20 posts tagged “war”
Essentially, the Palin interview needs to be evaluated on two fronts. First, and most important, is Palin’s performance as an untried national candidate. The ABC piece was not a first impression, but a substantive discussion after the first impression…an impression which, I don’t think anyone can argue, was pretty forceful.
The second and only slightly less important rubric for evaluating this interview is the quality of the reporting. I am sad to say that I would judge the journalism involved in this exposition of a relative unknown to be less than stellar. Charles Gibson is generally a decent sort, but his style in this interview bordered on contemptuous.
Since I haven't been able to find a place to view the whole interview all at once, I'm making one here. I'm still not entirely certain this is a comprehensive collection. And the thing that is now confusing me is that the first clip I've loaded there seems to contain footage that I was told was edited out of the interview. So...in essence I'm not sure what is going on with this interview and why it's so hard to find the whole thing online, but I'm confident that in its original airing it was in fact edited to hell. I shall be running with that knowledge.
The Substance
She's a deceptively simple woman. But I saw her in the gubernatorial debates back in 2006, and she was one tough lady. I admit to underestimating her then, as I have a stubborn sexist streak. The course of that debate was enough to make me question whether a woman should ever win the White House. To my mind, the thing to remember about Palin is that even if you don't like her you need to acknowledge her strength. And let's be clear: This is a woman who enjoys an approval rating in her state of something like 86%, and who beat out an incumbent of her own party and a former Democratic governor for the job. She ain't a pushover.
There are a number of different ways to measure strength. There is the strength that Obama possesses, which is the ability to build others up and make them believe that they can achieve their goals. There is the strength that McCain has, which is the strength of experience and conviction. One of the great strengths which I see in her is that she has a clarity of vision, and can apply concepts of leadership to different situations even in the absence of direct firsthand knowledge. That's something that every leader has to know how to do...set the agenda and tap the experts.
As the Vice-President, she will be an advisor and an advocate. She will meet with foreign leaders to promote the agenda of the POTUS and she will meet with domestic leaders to advance the causes of reform and increased prosperity.
This interview was a chance for her to showcase her knowledge of world events and some of her views on domestic matters. As a relative unknown who has been making the stump speech circuit (a stump speech being defined as the same speech over and over again in different places, for all the snarky commentators out there who are viewing that as a lack of depth), Palin had much to tell us about herself and her views of government, foreign policy, the environment and social issues.
Foreign policy is perhaps her weakest subject, and so it's fitting that Gibson would devote a lot of time to it. Much hay has been made by liberal bloggers and pundits about her answer to the "Bush Doctrine" question. Firstly, to be clear, her "In what respect" was perfectly justified in the context of the question. Gibson didn't offer any idea about which Bush Doctrine he meant, or to what aspect of said doctrine he was referring. His attempt to clarify was slightly lame, as he certainly sensed a "gotcha" moment. But we'll cover him more in depth in the "Style" section of this blog post.
Palin's answer to the Bush Doctrine question was definitely not a help. However, it should be clear by now that the Bush Doctrine is an amorphous kind of thing, but among its precepts is the idea that America should take pre-emptive action if necessary to safeguard American citizens. The problem here might be a fundamental matter of academics versus leadership. The idea of a Bush Doctrine is an academic one, a political science paper gone global. People will debate the implications of a Bush Doctrine for years, evaluate it and perhaps decide that it never really existed. But in a practical sense the existence or non-existence of the Bush Doctrine as an enumerated set of principles is unimportant to a leader, who needs only a clear vision of how they will interact with the world.
Palin made it clear, I think, that America's defense would be a primary concern of hers and John McCain's should they be elected. They have identified Islamic terrorism as the preeminent threat to global security in this era, and rightly so. To my mind, having a clear idea of who you're fighting is a good part of any battle.
As to Russia, I believe Palin offered a unique perspective, and one that was probably left on the cutting room floor. Her main point in speaking about Russia and NATO wasn't to rattle her saber, but to call for awareness that Russia is trampling on democratic states in the region. States which, until recently, were doing quite well. The edited transcript mentions Ukraine as well as Georgia, and fleshes out the Russia conversation quite well. I would say she has been studying the issue and applying her formidable intellect to the subject of international relations, and woe betide the man who underestimates her in a live debate...no edits.
