Return-Path: <sentto-279987-4579-1015482775-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Wed, 06 Mar 2002 22:35:08 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 9159 invoked by uid 510); 7 Mar 2002 06:33:55 -0000 Received: from n6.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.56) by all.net with SMTP; 7 Mar 2002 06:33:55 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-4579-1015482775-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [216.115.97.190] by n6.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 07 Mar 2002 06:33:36 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: unknown); 7 Mar 2002 06:32:53 -0000 Received: (qmail 97486 invoked from network); 6 Mar 2002 15:22:39 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m4.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 6 Mar 2002 15:22:39 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (12.232.72.152) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 6 Mar 2002 15:22:39 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id g26FNQC01403 for iwar@onelist.com; Wed, 6 Mar 2002 07:23:26 -0800 Message-Id: <200203061523.g26FNQC01403@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 07:23:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [iwar] [fc:The.Rearguard.Action.Against.Debate] Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Boston Globe March 5, 2002 The Rearguard Action Against Debate By Thomas Oliphant WASHINGTON - THE FAMOUS FOG of war has begun to take on new and downright weird dimensions. Far from the traditional confusion emanating from distant battlefields, the war against terrorism has begun to morph into a campaign to stifle the debate that sets this country apart from its murderous adversaries. For several days, a nondebate that was said to be about the war was ''waged'' with the kind of vigor that only an out-of-touch capital mired in politics can summon. It ended up mostly as a debate about whether to have a debate. What is already forgotten is the simple fact that the alleged debate began as nothing more than a short screech in a Senate committee hearing that was notable for its almost complete absence of substance. In the course of that meeting on Feb. 27, Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, began bellowing that there could be no ''blank checks'' written for indefinite commitments abroad that contained neither clear strategy nor some indication of duration. In trying to fathom some notion of how victory against terrorism might be defined, the famously quirky senator said that to fight until the last terrorist had been killed would by definition last until Doomsday. That's all he said. His comments were utterly inconsequential and were initially treated as such. The only thing that changed the situation was the fact that majority leader Tom Daschle was asked about them the next morning. Lo and behold, the Democratic leader chose not to disagree publicly with his Appropriations Committee boss and uttered a few mild phrases about the need to understand the reasoning behind recent additional Bush administration commitments to operations in the Philippines, Yemen, and the Republic of Georgia. Again, no big deal, no coordinated assault on administration policy or the president's behavior, not even a revived discussion of the already exhausted subject of the State of the Union's ''axis of evil.'' Daschle also had the temerity to suggest that actually hunting Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar down was still a valid part of any definition of success. What produced the headlines was not the thrust but the parry. First Republican leader Trent Lott, then House Republican hit man Tom DeLay, and then House GOP campaign chairman Tom Davis of Virginia erupted in fury that the war effort was being subverted by supposedly vicious attacks on the commander in chief. From Lott came a vintage ''how dare Senator Daschle'' riff; from DeLay came a single word, ''disgusting''; and from the chronically political Davis came a silly screed about aid and comfort to the enemy. From this tempest came tirades that featured wounded expressions of outraged innocence, attempts to suppress free discussion, and counter-counter-offensives about supporting ''our boys overseas.'' The sterility of this content-free exchange of childish tirades was underlined by the end of the weekend as a real battle broke out in eastern Afghanistan that included serious American casualties. It was a battle, moreover, that pointed directly to a discussion topic obscured by all the preceding baloney - the size and disposition of American forces in the country. For several weeks, several US leaders in both political parties have been arguing that we do not have enough soldiers on the ground given the continuing dangers posed by an almost omnipresent instability. It is a point made by figures like Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Joseph Biden, Democrat of Delaware, who have emphasized the need to expand the international peacekeeping force significantly, with Americans included, to avoid a regression to anarachy. And it is a point made by the likes of John McCain, who has questioned the size of the US troop commitment simply from the standpoint of its adequacy to get the antiterrorist job done in Afghanistan. Other analysts, including some inside the government, have argued that we may have been trying to do our recent fighting too cheaply, with too much reliance on air power and local militias and not enough on American ground troops. As the weekend's events have shown dramatically, this is a debate that the country would directly benefit from - right now. The other debate, the phony one, was a revealing and dangerous distraction. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Tiny Wireless Camera under $80! Order Now! FREE VCR Commander! Click Here - Only 1 Day Left! http://us.click.yahoo.com/nuyOHD/7.PDAA/yigFAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! 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