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May 31, 2004
This Memorial Day consider making
This Memorial Day consider making a donation to the Cold War Museum.
Founded by Francis Gary Powers Jr, the mission of the museum is "...a 501(c)(3) charitable organization dedicated to education, preservation, and research on the global, ideological, and political confrontations between East and West from the end of World War II to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.." Their goals are to establish permanent Cold War museums to preserve the history of that time period, erect Cold War memorials, and establish a reference library and research center.
Mr Powers is the son of the famous U-2 pilot who was shot down over the Soviet Union in May of 1960.
The Cold War Museum has a mobile exhibit that has been loaned to many museums around the world.
Mr Powers is seeking a permanent home for the museum in the Washington DC area. Two sites are under consideration, one a former Nike missile site in Lorton VA, and the other adjacent to the Air and Space annex next to Dulles Airport.
Mr. Powers also publishes a bi-monthly magazine that you can have sent to you by email. Contact editor@coldwar.org for a subscription.
Posted by Tom at 12:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
George Orwell, call your office.
George Orwell, call your office.
A letter appeared in Friday's Washington Times with a positively Orwellian statement in it. The letter was from a group called "September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows". They are opposed to the administration's policies on the war on terror.
In the letter they authors state that "We're against current policies, not because they're implemented by President Bush, but because we believe they increase global instability and increase the likelihood of terrorism in the future."
Huh? So...they're opposed to Bush's policies but not because they're implemented by him? They say that they're against "current policies." George W Bush makes foreign policy for the U.S. He is also responsible for implementing them. If they think that those policies are wrong then they're against Bush's policies. To say that you are against the policy but not because they're implemented by the author of the policy is a distinction without a difference.
Posted by Tom at 11:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Duty, Honor, Country Duty, honor,
Duty, Honor, Country
Duty, honor, country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.
Unhappily, I possess neither that eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean.
The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pedant, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and, I am sorry to say, some others of an entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule.
From General Douglas MacArthur's address to the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy in 1962
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Tom at 10:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 28, 2004
Check out Big Pharaoh's latest
Check out Big Pharaoh's latest post. He's got a great Q&A about what the average Egyptian thinks about various issues. Some samples:
Are there any militia-type "enforcers" from the Muslim Brotherhood or similar groups making sure disagreement is punished?
No, you won’t find someone with a stick hitting any unveiled girl he sees. However, such things might happen on a very small scale in rural areas where the government’s grip is looser.
Is the standard of living in Egypt rising or falling?
London Bridge is falling down falling down. It was rising in the mid 90s, but currently recession and unemployment are having a party.
How does Egypt combat terrorism and the hardliners that promote it? Or does Egypt even bother with it aside from saying they do?
You know Abu Ghraib? Multiply is by 1 million and you get the picture. Islamists are the government’s main opposition and they are not tolerated, period.
Posted by Tom at 5:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
John Kerry has repeatedly criticized
John Kerry has repeatedly criticized the president for failing to capture or kill Osama vin Laden during the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan.
Battles are planned and conducted by military commanders in the field. The role of the president and his advisors is to issue broad strategic guidelines. They set policy. It is the job of the military commanders in the field decide how to best achieve the strategy.
During the Vietnam War President Johnson famously bragged that the military "couldn't bomb an outhouse without my permission." He has since been roundly criticized for micromanaging the war. For a guy who speaks ad nauseum about Vietnam, Kerry seems not to have learned much from it. If taken at his word, he is saying that he would supervise battlefield operations.
Posted by Tom at 8:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 24, 2004
A Horror Story of Saudi Arabia
On June of 2001, James Cottle, 51, traveled to Saudia Arabia to work on construction contracts. Within a few short months he found himself falsely imprisoned, regularly beaten, and forced to "confess", live on Saudi television, in the style of the Moscow show trials of the late 1930's.
The Saudis claim that he and seven other Europeans were behind a series of terrorist bombings that occured in the "Magic Kingdom" during November of 2000. The charge was that western bootleggers were engaged in a turf war, and that Cottle and the others were participants. However, in typical Stalinist fashion, they never presented any evidence this claim other than the confessions.
After being arrested in June of 2001 Cottle and the others were subjected to Saudi-style interrogation. The first day they yelled at him and slapped him around. Things got worse very quickly. The second night they started beating his feet. Cottle says that he was beaten six to eigtht hours every night. He spent 11 months in solitary confinement while the interrogations and beatings continued. Eventually he was allowed to share a cell with one of the other Britons accused of the bombings.
