Intellectual Poverty

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, the author of My Year Inside Radical Islam, is embedded in Yarmouk and has written a very nice roundup of his impressions over at Bill Roggio.com

He has an excellent line that hits home with me.

Right now our country is embroiled in a critical debate about setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Unfortunately, this is one of the most intellectually impoverished political debates that I have ever witnessed, with both sides often resorting to sloganeering and demagoguery rather than substantive argumentation.

This is where our current political leadership is failing utterly. There is little to no discussion of what would be the implications victory or defeat, staying or leaving. I think Republicans may do a little better in looking forward, but frankly they have failed to communicate the importance and impact of the world struggle against Islamism, therefore their arguments have a hollow "sky is falling" ring to them, maybe only because that's the counternarrative Dems successfully communicate. But the Dems won't honestly discuss what happens next. For both sides it's all jockeying for position and pandering to the perceived base. perceived, because they often get it wrong. As I said, our current political leadership is failing utterly.