A lot of the interview was a simple confirmation that she in fact holds the conservative line on topics like Israel. But one particular thing leapt out at me about the criticism of her, and that was the inevitable God-problem.
If you don't know, liberal bloggers and pundits have been trying like hell to get traction out of a statement she made in church one day about the war (the one her son just left to fight) being God's will. And I think any sensible leftist would accept the explanation I'm about to proffer, but I know that there are those who aren't interested and never will be in the subtle nuances of a spiritual life.
When Palin was talking about God's will, she wasn't praying that God's will would conform to our actions. No, instead she was praying that our actions, made in our imperfect human wisdom, would conform to God's ultimately unknowable will. It's a distinction that is lost in this age of mass communication, lowest common denominators, and fifth-grade reading levels. "Not my will, but Thine be done," is the actual saying. A mature Christian recognizes that not only can he or she never achieve God's perfection, they can hardly even be sure that they are acting in accordance with His wishes. If we thought we had to do everything perfectly, we'd be paralyzed with indecision or abandon the effort entirely...so a mature believer proceeds with the business of living and does the best he can with the knowledge at hand.
In summary, I found Palin's performance to be a solid indicator of the type of person she is, the type of leader she is, and the type of advocate she'd be for President McCain's agenda. She is in need of improvement in some key areas of foreign policy and dealing with the press, but in time she will have learned all she needs to. I read an article which made the point that the President or Vice-President as an individual can have a lot of knowledge, but certainly can't be expected to know everything. That is why they have subordinates and advisors. Collectively, our government knows quite a lot of stuff.
For this reason, and because I feel she is an effective leader who would be able to delegate and call upon experts to bolster her own knowledge, I have no qualms about her becoming the next Vice-President. I believe, strongly, that this election is about ideology moreso than any real qualifications for the job. Palin is ideologically conservative, and that is infinitely preferable to me. A liberal might go so far as to concede that she is not a dunce, but I don't believe I will see anyone admit she'd be a good Vice-President.
Part II will consist of my thoughts on Charlie Gibson's interview style and the quality of the journalism in this piece (I didn't like it, in case you were wondering).
Actually, I've contracted out the services of one Charles Krauthammer for this blog, since I am confident that he is miles beyond me in terms of firsthand knowledge of the subject matter in the Gibson-Palin interview. Taken from National Review Online.
I will, upon viewing the rest of the interview, offer my own thoughts. But this is something to chew on and will save me time later. Also, I am gratified to note that my perception of Gibson's partisanship, which I wrote about in my last post, was shared by others in the conservative community.
It Was Gibson’s Gaffe
Which made the smug condescension all the more precious.By Charles Krauthammer
“Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she
agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what
he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed
her that it meant the right of ‘anticipatory self-defense.’ ”— New York Times, September 12
Informed her? Rubbish.
The Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.
There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration — and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today.
He asked Palin, “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?”
She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, “In what respect, Charlie?”
Sensing his “gotcha” moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, he grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine “is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense.”
Wrong.
I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of The Weekly Standard titled, “The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism,” I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine.
Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to Congress nine days later, Bush declared: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.” This “with us or against us” policy regarding terror — first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan — became the essence of the Bush doctrine.
Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq War was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of pre-emptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine.
It’s not. It’s the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of Bush foreign policy and the one that most distinctively defines it: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush’s second inaugural address: “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”
This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy’s pledge that the United States “shall pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson’s 14 points.
If I were in any public foreign-policy debate today, and my adversary were to raise the Bush doctrine, both I and the audience would assume — unless my interlocutor annotated the reference otherwise — that he was speaking about Bush’s grandly proclaimed (and widely attacked) freedom agenda.
Not the Gibson doctrine of pre-emption.
Not the “with us or against us” no-neutrality-is-permitted policy of the immediate post-9/11 days.
Not the unilateralism that characterized the pre-9/11 first year of the Bush administration.
Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed “doctrines” in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines, which came out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few conflicting foreign-policy crosscurrents.
Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine.
Yes, Palin didn’t know what it is. But neither does Gibson. And at least she didn’t pretend to know — while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, “sounding like an impatient teacher,” as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes’ reaction to the phenom who presumes to play on their stage.
— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist.
Are you now or have you ever been a member of the neoconservative movement? It often feels like folks who support the Iraq War in particular and the War on Terror in general are unreservedly labeled neoconservative, neocon, neopig, baby-killer, etc. In truth, support for the war has never been the exclusive domain of neoconservatism, which philosophy is a convenient political ally for conservatives like myself.
There are some differences between neoconservatism and what I would consider an archetypal American Conservative. Neocons are not, in my experience, all that committed to social conservatism. This isn't bad, per se, at best it means they are simply focused on other issues. Their actual beginnings are quite interesting for someone who has only learned of the neocons through the media. Burned by liberalism many ages ago, these intellectuals brought their considerable smarts to bear in the fight to spread American notions of liberty and representative government while preserving American interests. At least I thought so. The real truth is slightly different.
I read a piece by Jonah Goldberg on the topic. Here's a snippet:
Oooh, burn. But the point he makes later is that what many people call neoconservatism, that is the "doctrine of democracy promotion abroad, moralism in foreign policy and unilateralism toward these ends when necessary..." is not the original meaning of the idea. It was a domestic philosophy.Obviously, supporting the spread of democracy hardly requires you to support the Iraq war. But it works the other way around as well. Support for the Iraq war doesn’t automatically make you a neoconservative. Douglas J. Feith, a former undersecretary of defense after 9/11, argues in his new memoir, War and Decision, that democratization didn’t rank very high among the Bush administration’s early priorities. Moreover, the administration’s mistakes in Iraq — perhaps including the war itself — have less relationship to ideology than many think. “It is possible,” as Kagan notes, “to be prudent or imprudent, capable or clumsy, wise or foolish, hurried or cautious in pursuit of any doctrine.” (Just ask newly hired Hamas spokesman Jimmy Carter.)
In the original sense, neoconservatism was the rejection of the idea that we can create a utopia on this earth through government. It was the realization by former liberals that the progressive ideals that were championed throughout the 20th century lead to fascism and oppression. At the very least they lead to stagnation and dependence, as evidenced by Europe.
I see a lot of people who want to reject the idea that individuals should be the captains of their destiny. I see a lot of people whose rejection of neconservatism has less to do with any war and much more to do with the role of government in our lives. Many people have a vested interest in growing government.
The question I ask myself is whether the current political climate allows the liberals to step back and really examine their views. For the liberal leaders, this is obviously not in their interest. But for the people who mindlessly condemn neoconservatism without being able to explain its basic origins and principles...there's hope they will see sense before they are duped into electing a person who will put us on the path taken by Europe.
National Review Online has a tremendous piece by Frederick W. Kagan on Iraq. Specifically, the common myths associated with the war that many on the left side of the spectrum continually cite as reasons we have lost, will lose, or must withdraw from the present conflict.
Do the nattering nabobs really know the counterpoint to their arguments? I would think not. So often I see a parroted claim about the war that can be no more supported than the rantings of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Conservatives who have conviction but not the knowledge to back it up must educate themselves so as to better exploit this weakness. Liberals who wish to better defend themselves may also find the article useful.
Let's just ignore for now the sobering fact that no amount of information will make any of us actually change our minds, and just enjoy the opportunity to learn.
The article's long, as something like this would have to be, but it's not overlong. Five years of the left pulling out every conceivable objection to the war have left Kagan a big job. He tackles it handily and you should read the whole thing. However, I provide a snippet to draw you in:
The War Costs Too Much
An increasingly popular talking point of the antiwar party is that the war simply costs too much and that we must end it and refocus on domestic priorities. This talking point has a number of variants:The “$3 trillion war.” Simplistic economic analysis declares that the war has cost the taxpayers $3 trillion since its inception, implying that this is a $3 trillion dead loss to the economy — a price too high to pay.
