PACIFISM'S MORAL PREENING

Quote of the day, from Thomas Sowell:

It is staggering that anyone could be so self-infatuated as to single out their own particular policy preferences as "anti-war." Anyone who is not a sadist or an idiot is anti-war. The only serious issue is how best to limit, deter or conclude war. But responsibility for confronting this issue is evaded by those preoccupied with the moral preening of being "anti-war."

In response to a Sowell column a few months ago, I wrote the following:

Many people have forgotten that one of the most well-known pacifists of all time--Gandhi--proposed that nothing should have been done about the holocaust or the Nazis. How many of his admirers have considered what the consequences would have been if the world had followed Gandhi's lead? How many millions more people would have died? How many today would live under the boot of the Nazi philosophy?

Antiwar protestors always make a point of questioning what war is good for? You have heard them chanting this query at almost every one of their peace marches. The truth is that no sane person wants war, but it may be the only possible response to evil. And in human history, there have been many evils far worse than war.

As Sowell mentions, there has been more attention paid to cease-fires; treaties; and prevention of war in the middle east than anywhere else on earth. The result has been the continued enabling and appeasement of an intolerable evil that thrives on hatred and that has grown strong and sure of its holy mission to kill.

If the peace movement really were a peace movement, its members would be denouncing the true threats to peace and trying their damndest to disarm and neutralize the likes of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. etc. Instead, they champion these groups, demand cease-fires with them (never acknowledging that there is no way to hold them to account when they break the ceasefire, as they inevitably do) and say little about their standard operational policies that deliberately target the innocent. But our brave peace activists march in solidarity with these foul groups; and proudly wear the latest "hate couture", thinking it shows how tolerant and compassionate and virtuous they are; not even appreciating that it serves instead to demonstrate the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their pacifist ideology.

In today's world, where evil knows it can get away with practically any horror; that there will always be a large cadre of dupes who are willing to rationalize, excuse, or minimize any atrocity; the only thing pacifism is good for is to enable and support evil.

War is a always a terrible choice. No reasonable person could believe that it is benign or intrinsically "good" to wage war. Yet, it is sometimes a choice that reasonable people need to make simply because evil exists in the world and it cannot go unchecked--that is, not if you truly care about innocent human life.

Pacifists cannot deal with this simple truth. In reality, they don't care much about human suffering, misery or even death; let alone the legacy of evil in the world. Through a variety of psychological defenses, they have managed to deny, displace, distort, and project real evil away. There cannot be found even a trace of psychological insight among all those angry marchers who violently and adamantly demand peace at any price.

For the carefree members of the antiwar movement, the triumph of evil is unimportant when compared to their own narcissistic need to appear virtuous and good--their own moral preening.

Pacifism--what is it good for? It protects the user from having to make difficult moral choices in the real world; from having to deal with real human suffering in the here and now; and most importantly, from recognizing how meaningless their own lives are.

The track record of pacifism is horrendous. Not only do "peace movements" fail to bring peace; but by protecting, appeasing, and minimizing true evil, they ensure that war--when it inevitably comes--costs even more in terms of human suffering and lives.

PACIFISM--WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

Thomas Sowell today writes about pacifists versus peace, and has this to say::

One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.

"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements -- that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.

Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.
[...]
There was a time when it would have been suicidal to threaten, much less attack, a nation with much stronger military power because one of the dangers to the attacker would be the prospect of being annihilated.

"World opinion," the U.N. and "peace movements" have eliminated that deterrent. An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.

That has been a formula for never-ending attacks on Israel in the Middle East. The disastrous track record of that approach extends to other times and places -- but who looks at track records?

Many people have forgotten that one of the most well-known pacifists of all time--Gandhi--proposed that nothing should have been done about the holocaust or the Nazis. How many of his admirers have considered what the consequences would have been if the world had followed Gandhi's lead? How many millions more people would have died? How many today would live under the boot of the Nazi philosophy?

Antiwar protestors always make a point of questioning what war is good for? You have heard them chanting this query at almost every one of their peace marches. The truth is that no sane person wants war, but it may be the only possible response to evil. And in human history, there have been many evils far worse than war.

As Sowell mentions, there has been more attention paid to cease-fires; treaties; and prevention of war in the middle east than anywhere else on earth. The result has been the continued enabling and appeasement of an intolerable evil that thrives on hatred and that has grown strong and sure of its holy mission to kill.