British consular officials were able to secure visits to him in jail. Although the questioned the Saudi authorities, the Saudis didn't show them any evidence that he was involved in any bombings.
During all this, his ex-wife, Mary Martini, attempted to secure his freedom through the Foreign Office (the UK equivalent of the U.S. Department of State). She says that she didn't receive much help from them. Initially she followed their request to "stay silent" and not create a public stir. However, after more than a year with no results, she grew impatient.
"Fifteen months later, I think we now really need demands by the Foreign Office, not questions asked", she told a BBC reporter.
"We asked Baroness Amos last year what would happen if we were here in another 12 months time and she said 'Well we hope we are not'." (Baroness Amos was dealing with this in her capacity as Minister for Trade and Industry)
"Well we still are - how much longer?"
She says that Baroness Amos told her that the Government thought it would put the mens lives at risk if she spoke to the media.
By his own admission, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw did not take a hard line with the Saudis. As quoted by the BBC, Straw "...defended the Foreign Office response, seen by some as "softly softly", as one which best served the prisoners, regardless of British trade interests."
Finally in January 2002 Martini decided to speak out. She contacted a British newspaper, The Guardian.
She says that she never intended to make a public flap, but that her family finally persuaded her that going public was the best course of action.
And indeed the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs quotes Minister Rammell (of the Foreign Office) as saying that: "our judgment, rightly or wrongly, was that the most effective way to secure the release of these men was to do that privately rather than raise the profile of the cause publicly." The committee concludes that "The evidence we have received on behalf of Mr. Cottle suggests that that judgment may have been wrong." Stronger retaliatory action was recommended in the future. The full report can be read here.
Martini appealed to the Foreign office asking for assistance. She says that the FCO (Foriegn and Commonweath Office) repeatedly lied to her. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office maintained that they were doing all that they could and that they visited with Cottle monthly.
While all of this was going on, bombs continued to go off in Saudi Arabia. Several news sources and human-rights groups investigated the matter and all concluded that the accused men were not responsible for the bombings. However, as of this writing, the "confessions" of several of the accused are still posted on a Saudi Arabian website.
In August of 2001 Cottle and two other Britons were forced to confess live on Saudi television. They were sentenced to 18 years in prison. Several others faced the death penalty, which in Saudi Arabia is by public beheading with a sword. Another, Sandy Mitchell, said that he was threatened with crucifixion.
Ron Jones was another Briton arrested for the bombings. After his release he had harsh words for the British government; "I have been tortured and my government will not stand up and condemn the Saudis for what they have done. Now why won't they do that?" Said the relative of another of the imprisoned men, "They didn't want to upset the Saudis. They wanted to keep it all nicey, nicey... They never put enough pressure on the Saudis."
Finally, on August 8 2003, Cottle and six others were released. Some were a royal pardon, but their convictions were not overturned. Cottle refused to sign the pardon paper so was granted a clemency, the latter not stating that he was sorry "for what he did." Their treatment at the hands of the Saudis had been so bad that Ms Martini said that "I really couldn't recognise the men at first, obviously because the picture of James they have shown was from when he was about 17 stone,"
Even though James Cottle is now a free man, Martini says that he still bears the scars of his imprisonment. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and relies on heavy medication and counselors. As quoted in the Guardian, Martini said that "James has been very affected by what he has been through. He gets tired from even from normal things like just walking. Making decisions also seems hard, even deciding what he wants to eat, simple things like that."
To the suprise of no one, the arrest and torture of Cottle and the others is typical of Saudia Arabia. Said Amnesty International, "Secrecy, torture and unfair trials are the hallmarks of Saudi justice."
_____________________________________________
*** This story was brought to my attention by Mary Martini. She supplied me with information and links that made this story possible
*** Coming Soon: Analysis and commentary on British and American relationships with "friendly" authoritarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia.
Posted by Tom at 10:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Jay Rosen has a great
Jay Rosen has a great article about how the press is covering (or, rather, not covering) the situation in Iraq. His contention is that reporters are staying in the "green zone" and not getting out on the streets to meet with and interview everyday Iraqis.
"Green zones" are the American and other coalition protected areas. Fortified bases and the like.
Rosen is chair of the journalism department at NYU so he writes with some authority.