- Modern economics has long understood that the notion of a one-for-one guns-versus-butter trade-off is simply wrong. A high proportion of money spent on defense goes back into the U.S. economy in the form of salaries paid to the more than 5 million Americans employed directly or indirectly by the Defense Department, and payments to the defense industry and the long and complex supply chains from which they draw their raw materials. Military spending has traditionally been a form of economic stimulus, and wars more commonly end recessions or depressions than start them. That’s not a good reason to start a war, but neither is it a good reason to lose one. The impact of the current war on the U.S. economy, finally, is far smaller than the impact of previous major conflicts. Military spending in World War II ranged from 17.8 percent of GDP to 37.5 percent; in Korea from 5.0 percent (in 1950 — 7.4 percent in 1951) to 14.2 percent; in Vietnam from 7.4 percent to 9.4 percent. Current expenditures on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars bring total defense expenditures to something well below 5 percent of GDP. Even granting the simplistic and misleading $3 trillion figure, $3 trillion is about 5 percent of the nearly $60 trillion American GDP over the five years of the war.
So, once more we find that our European friends exist in a world of delusion and self-absorption. Here's hoping that this woman never wins another Oscar, ever. But even aside from that, let's hope that Europe scrapes up the resolve to save its own culture from radical Islam. It's a special kind of intellect that can observe the work of terrorists and then without irony assert that the destruction was all an inside job. Astoundingly special.
You may be aware that Mohammed is quickly becoming the most popular boy's name in Britain and France. And anyone who has followed the news in Denmark may be aware that things are getting hairy. I'd like to believe that people like Mark Steyn are wrong. I'd like to believe that a culture will, when faced with things like the Sept. 11th attacks, rally its disparate parts and commit to preserving its way of life.
But it seems that as the threat from militant Islam increases, European nations only bury their head in the sand with yet more vigor. They attack those critical to Islam as bigots, blithely refusing to do anything about the imams who preach violence and conquest to impressionable, disenfranchised young immigrants. They acquiesce to Muslim demands that demean women. A recent example? Giving tax breaks to men with multiple wives. The Archbishop of Canterbury proposes that some form of shari'a law in Britain might be a good thing. When some commentary is made, it is generally not productive. Comes to mind the Danish Cartoons -- worldwide riots erupt and still the Europeans blame themselves. They are committing cultural suicide. If only we could let them.
But in their place would rise a threat to America that is unprecedented in this age of unbelief. A militant religion that would fill the void in Europe made by the excoriation of Christianity, that would within a few generations be poised to seriously impede American influence.
Because if you think the French don't like America now, wait until the French take their cues from the imams who are preaching today.
'9/11 attacks made up, ' says French best actress Oscar-winner
Last updated at 01:08am on 2nd March 2008
Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard has accused America of fabricating the 9/11 attacks
Actress Marion Cotillard sparked a political row yesterday after accusing America of fabricating the 9/11 attacks.
The 32-year-old French actress, who received an Oscar last month for her performance as singer Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose, openly questioned the truth behind the terrorist atrocity in an interview broadcast on a French website.
"I think we're lied to about a number of things," Cotillard said, singling out the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center as an example of the US making up horror stories for political ends.
Referring to the two passenger jets being flown into the Twin Towers, Cotillard said:
"We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes. Are they burned? They [sic] was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed."
She added that the towers, planned in the early Sixties, were an outdated "money-sucker" that would have cost more to modernise than to rebuild altogether, which is why they were destroyed.
She said: "It was a money-sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them."
Cotillard's stardom and increased earning power looked assured following her Oscar win.
But after her outburst, in which she also queried the 1969 Moon landings, a successful future in Hollywood appears to be in jeopardy.
She said: "Did a man really walk on the Moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don't believe all they tell me, that's for sure."
Cotillard, who was born and brought up in Paris, made the comments on Paris Première - Paris Dernière, a programme broadcast a year ago.
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Stars in their eyes: Elton John and partner David Furnish cosy up to the hottest new actress in Hollywood
Celebration: Marion celebrated her win with Hollywood's A-listers - including Sharon Stone - at Elton John's party in Hollywood
At the time her remarks were largely ignored, but their appearance yesterday on the French magazine website Marianne2 comes at a time when Cotillard's profile is sky-high.
She is shortly due to fly to Chicago to star alongside Johnny Depp in Public Enemies, a gangster movie expected to be her first big money-spinner.
Cotillard's film career began in Luc Besson's 1998 film Taxi - a huge hit in France but less so around the world.
She is slowly becoming a household name in France, in a list most recently topped by her close friend Audrey Tautou and previously by women such as Catherine Deneuve and Brigitte Bardot.
