Wellyopolis

December 9, 2004

Couldn't put it better myself

Josh Marshall's response to Peter Beinart's TNR article (and response to Kevin Drum)expresses much of what I would say on the same topic.

I might add that I'm all for learning from history, but the differences between the Cold War and the "war against militant Islam" (to use Marshall's phrase) are so significant that it's not clear to me that history offers any easy lessons. I can understand the attraction of drawing parallels between the Cold War and the war we're in now, but there must be other parallels from other conflicts that will also be informative. In the end, history doesn't offer lessons, we make the lessons with the history, and that's a crucial difference.

As a final thought, this quote from Beinart's response struck me as odd:

In a way, the response confirmed my theory: that many contemporary liberals, including many smart ones, don't see defeating Al Qaeda as a paramount national challenge. And that's a political problem, since most Americans do. Throughout 2004, Americans consistently named terrorism as one of their top concerns and generally felt that President Bush could handle it better than John Kerry. (emph. added)

The conflation of the domestic concern with terrorism with "defeating Al Qaeda" is a misreading of how many voters view the problem. It's quite clear that so long as terrorists don't threaten America, many voters would care little whether Al Qaeda survives as an illiberal force abroad. That's sort of sad, but it's wholly understandable.

Posted by robe0419 at December 9, 2004 3:12 PM