He does not downplay the danger in Iraq, or suggest that reporters are cowards. The article is a straight explanation of why we're getting such a narrow view of what is going on.
Many people have notice for some time the disjunct between what the major media have been reporting and the reports we get from soldiers in the field and individual Iraqis. Rosen's article goes a long way towards explaining why this is so. The major media almost invariably present a gloom-and-doom picture, with the specter of Vietnam never far away. They dwell on the Abu Ghraib abuses ad nauseum. The Iraqi bloggers and soldiers report an entirely different picture. Granted, evidence the bloggers and soldiers is anecdotal. It's almost impossible to know if their letters and reports are representative or even truthful. But it's also evidence that we ignore at our peril.
Posted by Tom at 9:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 22, 2004
Check out two new blogs
Check out two new blogs that I've linked to, AfricaPundit and Big Pharaoh. The first is about a contient too often ignored. The second is a new blogger in Egypt. Check them out.
Posted by Tom at 9:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Have the media been overplaying
Have the media been overplaying the Abu Ghraib prison abuse story? I'm beginning to think so. Two events in particular struck me over the past few days.
First, on Thursday the Washington Post decided to run, above the fold, new abuse pictures. They have also obtained video of soldiers stacking naked prisoners into a pyramid, and are streaming it from their website.
Second was the differing coverage that broadcast CNN and Fox gave the story that same day. I had a chance to watch each channel for a few hours and the difference in coverage was stark. CNN showed pictures and gave a lot of coverage to the story. Fox analyzed not the prison abuse but the way the media covered it. Several commentators compared coverage of the prison abuse story with other stories of the day, and there can be no doubt that much of the media is obsessed with the story to the exclusion of much else. Too obsessed.
Polls support this. A Fox News poll shows that 54% of Americans "...disapprove of the media's decision to release the pictures of treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib...." 59% believe that "...widespread media coverage of prisoner treatment in Iraq is responsible for triggering new retaliation against Americans." Jennifer Harper wrote a very good story about how viewers are seeing an agenda in the coverage in yesterday's Washington Times.
For how long with the Post run new pictures? If I was cynical, which of course I never am, I'd say until November 4.
Posted by Tom at 9:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Of the many letters from
Of the many letters from our soldiers in Iraq this one particularly struck me. He's riding shotgun on a fuel convoy that was attacked on April 9. Excerpt:
...people in the buildings firing weapons at us. I looked off to the left at a frontage road and I saw nine cars in rows of three. There was a line of women in front of all the cars, and some of them had children with them. I thought they were just watching us get attacked, and then men started popping up behind them firing at us - they were using the women as shields!! It took me a second to realize that. They were standing on the hoods of the cars behind the women and children; it shocked the hell out of me. Then we started getting hit with small arms fire, which sounded like golf balls hitting metal. I started firing back at them but I couldn’t get passed the women; they were all I could hit, and they started falling down. The men turned around and ran back behind the cars to fire....
Read the whole thing
Posted by Tom at 9:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 19, 2004
Remember the rock group KISS?
Remember the rock group KISS? Believe it or not they're still together, and are currently touring Australia. Their bass player, Gene Simmons, got himself into a bit of trouble for saying some rather politically incorrect things regarding Islam. The Australian reports Simmons as saying that
"Extremism believes that it's okay to strap bombs on to your children and send them to paradise and whatever else and to behead people," he said yesterday.
The Israeli-born US musician went on to say Islam was a "vile culture" that treated women worse than dogs.
...
Simmons said the United Nations approach did not work and the west had to "speak softly and carry a big stick"
Wow, he almost sounds like a Bush voter.
Posted by Tom at 10:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I second Jonah Goldberg's thoughs
I second Jonah Goldberg's thoughs on the "Colin Powell - Tim Russert" affair entirely.
Posted by Tom at 4:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Check out Omar's conversation with
Check out Omar's conversation with a taxi driver in Baghdad today on Iraq the Model.
Stories such as these are encouraging. But as Glenn Reynolds comments today, "...we're in a situation where it's likely that lots of stuff is going on beneath the surface that we don't and can't know about. Add to that the tendency of the media reporting from Iraq to focus on superficially bad news, at the expense of both good news and non-superficial bad news, and it's really hard to tell what's going on."
