# Posted 12:06 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

KERRY AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, PART II: In the previous post I made some general points about the speech on national security that Kerry delivered last Friday. In this post I'd like to take a closer look at the text. No, that is not an indirect way of saying I am going to give Kerry a fisking. It means I think that the speech is good enough to look at in detail. The first substantive point in the speech begins with Kerry's observation that

As we speak, night has settled on the mountains of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. If Osama bin Laden is sleeping, it is the restless slumber of someone who knows his days are numbered. I don’t know if the latest reports – saying that he is surrounded – are true or not. We’ve heard this news before.

We had him in our grasp more than two years ago at Tora Bora but George Bush held U.S. forces back and instead, called on Afghan warlords with no loyalty to our cause to finish the job. We all hope the outcome will be different this time and we all know America cannot rest until Osama bin Laden is captured or killed.

What Kerry is saying is that whereas George Bush was afraid to sacrifice American lives in order to capture Osama bin Laden, John Kerry has the authority to order such a sacrifice because of his record as a war hero. Leaving aside the specifics of Tora Bora, this passage shows why Kerry's war record isn't just a biographical artifact. It is a personal trait that will change the way he makes critical decisions. After all, imagine Bill Clinton saying that he would send American soldiers' to their deaths in the same situation where George Bush wouldn't. No one would believe it. And when Clinton got into office, he had to tread lightly on the generals' turf. But Kerry would be in a much better position to handle them.

Next, Kerry observes that

This war isn’t just a manhunt – a checklist of names from a deck of cards. In it, we do not face just one man or one terrorist group. We face a global jihadist movement of many groups, from different sources, with separate agendas, but all committed to assaulting the United States and free and open societies around the globe.

As CIA Director George Tenet recently testified: “They are not all creatures of bin Laden, and so their fate is not tied to his. They have autonomous leadership, they pick their own targets, they plan their own attacks.”

At the core of this conflict is a fundamental struggle of ideas. Of democracy and tolerance against those who would use any means and attack any target to impose their narrow views.

The War on Terror is not a clash of civilizations. It is a clash of civilization against chaos; of the best hopes of humanity against dogmatic fears of progress and the future.

Identifying "jihadism" as our opponent is a significant step. It entails the affirmation that this is a war of ideas, because one can stop terror with airport security, but one can only stop suicide bombers by destroying the ideology that animates them. Of course, there is a trade off here. By adopting language similar to that of George Bush, Kerry admits that the President has been right about something very important. Kerry will have to decide for or against such trade-offs on a lot of security related issues. He will have to calculate how much he needs to concede in order to show that he is "serious" about security without giving away so much that he presents no alternative to Bush. Apparently, Kerry's strategy for transcending this dilemma is to try and attack Bush from the right. Hence his statement that

I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the War on Terror; I believe he’s done too little.

Where he’s acted, his doctrine of unilateral preemption has driven away our allies and cost us the support of other nations. Iraq is in disarray, with American troops still bogged down in a deadly guerrilla war with no exit in sight. In Afghanistan, the area outside Kabul is sliding back into the hands of a resurgent Taliban and emboldened warlords...

The President’s budget for the National Endowment for Democracy’s efforts around the world, including the entire Islamic world, is less than three percent of what this Administration gives Halliburton – hardly a way to win the contest of ideas.

I'm somewhat surprised that Kerry is using quagmire language, e.g. "bogged down" to describe the situation in Iraq. With both guerrilla attacks and American casualties falling significantly, it seems strange to say that victory is not in sight. To be sure, the insurgents' murder of scores of Iraqis is horrific. But it is American casualty figures that matter to the electorate. As for NED and Halliburton, the good news coming out of the oil fields suggests Kerry might want to be more careful here as well. Like them or not, Cheney's boys are doing their country a great service and an expensive one. Although highly speculative, my sense is that Kerry hasn't been watching Iraq carefully enough to sense that the media's pessimism may not be worth investing in. Turning from Iraq to Al Qaeda, Kerry argues that

Working with other countries in the War on Terror is something we do for our sake – not theirs. We can’t wipe out terrorist cells in places like Sweden, Canada, Spain, the Philippines, or Italy just by dropping in Green Berets.

It was local law enforcement working with our intelligence services which caught Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramsi Bin al Shibh in Pakistan and the murderer known as Hambali in Thailand. Joining with local police forces didn’t mean serving these terrorists with legal papers; it meant throwing them behind bars. None of the progress we have made would have been possible without cooperation – and much more would be possible if we had a President who didn’t alienate long-time friends and fuel anti-American anger around the world.

I don't get it. How can Kerry attack Bush for his failure to cooperate with foreign intelligence services while citing as evidence our successful capture of Shaikh Mohammed, Bin al Shibh and Hambali? Moreover, law enforcement cooperation with our European allies doesn't seem to have suffered despite the conflict at the United Nations. As such, Kerry returns to stronger ground with his accusation that our

Troops are going into harm’s way without the weapons and equipment they depend on to do their jobs safely. National Guard helicopters are flying missions in dangerous territory without the best available ground-fire protection systems. Un-armored Humvees are falling victim to road-side bombs and small-arms fire.

And families across America have had to collect funds from their neighbors to buy body armor for their loved ones in uniform because George Bush failed to provide it.

Again, this is the kind of accusation that Kerry can only level because of his war record. While I vaguely recall hearing that the body armor situation had been dealt with, this sort of oversight on Bush's part is exactly what Kerry is in a position to take advantage of. Another oversight relates to non-proliferation. According to Kerry,

Today, parts of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal are easy prey for those offering cash to scientists and security forces who too often are under-employed and under-paid. If I am President, I will expand the Nunn/Lugar program to buy up and destroy the loose nuclear materials of the former Soviet Union and to ensure that all of Russia’s nuclear weapons and materials are out of the reach of terrorists and off the black market.

I strongly support Nunn-Lugar, but if I were Kerry, I'd focus a lot more on Pakistan. After all, here is a supposed all in the war on terror who has been selling nuclear secrets to our most dangerous enemies. Bush said that other nations would have to be with us or against us. Yet Pakistan is allowed to play both sides. There are reasons for treating Pakistan differently, some of them good. But as far as campaign logic goes, the situation in Pakistan seems like a perfect demonstration of how Bush's short-sightedness is undermining American security. The final subject that Kerry tackles is homeland security. He wants more firefighters and police. He says that

We need to provide public health labs with the basic expertise they need but now lack to respond to chemical or biological attack. We need new safeguards for our chemical and nuclear facilities.

And our ports – like the Port of Los Angeles – need new technology to screen the 95 percent of containers that now enter this country without any inspection at all. And we should accelerate the action plans agreed to in US-Canada and US-Mexico “smart border” accords while implementing new security measures for cross border bridges. President Bush says we can’t afford to fund homeland security. I say we can’t afford not to.

I'm not in a good position to comment on these recommendations since I have given in to my preoccupation with "foreign" policy and decided not to focus on the painstaking details of securing the homefront. By the same token, the media also seems to have lost interest in the story. But my gut instinct is that we've gotten lucky since 9/11. Who would've guessed there wouldn't be even one more attack on America soil (assuming the anthax letters were homegrown)? Not I. So perhaps Kerry should play this one up a little more. It seems tailor made for Kerry's interest in showing that he is far more serious Bush about winning the war on terror.

All in all, I think that Kerry gave a strong speech albeit a mild one. I have seen him breathe a lot more fire, especially when Howard Dean is involved. But perhaps the time has not yet come for that. Right now, Kerry may want to build a foundation of trust before going on offense. After all, the world is an uncertain place and you never what opportunity fate might throw his way.
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