Doing my duty at PJ today, I also came across Dan Drezner’s post on John McCain’s opening speech at the Brussels Forum. It seems the Arizona Senator buried his lede, adding as an aside that we would probably be dealing with the WoT for the rest of the century.
Whoa…. This century is only six years old. My daughter was born in 1998. If McCain’s right ( and I am afraid he is), that means she will be confronting this horror until she’s roughly a 102. (Talk about getting a dad depressed. ) Kind of puts the ultimate kibosh on Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history,” doesn’t it, not to mention adds a soupcon of skepticism to one’s evaluation of his recent attack on his former neocon friends. The problem for the neocons these days is that everyone seems to be picking on them, although they are the only ones who ever came up with an idea of how to solve this mess in the first place. Right or wrong they’ve made an attempt (had a theory). No one else really has.
Which is why part of me would like to see the Democrats elected in ‘08. If McCain’s correct about the time frame and we are engaged in a reupped Hundred Years War with Islamism, all our political parties (and ones unknown) better be prepared to deal with it. The frivolously hostile Bush bashing persona of a vast portion of the Democratic Party must be replaced by some serious foreign policy thinking. They literally have to grow up and, sometimes, in order to grow up you have to be thrust into the middle of the process, have responsibility.
Ironically, in the midst of writing this brief post, a delivery man appeared at my door with a copy of my pal John Podhoretz’s new book about Hillary – Can She Be Stopped? I picked it up and, like everything John writes, it’s compulsively readable. He makes the case against Hillary as well as anybody could. Still… and I’m sure John would agree with this… no one knows the state of our world next week, let alone the first Tuesday in November 2007. So if Hillary is ultimately the one to swear on the Bible before John Roberts (the nightmare vision in John’s introduction), I sincerely hope she realizes her first and by far most important mission is the preservation of Western Civilization as we know it. I believe and hope for that more than I could possibly care whether she or anyone is a Democrat or a Republican.
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20 Comments
1. David Thomson:ìI sincerely hope she realizes her first and by far most important mission is the preservation of Western Civilization as we know it.î
I would not hold my breath. In Hillary Clintonís heart of hearts—she believes that violently responding to terrorism will only lead to further violence. This is the mindset of the todayís ìmainstreamî Democratic Party. Steven Spielbergís Munich merely echoes their sentiments. Also, marginalizing the Daily Kos types will do little to reverse this sad state of affairs. A quasi-pacifist attitude regrettably dominates the whole national party apparatus. Exceptions like Joseph Lieberman are essentially ignored. He is now on the outside looking in.
This post I wrote only yesterday on this very theme may be of some interest:
http://yargb.blogspot.com/2006/04/daily-kos-is-not-sole-reason-for.html
Apr 29, 2006 - 6:31 pm 2. Terrye:Roger:
It would be nice if the Democrats grew up and stopped with the mindnumbing Bush bashing, but it seems it is all they know.
I am not sure Hillary can win and I am even less sure she will give a damn who wins this war, in fact I doubt she believes there is one.
If Democrats are smart they will tell the Sheehan branch of the party to shut the hell up and nominate someone like Evan Bayh. But I ain’t holdin my breath.
Apr 29, 2006 - 7:08 pm 3. DanM:“Which is why part of me would like to see the Democrats elected in ‘08.” – Roger
Roger, you don’t think that this is a spectator sport do you?
Please forward any good news about the Democratic party’s solutions to the GWoT to me at yogottabekiddinme@rnc.org.
Sorry Roger, I’m not trying to be snarky..or at least, my snarkiness is well-intentioned. Just somewhat confused by your perpetual “maybe they’re okay” attitude about the Democrats. What have they brought to the table in oh, the last 4 years?
Apr 29, 2006 - 7:26 pm 4. Roger:Not much, DanM, I’ll admit it. But let me explain this another way: For all the jumping around in the polls, we have a basically 50-50 red-blue country. At the same time – we’re in a protracted war about the nature of civilization with an enemy almost all of whom believe that God is on their side and they have a higher birth rate than we do. We’ve got to get a substantiallly higher number than 50 percent of our population (which aren’t there are the moment anyway) behind that war in order to win in the long run. Some of those people are almost certainly going to have to be Democrats. Bashing them isn’t going to win them over – reason (for a few anyway) might.
Apr 29, 2006 - 8:27 pm 5. Mescalero:Roger–
Hillary is treading on thin ice here. She must surely know that her scumbag husband is a draft dodging richboy! Add to that the insult of Jamie Gorelick, Richard Clark and Sandy Berger and you have the ultimate case for total contempt against a past “so-called” president of the United States.
