-Caveat Lector-
>From SlateMagazine
Easy Answers
It is often said that there are no easy answers, but in fact there
are. In a former life I used to interrogate politicians on television, and
in six years there was never a subject on which they were unable to come up
with an easy answer. Not necessarily a correct answer--or honest or
heartfelt or logically coherent--but easy.
What is an easy answer? An easy answer, for a politician, is one
that assures you will never be proved wrong. Or at least that if you seem
to have been wrong, another easy answer will be available to explain why
you weren't. "There are no easy answers" is itself an easy answer--if you
can get away with it. Often, you not only can get away with it, but you can
also enhance your reputation for being "thoughtful" (high praise that in
the culture of politics means indecisive in a classy way, rather than
kindly or considerate of others or anything like that). Sometimes, though,
you have to do better, and this is when easy answers become hard work.
<Picture: W>ar and peace issues are the worst. A famous joke among
academics is that scholarly disputes are especially passionate because the
stakes are so low. By contrast, when the stakes are as high as they can
get, there is a special need for elected officials to avoid having a
forthright opinion. Easy answers to the rescue!
The current issue of American military involvement in Kosovo, for
example, seems to be a yes-or-no question to which either conventional
answer--call them "yes" and "no"--is decidedly uneasy. "Yes" means risking
American lives in a faraway land that has no apparent connection to the
only thing that really matters, which is the Dow Jones industrial average.
"No" means doing nothing, as the world's only superpower, while a thug
government commits daily televised atrocities against white people in
Europe (not just some unmediated Africans). Unless you're extraordinarily
lucky, the outcome of making either choice will leave you morally
implicated in some dead bodies (with larger raw numbers making up for lack
of American citizenship in the case of a "no").
Fortunately, even for Kosovo there are answers available besides yes
and no. They will be familiar from intervention disputes dating back at
least to Vietnam, but they are especially useful for the
summer-squall-style military actions of today, in which we all agree to be
frenzied about the occupation of Kuwait or a drug-smuggling dictator in
Panama or warlords in Somalia or genocide in Bosnia on the strict
understanding that we will be allowed to forget all about these matters and
places in six months, max. Here are half a dozen consumer-tested easy
answers on issues like Kosovo:
<Picture: 1>"Well, Cokie, my concern is that if we go into [INSERT
LOCATION], we should do so with the resources necessary to get the job
done. Airstrikes alone [or 'only 200,000 troops' or 'a mere half a dozen
hydrogen bombs' or whatever is on the menu] just aren't enough. It is
immoral to put American soldiers at risk without a guarantee of
overwhelming superiority for a certain and speedy victory."
This is perhaps the most prestigious dodge: the Powell Doctrine,
named for Gen. Colin Powell (who is responsible for the doctrine but not
its use as a dodge). The Powell Doctrine holds that the lesson of Vietnam
is do it right or not at all. Go in full force from the beginning rather
than escalate yourself into a quagmire. Or don't go in at all. Finish
quickly before the public loses patience (or ideally, as in the case of
Grenada, before the public has even heard of the place). Or, of course,
don't start at all. As to which of these alternatives--all or nothing at
all--is the right one in any situation, the Powell Doctrine does not say.
So this is a great way to sound tough and sophisticated without actually
committing yourself. Since any actual military engagement is not going to
involve every last wing nut in the Pentagon's "miscellaneous screws" jar,
you are well positioned to say "I told you so" if things go badly. Yet you
never actually opposed the action, so you're OK if things go well. And no
one can accuse you of wimping out if the military action doesn't take
place: Hey, you wanted to go in with more force!
<Picture: 2>"Where is our exit strategy, Ted? That is what I'd like to
know."
"Exit strategy" became a fashionable term during the Gulf War. It
really sounds like you know what you're talking about. And what does it
mean? As I understand it, an exit strategy is a sort of poor man's Powell
Doctrine. It does not demand certain and prompt victory. It merely demands
a certain and prompt conclusion to the exercise that is acceptable to the
United States. When invoking this concern, it is not necessary to
specify--and indeed it is hard to imagine--what conclusion short of victory
a guy like you, who flings around terms like "exit strategy," would find
minimally satisfactory. And no military action (except for actual movies)
can be fully scripted in advance. So you're golden. If things go wrong:
"Ted, I pleaded with the president to make sure we had an exit strategy."
