Personally, I find the criticisms of Kerry here to be mostly partisan knee jerks, not sincere policy criticisms (trying to discuss weapons cuts without any sense of historical context and a highly incomplete record of what the actual policy direct was, taking the SBVfT at their word and failing to see what their criticisms were actually premised on). If you really think that we took unprecedented care in Iraq, I just don’t think you can be regarded as taking this fight seriously. We screwed up by needlessly rushing in weeks early, tossing out all the plans that would have allowed us to get the civilian infastructure up and running again within weeks instead of years. We screwed up by not going in with a plan to acheive early security. The point is not that Iraq is moderately functional, the point is that it could have been a lot more than okay. As it is, it’s become just what Al Qaeda has always wanted: a new playground.

Anyone sincere about this fight should know that it was never really about us, at least not directly. That sort of vanity is blinding, but the reality is that striking at us is a means to gain cred in the Muslim world and unite them for a far far distant conflict with us (Al Qaeda talks about this in terms of a century long chessgame of which goading us is only the first move). Crowing over kicking the asses of this or that group or building a watermain we blew up is just laughable. That’s not what this is about, and that’s not the measure of success. Merely invading at all was a huge win for the terrorists as they see it. Clinton and Bush 1 failed us and the Iraqi people by not going in sooner (as Iraq was an inevitable conflict, as many peaceniks don’t seem to realize), but after 9/11, it became a dangerous and almost counterproductive move that needed great care if we were going to attempt it. Instead, it got a sloppy, almost amatuer treatment from above. Any military commander who is free to speak will tell you this. They are pissed, pissed, pissed, at their civilian leadership like never before.

And the idea that we “must” elect Bush simply to make a show for our enemies is downright distressing. Given that I think Bush’s efforts against terror have been incomplete, misaimed, and downright sloppy, and that my knowledge of Kerry and what sort of people he’d bring with him (not peaceniks, not ideologues, but actual strategically minded policy people) tells me that he will do a lot better, what Roger seems to be asking me is to allow a disasterously amatuer strategy to continue simply out of the need for a show of pride that may or may not even affect anything (since certainly the terrorists will continue regardless of any subjective “sign”). I can’t hold with that: not good enough.

We can debate strategy if you’d like, on how we’re going to win this thing. But let’s do that, instead of this goofy “Kerry is a fag and he voted against funding the war (uh, so did Bush: Kerry and Bush each supported one of two different funding bills).”