Put up or shut up

I just got an e-mail -- from a very dear friend -- touting this letter from a group of "Security Scholars" calling for an "open debate" about the Bush administration's foreign policy.

Here was my (necessarily brief) reply:

As one of the American people, I thank the "Security Scholars" for their concern, but hasn't an "open debate" been going on for the past three years -- or have all the "Security Scholars" only recently returned from a stint in the gulag? If the "Security Scholars" would like to hold a summit and agree on a counter-proposal to the Bush administration's foreign policy, I am quite willing to listen. The call for an "open debate" seems a rather lame attempt to criticize the Bush administration's foreign policy without having to risk your reputations by proposing one of your own.

When the "Security Scholars" do hold their summit, I would like to see them address, not only the failures of U.S. policy in the Middle East, but also the failures of international organizations like the United Nations -- recently and glaringly on display in the oil-for-food scandal and in the insistence on turning a blind eye (at best) to the vicious anti-Semitism in their midst.

Since the open letter of the "Security Scholars" is implicitly an argument from authority, I'd also like to read a couple of representative works from each "Security Scholar" -- one written before 9/11, and one written after -- that demonstrate an authoritative grasp of foreign policy issues (particularly as they relate to the Middle East). Forgive me for not taking their word for it.