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'I think we're lied to about a number of things' Cotillard said, singling out the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center as an example of the US making up horror stories for political ends
But Cotillard, who lives with actor and director Guillaume Canet, frequently tells interviewers she has no interest in money or prestige.
Denying that she had any kind of "Anglo-Saxon ambition", she said she prefers to "choose roles which suit me".
Despite her low-key image, Cotillard is an environmental activist who once worked as a spokesman for Greenpeace.
News of her anti-Americanism comes as Franco-American relations appear to be thawing, following Paris's refusal to show support for the invasion of Iraq.
President Nicolas Sarkozy insists he is pro-American, even supporting so-called "Anglo-Saxon" economic reforms.
Comments (11)
John McCain made a stop in Norfolk, VA today to discuss foreign policy issues and receive some glowing praise from a number of his colleagues. Always keen to learn more about international relations and, well, see famous people, I managed to weasel my way in and was treated to a sensible, realistic acknowledgment of the threat of radical Islam. This is from some of the most knowledgeable authorities on national security in Congress.
Chief among these in my eyes was John Warner. A Southern gentleman in the truest sense, Senator Warner has been a strong advocate for the military and if he believes that John McCain will do well as the President then I am prepared to believe him.
The major point today was that we absolutely must confront radical, militant Islam. I agree with that sentiment 100%. Senator Sam Brownback made some very excellent statements, bringing the focus onto Africa where a significant amount of Muslim extremism is fomented. Brownback is also extremely prominent in the pro-life community. His endorsement of McCain puts any doubts about McCain's pro-life credits to rest.
In addition to these two men, the endorsement of former Secretaries of the Navy William Ball and John Lehman spoke volumes about their beliefs in McCain's strong military stance. Rebuilding the military is key, as the Clinton years saw too much military reduction. Rumsfeld made an error before Iraq and Afghanistan by not focusing more effort on building up force levels to avoid long, repeated deployments. But another point made today was that we must maintain the All Volunteer Force by increasing recruitment and increasing opportunities for soldiers. As McCain said, there is a market out there and young people have to know their needs will be met should they choose military service.
It is well within the interests of my region of Virginia to elect a man like John McCain.
McCain is strong on the social issues. Period. McCain is obviously strong on foreign policy (his strong language regarding Iran was particularly impressive), though conservatives still need more assurance about the illegal immigration issue. When I informed my good friend W that I was in attendance, he cut to the heart of the matter quite succinctly: "...if they serve lunch order the enchiladas. I hear they taste really good with a side of amnesty." No lunch, but it is important to keep from getting star-struck. Thanks W!
On a side note, I just saw myself on TV. Some guy blocked my handshake with McCain and the annoyance on my face is pretty obvious. I wish I had a picture. It's ok, because I did get to shake Sam Brownback's hand and let him know I appreciate his pro-life stance. He said we've got to push harder on that issue. Agreed.
I got a picture of McCain answering questions from the press, which I have provided. Forgive the quality. I didn't think I'd actually be allowed inside and neglected to bring a camera! If I can locate a bit of that video with my handshake fiasco, I'll post that too. UPDATE: Here's that video...Note the disappointed looking young man at 56 seconds in. That old guy in front of me was such a fanboy, he jostled me out of the way just to tell McCain something the man wouldn't remember in 10 seconds anyway.
I defy anyone to argue with Mark Steyn. The man is simply a genius. He makes me depressed by exposing how utterly screwed up the West's collective head is. Is it any wonder that an Islamic group in Canada was trying to have him muzzled?
At some point conservatives will have to abandon the polite tolerance we've had for liberal inanities and fulfill their expectations by calling out the militia and rounding them up, Planet of the Apes style. Har Har, of course I'm joking. Or am I? I've been accused of worse while arguing about less important things.
What's at issue here is that the absurdity of this generation's anti-war stance is without bounds. Steyn drags it out into the light and clubs it like a baby seal.
UnphenomenalTimes
Fake but ... fake.By Mark Steyn
Have you been in an airport recently, and maybe seen a gaggle of America’s heroes returning from Iraq? And you’ve probably thought, “Ah, what a marvelous sight. Remind me to straighten up the old ‘Support Our Troops’ fridge magnet, which seems to have slipped down below the reminder to reschedule my acupuncturist. Maybe I should go over and thank them for their service.”
