In a legal case, if you did not fully
understand the strategy adopted by the lawyers during the trial, you can pretty
well discern elements of the two approaches as you listen to the closing
arguments when the time comes for the lawyers to address the jury.
What you'll most likely come out with, is
that the lawyer for the plaintiff has built a case based on the law and the
facts, whereas the lawyer for the defense has been arguing both the compelling
and mitigating factors that obliged his client to behave the way that he did.
Addressing the jury, the plaintiff's lawyer will reject the reliance on
sentiment in the adjudication of the case, insisting that the law be respected
and fully implemented. As to the lawyer for the defense, he'll drape his
presentation to the jury in a pep-talk kind of language as if trying to reach
out to the hearts of the jurors rather than the heads, and plead for sympathy.
Well, a scenario similar to that, unfolds
all the time in the court of public opinion where the audience sits as jury,
and the prosecuting pundits attack a person or an idea. On the other hand, the
defending pundits try to explain that the person or idea under attack has a
good side that begs to be understood and given a chance to prove itself.
Luckily, we have two articles that demonstrate how this is working in real
life.
On the prosecuting side, we have Lt. Col
Robert L. Maginnis who insists that the case for America getting out of Syria
be judged on the facts and the logic of the legal precedents, whereas Bret
Stephens is defending the call for America to stay in Syria; doing it by
appealing to sentimentality and little else.
The Maginnis article came under the title:
“Missing the Bigger Picture in Kurdish Syria,” published on October 12, 2019 in
the American Thinker. As to the Bret Stephens article, it came under the title:
“Goodbye, America. Goodbye, Freedom Man,” and the subtitle: “Under Trump, the
US becomes the world's fair-weather friend.” It was published on October 11,
2019 in The New York Times.
Here is how Robert Maginnis has presented
his argument:
“The Kurds were engaged in a contractual
relationship fighting ISIS. They were well paid and equipped for their
fighting. They were given three years to consolidate eastern Syria. They
failed. Their problem is that Turkey, Iran and Syria consider them to be
terrorists fighting for independence. The Kurds hijacked our fight with ISIS to
feed their civil war. Trump is trying to constrain American hawks who want to
use our military across the world. During his 2016 campaign, Trump said he
wants to escape from endless wars and bring our fighters home. We do not need
to stay there another day, much less a century. Let the regional players handle
their problems and leave the larger security challenges like China and Russia
to the United States. Why must America get involved in every conflict around
the world?”
And here is how Bret Stephens has
presented his argument:
“In the early 1980s, in the South China
Sea, a sailor aboard a US aircraft carrier, spots a boat jammed with people
fleeing Indochina. He brings the refugees to safety, one of whom calls out:
Hello American. Hello, Freedom Man. It's the sort of story Americans used to
hear about themselves. Reagan told it in his 1989 farewell address. When the
world looks at the US today, it sings: Goodbye America. Goodbye Freedom Man.
Trump has praised the Kurds as special people and wonderful fighters. To
survive, the Kurdish forces will now have little choice except reach an
accommodation with Syria's Assad. It will put Kurdish lives in jeopardy.
Americans are the friends you never want: there for you when it's convenient
for them. Our moral values are tissue paper, our idealism belongs to a remote
past. It means that American sailor or soldier seen on the horizon is no longer
freedom man. He's fair-weather friend”.
What should a fair-minded juror think of
these two presentations? Well, let’s say there is no denying that being nice
and praised for it is a wonderful thing to happen to anyone. It is why there is
a saying that goes: It is better to give than to receive. But this is charity,
and there is another saying that goes: Charity begins at home. It makes you
slow down and think, especially that this last saying is seconded by another
thought that warns about giving till it hurts.
All of that compels us to ask the
question: Where does America stand today in terms of its ability to give when
we consider how much the world has changed from the old days of the boat people
to the modern days of the armed militias.
The boat people of the 1980s were simple
Vietnamese villagers desperate to save the lives of their families. It was not
too difficult to “feel their pain” and be motivated by the desire to help them.
By contrast, today's armed militias are desperate to accomplish something
entirely different. They want to carve out a piece of territory that belongs to
a sovereign nation, and make it their own.
When Bret Stephens equated those two
groups, he displayed a level of judgment that is so poor, he degraded his own
opinion down to almost zero.
And so, with the sentimental argument of
Bret Stephens now seen as worthless, the approach that's advocated by Robert
Maginnis concerning the adjudication of the Kurdish situation in accordance
with the law, looks like the sensible thing to do.