No kidding. Half of the stories make it seem like we're going to prevail, the other half are gloom and doom. Arnaud de Borshgrave has a typically gloomy editorial in today's Washington Times. My temptation is to believe the former. But I must admit that part of this is simply because the failure is so unthinkable.
Posted by Tom at 4:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
We've heard a lot this
We've heard a lot this year about "angry Democrats". "Angry" usually being accompanied by "unified." We are meant to think that this gives the Democrats an advantage in the upcoming presidental election.
Allow me to dissent.
Let's take a trip through some recent history and see what we find. It is my contention that candidates who run an "angry", or "against something" campaign lose. Those that project a positive, "for something" message, generally win.
In 1964 Barry Goldwater ran against Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. Goldwater was the first modern conservative and ran against what he saw as an unwarranted, large, expansion of government. To steal a phrase from William F Buckley Jr, he "stood athwarts history yelling stop". He also lost the race in one of the biggest landslides to date.
George McGovern made the same mistake in 1972 but from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Arguably the most liberal candidate of the century, he ran as the "peace" candidate against the war in Vietnam. He, too, lost in a landslide.
Ronald Reagan was as conservative as Goldwater but presented his message in a completely different way. Rather than simply present a laundry list of the Carter policies that he opposed, he offered words of hope, spinning adages such as "every day is a new beginning...for this is the land that has never become, but is always becoming...America is the Land of Tomorrow." and that "our best days are yet to come." Reagan offered a vision of hope, not a message of gloom.
Bill Clinton took a page from Reagan and in both 1992 and 1996 told us what he was going to do. His campaign theme was "it's the economy, stupid." He could "feel your pain" and would do something to alleviate it. Bush '41 didn't know what he stood for, only saying that he had good foreign policy experience so would be handy to have around in case of another international crisis. Bob Dole was in favor of ...running, since it was his turn to run.
Certainly Goldwater and McGovern at times said what they were for, and Reagan and Clinton said what they were against. But the point is one of emphasis. Goldwater and McGovern stressed what they were against, Reagan and Clinton what they were in favor of doing.
Polls show that most Democrats who support John Kerry do so because he's not George Bush. They are about as excited about him as Republicans were about Bob Dole in '96. So far Kerry has mainly spent his time telling us what a great war hero he was and criticizing Bush for various alleged failures. But he has not told us what he would do in, say, Iraq, other than call in the UN. Until he is able to generate true excitement in the Democratic base for him, as well as outline coherent plan of action on everything from economics to Iraq, he's going to have a hard time beating George W Bush.
Posted by Tom at 3:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 18, 2004
But nothing really matters anyway
But nothing really matters anyway because the end of the world is at hand. Global warming will kill us all, according to a movie, "The Day After Tomorrow", that is due to hit theaters May 28. To it's credit, the Washington Post is skeptical, noting that "...the movie is pretty much devoid of basic atmospheric science." But if you're a greenie, why let science get in the way of a good story?
From the Post article, however, it looks like the movie makers may have overplayed their hand. By getting so carried away and ignoring basic science they open themselves up to much ctiticism. My prediction is that when confronted with such criticism they will respond that it's all justified in the name of "raising awareness."
Posted by Tom at 8:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 17, 2004
It looks like we may
It looks like we may have finally found some chemical weapons in Iraq. Specifically,two artillery shells; one a 155mm artillery shell filled with sarin nerve agent, and a second with mustard gas. The latter had been rigged as an IED(improvised explosive device, military-speak for booby trap).
There have been false alarms before, and laboratory analysis is needed as field tests can yield false positives.
The shells are old, pre-1991, and only two have been found so far. Therefore the left will keep up their "Bush Lied" mantra. But it needs to be remembered that .... the 1991 agreement ... Iraq was to give up ALL of their old WMD. They were to first, declare it all and two, destroy it in a verifyable manner. By the latter it was meant that they would either destroy it in the presence of UN inspectors, or, in their absense, provide proof that they had destroyed it. It was this "gap" between what they admitted to having at the end of the Gulf War and what they could prove that they destroyed that was the basis for the invasion last year.
Saddam could plausibly claim that these weapons were simply overlooked. And, after all, between mid 1980's and 1991 they did produce a prodigious quantity of the stuff. And, with a carelessness typical of totalitarian regimes, they did not distinguish between chemical munitions and conventional munitions in their storage depots. That is to say, chemical shells were intersperced with conventional high-explosive shells in storage bunkers.