No, no, no, under no account approach them. Instead, try to avoid making eye contact and back away slowly toward the sign for the parking garage. You’re in the presence of mentally damaged violent killers who could snap at any moment.
You hadn’t heard that? Well, it’s in the New York Times: “a series of articles” — that’s right, a whole series — “about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home.” It’s an epidemic, folks. As the Times put it: “Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: ‘Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.’ Pierre, S.D.: ‘Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.’ Colorado Springs: ‘Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.’”
Obviously, as America’s “newspaper of record,” the Times would resent any suggestion that it’s anti-military. I’m sure if you were one of these crazed military stalker whackjobs following the reporters home you’d find their cars sporting the patriotic bumper sticker “We Support Our Troops, Even After They’ve Been Convicted.” As usual, the Times stories are written in the fey more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone that’s a shoo-in come Pulitzer time: “Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.”
“Patchwork picture,” “quiet phenomenon”… Yes, yes, but exactly how quiet is the phenomenon? How patchy is the picture?” The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan either “committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one.” The “committed a killing” formulation includes car accidents.
Thus, with declining deaths in theater, the media narrative evolves. Old story: “America’s soldiers are being cut down by violent irrational insurgents we can never hope to understand.” New story: “Americans are being cut down by violent irrational soldiers we can never hope to understand.” In the quagmire of these veterans’ minds, every leafy Connecticut subdivision is Fallujah and every Dunkin’ Donuts clerk an Abu Musab al-Zarqawi with an annoyingly perky manner.
It was the work of minutes for the Powerline website’s John Hinderaker to discover that the “quiet phenomenon” is entirely unphenomenal: It didn’t seem to occur to the Times to check whether the murder rate among recent veterans is higher than that of the general population of young men. It’s not. Au contraire, the columnist Ralph Peters calculated that Iraq and Afghanistan vets are about a fifth as likely to murder you as the average 18-34 year-old American male. Better yet, the blogger Iowahawk meticulously drew his own “patchwork picture” of another “quiet phenomenon”: the Denver newspaper columnist arrested for stalking, the Cincinnati TV reporter facing child-molestation charges, the Philadelphia anchorwoman who went on a violent drunken rampage. As Iowahawk’s one-man investigative unit wondered: “Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence that America’s newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters?”
Why would the Times run such a series? My columnar confrere Clifford May connected it to a notorious anniversary: Seventy-five years ago, in February 1933, the Oxford Union passed a famous resolution, by an overwhelming margin, that “this House would under no circumstances fight for its King and country.” The Union was the world’s most famous debating society, in a great university of the dominant global power; its presidents have gone on to serve as Prime Ministers at home and overseas, from Gladstone in the 19th century all the way to Benazir Bhutto in the 1990s.
So the debate and its resolution sent a message to Britain’s enemies: As Churchill saw it, the vote was a “disgusting symptom” of the enervation of the ruling elites. Clifford May sees that same syndrome today around the western world, but, in fact, it’s worse than that.
The Oxford debate took place a decade and a half after the worst carnage in human history. The First World War cost the lives of some 20 million people. Do you remember back in 2004 when Ted Koppel devoted one episode of Nightline to reading out the names of everyone killed in combat in Iraq? If he’d attempted a similar task with the British Empire’s war dead in 1919, the half-hour episode of Nightline would have had to be extended to ten months — or longer if Ted took bathroom breaks, or indeed pauses for breath. The war reached into the smallest English hamlet and culled a generation of young men. It swept through the glittering palaces, too: The brother of Queen Elizabeth (the mother of the present queen) was killed on the western front in 1915. It would be a statistical improbability to have been at that Oxford Union debate and have come from a home in which on some mantle or bureau there was not a photograph of a son or uncle or fiancé forever young.It would be as if millions upon millions had been slaughtered in the first Gulf war, and 15 years later Harvard or Yale were debating whether we should do it all over again.
In other words, we don’t have their excuse. Our war has one of the lowest fatality rates of any war ever, and, when they get so low that even Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid temporarily give up the quagmire bleating, the Times invents bogus stories to suggest that the few veterans lucky enough to make it out of Iraq alive are ticking timebombs ready to explode across every Main Street in the land.
