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On the eve of the Iraq election, the Times treated us to a riveting columnar collaboration: 'We need to fix an exit timetable, say Robin Cook, Douglas Hurd and Menzies Campbell' — in perfect harmony. To modify Churchill, defeat may be an orphan, but defeatism has many fathers, and these three were in tripartisan agreement about what a disaster Iraq had been.
You'd have got a better idea of how election day was likely to proceed from that week's Speccie, which blared across its cover 'Iraq — the unreported triumph: Mark Steyn says that things are going Bush's way' — though I got the vague feeling the editors intended the headline parodically and were setting Humpty Steyny up for a helluva fall. One of the unsettling aspects of the post-9/11 world is that, while my columns in US newspapers merely have to heap scorn and derision upon Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Michael Moore and Barbra Streisand, in the United Kingdom I find myself principally in disagreement with Lord Hurd, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Sir Max Hastings, Sir Simon Jenkins, Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, Mr Matthew Parris and (according to what side of bed he's gotten out of) Mr Michael Howard. Even The Spectator most weeks. This crowd are all supposedly, to one degree or another, conservatives. So am I. Clearly, one of us has got the wrong end of the stick.
The obvious difference between my kind of conservatives and, say, Sir Peregrine's is that mine are in power and his aren't, a distinction likely to endure for the foreseeable future. To be sure, there are prominent American conservatives who are a little queasy about Bush's plan to liberate the entire world whether it wants it or not, and several of the colossi from the first Bush administration had misgivings about the whole Iraq business from the get-go. My colleague Taki even founded a magazine for anti-war right-wingers, The American Conservative — though it seems somewhat short of either, dependent as it is on contributors Canadian (the veteran Toronto Sun doom-monger Eric Margolis) and British (our own Stuart Reid) plus a few fringe isolationist libertarians to make up the native numbers.
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Posted by: tipper ||
02/11/2005 10:51:02 AM ||
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Steyn kicks ass with size 16 steel toed wuppin' boots.
Posted by: ed ||
02/11/2005 11:42 Comments ||
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Article: Lord Hurd evidently thinks ânation-buildingâ is utopian hooey. Maybe it is. But one reason the region is in the mess itâs in is that, in 1922, fag-end British imperialism was too fainthearted to inculcate British ânation-buildingâ values (as in India) but still arrogant enough to complicate their politics, impose weak outside emirs as their kings, elevate minority groups into the ruling class â and then scram.
I think the biggest mistake had nothing to do with elevating minority groups into the ruling class - it had to do with putting nationalities in single countries that had been fighting each other for thousands of years. This gave the largest groups an empire they hadn't earned, and expropriated the minority groups of the lands their ancestors had owned long before the British ever showed up. The biggest problem wasn't imperialism, where the British ruled quite competently, but the dissolution of empire, which subjected the minorities to tyranny, expropriation and slaughter.
#3
was too fainthearted to inculcate British ânation-buildingâ values (as in India)
and South Africa, where they stayed long enough to give it its advantage over the rest of Africa.
Unfortunately the Rhodesias, similarly endowed, decided to dispense with their inheritance.
This all happened when the Iron Curtain divided Europe — and the world — into opposing camps. Western diplomats had their countries' economic interests to consider, but, unlike the Soviet side, they took seriously the idea of "dissidents or trade." I cannot recall any occasion at that time when the West or any of its organizations (NATO, the European Community, etc.) issued some public appeal, recommendation, or edict stating that some specific group of independently-minded people — however defined — were not to be invited to diplomatic parties, celebrations, or receptions.
Try to imagine what will happen: at each European embassy, someone will be appointed to screen the list, name by name, and assess whether and to what extent the persons in question behave freely or speak out freely in public, to what extent they criticize the regime, or even whether they are former political prisoners. Lists will be shortened and deletions made, and this will frequently entail eliminating even good personal friends of the diplomats in charge of the screening, people whom they have given various forms of intellectual, political, or material assistance. It will be even worse if the EU countries try to mask their screening activities by inviting only diplomats to embassy celebrations in Cuba.
(2005-02-10) -- In a celebration of free speech inspired by a University of Colorado professor who compared America's 9/11 victims to Nazis, an ad hoc consortium of business leaders announced today that it would fund an endowed professorship in honor of Professor Ward Churchill.
The business group, Little Eichmanns for Free Speech, said it "rejoices in Mr. Churchill's efforts to open a fresh dialogue between America's businesspeople and the academics whose important work is funded by the overflow of our insatiable greed."
The group said it would donate a "substantial sum" to create an endowment with the condition that "Mr. Churchill be appointed as the Little Goebbels Professor of Ethics, in recognition of his efforts to establish the reputation of businesspeople in a fashion reminiscent of what Joseph Goebbels did for the Jews."
Under the terms of endowment, university news releases about Mr. Churchill's research and public speaking must always identify him with the phrase "the Little Goebbels Professor of Ethics."
A spokesman for the university's board of regents said it "welcomes expressions of free speech, especially when they're written in the memo field of a personal check."
