Frederick W. Kagan explains why defeat is not really the most desirable option.

Losing wars is always bad. One of the major reasons for America’s current global predominance economically and politically is that America doesn’t lose wars very often. It seems likely, however, that the American people are about to be told that they have to decide to lose the Iraq war, that accepting defeat is better than trying to win, and that the consequences of defeat will be less than the costs of continuing to fight. For some, the demand to “end this war” is a reprise of the great triumph of their generation: forcing the U.S. to lose the Vietnam War and feel good about it. But even some supporters are being seduced by their own weariness of the struggle, and are being tempted to believe the unfounded defeatism — combined with the unfounded optimism about the consequences of defeat — that hyper-sophisticates have offered during every major conflict. Americans have a right to be weary of this conflict and to desire to bring it to an end. But before we choose the easier and more comfortable wrong over the harder and more distasteful right, we should examine more closely the two core assumptions that underlie the current antiwar arguments: that we must lose this war because we cannot win it at any acceptable cost, and that it will be better to lose than to continue trying to win.

The hyper-sophisticates of the American foreign-policy and intellectual establishment direct their invective at the whole notion of winning or losing. What’s the definition of winning? If we choose to withdraw from an ill-conceived and badly executed war, that’s not really losing, is it? We can and should find ways to use diplomacy rather than military power to handle the consequences of any so-called defeat. Less-sophisticated antiwar leaders on both sides will ask simply why the U.S. should continue to spend its blood and treasure to fight in “a far-off land of which we know little,” as Neville Chamberlain famously said in defense of his abandonment of Czechoslovakia to the Nazis. We have, after all, more pressing problems at home to which the Iraq war is only contributing. As is often the case, there is a level between over-thinking and under-thinking a problem that is actually thinking. Yes, in the world as it is, whatever line we sell ourselves, there really is victory and there really is defeat, the two are different, and their effects on the future diverge profoundly. And yes, the reason we must continue to spend money and the lives of the very best Americans in that far-off land is that the interests of every American are actually at stake.

We will consider below just how much of a diversion of resources away from more desirable domestic priorities the Iraq war actually is, but the more important point is simply this: Unless the advocates of defeat can show, as they have not yet done, that the consequences of losing are very likely to be small not simply the day after the last American leaves Iraq, but over the next five, ten, and 50 years, then what they are really selling is short-term relief in exchange for long-term pain. As drug addicts can attest, this kind of instant-gratification temptation is very seductive — it’s what keeps drug dealers in business despite the terrible damage their products do to their customers. “Just end the pain now and deal with the future when it gets here” is as bad a strategy for a great nation as it is for a teenager.

Getty House, site of Obama fundraiser

Zombietime today has a photo essay of Barack Obama, champion of the downtrodden, visiting some typical supporters in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights.

Obama supporters arrive at fundraiser

I was arguing last night with one of my snobbish Yale friends who, though conservative, has imbibed enough of the toxic perspective of the elect to view the Religious Right as a major problem.

I contended that coercion, these days, was typically coming from intolerant secularists determined to drive religious symbols out of public spaces, and eager to punish private individuals or groups (like the Boy Scouts) who differ with them on moral issues. My friend countered by alluding to a legislative proposal in some retarditaire fly-over state which would compel Reproductive Health clinics to notify parents before supplying birth control items to persons under 18.

My own view is that children are expensive and a lot of trouble. Their parents, not the state or Planned Parenthood, brought them into the world, fed them, housed them, clothed them, and sat up with them when they were sick. Parents have a right to bring their children up with their own values. And parents’ rights include, at least, the formal (even if only theoretical) right of deciding if Peggy Sue at age 17 can go on the pill. Practically, I expect lots of 17-year-old kids can, and do, go around their parents and make these kinds of decisions for themselves, but that’s their business. These are matters for individuals and families to decide, not for teachers or school administrators, and not for government or public interest groups.

The notion that “we know better, kids are going to have sex, and we’re going to give them the tools to have sex without consequences whether their parents like it or not” is arrogant, simplistic, and typical of the liberal elite which is universally ready, willing, and eager to intrude into everyone else’s private sphere in order to tell everyone just what’s best for him.

I’m not religious or particularly Puritanical, but even I find the story below, from Natural News (4/3/08), appalling.

A middle school in Portland, Maine is considering a proposal to provide birth control pills and patches to students as young as 11 years old. King Middle School launched a reproductive health program after five of the 135 students who visited the school’s health center in 2006 reported being sexually active. The program already provides condoms to students, but the new proposal would expand this to include prescriptions for birth control pills and patches (which would then have to be purchased at a pharmacy).

The contraceptives could be dispensed without the knowledge of parents, although written permission would be required for children to receive (unspecified) services from the health center.

The proposed program has attracted controversy, with some people accusing the schools of taking away parental power and encouraging children to have sex too early. But school officials dispute these claims.

“We do certainly sit down and speak with them about why [being sexually active] is not a good choice,” said Amanda Rowe, the school’s nurse coordinator. “But there are some who persist… and they need to be protected.”

Logan Levkoff, a sexologist and relationship expert, said that while the school may be stepping into a role that would better be filled by parents, many parents do not feel comfortable enough to do so. “Parents should be the sex educator for their children,” Levkoff said. “The problem is not every parent feels empowered [to do so].”

