“Wag the Dog” Author Responds…

Last week, I took author Larry Beinhart to task for a blog he wrote over at the Huffington Post. He responded to me the next day and the text of his email is below.
I’m in the process of drafting an open reply that I will also send to him at his home email address. For now, though, here is what he had to say. He does bring up some interesting points, but…well…I still think he’s absolutely wrong and I’ll address that in my rebuttal to him.
(Note: The email has literally been copied and pasted into this blog posting. No content or formatting was edited by me in any way.)
~WS~

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—–Original Message—–
From: ConBlog Feedback
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 12:03 PM
To: William Smith
Subject: ConBlog Feedback
Dear Con Blog
Let me thank you, twice. Once for picking up on my piece and commenting on it, and then for mentioning my current book. It is appreciated. If you would like a reviewer’s copy I’m sure the publisher would be happy to send it to you. If the column bothered you, the book will inspire you to hold a burning. Nonetheless, I think it’s good that we read each other and know that there are widely different views even if we can’t get our own minds around what the other is thinking.
I notiiced, how could I not, that you called me a moron. Whether I am or I’m not, that fascinates me. I see a lot of name calling from conservatives. It’s almost reflexive. Now it may be that liberals do it as much (I would never say they don’t do it at all), and I don’t notice because it’s the water I swim in. But if it is, as I perceive it to be, a particularly Right wing tick, I would love your thoughts on why that is.
Your response to items 1,2, 6, 7 was Clilnton was worse! True or not, it’s largely irrelevent.
For example: Item #1
9/11 happened on their watch.
We pretty much give credit and blame to people for what happens when they are in charge.
In this instance, had Bush come in and said, you know there’s a terror threat out there, my predecessor should have dealt with it, he didn’t, i’ll try, hope i get it before it’s too late, i might agree with you that he should be off the hook.
He did more or less the opposite, he was told by Clinton, the biggest threat you face is Osama and Al Qaeda, and Bush and his team dismissed that. When they got more vigorous warnings in July and August. 2001, they dismissed that too.
If we want to say that Clinton should have fixed it first, so that Bush has no responsibility, why not say that Bush I, should have fixed it before Clinton? He’s the one that stationed infidel troops in Saudi Arabia, the excuse for the whole movement. (Not that I think that justifies al Qaeda, I don’t). I’m just sayingthat the commander in chief, as he likes to be thought of, just bear the responsibility as well as wear the great outfits.
With #2, the fact, or allegation, that Clinton screwed up doesn’t mean that Bush did a good job. If you take your car to get the brakes fixed and then 100 miles later the brakes fail, so you pull in to the service station, get them fixed again, get going, step on them and smash into the semi hauling high fructose corn syrup in front of you, you don’t excuse the second mechanic because the first also got it wrong. Or do you?
As to #3:
A: how do you know bin Laden wants every American dead. It’s not what he’s said. He’s said that he wanted every infidel out of Islamic holy places (not that he should get that), he’s said, according to The Looming Tower, that his goal was to get America embroiled in a quagmire. He thought it would be Afghanistan.
Frankly, that makes sense. It makes sense on two levels. It’s classic guerilla theory. Going back to the Easter Rebellion in Ireland in 1916. Attack to provoke. The response, the freedom fighter/terrorist/mad man/rebel hopes will be overwhelming creating publicity, martyrs, new recruits and anger at the forces that counter-attacked.
It’s also the Afghani experience, which Osama witnessed first hand.
It was a quagmire that brought down the whole damn Soviet Union, for which we all cheered.
I personally think it was our commander in chief’s first duty to get the guy who got us. His first duty, second, third and final duty and nothing should have been put ahead of that, excepting perhaps an immediate, imminent threat to be countered while that went on.
I personally think that we would have been far better off to have treated bin Laden like a cheap, psychotic gangster, with a small wacko gangster gang, and gone in and gotten him. Period. End quote. With whatever force it took. Including, if necessary, fighing a government that harbored him, up to and until we got him, and that should have been the end of it.
I’m not sure what the difference is between the quagmire and the instability.
But if you want to say his goal was instability, you’re still in the same place – that is, this administration gave it to him.
Saddam, however heinous, was stable.
The post war planning was, based on the results, not good, not effective, inept. Without being a foreign policy or military expert, I can tell you that the administration said they were going to base the post war planning on the occupations of Germany and Japan. While there were certain things wrong with that – both those countries were relatively homogenous and in both, all the young men were dead, and both of them had ‘started it’ so there was a moral high ground – there certain things right – the occupations were massive. In Germany Eisenhower had over 1.5 million men in Germany and over 3 million in Europe and in the Army’s own estimation the massiveness of the occupation is part of what convinced the Germans that they were occupied and resistanc was pointless.
I’m not sure about your distinction between Mujahadeen and al Qaeda. Having read Charlie Wilson’s War, very pro the Afghan anti-Soviet insurgency and having recently chatted with a special forces soldier back from Afghanistan, the mujahadeen are loyal only to the person who paid them last and much given to both homosexual rape. Which is not to say they shouldn’t be admired.
I don’t understand the charge of cowardice against al Qaeda.
Lots of other charges perhaps, but, hell, I would be scared to do the things they’ve done. Would you, if you had the chance to kill an al Qaeda associate hijack and airplane and fly it into him with the certainty it would cost you your life? Would you choose to live in caves, always on the run, hunted day and night?
Evil if you like. Psychotic. Wrong. But cowardly?
Anyway, I’m going on at length. As it may be an imposition I will stop unless you actually request an item by item defense of my positions.
If you got this far, thanks for reading.
Best regards
Larry Beinhart