Saturday, November 04, 2006

Maybe just stick to military history?

Victor Davis Hanson, an intelligent, often thoughtful voice against backing down to terrorism and the meekness of our foreign allies in Europe seems to have lost his mind in his latest article in National Review.

A few snippets:
"... never how many terrorists we have killed" [Oh no? Try here, here or here, for starters]

Among his reasons to defend the war:
"Yes, the Middle East is “unstable,” but for the first time in memory, the usual killing, genocide, and terrorism are occurring in a scenario that offers some chance at something better. Long before we arrived in Iraq, the Assads were murdering thousands in Hama, the Husseins were gassing Kurds, and the Lebanese militias were murdering civilians." [What are we supposed to read into here, that since they were getting killed, why should it matter if we're now responsible for some of the killing? What kind of moral justification is that?]

"Blame is never allotted to al Qaeda[Really?], the Sadr thugs, [No?] or the ex-Baathists[You sure?], only to the United States, who should have, could have, or would have done better in stopping them, had its leadership read a particular article, fired a certain person, listened to an exceptional general, or studied a key position paper." [Or maybe just done its homework]

"The Reaganism that rejected Cold War realpolitik and risked brinkmanship to bring down a rotten and murderous Soviet Empire was considered both the wiser and more ethical stance, as even Democrats reformulated their opportunistic criticism after the fall of the Berlin Wall." [Did Reagan invade Russia?]

"The U.S. Senate and House voted for war in Iraq, not merely because they were deluded about the shared intelligence reports on WMD (though deluded they surely were), but also because of the 22 legitimate casus belli they added just in case. And despite the recent meae culpae, those charges remain as valid today as they were when they were approved: Saddam did try to kill a former American president; the U.N. embargo was violated, as were its inspection protocols [The same U.N. that everyone bashes?]; the 1991 accords were often ignored [Like Israel?]; the genocide of brave Kurds did happen [Like Christians in Darfur are being killed, Tibetans, Colombians]; suicide bombers were being given bounties [How many other regimes also apply?]; terrorists, including those involved into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, were given sanctuary by Saddam[We give sanctuary to at least this one criminal]; and on and on."

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