As Bush administration officials keep reminding us, everything is different about this war. It's clear that our leaders have not yet figured out how to deal with this enormously complex threat. They're not even certain it is a war. What we need now, more than ever, is the widest and most energetic debate as the country makes sense of what has happened and how to respond. We don't need blind conformity. We need fearless self-scrutiny. What should the U.S. role be in the Middle East? How should we strike back against our foes without spreading the fires of Islamic fanaticism? Why do the impoverished populations of the region find radical fundamentalism more enthralling than the benefits of Western culture?
But the sheep dogs are quick to snarl that this kind of talk is left-wing equivocation. Bellicosity now rules, from the New Republic, which denounces the "fatalism" of America's cautious "elites," to the Weekly Standard, which accuses the New York Times of "moral idiocy" for running occasional pieces critical of Bush in our time of crisis. Some of the loudest saber-rattling has been coming from the National Review, which on this week's cover roars the full-throated battle cry, "Let's Roll!" and predictably attacks the "blame America first" fifth columnists in our midst.
As usual, it's often the armchair generals -- like radio brigadier Rush Limbaugh, who managed to avoid military service during the Vietnam war -- who cry the loudest for blood. These soft-fleshed but eager warriors were undoubtedly dismayed by this week's reality check from the Defense Department's reigning hawk, Paul Wolfowitz: "I think it can't be stressed enough that everybody who is waiting for military action needs to rethink this thing."
So far, the Bush administration has displayed admirable patience despite the pressure for immediate vengeance. After his swaggering cowboy talk of "smoking them out" and "hunting them down," Bush has tempered his language, reportedly on the sage advice of his more experienced father. Under the leadership of Secretary of State Colin Powell, the administration is now working hard to assemble an international coalition, including key Arab states, to isolate and defeat the terrorist movement. This difficult task is made even tougher because of the arrogant unilateralism of the Bush administration's first seven months, a go-it-alone strategy that alienated even our European allies, got the U.S. thrown off the U.N. Human Rights Commission, and put us on the Middle East sidelines as the growing sparks from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lit up the entire region.
Before Sept. 11, Powell himself seemed sidelined, pushed aside by administration hard-liners. Fortunately, in the past two weeks, the White House seems to have recognized that it urgently needs Powell's experience and diplomatic craft. This global acuity certainly can't come from the president himself, one of the least traveled and most internationally uninformed chief executives in American history (a man, let us recall, who during last year's campaign couldn't name the leader of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf -- a figure who now looms large in Bush's first global crisis).
While Powell is a reassuring force to the international community, he is a primary target of the bellicose American right. While clamoring for the left to keep its silence and rally behind the president, these conservatives have no qualms about hectoring Bush, demanding that he jettison Powell and declare war on virtually the entire Islamic world. In a recent open letter signed by over 40 leading conservatives, including William Bennett, Jeane Kirkpatrick and William Kristol, the group pressures Bush to not stop with bin Laden and his network, but to extend the war into Iraq, as well as Iran and Syria if they don't withdraw support from the radical Hezbollah group.
It's not only conservative pundits calling for democracy to be put on hold for the duration. More distressingly, the silence-is-patriotic mentality has also gained momentum in the Democratic Party, the press and even liberal activist circles. On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders suddenly sound accommodating about Bush's missile defense plan -- an astronomically expensive and militarily dubious dream that, in light of what we've learned about terrorists' likely choice of weapons, cries out for more congressional scrutiny than ever. Many Democratic challengers in next year's elections are also throwing in the towel, declining to run after somehow concluding that democracy is unpatriotic in days like these. And Jimmy Carter, who last summer could find nothing to commend about the Bush administration, now calls upon his fellow citizens to support the president with "complete unity."
Meanwhile, the Sierra Club has taken down its "W Watch" department from its Web site, for fear of not seeming sufficiently respectful toward the president. "Now is the time for rallying together as a nation; the public will judge very harshly any groups whom they view as violating this need for unity," announced the Sierra Club spokesman, sounding as if he had been programmed by Ari Fleischer. Of course, Big Oil's friends in the Bush administration and GOP felt no similar need to make peace with the Sierra Club during these days of national unity, taking the opportunity to renew their assault on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The major press organizations have also taken pains to seem properly deferential toward the Bush administration. There were no loud cries about press freedom when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made it clear that much of the U.S. war on terrorism would be conducted in secret. One military official went even further, blithely informing the Washington Post, "We're going to lie about things." While not even the most aggressive reporters would demand classified information that could put soldiers' lives at risk, the Pentagon clearly wants to go further than that in controlling news about the war. "No more televised Vietnams" remains the Defense Department's mantra; Bush II wants to keep the news as scripted as it was during Bush I's Persian Gulf War.
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