Parents interviewed by ABC News were split on their feelings about the proposal.

“I don’t think I would want my child in middle school to be getting birth control pills unless I had something to do with it,” one woman said.

But another woman, a mother, disagreed: “I think that education at that age is appropriate because our culture is saturated with messages about sex,” she said.

Natural News is running a story which really dates back to last Fall.

AP (10/18/07):

After an outbreak of pregnancies among middle school girls, education officials in this city have decided to allow a school health center to make birth control pills available to girls as young as 11.

Maine’s King Middle School is the first in the state to offer full range of contraceptives to 6th-8th graders.

King Middle School will become the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available, including birth control pills and patches. Condoms have been available at King’s health center since 2000.

Students need parental permission to access the school’s health center. But treatment is confidential under state law, which allows the students to decide whether to inform their parents about the services they receive.

There are no national figures on how many middle schools provide such services. Most middle schoolers range in age from 11 to 13.

“It’s very rare that middle schools do this,” said Divya Mohan, a spokeswoman for the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care.

Portland’s three middle schools reported 17 pregnancies during the last four years, not counting miscarriages or terminated pregnancies that weren’t reported to the school nurse.

The Portland School Committee approved the plan, offered by city health officials, on a 7-2 vote Wednesday night. Whether the prescriptions would be offered this school year or next wasn’t immediately clear.

King is the only one of the three schools with a health center, primarily because it has more students who get free or reduced-price lunch, said Lisa Belanger, who oversees Portland’s student health centers.

Five of the 134 students who visited King’s health center during the 2006-07 school year reported having sexual intercourse, said Amanda Rowe, lead nurse in Portland’s school health centers.

Jennifer Rubin wondered what Rush Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt would say.

Here’s what I say.

John Sidney McCain III comes from a three-generation career Navy family. His father and his grandfather were both four-star admirals. His family’s roots are in Mississippi. He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1958, making him part of the older-than-Baby-Boom generation.

He served in combat in Vietnam. He was imprisoned and tortured by the Communists, and behaved exceptionally honorably in refusing early release from his captivity.

Later, he became a friend of Texas Senator John Tower, who encouraged him to go into politics. He settled in Arizona at the time of his second marriage, and became personally involved with the business community in Phoenix. He was elected to the House of Representatives, and later to the Senate with Barry Goldwater’s support, and currently occupies Barry Goldwater’s former seat.

By birth, background, education, career, culture, and associations, you would expect John McCain to be a rock-ribbed conservative and a loyal Republican.

Unfortunately, he has been anything but either of the above.

John McCain has supported Gun Control, Electoral Advertising Control, and Environmentalist nonsense. He has, since the 1970s when he assisted John Kerry in ending POW/MIA inquiries and normalizing relations with Vietnam, been a frequent supporter of liberal foreign policy preferences and perspectives.

In recent years, almost any time the Senate vote on a controversial polarizing issue was close, John McCain was right in there, voting with the democrats.

Thinking about why McCain so commonly, and so unaccountably, takes the liberal side, I am forced to conclude that his class rank at Annapolis was not an accident, he really is a stupid man.

American Conservatism, after all, takes in general comparatively unpopular positions, resists facile solutions, sweeping measures, and emotional appeals. Conservatives are skeptics concerning conventional wisdom and the consensus of the media. Conservatives are the purists of American government, the critics on behalf of Constitutionalism and the defenders of the fundamental theory of American republicanism.

And Conservatism, outside fiscal areas, has little appeal to John McCain. He is always perfectly willing to brush aside the fine points of the meaning of the Bill of Rights and individual rights theory. One tends to suspect that the rigid authoritarianism of the Naval Academy and the unlimited command authority ruling over military life seem normal and natural to John McCain.

While Conservative theory and fundamentalist Constitutionalism have little influence on him, when the voice of what Thomas Sowell likes to refer to as “the Elect” is heard speaking from the high ground of the Establishment media, John McCain typically comes eagerly to attention. Even on military issues, like the non-reciprocal extension of Geneva Convention privileges to violators of all the laws of war, McCain marches at the Establishment’s command and vigorously defends their position.

Here, I think, one detects in John McCain’s behavior another recognizable military cultural meme, that of the apple-polishing subaltern jumping to obey the orders and loyally following the flag of his Senior Officer in Command, from whom all good things –including promotion– flow. John McCain’s commander in recent years has obviously been the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post.

And that, I think, explains John McCain. He’s a just-not-very-deep guy, who recognizes the power of the liberal establishment and naturally defers to it.

He is not loyal to us, and he is not one of us.

As he observed in the HBO film by Barry Goldwater’s daughter Mr. Conservative:

I’d love to be remembered as a Goldwater Republican. But I don’t pretend in any way to live up to (his) legacy.

We’re going to be hearing from those hungry to win the election about how John McCain is our best chance. Perhaps, he is. He’ll obviously run to the left of recent GOP presidential candidates and consequently draw some votes from the opposition. And he is a war hero.

But, if we win with McCain, we will be sorry. He will do liberal things. He will do dumb things. And he’ll put a liberal power structure in control of the Republican Party.

We may simply be screwed this go round. Our adversaries have the momentum, and we may simply not have a winning, conservative candidate. If we are going to lose, we should just lose, and fight again another day. We should not support John McCain.