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Thursday, August 11, 2005
Free advice for Coleen Rowley
Coleen Rowley has an opinion piece in the Strib:
One thing is certain: To prevent further attacks on our shores, and those of our allies, it is essential to cut through the president's war rhetoric to shed light on what has or has not worked in the actual global struggle against violent extremism.
We must put politics aside to unravel the mistakes that have made us less safe and determine what constructive steps can be taken to actually produce a safer world.
We simply cannot continue to go it alone. The United States and Britain need the rest of the world's help to bring peace to Iraq. We can gain more international support and defuse some Iraqi resentment by convincing them that we are not in Iraq for oil or military bases.
Wars of words can surely get our blood boiling, but it will take a global struggle against extremism, waged judiciously, to actually make us safer.
I intend to support Rowley in her race to unseat John Kline. This, though, is a hopeless mess. Bush is pulling out of Iraq for craven political aims, she writes, but it's also good policy. We need to take new steps to produce a safer world, but Rowley details none of those steps. I don't expect Rowley to have all the answers. Mostly, she needs to run on changing the direction and opposing Bush's radical agenda to privatize Social Security and further reward his corporate base. But, with her background and reputation, she should be offering slices of her vision of what those positive steps entail.
Rowley also displays a tin ear for the politics of the day. Bush hastily backed away from G-SAVE for a reason -- it's a clunky, clumsy, defeatist slogan. Americans don't want a global "struggle" against the ill-defined violent extremists. Americans want some certainty and the hope of closure.
Forget G-Save, candidate Rowley, and consider a positive approach to the war on terror. We need to fight a smarter war on terror. We need to fight a proactive war on terror. We need to fight this war on all fronts -- with diplomacy, military might, intelligence work, and police investigations.
