Down with Evil

Although it seemed unlikely, you've undoubtedly heard by now that yesterday the Senate joined the House in voting for a bill that funds the troops but also calls for a timetable for withdrawal. Needless to say, the Prez isn't pleased. He came out swinging today at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (and if you can't be tough there, where can you be tough?). He promised to veto the bill when it reaches his desk, of course. But in setting up why he'll veto it and attacking the timetable, he quoted an editorial out of the LA Times from a couple of weeks ago that drew some odd parallels:

"Imagine if Dwight Eisenhower had been forced to adhere to a congressional war plan in scheduling the Normandy landings."

Well, he didn't for various reasons that make this a poor comparison. In World War II, we had a pretty good idea of who the enemy was--Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan--and we knew what our objectives were--defeat them. If we can answer those same questions as easily in Iraq, then perhaps the Times and Bush have a point. And he does tell the cattlemen what this whole fight is about:

Some call this civil war; others call it emergency [sic] -- I call it pure evil. And that evil that uses children in a terrorist attack in Iraq is the same evil that inspired and rejoiced in the attacks of September the 11th, 2001. And that evil must be defeated overseas, so we don't have to face them here again.

Okay, first things first: Who doesn't hate evil? Who doesn't want us to defeat evil when and where we find it? I don't see any hands, so I guess that we're all in agreement that evil is a BAD THING.

But when it comes to the war in Iraq, it seems fair enough to ask for a bit more specificity. What's the evil part of Iraq? By extension, which parts are not evil? What does it mean to defeat evil? How will we know when we have defeated it? Without specific answers to those questions, we don't know what we're doing in Iraq, and we can't know how to proceed. We've got nothing to do but wait for this president or (more likely) some future president to arbitrarily say, "The evil's gone, we're done, and we're coming home." I'm not the only person who thinks that's not an acceptable option.

But aside from the Prez trying to equate himself with Eisenhower and Roosevelt, the rest of the LA Times quote he repeats is very odd.

". . . or if, in 1863, President Lincoln had been forced by Congress to conclude the Civil War the following year. This is the worst kind of congressional meddling in military strategy."

Judging by the company kept by the likes of Republicans such as Trent Lott, Bob Barr, Haley Barbour, and others, there's no doubt a chunk of the Prez's base that does likely wish Lincoln had been forced to withdraw his army and negotiate with the Confederacy for independence. Those same constituents might be curious as to whether or not Bush believes Lincoln was fighting evil in pursuing his cause, because that's certainly something that they don't believe. The Prez should probably pay more attention to which sleeping dogs he starts poking with a stick.