Clinton has stated that he should have acted in Rwanda, but he didn’t. He clearly let Osama bin Ladin slip away when the Sudanese government was ready to hand him over to the Americans (thanks to the war criminal John Esposito and others in the State Department). Add to that the unbelievable (and totally inaccurate) insults from Al Gore about American abuse of Saudi citizens immediately after 9/11 — may I ask the unaskable– why should I ever vote for a Democrate for the next thousand years???
Apr 29, 2006 - 9:34 pm 6. Roy Lofquist:Dear Mr. Simon,
This war has been going on for 1,400 years.
As to the 50/50 split:
American politics has a long term two generation cycle – 35 to 50 years, with the exception of the Confederacy which took 100 years to switch from Dem to Rep. The major changes started with the Presidency then to the House and Senate after about 10-20 years. In 2000 about 100 million voted and split 50/50. In 2004 120 million voted. The additional 20 million went Rep by about 60 percent. To me this signals Rep domination for the next 20 years or so.
People, Americans anyway, get their politics from family, friends, church and work in about that order. They generally stick with their first party. When they change parties they only do it once.
The current situation reminds me of 1964. With a martyred President and the country at war there was absolutely zero chance of a Rep winning. The Rep moderates let the Goldwater wing have their nomination and sent them into the wilderness for 16 years. I believe that the DLC is in a similar situation. Let the far left have their shot and shoot themselves.
Regards,
Apr 29, 2006 - 9:47 pm 7. DanM:Roy
Roger,
I think I posted a year or two back – The only thing worse than the Democrats are – no Democrats. It still stands. A one party system is exactly what everyone thinks it would be – a disaster. It doesn’t matter what party, republican or democrat.
My issue with the Democrats is that they only pick low-hanging fruit. The easiest thing they can do to regain power is to snipe at a war-time President. If the Democrats were in power on September 11, 2001, would we see the same political shenanigans by the Republicans? Probably, but the Republican base would have slammed the lid on it. Where is the Democrat base? Kos? DU? Maybe they are not all of their base, but it has become the vocal part, the rallying post for change. John Dean? Another rallying post built on internet money, but by whom? Anyone, in this long war, that you want your child to have to follow? I have 2 children that have to fight that long war, if it comes. Who have the Democrats produced that will kill the enemy before my children are killed? Or yours Roger?
Our hedonistic, secular, liberal baby-boomers believe that there is nothing when they are gone. Please may my generation (baby-boomers) just grow old a bit more gracefully!
Apr 29, 2006 - 9:59 pm 8. george III:The first hurdle we must pass is the November election. If the American people have grown tired of a hundred year war in a mere four years, or they decide to punish Republicans for high gas prices, they will elect a Democratic House of Representatives. There will be a movement toward early (at least 18 months early) withdrawal from Iraq. There will be hearings, investigations and possibly impeachment. The last two years of the Bush Administration, crippled by such nonsense, will see an ascendant Iran edging ever closer to deliverable nuclear weapons. Because radical Islam seems to think that Bush and his father are anomalies and still cling to the demented notion that America will cave in if hit hard enough, they will wait until a new administration is sworn in to visit upon us whatever they have planned. If a Democratic candidate runs on a “peace platform” this will encourage their dementia.
Because the price for our retreat in Southeast Asia was primarily paid by Southeast Asians, far too many Americans believe that running away from a war is morally acceptable, and cannot foresee the devastating consequences that will ensue if we retreat again. It is difficult to see how we might win a struggle of this magnitude unless our pacifist brethren come to understand the grave and growing danger they are in.
Clearly we are in trouble, and it would be of inestimable help to us if the “anti-war” Democrats would wake up. However, the cost of their awakening may be too high to bear. A nuclear Pearl Harbor would not only injure us but would cause irreversible psychological and political damage. Even the Constitution might not survive.
Here is a syllogism:
1. A certain large percentage of the American people will not understand the danger they are in until a nuclear device is detonated in the US.
2. Unless that percentage of the American people understands the danger they are in, a nuclear device will be detonated in the US.
3. Unhappily, the third term is obvious.
How clear must the situation become before unite?
If the price of that clarity is too high we will have lost a great deal.We cannot force the moral children among us to grow up, yet we cannot win a war like this forced to drag them along whining and kicking. Electing them to high office won’t resolve the issue, particularly if they get there by denying the seriousness of the war.