A few days before the Times series began, The National Journal published the latest debunking of a notorious survey: in 2006, the medical journal The Lancet reported that the Iraq war had killed over 650,000 civilians, over 90 percent victims of the US military. That’s 500 civilians a day. Which is quite a smell test. The figure was over ten times the estimates even of hardcore antiwar left-wing groups. Who are these 500 daily victims? Why aren’t there mass riots by Iraqi civilians protesting the daily bloodbath?
Because it’s fake. It didn’t happen.
Yet it’s indestructible. I picked up a local paper in New Hampshire the other day, and a lady psychotherapist was twittering about our “mentally wounded” troops returning home after killing gazillions and bazillions of Iraqi civilians. In 1933, the debaters at Oxford were horrified by the real cost of war. In 2008, the editors of the Times, our college professors and Hollywood celebrities, are horrified by a fiction. Faced with an historically low cost of war, they retreat into fantasy. Who’s really suffering from mental trauma? Who needs the psychotherapy here?
My friend W manages to find the most interesting sites on the Internet. Apparently Cracked, the lesser-known periodical in the style of Mad, has switched to online content. And it's hilarious. Observe.
One contributor wishes for an improved Real Time Strategy game. Wish number 14:
My new favorite place to visit.14. I want fat, left-wing documentarians carefully editing the only the most incriminating footage, countered only by low-IQ country music singers crooning my praises while in American flag-colored cowboy hats.
Here is an older clip from C-Span about Democrats and fiscal responsibility. I feel sorry for the George Wendt-looking feller.
I'm sorry, I drifted away for a moment.
Ok, moving on I would say that the Republicans have so much material to work with here. The unfolding mess in Turkey/Northern Iraq, Democrat hypocrisy on spending and government transparency, more Democrat hypocrisy on earmarks (Woodstock Museum anyone?), and of course orators of this quality:
Of course, that lovely "D-CA" under his name explains a few things.
Oooh, I normally don't like Lou Dobbs but this piece from August was ginchy, if not the ginchiest.
I'd like to fire everyone in Congress and then have a brand new one go in there. All new people. Bye Nancy, bye George Wendt-guy. Bye stupid Republicans too. Did you know you can run for Congress at age 25? Surely there is at least one intelligent, competent 25-year old in this country who could serve as a representative.
I believe that nobody says it better than Steyn, so I won't try. Suffice it to say that anyone who believes that September 11th was an inside job will not be welcome on this blog should they air that view.Where’s the War?
By Mark Steyn
The placidity of the domestic front.
Oh, it’s a long, long while from September to September. This year, the anniversary falls, for the first time, on a Tuesday morning, and perhaps some or other cable network will re-present the events in real time — the first vague breaking news in an otherwise routine morning show, the follow-up item on the second plane, and the realization that something bigger was underway. If you make it vivid enough, the JFK/Princess Di factor will kick in: You’ll remember “where you were” when you “heard the news.” But it’s harder to recreate the peculiar mood at the end of the day, when the citizens of the superpower went to bed not knowing what they’d wake up to the following morning.
Six years on, most Americans are now pretty certain what they’ll wake up to in the morning: There’ll be a thwarted terrorist plot somewhere or other — last week, it was Germany. Occasionally, one will succeed somewhere or other, on the far horizon — in Bali, Istanbul, Madrid, London. But not many folks expect to switch on the TV this Tuesday morning, as they did that Tuesday morning, and see smoke billowing from Atlanta or Phoenix or Seattle. During the IRA’s 30-year campaign, the British grew accustomed (perhaps too easily accustomed) to waking up to the news either of some prominent person’s assassination or that a couple of gran’mas and some schoolkids had been blown apart in a shopping centre. It was a terrorist war in which terrorism was almost routine. But, in the six years since President Bush declared that America was in a “war on terror,” there has been in America no terrorism.
