Ever heard of the Wise Men of Chelm? They are the well-intentioned but foolish residents of an imaginary Jewish village, and the object of humor that stretches back 500 years. Here's one story. One of the "wise men" is sent to a neighboring village to bring back a horse. On the way home the horse wanders off and is lost. "Schlemiel!" remonstrate the townspeople with him. "Don't you know you have to lead the horse back on a rope?"A week later the same man is sent off to bring back a slab of butter. Learning from his mistake and taking the advice to heart, he drags the butter all the way home along the dusty road on a rope.
The Wise Men are still with us. They might be gone from Chelm, but continue to populate academia and the MSM. One resident popped up on the pages of the Boston Globe this morning. Andrew Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. In Rescinding the Bush Doctrine, Bacevich calls for Congress to learn from the errors of President Bush's ways in Iraq, and "focus on averting any recurrence of this misadventure." And just how would the well-intentioned professor rope in our foreign policy and prevent it from wandering off, so to speak? By formally and legislatively renouncing the use of preventive war. Specifically, Bacevich calls on Democratic leaders to "offer a binding resolution that makes the following three points":
- First, the United States categorically renounces preventive war.
- Second, the United States will henceforth consider armed force to be an instrument of last resort.
- Third, except in response to a direct attack on the United States, any future use of force will require prior Congressional authorization, as required by the Constitution.
Let's imagine how this might work in the future. Many on the left -- from Newsweek to Hillary Clinton -- are raising alarums about the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. What if, perchance, they are right? There are indications, after all, that Al-Qaeda has re-established training camps in the Waziristan area along the Afghan/Pakistan border. Let's imagine that a couple years or so down the road, we learn that OBL or his successors have rebuilt their networks and resources to the point they are once again capable of carrying out a major attack on the United States. As quoted by Bacevich, President Bush explained the preventive policy in these terms: "if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long."
Surely any Commander-in-Chief, aware of such threats from a resurgent Al-Qaeda, would want to take military action to prevent them . . . except that if the Bacevich recommendation were taken to heart, the next president could not do so. He would have to await "a direct attack on the United States" before having the right to respond. That's right, rather than acting to prevent the next 9/11, we would have to wait for it happen here before we could respond.
That is dragging the butter of the lesson of Iraq home on a rope. America cannot afford to follow the advice of our new breed of Wise Men.Mark was in Iraq in November. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net
—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
OK, Mark, I get to tell my 'rope' story. ACA
March 1, 2007 - 07:58 ET by acaiguanaOK, Mark, I get to tell my 'rope' story. ACA
I used to hear, "That's like pushing a rope," when I was a kid.
Growing up, all the cowhands would sit on the corral fence while some wranglers would rope calves and horses and snub them to a post in the middle of the corral. Of course, I wanted to be one of the wranglers, but for what seemed like many years, I was never allowed to 'help'.
So, one Spring when I was 13, there was a young bull put into the corral for work - vaccination, ear marking, etc. The foreman said, ACA, tie off that bull.
Well, you can imagine, I was really excited but 'cool'. I jumped down into the corral and took my lasso and the bull paid absolutely no attention to me.
I was a bit nervous as I didn't want to goof up, so I got pretty close and shook out the noose and by golly, I threw the rope over the bull's horns.
Then I jerked it tight.
Well, I had sort of made a small mistake. The bull was between me and the post. The bull turned around and looked at me.
That moment was when I learned what 'pushing a rope was all about'.
Now that lesson has a few other 'morals' as well. When one is trying to get noticed by something much bigger or meaner than yourself; and that thing (government, terrorists, or wife) decides to actually notice you; well, one needs a plan doesn't one?
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana Notes from the Bomb Shelter' (soon to be a movie at theaters near you)
I liked the last paragaraph o
March 1, 2007 - 11:34 ET by BruzillaI liked the last paragaraph of your post, about having a plan to deal with someone bigger or meaner than you taking notice. I think this is the core issue here, but we're on the wrong side of it. Ronald Reagan understood the use of disproportinate responses to send clear messages to our enemies. If you bomb a disco and kill one of our soldiers, I'm going to level a large part of your capital city, your house, and one of your kids. That get's the point across to people who have been raised around violence all their lives and don't see much threat coming from sanctions or nasty letters.
Then along comes Bush Sr., and Clinton, and we're locked into only using proportinate responses... not because we want to send a strong message to our enemies (which these don't) but because we don't want to be seen as thugs or brutes to the global community. So, if the bad guys blow up an embassy, we'll blow up a factory. Tit for tat. This makes the pols feel like they're doing a good thing, but what they're actually doing is making the offensive capabilities of a minor league terrorist group the equal of the US military. The folks in the Middle East are watching how we respond to Bin Ladin during the 1990s, and are expecting us to wipe him out, his family out, the city he was born in out, etc., i.e., treat him the way Reagan treated Quadaffi in Libya. When we don't use disproportinate force, these folks don't read "the US doesn't want to use any more force than is necessary" or "the US doesn't want to harm innocents." What they read is "the US is afraid of Bin Ladin, so he's a guy worth supporting!"
We shouldn't have to worry about having a plan for when someone meaner than us takes notice of us. It should be the other way around, but the proportinate response doctrine has given our enemies a great way to do business. So they blow up one of our buildings, and we blow up one of theirs. What have they lost? A $100,000 building. What have they gained? Millions of dollars in support and a priceless amount of protection, admiration, respect, recruiting, etc. What have we gained? Meager appreciation from a bunch of foreign and domestic pansies. What have we lost? I think 9/11 answers that question.
I enjoyed that story acaiguan
March 1, 2007 - 14:35 ET by radiofitz34I enjoyed that story acaiguana. In a way I'd have say this war in Iraq is hampered by political correctness. It seems that this pc stuff has turned us in to a bunch of pansies. Shoot here...no shoot there. Bomb here...no bomb there. Too much second guessing. If that bull (as you mentioned) is the military, then they should be allowed to get mad and take out the bad guys. Washington politics are like a bad case of hemmoroids. Everything gets stuck.