Either way, look for the left to quickly dismiss this important new find.
Lt Smash has some good analaysis:
Any chemical attack via artillery would have to use several shells over a wide area to be effective. Thus, we can conclude that whoever planted this explosive:
# Didn't know that it was a chemical weapon, or
# Doesn't know how to properly employ such a chemical weapon, or
# Intended to terrorize the Coalition, rather than cause significant damage.
Given that the proven existence of chemical weapons in Saddam's arsenal represents a major propaganda victory for the Coalition, I find the third possibility to be highly unlikely. Of the remaining two possibilities, I'm more inclined to believe that the bombers weren't familiar with the difference between chemical and conventional artillery shells, and assumed they had the latter.
Posted by Tom at 5:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 16, 2004
Glenn Beck's got some good
Glenn Beck's got some good pictures from Iraq worth checking out.
Posted by Tom at 9:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Three Faces of Aljazerra
Let's take a look at the three faces of Aljazerra:
Here is their "Europe and North American Edition" site.
Here is their "English version" site.
And here is their home page in Arabic.
Take a minute and go through each.
Instructive, no?
The Europe and North American version almost makes them look respectable. It's positively western in it's design. . It's actually fairly evenhanded. There's even a section "Who's telling the Truth: Both Sides to Every Story" in which they list the major stories of the day and link to differing opinions. "Let's Talk" that invites readers to send in letters, and then readers can post their comments about the letter. Here you don't need to go far to find the raving lefties, as the response to this letter illustrates.
The "English Version" is much more ideological. They drop the pretense of objectivity and let the anger flow. Here you'll find news stories titled "Israel Commits 'war crimes' in Rafah". Here they make no bones about their opinion of our invasion of Iraq. As with most western lefties these days they make the obligatory statement about "the blatant lies over weapons of mass destruction". Explaining to them that a "lie" is when you knowingly mislead, and that we simply got it (mostly) wrong is not a lie but simply a mistake... oh what's the point.
I searched in vain for a single mention of the brutal murder of Nicholas Berg.
Posted by Tom at 8:34 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
May 14, 2004
It's always useful to get
It's always useful to get a "boots-on-the-ground" perspective. The situation in Najaf has been touch and go over the past few weeks. The battle rages as I write this.
Rather than just storm the city and risk massive civilian casualties, we've pursued a dual policy of graduated military force along with negotiations with Al-Sadr. Recently some of his (remaining) soldiers have taken to marching around the city saying for the cameras that they "defeated" us.
This letter, by Army Spc. Joe Roche has been widely quoted on the Internet and has become a must-read. Money quote:
"I ask that the American people be brave. Don't fall for the spin by the weak and timid amongst you that are portraying this battle as a disaster. Such people are always looking for our failure to justify and rescue their constant pessimism. They are raising false flags of defeat in the press and media. It just isn't true."
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Tom at 7:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 13, 2004
A few weeks after 9/11
A few weeks after 9/11 my church hosted an event designed to inform members as to the tenants of Islam. Two Muslims, husband and wife, spoke to the congregation and answered some questions.
On the question of "Jihad", they were quite emphatic that the word only meant "inner struggle", and did not mean military action or other physican fighting. I didn't buy it at the time and don't now.
I recalled this incident when reading this article posted on the MEMRI website. It's a translation of an article which explains the tenants of Jihad that appeared in an Iranian newspaper recently. Money quote:
"...if they (non-believers) do not embrace Islam and do not decide to become non-Muslims who are not enemies of Islam but decide to make war against the Muslims, then, under such circumstances, we are allowed to wage war against them, as long as we observe all the other rules of Jihad, such as treating prisoners fairly and not attacking civilians. And Islam teaches that genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and terrorism are always haram (forbidden)."
Wish our enemies in Iraq would read this.
Posted by Tom at 11:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin
Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin says that he thinks that Iraq did have the WMD prior to the invasion, and that they're now in the hands of terrorists.
Posted by Tom at 11:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In case you didn't know
In case you didn't know it, John Kerry is a Vietnam veteran. This fact is often cited as a reason to elect him. Suddenly those on the left have decided that being a war veteran is vital in selecting a president.
Hmmm, so we can assume that all those who believe this voted for Bob Dole in '96? And George H.W. Bush in '92? I seem to recall that they ran against a guy with no military experience. Bush and Dole were both World War II combat veterans.
