Opinion: Your primer on the national security debate

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What better way to prepare for President Bush’s speech tonight than reading our Dust-up about the surge and Sept. 11? Conservative talker Hugh Hewitt and anti-imperialist author Doug Bandow have been going back and forth all week. Today they re-imagine the prosecution of the War on Terror. One-sentence highlights:
Bandow: ‘The problem is too many missions, not too few people.’
Hewitt: ‘This real [world] is dangerous and becoming more so, and the only solutions are hard ones, extraordinarily costly in the sacrifices demanded.’

Yesterday they chewed on the meaning of Osama bin Laden.
Hewitt: ‘Bin Laden did not see the ferocity of the counter-attack, and he definitely did not count on George Bush, which is why last week’s letter bristles with anger at the president and at the Democrats who were supposed to bring about the long-predicted collapse in the American will to fight.’
Bandow: ‘What he says is less important than his survival, which reflects administration failure in the war on terrorism.’

Tuesday was the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11.
Bandow: ‘[T]he Iraq war continues to make us more vulnerable to terrorism.’
Hewitt: ‘[T]he world is also much safer today because Saddam Hussein was overthrown and his mad-as-hatter sons are dead and not in line for the throne; the U.N. oil-for-food-for-dictators-sending-money-and-arms-to-terrorists-while-corrupting-officials-in-other-governments was exposed and ended; Libya’s WMD program was dismantled; scores of Al Qaeda’s senior leadership are dead or imprisoned (with more ending up that way each week), the A.Q. Khan network has been cabined; and the U.S. military is embedded with new or longtime allies around the world, teaching them the basics of counter-terrorism.’

And Monday they debated the Petraeus report.
Hewitt: ‘Perhaps my debating partner here at Dust-Up will be among the first to ask of MoveOn.org ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir?’ and begin what should be a broad rush by the Democrats on the Hill and then across the country to denounce MoveOn.org and to refuse their sponsorships and their money.’
Bandow: ‘[T]he more relevant question is whether the administration will consider critically Gen. Petraeus’ views, or simply cherry-pick his report to back its preexisting position.’

Tune in tomorrow, when the two discuss (again?) the politicization of national security.