Who Holds the Proxy?

The great divide in American political life was on display during the dueling Cheney-Obama speeches. The Left was in raptures over Obama's rhetoric and "nuance." The Right was delighted that someone had finally issued a comprehensive defense of Bush-era War on Terror policy, complete with attacks on the NY Times (where was this 4 years ago?). Michael Ledeen is the lonely voice saying "You're both wrong." Cheney and Obama: The Great Evasion

For some years now, I have been concerned that the great national debate over the terror war has been systematically misguided. Instead of a discussion of the strategic issue, our leaders and pundits have dealt with tactical questions. And so it goes, most recently in Thursday’s speeches from former Vice President Dick Cheney and President Barack Obama. The strategic questions are finessed in favor of single pieces of the issue.

Ledeen is, of course, correct, not that this will do him any good.

American politics has always had a tendency towards reducing the great issues of the day to heated controversies over seemingly minor points, whether over the guilt of Alger Hiss, the propriety of Iran-Contra, or the definition of "is."

Thus, the "Guantanamo Question" is not really about civil liberties or the "tragic fall" of American morality. It has become a proxy battle for Leftist resentments against the Bush Administration, which reacted to 9/11 by repudiating the Left's carefully constructed civil liberties regime, after it had proven a deadly millstone around our national security. Rather than attack the Bush policies themselves (which were popular and necessary in the wake of 9/11), the Left has attacked them indirectly through wild claims about flushed Korans, "torture," and Abu Ghraib. Like a defense attorney chipping away at a beat cop's credibility on the witness stand, these attacks have been effective, but that doesn't change the fact that their clients are guilty as hell.

The problem with these proxy battles is the way in which they obscure the big picture issues for which they are a substitute. And, Republicans enable this by playing along, trying to match wits with Leftists arguing in bad faith, rather than keeping things on the simple plain level that the Cheney speech managed. But, even Cheney nods:

Neither asked, let alone answered, the big question: what are we facing? Who is our enemy? So neither had an answer: what should our overall strategy be? How will we win? How do we measure our progress?

From the beginning we have dealt with each theatre—whether Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Europe, the homeland—as a thing in itself, something requiring its own distinct approach. At no time, save for some general statements shortly after the 9/11 attacks, has any leader discussed the fact that we are involved in a big war, in which specific enemies are engaged against us. We have debated military tactics, ideological imperatives (from winning hearts and minds to challenging radical Islam, todeconstructing Islam itself), nation building, methods of interrogation, the use of one sort of court or another. But we have yet to face the central fact of the broad war, the big war, what I insist is the real war, the one that has been waged against us for decades, in which our enemies aim at our domination or destruction.

The problem for Ledeen is that no one really wants to confront a world-wide conspiracy. And yet, no one - especially on the Left - wants to be the one to say to the American public that he intends to stand down from the War on Terror. Thus, we are left with these proxy battles until the real one is joined again.