So the next time a Democrat touts Kerry's war record and denegrates W, ask who they voted for in '92 and '96.
Posted by Tom at 10:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Do you oppose Gay marriage?
Do you oppose Gay marriage? If so you're a hater! This according to a new group, "Virginia is for Haters".
Don't you love it, this trend whereby liberals now label anything they disagree with as "hate speech?". In a way it's similar to the "Bush Lied" line. One wonders if those who say these things possess a dictionary. Most people who disagree with gay marriage don't "hate" anyone. Most of us tolerate and accept gays, we just don't believe they have the right of marriage. The Bush administration honestly thought that we would find WMD. That we haven't may mean that they are wrong but to say that they "lied" is to say that they deliberately knew the claim of WMD was false.
Politically, this sort of labeling is stupid. Do they really think that they're going to get what they want with this sort of talk? Sure, they'll fire up the true believers, but the average person is turned off. They lose more than they gain.
Sad that such basic definitions have to be explained but that's the world we live in.
Posted by Tom at 9:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 11, 2004
Bill Sammon writes in today's
Bill Sammon writes in today's Washington Times about the enduring fixation on Vietnam by some people:
"President Bush's top advisers think Democratic opponents and the press have an unhealthy obsession with the Vietnam War that threatens to dominate the re-election campaign against Sen. John Kerry."
No kidding.
This is something that I've meant to write about for some time and now is as good a time as any.
There is a certain group of people who have an almost unhealthy fixation with Vietnam. All new US military ventures must be compared to Vietnam as soon as possible. All wars must be turned into Vietnam as soon as possible. And everything will go the way of Vietnam eventually.
This is so because if you listen to these people long enough you will believe that world history began in 1963 and ended in 1973. They will mention no other conflicts. Their entire knowledge base seems to begin and end in this time period.
In response to this we usually hear three lines of argument. One, it was the formative period in their lives. Two, the WWII generation before them was the same way with that war (everything being compared to Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler). And three, it was such a terrible experience that is good that we make sure we don't repeat it.
As to the first, we all have our formative periods. There is nothing wrong with one period of history being the primary influence in forming ones political philosophy. The problem is when it becomes a fixation, which it has. Read books about other time periods, guys.
No doubt that the "appeasement of Hitler" analogy was used quite a bit in the last half of the 20th century. But I would argue that it was nowhere near the level of today's fixation on Vietnam.
The last defense misses the point. When those of us on the right complain about a "fixation on Vietnam," we're not saying that we shouldn't examine the lessons of that war and try to avoid them next time 'round. If this was all that was happening this column would not have been written.
Let's take a little trip down memory lane. Oh how they cried thatthe 1991 Gulf War would be another Vietnam! Remember the predictions of thousands and thousands of US casualties? About how a battle with the "hardened and experienced" Iraqi army would surely end in stalemate?
Fast forward ten years to Afghanistan. Less than one week into that war we heard the cries of "quagmire!"
Then it was on to Iraq. What is interesting here is that some of the groups that predicted high casualties in this war, like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, famously did so in a 2002 paper (more about which here) because they assumed that Saddam would use chemical weapons. And once again, less than one week into the war we heard the cries of "quagmire"!
Iraq will only become another Vietnam if we let it happen. Factually, there is no comparison between the two.
But it was never about the facts. The fixation on Vietnam is more psychology than history. It's a blindness to any other possibility than that all wars can and will turn into a replica of Vietnam.
Posted by Tom at 12:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 10, 2004
Take the Postmodern language comprehension
Take the Postmodern language comprehension test.
To get a feel for the politics of the people who take this sort of writing seriously, check out David Horowitz' article on the subject
Posted by Tom at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 9, 2004
The Russians are experiencing problems
The Russians are experiencing problems in Chechyna similar to what we're going through in Iraq.
"Nearly every day Russian soldiers are reported killed in attacks by rebels and by rebel-set explosions.
Grozny, the war-ruined Chechen capital, has a huge presence of Russian forces, but they have not been able to purge insurgents from the city."
Not to say that the Russian experience in Chechnya is exactly the same as with us in Iraq. The Russians are far more brutal in their occupation, the recent prison scandal not withstanding. We have gone out of our way to avoid civilian casualties in Iraq and are spending billions on reconstruction. We are attempting to put into place a pluralistic government. And we went to the UN at all points before and during the invasion.