Republican or Democrat in ‘08, an empirical lesson must be learned. It won’t be easy.
Apr 30, 2006 - 2:36 am 9. syn:If a Womyn, as in capital Feminism, were elected President of the United States She will abort all hope, courage and will we have remaining.
This is why as a female I cannot in good conscience elect a collectivist like Hillary Clinton or any other creature created by the destructive generation during the slum decade of the 1970s.
Apr 30, 2006 - 4:02 am 10. Rhod:Neither Republicans nor Democrats can have any grand solution to the problem of Islamic deracination (due to globalization, modernity, whatever) because it isn’t ours to solve. It’s theirs, and the worst of the worst reactions are among the 12 to 15 percent who are Arabs, or who have pan-Arab sentiments. But their religious disease is metatasizing all over the place.
The Persians, too, are behaving in the same way, and asserting their mad imperial ambitions in the Middle East, with an eye to the great elsewhere and the perpetuation of a doomed way of life. We’re the third parties in something that looks to me like a civil war, and we’ll have to kill an awful lot of them until they sort this thing out. A hundred years doesn’t seem like a long time for something like this. They’re not going to win. We are. The only question is the casualty rate, and it will probably include young men dear to me. But that’s what we have to do.
V D Hanson had it right when he noted that the Western way of war, under the right pressures, is worse than the worst Islamic fantasy. Dresden wasn’t an anomaly, it was catharsis.
Apr 30, 2006 - 4:57 am 11. HA:Roger,
Which is why part of me would like to see the Democrats elected in ‘08.
Let’s make this clear. I absolutely loathe the Democrats. Let no man claim a greater loathing unless he would manifest my latent fantasies of mass round-ups, firing squads and lynchings. Let no man question the depth of my Democrat-hating for what I am about to say.
I want the Democrats win control of Congress in ‘06.
I want this not because I believe their policies will be successful at solving the problems we face, but because I believe they will fail. With this country at a 50-50 political impasse, and with no hope of breaking this impasse favorably through reasoned debate in the face of the DNC contolled MSM, we will need to learn through hard experience that Democrat policies cannot win the war on Islamic imperialism.
Unfortunately, I believe things will have to get worse before they can get better. We’ll have to let the Democrats destroy the village beforre we can save it. Hopefully, we’ll get the Democrats out of our system before ‘08.
Apr 30, 2006 - 5:14 am 12. HA:george III,
Your comments are right on. There are 3 ways this war can end:
1. We change them.
2. We destroy them.
3. They destroy us.
One of these three outcomes will happen. Option 1 is what we are trying now. This is the neocon policy. If we quit in Iraq and the neocon policy is discredited, that will leave outcomes 2 and 3.
If the “peace” advocates succeed in getting this nation to quit in Iraq, all they will have accomplished is bringing closer the day when one of the world’s great civilizations will have to destroy the other. To paraphrase Churchill, they will have chosen dishonor and they will get Armageddon.
Apr 30, 2006 - 5:25 am 13. Tim:Roger,
“They literally have to grow up and, sometimes, in order to grow up you have to be thrust into the middle of the process, have responsibility.”
Really? I trust we both care deeply about the nation’s security and western civilization’s survival. And, just to be consistent, this is also your argument for allowing convicted embezzlers to manage trust funds for widows and orphans, or child molesters to run Cub Scout dens, or narcotic-addicted physicians to perform neuro-surgery, or convicted drunk drivers to drive school buses? Surely the nation’s security and the survival of western civilization deserve equal due diligence in avoiding malignant leadership?
“I sincerely hope she realizes her first and by far most important mission is the preservation of Western Civilization as we know it.”
She might, but all the evidence strongly indicates the single most important point propelling the Left, and the base of the Democratic Party, is its absolute disgust with western civilization, especially the American history and expression of western civilization. From its Judeo-Christian foundation to western expansionism and colonialism, capitalism to imperialism, patriarchy, slavery, the industrial revolution and individualism, is there any facet of western civilization that the Left would be willing to fight and die for? Other than socialized medicine and hybrid cars, that is? You might think I’m kidding, but if this was a marriage, the Left would have divorced America and western civilization twenty five years ago. They don’t love America enough to protect it – they want to change it – and since an ardent defense of the nation requires an equally ardent belief in the goodness of the nation, there is no way the Democrats and the Left should be entrusted with its leadership and defense.
