Romney's foreign policy naievité

Romney said he wouldn't have tracked down Bin Ladin before he said he would have. He said ordering the raid--deep within the territory of a sovereign nation and a putative ally as well--was a no-brainer. He said that "even Jimmy Carter would have done it." Jimmy Carter, a former naval officer who served with distinction and personal bravery (in the aftermath of a nuclear reactor meltdown), and who ordered a raid just as daring as the one President Obama ordered, but which tragically failed.

All of this betrays not just ignorance of the complexities of decisions like the one President Obama made a year ago, but also the casual contempt many Republican tribalists show for anything any Democrat ever did or was. And turning the attempt to rescue our diplomatic staff from Iran's Islamofascists into a laugh line was contemptible. This by someone who complained that President Obama was making political hay out of killing Bin Ladin.

But I can understand Romney's distress. The Republican brand is founded upon the notion that Republican presidents are brave in war while Democrats are weak and indecisive. (Which is also why Romney alludes to the President's "apology tour" after taking office, while he was trying to somehow deal with the damage President Bush did to America's interests abroad during the mini-Dark Age of his presidency.)

Pretty much everything Romney has said about foreign affairs has been childishly chest-beating and simplistic. Not to mention letting it be known that as president he'd simply let Benjamin Netanyahu dictate our Mideast policy. Being a friend of Israel does not equate with doing that. Many would argue just the opposite, in fact. Though constantly saber-rattling at Iran does raise the price of gas, which helps his election chances.

So would Romney have made the same decision as President Obama. What he said without the genius of hindsight is that he wouldn't have okayed the hard work of many people that even made the decision possible, and he still seems oblivious to the fact that we didn't know for sure that he was there, or how well he'd be defended, or whether we should have just sent in a cruise missile--which was Bob Gates' recommendation.

When voting for president, far above the particularities of partisan politics, we have to ask ourselves whether the guy gets it--understands how profoundly difficult the job is. This dwarfs the difficulty of business decisions where fortunes may be at stake but rarely lives...and a nation's future.

We don't have to guess at how President Obama would do if we part the veil of partisanship and look at what he's actually done--had those Somali pirates killed; had Bin Ladin killed; had most of Al Qaeda's top leadership killed via UAV; did as much as could be done in Afghanistan, and in all cases did what he said he'd do. Anyone who calls this guy "weak and indecisive" is leading a rich fantasy life.

I'm not saying he always does everything right--just that he takes the job seriously and is as much of a proper Commander in Chief as any president we've had since Eisenhower. Probably more.

Is Islamic terrorism crime or war?

According to the ACLU the terrorist attack on 9/11 was a crime and should be pursued and prosecuted exactly the same as any other crime.

According to conservatives the attack was an act of war by a nonstate actor (Al Qaeda) and should be pursued exactly the same as any other war.

I think it's something different than either--something new. From Al Quaeda's point of view it's exactly a war, albeit an assymetrical one. The problem is that in a war one side can defeat the other, negotiate terms of surrender, and then return any captured prisoners to the other side. That's what we've done in every other war, except for prisoners who committed war crimes. Many of those were executed after being tried by military tribunals.

In war, you can't arrest enemy soldiers on the battlefield, reading each arrestee his or her Miranda rights, and being sure not to use unnecessary force to subdue them.

But that's irrelevant if it isn't a war.

And there is a conservative argument for not making this a war. For one thing, the civilized world's efforts are largely being conducted under police auspices--as when the Brits recently arrested a terrorist cell planning another mass murder. For another, calling it a war elevates the terrorists--it equates them with armies and generals, when in fact they're fanatics and scumbags, to put it mildly. Bush greatly ennobled Bin Ladin with his rhetoric, and then by forgetting who'd attacked us and diverting the forces chasing Bin Ladin to Iraq. It made Bin Ladin a hero, when he should have been a nameless vermin we hunted down and killed on the spot.

I think the uncomfortable fact is that the so-called War on Terror is neither a war nor a police action, but a mix--to be prosecuted as a war, as when we kill Al Qaeda operatives with UAVs in Pakistanm, and at other times as a police action, as when we bust terrorist cells in civilized countries. Indonesia has gotten pretty good at this, by the way. They caught the Islamic fascists who planned the Bali bombings and recently put them to death, which made the peace-loving Balinese people very happy (I know this from personal experience).

So what do we do with dangerous terrorists we've caught? We use military tribunals to try them, just as we did with the Nazi leadership at Nuremberg. They aren't civilians, and treating them like pickpockets or Bernie Maddow is patently ridiculous.

Which means Obama's on the right track, to the dismay of his leftist supporters and relief of his centrist supporters (who are far more numerous, since there aren't enough leftists to elect a dog catcher anywhere but left bastions like Berkeley, CA).