The Russians have done the opposite in each case. While we selectively target enemy forces, the Russians raze the entire city. Reconstruction is not part of their vocabulary. Far from trying to set up an independent government that will represent the will of the people, they are trying to force obedience to Moscow. And far from going to the UN and soliciting international help, they treat the whole thing as an "internal affair".
This said there are erie similarities. The Chechyns are not the innocent victims that some media reports would suggest. Their resistance forces are inundated with terrorists who have been definitively linked to Al-Qaeda. The Chechyns plant bombs and kill civilians in Moscow with some regularity. And try as they might, the Russians can't quite quell the resistance.
Posted by Tom at 11:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 8, 2004
Take the assault weapon test
Take the assault weapon test
Posted by Tom at 4:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 7, 2004
Some silliness from the New
Some silliness from the New Republic, which should know better. Peter Beinart says that Don Rumsfeld should resign over the prisoner abuse scandal. His main allegation is that he did not make training prison guards a priority.
As things stand now Rumsfeld should neither resign nor make any more apologies. There are more than two million men and women serving in the military, either in uniform or as civilians. If the abuses are isolated, as it appears that they are, there is no requirement for those at the top to resign. Only if it is shown that the abuses are widespread, or that Rumsfeld or his immediate aides were informed and did nothing, should resignation be considered. Those in the press making calls for such action at this state are simply irresponsible.
As for apologies, they are necessary and must be made sincerely. One may legitimately debate whether administration officials have offered proper apologies.
Once, however, is enough. Self-flagellation again and again serves no purpose other than to provide Al-Jazeera with news clips. Let's speak the truth; those on the left who call for apology after apology simply want to make the U.S. look bad. They want to discredit us in the eyes of the world so that we will loose our will to continue the fight and will leave Iraq.
Posted by Tom at 10:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
You don't always need a
You don't always need a big city newspaper to get top notch editorials. Read Phil Lucas's latest in the Florida News Herald. Money quote:
"LetÂ’s recap the Crusades. Muslims invaded Europe and when they reached sufficient numbers they imposed their intolerant religion upon Westerners by force. Christian monarchs drove them back and took the battle to their homeland. The fight lasted a couple of centuries, and we bottled them up for 1,000 years.
Now, a millennium later, Muslims have expanded forth again."
Indeed.
How often have you heard this line about Muslims being offended by any use of the word "crusade"? About how they're still suffering humiliation for having been invaded by Christian armies? About how we must understand their sensitivity?
In fact, in the early 1960's the Navy's premier fighter airplane was the F-8 Crusader. Can anyone imagine giving anything the name "Crusader" today?
If anything Mr Lucas doesn't go far enough in his historical review.
In 632 A.D. when Mohammed died, most of theMediterraneann world and Europe was Christian, the rest of Arabia and Persia being pagan or practicing various now-dead religions. When Muslims proceeded to spread their religion, they did so not peacefully, by persuasion or "missionary" work, but by the sword. Muslim/Arab armies quickly conquered much of the region. Within one hundred years they had seized northern Africa and Spain. They even pushed into France, and were only stopped by Charles Martel at the battle of Tours in 732.
There was a running war between Islam and the Christian nations that lasted for the next eight hundred years. The fighting waxed and waned, with each side gaining victories and suffering defeats. Sometimes factions would even make temorary alliances with the other side to gain some advantage in domestic politics. The fighting lasted until the late 17th century, when in 1683 a Turkish/Islamic army marched into Austria and laid siege to Vienna. The European armies defending the city prevailed and the last threat from Islam was averted.
So where do the Crusades fit into all of this? In 1095 Pope Urban made a speach urging Christians to take back the holy lands from "the wicked race." Over the next two hundred years, Christian armies invaded what is today Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine (or the West Bank, if you prefer). There were three major Crusades, or invasions, but in the end the Crusaders were driven from the land and the status quo returned.
The point is that each side invaded the other at various times. Each side tried to destroy the other. The Crusades can be looked at as a defensive war to retake areas once governed by Christian rulers. They can also be looked at as just one more battle in a long war. It is historically ignorant to say that "poor innocent Muslims were invaded by evil Christians."
if modern-day Muslims are going to be "offended" by an event that happened almost a thousand years ago, can't Christians be equally "offended" by the various Muslim invasions of Europe?
Posted by Tom at 9:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