Posted by: Korora ||
02/11/2005 12:03:27 AM ||
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It's not just his Goebbels that are little, I suspect.
(2005-02-11) -- Even as embattled CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan announced his 'resignation' tonight, the ad hoc consortium of unedited writers known as the blogosphere met online to discuss which journalist should be the next to fall.
Still riding high from its role in the 'memogate' firings at CBS and the demise of two editors at the New York Times, the blogosphere took less than two weeks to turn rumors from Davos, Switzerland, into a pink slip for the 23-year veteran of CNN.
In a brief statement just after the networks' Friday evening newscasts, Mr. Jordan condemned the "targeting of journalists by bloggers."
However, some bloggers contend they have not gone far enough in their attacks on the mainstream media.
"So far, we've just weighted [sic] for some one [sic] to say or do something stupid before we ride them [sic] like a coal car into the ground," wrote one unnamed blogger. "But now it's time to get proactive. We're going to pick the next soon-to-be-former journalist and then force him into some career-ending vortex of deception and denial."
When asked about the threat, Mr. Jordan simply shook his head and muttered, "Hubris. Hubris."
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
02/11/2005 9:40:58 PM ||
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Many years after the Vietnam War, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the North Vietnamese military commander, wrote, "if it were not for the disunity created byâŠstateside protest, Hanoi would have ultimately surrendered." Former North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin explained, "Through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win." With the help of certain journalists who couldn't tell the difference between victory and defeat on the battlefield, the communists prevailed. While antiwar activists were spitting in the face of our returning troops, the people of South Vietnam were being slaughtered by the thousands.
Militant Islamists understand recent American history, and they understand that the only way to defeat America is to turn her against herself. Although President Bush handily won reelection, the defeatists have decided to continue their apoplectic campaign. Formerly known as liberals or progressives, the defeatists apparently prefer the status quo of despotic power over the prospect of liberty.
On the eve of Iraq's first democratic election since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Senator Edward Kennedy stated, "We must recognize what a large and growing number of Iraqis now believe. The war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation.âŠThe U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution." Not to be outdone by the senator, Rep. Lynn Woosley (D-CA) sponsored a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Although this pathetic piece of legislation will never see the light of day, the timing was remarkable, as millions of Iraqis risked life and limb to participate in voting, a watershed moment in history. It's a right that Woosley and other liberal lemmings have taken for granted since birth. The ever-prescient Woosley explained to those of us less familiar with warfare tactics that, "The insurgency will slow down as soon as they don't have the U.S. military as their target." But leaving Iraq now would assuredly create a power vacuum, and some dangerous people would be willing to fill it. Iraq's interim President Ghazi al-Yawar doesn't seem to agree with the American defeatists, stating that it would be "complete nonsense for them to leave in this chaos." Premature military withdrawal would embolden terrorists around the world because America would be seen as weak. Somewhere, General Giap is smiling.
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Posted by: tipper ||
02/11/2005 9:50:29 AM ||
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I dunno, it seems to me that the one big factor that did in the Vietnam War was LBJ's unwillingness to use whatever force was necessary to win, resulting in a drawn out conflict. Take too long a time to do something, and people WILL begin to question the wisdom of the task.
#2
Vietnam was pretty much lost when Kennedy supported the coup that removed Diem and thus cost us the support of the majority of the population of South Vietnam in 1963 and made it very easy to spin us as imperialists taking power.
Yeah we still could have won after that point, but it was a serious up hill battle.
#3
We pretty much won the military conflict. The Vietnamese were able to turn away a N.Vietnamese invasion shortly after we had pulled the vast bulk of our troops out. Air support and some combat teams were reinserted to help, but the bulk of the fighting was done by RVN forces. Then the Democrats in Congress cut any sigificant funding to the S.Vietnamese government, severing their resupply. The next invasion, in direct violation of the Paris Treaty, was successful thanks to Bela Abzug D-NY and company.
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Let's not forget the nearly 3 million Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Loatian dead after congress cut off military aid. Thanks John Kerry and fellow travelers.
Posted by: ed ||
02/11/2005 12:06 Comments ||
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Ebbavith, you are talking about the Easter Offensive in which South Vietnam (with US air support whooped ass). My point is it could have been won long before that at an easier cost if we didn't chop out the leges beneath the political side of things.
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Frontpagemag links to Lynne Stewart testimony that shows her sympathy for terrorism against the US"
Last November, she told the court under oath that America embodied an âentrenched ferocious type of capitalismâ that âperpetuates sexism and racism; I don't think [its destruction] can come non-violently.â âI'm talking about a popular revolution,â she said. âI'm talking about institutions being changed and that will not be changed without violence.â
Iowahaw gives ScrappleFace some serious competition.
Posted by: Korora ||
02/11/2005 12:04:54 AM ||
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Not to worry! As long as the Democrats have Jesse Jackson, Pelosi, Sharpton and those guys they ran for President, there is plenty of grist for the satire mills.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
(2005-02-11) -- Even as embattled CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan announced his 'resignation' tonight, the ad hoc consortium of unedited writers known as the blogosphere met online to discuss which journalist should be the next to fall.