And if the action goes well or disaster occurs because we didn't intervene:
"Ted, I was behind this all the way. I've always said that victory is the
best exit strategy."
<Picture: 3>"Tim, I support the president. American credibility is at
stake. The commander in chief has made a commitment on behalf of the United
States, and the United States must honor that commitment."
This is the sneakiest dodge and probably the most
popular--especially among Republicans. You get to be patriotic and hawkish.
And if things go well, you were behind the commander in chief all the way.
But if things go badly, it is the president's fault for making the
commitment. Tragically, you had no choice but to support him once the
commitment was made, but of course making it was irresponsible folly.
Please note that, like a reheated stew, this dodge works even better after
a military action has begun. "Tim, we never should have got into this
quagmire, but now we have no choice but to ..."
<Picture: 4>"I'm not persuaded this is so important, so vital to the
nation's interests that we ought to intervene."
That's an almost exact quote from a real senator, Bob Kerrey of
Nebraska, and illustrates a nifty linguistic evasion. You don't say you're
against it, you say you're "not persuaded" to be for it. Not only do you
evade the tough choice, you also evade responsibility for your decision.
It's the president's fault, even if he's right, because he didn't persuade
you.
You can also say (like Sen. Max Baucus of Montana) that there are
"unanswered questions." Being undecided and wanting ever more information
is another great way to be designated as "thoughtful." And with a bit of
skill and a bit of luck, you can keep taking your own temperature until it
doesn't matter any more. Meanwhile, you're OK no matter what happens. "Not
persuaded" can be spun as a yes or a no. A nice variant is to say, "The
American people must be persuaded this is the right thing, and the
president hasn't made the case." Not only is whatever happens not your
fault (unless it's good), it's not even the public's fault. It's the
president's fault, either because we did what he wanted or--if we
didn't--because he didn't convince us to do so.
<Picture: 5>"I don't think we should begin bombing unless and until the
Serbs really begin a very significant massacre against the people in
Kosovo."
That is Don Nickles of Oklahoma in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal
(where most of these quotes come from). In a way, this is not a dodge. It
is a sort of madcap Solomonic approach. Sen. Nickles is saying: "Why must
we guess whether Milosevic is going to kill a lot more people? Let's wait
and see if he does it! And why must we choose between saving a lot of
Kosovars and saving none? Let's split the difference and save half of
them." As a bonus, Nickles retains a valuable fudge factor in the question
of what qualifies as "a very significant massacre." Depending on what
happens, Nickles is in a position to accuse the president of failing to
defend American interests and values, or of recklessly endangering American
lives on the basis of a massacre that was merely "significant" but not
"very significant."
<Picture: 6>"What's happening in [WHEREVER] is a tragedy and an outrage,
Wolf. Intervention to stop the bloodshed is absolutely essential. But it's
a job for [INSERT NAME OF CLOSER COUNTRY AND/OR REGIONAL GROUP], not for
the United States."
This final dodge is slightly different. You're claiming credit for
sharing whatever humanitarian or geostrategic concern dictates military
action, while opposing the use of the only military power you yourself bear
responsibility for. I once interviewed an especially moronic senator, since
defeated, who declared that some worthy military action was "a job for the
United Nations." I asked him why other countries should risk their
soldiers' lives if the United States wouldn't, and he replied, "I didn't
say 'other nations,' I said the United Nations." When it was pointed out to
him that U.N. troops don't come from Mars, he was stymied. That point had
never occurred to him.
But exposing the logical flaw here does not depend on any huffing
and puffing about America's leadership role. An American pol going on
American television to say that the Europeans should tidy up the former
Yugoslavia without our help is like the Economist running (as has been
known to happen) a stuffy editorial saying that a corrupt dictator in some
Third World country should resign. Of course he should. And the sun should
shine in London every day. But even the Economist's opinion cannot affect
these matters. When an answer moves beyond difficult to completely
impossible, it becomes easy once again.
Watch for these easy answers on the TV talk shows and in the
newspaper. Practice on your own. Soon you too can be ducking responsibility
like a real-life member of Congress.
--Michael Kinsley
~~~~~~~~~~~~
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