To paraphrase an apt quote from P.J. O’Roarke, to do so is akin to tossing a bottle of whisky and car keys to a sixteen year old boy. To some extent you can’t blame the kid for doing what he’ll do, but any responsible adult could foresee the tragic consequences.
Apr 30, 2006 - 9:05 am 14. Ron:Its hard to listen to Senator McCain after what he and the Keating 5 pulled years ago, http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004016.php but it seem he just might have read Oriana Fallaci’s, The Rage and the Pride. It makes me wonder why he isn’t more proactive in securing the borders, why he works with Senator Kennedy, the Senator who more than anyone did away with the Bracero Program that caused the illegal debacle that we have right now. Hey Senator, we have 13 million illegals marching with Islamists, read the book about the 5th column during the Spanish Civil War, we have a potential army right now with in our borders and your not to bothered, why is that?
Apr 30, 2006 - 9:19 am 15. AlanC:John McCain is one of the most dangerous people in politics today. He is a tyrant in waiting who believes that the rules don’t apply to him, see the Keating 5.
Now he announces that our most cherished liberties are fodder for his crusade.
Quote from McCain’s appearance on Imus (my bold)….
“He [Michael Graham] also mentioned my abridgement of First Amendment rights, i.e. talking about campaign finance reform….I know that money corrupts….I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I‚Äôd rather have the clean government.”
This man should be imprisoned not elected.
Apr 30, 2006 - 10:21 am 16. flicka47:The problem with the Democrats “base” is that it is so far left that anyone not that far gone ends up ostracized.
That is also why there is currently such a wide gulf of opinion on the Republican side.
Deep down,I think that the American public will not be able to trust the Democratic base.
Apr 30, 2006 - 8:25 pm 17. greeneyeshade:Somebody, I think posting a comment on Instapundit, quoted a novel predicting that Hillary Clinton would turn out to be “the most ruthless wartime president in American history.”
Apr 30, 2006 - 11:35 pm 18. dclydew:If I could be sure that was true, she’d have the inside track to my vote.
I have only one problem with your post, Roger.
they are the only ones who ever came up with an idea of how to solve this mess in the first place. Right or wrong they’ve made an attempt (had a theory).
It’s great to come up with a theory to deal with an issue. However, in a democracy, we have the ability to get our theory vetted by other people, who may see things we miss. A good scientist shouldn’t act on a theory without some proof, evidence or at least correlated observations. Einstein didn’t come up with E=mc2 and spend the next week in the garage building WMD’s.
The neo-con plan might have a great theory behind it. However, it may be that we will never find out if that theory could work… because they’ve completely FUBAR’d the implementation. Our War on Terror has provided us with two wars in areas that still aren’t stable outside of occupied zones. We have soilders getting shot at, citizens getting killed, a potential, or existing civil war (depending on who’s spin you listen to) and lots of money that appears to be going straight down the toilet. The neo-con plan seems to have been hijacked by carelessness. Making falsifiable claims about WMD’s, Yellowcake, Mobile Bio-Weapons Labs, seems a bad way to start. Making ‘new’ decisions about how to go to war (few troops as opposed to the Powell Doctrine), probably shouldn’t be tried during the initial millitary actions of a century long war. The Neo-Cons may have a Great Theory… but, it appears to me that they’ve failed to usefully communicate that theory, they’ve failed to take critisisms of that theory and they seem to have made some serious errors in the implementation of that theory.
Anyone can come up with a theory… thats no big achievement. It’s the implementation of the theory providing predictable results, which gets you the Nobel Prize.
May 1, 2006 - 6:40 am 19. klrfz1:dclydew,
Your implied “Bush lied” claim has already been falsified, numerous times. Yet that repeated falsification has had no effect on your opinion. Your implementation of posting a comment to this blog has failed.
Why don’t you apply the same high standards to yourself as you do to neo-cons? Why don’t you put forth a falsifiable claim including an actual quote and a link to the source?
The Iraq war has been a success. Saddam is on trial and Iraq is an emerging democracy. Do you need me to supply you with links to support these “falsifiable claims”? The only way the Iraq war can be turned into a failure is for the U.S. to withdraw it’s troops prematurely (opinion). Is that what you want?
I thought it was unethical for you scientists to perform experiments on humans without their prior consent. Maybe your new metaphor of neo-cons as failed scientists is inapt. INAPT!
May 1, 2006 - 7:44 am 20. klrfz1:By the way, the word falsifiable has a different meaning than the word falsified. Right?
May 1, 2006 - 7:49 am