In theory, the administration ought to derive a political benefit from this: The president has “kept America safe.” But, in practice, the placidity of the domestic front diminishes the chosen rationale of the conflict: If a “war on terror” has no terror, who says there’s a war at all? That’s the argument of the Left — that it’s all a racket cooked up by the Bushitlerburton fascists to impose on America a permanent national-security state in which, for dark sinister reasons of his own, Dick Cheney is free to monitor your out-of-state phone calls all day long. Judging from the blithe expressions of commuters doing the shoeless shuffle through the security line at LAX and O’Hare, most Americans seem relatively content with a permanent national-security state. It’s a curious paradox: airports on permanent Orange Alert, and a citizenry on permanent …well, I’m not sure there’s a homeland-security color code for “Gaily Insouciant,” but, if there is, it’s probably a bland limpid pastel of some kind. Of course, if tomorrow there’s a big smoking hole where the Empire State Building used to be, we’ll be back to: “The president should have known! This proves the failure of his policies over the last six years! We need another all-star Commission filled with retired grandees!”
And that would be the relatively sane reaction. Have you seen that bumper sticker “9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB”? If you haven’t, go to a college town and cruise Main Street for a couple of minutes. It seems odd that a fascist regime which thinks nothing of killing thousands of people in a big landmark building in the center of the city hasn’t quietly offed some of these dissident professors — or at least the guy with the sticker-printing contract. Fearlessly, Robert Fisk of Britain’s Independent, the alleged dean of Middle East correspondents, has now crossed over to the truther side and written a piece headlined, “Even I Question The ‘Truth’ About 9/11.” According to a poll in May, 35 percent of Democrats believe that Bush knew about 9/11 in advance. Did Rumsfeld also know? Almost certainly. That’s why he went to his office as normal that today, because he knew in advance that the plane would slice through the Pentagon but come to a halt on the far side of the photocopier. That’s how well-planned it was, unlike Iraq.
Apparently, 39 percent of Democrats still believe Bush didn’t know in advance — or, at any rate, so they said in May. But I’m confident half of them will have joined Rosie O’Donnell on the melted steely knoll before the Iowa caucuses. If Iraq is another Vietnam, 9/11 is another Kennedy assassination. Were Bali, Madrid, and London also inside jobs by the Bush Gang? If so, it’s no wonder federal spending’s out of control.
And what of those for whom the events of six years ago were more than just conspiracy fodder? Last week the New York Times carried a story about the current state of the 9/11 lawsuits. Relatives of 42 of the dead are suing various parties for compensation, on the grounds that what happened that Tuesday morning should have been anticipated. The law firm Motley Rice, diversifying from its traditional lucrative class-action hunting grounds of tobacco, asbestos and lead paint, is promising to put on the witness stand everybody who “allowed the events of 9/11 to happen”. And they mean everybody — American Airlines, United, Boeing, the airport authorities, the security firms — everybody, that is, except the guys who did it.
According to the Times, many of the bereaved are angry and determined that their loved one’s death should have meaning. Yet the meaning they’re after surely strikes our enemies not just as extremely odd but as one more reason why they’ll win. You launch an act of war, and the victims respond with a lawsuit against their own countrymen. But that’s the American way: Almost every news story boils down to somebody standing in front of a microphone and announcing that he’s retained counsel. Last week, it was Larry Craig. Next week, it’ll be the survivors of Ahmadinejad’s nuclear test in Westchester County. As Andrew McCarthy pointed out, a legalistic culture invariably misses the forest for the trees. Senator Craig should know that what matters is not whether an artful lawyer can get him off on a technicality but whether the public thinks he trawls for anonymous sex in public bathrooms. Likewise, those 9/11 families should know that, if you want your child’s death that morning to have meaning, what matters is not whether you hound Boeing into admitting liability but whether you insist that the movement that murdered your daughter is hunted down and the sustaining ideological virus that led thousands of others to dance up and down in the streets cheering her death is expunged from the earth.
In his pugnacious new book, Norman Podhoretz calls for redesignating this conflict as World War IV. Certainly, it would have been easier politically to frame the Iraq campaign as being a front in a fourth world war than as a necessary measure in an anti-terrorist campaign. Yet who knows? Perhaps we would still have mired ourselves in legalisms and conspiracies and the dismal curdled relativism of the Flight 93 memorial’s “crescent of embrace.” In the end, as Podhoretz says, if the war is to be fought at all, it will “have to be fought by the kind of people Americans now are.” On this sixth anniversary, as 9/11 retreats into history, many Americans see no war at all.— Mark Steyn is the author of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.
I get really fighting mad on this day every year.
