he rails again against "artificial timetables", which is his favorite way of deflecting concern over details in his 'plan' for Iraq.

But, when I went to read his actual speech, I see that he's not talking about Iraq. Oh, no. Not even.

Victory in Iraq will not, in itself, end the war on terror. We're engaged in a global struggle against the followers of a murderous ideology that despises freedom and crushes all dissent, and has territorial ambitions and pursues totalitarian aims. This enemy attacked us in our homeland on September the 11th, 2001. They're pursuing weapons of mass destruction that would allow them to deliver even more catastrophic destruction to our country and our friends and allies across the world. They're dangerous.

Yes, this is the conflict in which he is seeking complete victory.

And against such enemy there is only one effective response: We will never back down, we will never give in and we will never accept anything less than complete victory.

This is where using the metaphor of "war" to describe this struggle really shows its flaws.

In a military struggle, that kind of implacability is great. If you're the military holding battle lines on a field of combat, or preparing the troops for the hard final battle to take the enemy capital, or rallying the populace to defend their houses using pitchforks and squirrel guns, a statement like that has meaning.

But what does it have to do with fourth-generational, assymetrical conflicts in diffuse locations and against amorphous enemies with multiple, shifting aims, many of them psychological or religious? That calls for a more complex, multifaceted approach to conflict. As they are so fond of telling us when it's to their advantage, this isn't a "war" in the conventional sense.

Picture Osama sitting at a flag-draped desk aboard an aircraft carrier to sign the articles of surrender, ceremoniously handing over his AK-47, thus ending hostilities. It's about as absurd a proposition as the President's statement. What is "complete victory" in this struggle, and how is it achieved militarily? This isn't a "war" in that sense. Relying on the old tropes of war clouds our thinking and diminishes our effectiveness. Using such ideas in public speeches, I'm afraid, betrays either a woefully lacking understanding, or a desire to cynically manipulate the audience.

Which is why it rang false to me when he said to the troops

And because of your courage, every day is Independence Day in America.

Yes, it's important to acknowledge the courage of those serving, but, really, had the invasion of Iraq never happened, would we be less independent in America?

How serious is the external threat to the United States, from a military perspective? Is it really the courage of these particular men and women who are keeping us from being conquered and subjugated? Or is that just another trope that comes along in the rhetorical basket labeled "war"?

We've been attacked, but do we expect invasion? Do we seriously think the jihadis are going to take us over, and stop us from having barbeques, beer and fireworks on July 4th? Is that what we are fighting to protect ourselves from?

So far, the biggest threats I've seen to the liberties (and to the very notions of governance and political theory) in the Declaration of Independence have been not directly from our "enemy", but from those men who are so implacable in their pursuit of "complete victory," and those who doggedly support them.

I suppose it isn't surprising that El Caudillo spoke to the troops today, waving the bloody shirt of 9/11, and confusing militarism with patriotism. How better to distract from the actual event this holiday commemorates, the declaration by long-suffering, thoughtful, well-read men that the abuses of the Executive at the head of their government, and the acquiescence of the Legislature, had gone on long enough, and that they were going to do something about it, at the risk of their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

Had Mr. Bush instead hosted a gathering dedicated to the Declaration itself, things might have gotten a little awkward. People might have started thinking about the sacred honor and personal fortunes of the men who declared this "war".

Besides, that part about

"when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,"

doesn't fit with Karl's 'messaging' for November.