The American Tory

I have been a critic for many years of the “Compassionate Conservatism” agenda of President Bush because I feel it goes against realities of human nature and its not conservative to boot. The Godfather of Compassionate Conservatism Marvin Olasky has basically repudiated his own theory when it comes to foreign policy.

In a Townhall.com column, Olasky says some interesting things including the following:

I thought the war that’s now almost four years old could be different. With “smart bombs” we would destroy military targets and leave adjacent civilian structures unharmed. With smart rules of engagement we could minimize Iraqi civilian discomfort. In a sense, George W. Bush’s war would be a compassionate conservative war.

Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman would have scoffed at such a campaign. His doctrine was, “War is cruelty. You cannot refine it.” He ravaged Georgia and South Carolina in 1864 and 1865, but had he not shown how devastating total war was, the surrender of Robert E. Lee might have been followed by years of guerrilla warfare.

Exactly right, Sherman did not engage in a campaign of love. He engaged in a campaign of total war where the militaristic spirit of the rebellious south was destroyed. Never again would the people of the south consider engaging in rebellion and were forced to accept peace.

It turns out that Sherman was right: When an army gains an advantage, it has to pound away, not let up. My early misassumption — and far more important, the Bush administration’s — became evident quickly

Of course Sherman was right. He understood basic realities and use this to his advantage while Bush and the compassionate conservative movement are blinded by Utopian thoughts of mankind. Its good to have faith, but do not let it blind you to reality.

Reducing civilian casualties by letting terrorists escape seemed right for both humanitarian and political reasons, but we were dealing with a culture that interprets compassion as a lack of seriousness. Muhammad and his successors spread their faith not by being nice but by wielding the sword. Following the smashing American victory in 2003, we had the opportunity to impress upon Iraqis who wanted to be winners the idea that terrorism is for losers. We missed that opportunity.

There are humanitarian concerns and there are basic realities. Most of the time, they are not mutually exclusive. The Iraq War is case in point. In the long run, engaging in total war early on probably would have kept the total number of deaths lower. Now we have a protracted conflict where people are dying left and right.

Most importantly, we have allowed ourselves to be characterized as international idiots and weaklings. This is worse than the human toll in Iraq because it has given other tyrants the opportunity to engage in campaigns of denying fundamental rights and general destabilization.

Losing in a Christian culture is not fatal, because many of us grow up believing that seemingly lost causes are the ones worth fighting for. Jesus and the apostles, and their disciples, spread Christianity by losing in worldly terms, even to the point of crucifixion. But Islam does not have a theology of losing. Muslim terrorists require momentum.

Again you cannot let your Utopian ideals based on faith dictate policy. You must look at the fundamental beliefs of your enemy and prepare to deal with them accordingly. Knowing your enemy is more important than knowing yourself. Islam is a religion of absolutes. There is no middle ground of shades of gray. It is either black or white. Right or wrong. Believer or infidel.

Just as 19th Century poverty fighters thought they had to be tough to produce results, so Sherman believed his cause was right and his harshness in war compassionate over the long term: Opponents would see that guerrilla warfare was useless. Were our recent rules of engagement really compassionate, when they gave terrorists new life and led to thousands of civilian deaths in terrorist bombings?

Of course our initial action in Iraq was weak and pathetic considering the situation. When you start war, you must be willing to wage it. George W. Bush and his faith based idealism failed to recognize the need for crushing the spirit of our opponents before trying to transform them. Instead, he wanted to build a new order on top of the existing tyrantical ethos not capable of sustaining a liberal democracy.

Last week I echoed this in a Hillsdale Collegian op-ed. To read it, click here.

Best way to summarize this is through a Machiavelli quote: “It is better to be feared than loved.”