John Bolton our UN Ambassador recently remarked:

I think we could have a cessation of hostilities immediately if Hezbollah would stop terrorizing innocent civilians and give up the kidnapped Israeli soldiers. So that to the extent this crisis continues, the cause is Hezbollah. How you get a ceasefire between one entity, which is a government of a democratically elected state on the one hand, and another entity on the other which is a terrorist gang, no one has yet explained.
[...]
How do you hold a terrorist group accountable? Who runs the terrorist group? Who makes the commitment that a terrorist group will abide by a ceasefire? What does a terrorist group think a ceasefire is? These are - you can use the words “cessation of hostilities” or “truce” or "ceasefire.” Nobody has yet explained how a terrorist group and a democratic state come to a mutual ceasefire.

If the peace movement really were a peace movement, its members would be denouncing the true threats to peace and trying their damndest to disarm and neutralize the likes of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. etc. Instead, they champion these groups, demand cease-fires with them (never acknowledging that there is no way to hold them to account when they break the ceasefire, as they inevitably do) and say little about their standard operational policies that deliberately target the innocent. But our brave peace activists march in solidarity with these foul groups; and proudly wear the latest "hate couture", thinking it shows how tolerant and compassionate and virtuous they are; not even appreciating that it serves instead to demonstrate the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their pacifist ideology.

In today's world, where evil knows it can get away with practically any horror; that there will always be a large cadre of dupes who are willing to rationalize, excuse, or minimize any atrocity; the only thing pacifism is good for is to enable and support evil.

War is a always a terrible choice. No reasonable person could believe that it is benign or intrinsically "good" to wage war. Yet, it is sometimes a choice that reasonable people need to make simply because evil exists in the world and it cannot go unchecked--that is, not if you truly care about innocent human life.

Pacifists cannot deal with this simple truth. In reality, they don't care much about human suffering, misery or even death; let alone the legacy of evil in the world. Through a variety of psychological defenses, they have managed to deny, displace, distort, and project real evil away. There cannot be found even a trace of psychological insight among all those angry marchers who violently and adamantly demand peace at any price.

For the carefree members of the antiwar movement, the triumph of evil is unimportant when compared to their own narcissistic need to appear virtuous and good.

Pacifism--what is it good for? It protects the user from having to make difficult moral choices in the real world; from having to deal with real human suffering in the here and now; and most importantly, from recognizing how meaningless their own lives are.

The track record of pacifism is horrendous. Not only do "peace movements" fail to bring peace; but by protecting, appeasing, and minimizing true evil, they ensure that war--when it inevitably comes--costs even more in terms of human suffering and lives.

DEPRAVED THOUGHTS, SAVING SOULS, AND TERRORIST BEHAVIOR

Wretchard discusses the Problem of Evil in the context of Tom Fox's murder by terrorists:

The question that always bothered me was whether that person -- or any man -- had any right to expect someone else to do the dirty job for him. Can we ever simultaneously acknowledge the necessity of a deed and the absolute immorality of doing it? That in a nutshell is the Problem of Evil: that evil exists and that by and by we will have to face it. The question Tom Fox should have posed is "how do you stand firm against a car-bomber headed straight for a schoolbus?" And if you say, "shoot to save the children" ask yourself if it ever justified to be glad that God had sent someone else to shoot the bomber and go hell in your stead. Tom Fox stood for his beliefs to the bitter end. And now the men who killed him are out there, waiting to kill again.

This has always been the issue I have toward pacifism and pacifists. In an earlier post, I wrote:

I, too, feel a profound weariness at the rationalizations of Gandhi--and all others whose rigidity on this subject make them aid and abet tyranny and human misery. They think they hold to their principle of pacifism because they are compassionate and caring human beings. But the results of pacifism say something different.

Gandhi was a good man, but when it came to the holocaust, he proposed that nothing should have been done. If we had followed his lead, how many millions more people would have died? How many today would live under the boot of the Nazi philosophy?

War is a terrible choice. No reasonable person could believe that it is benign or intrinsically "good" to wage war. Yet, it is sometimes a choice that reasonable people need to make simply because there is evil in the world and it cannot go unchecked--not if you truly care about other human beings.

Pacifists cannot deal with this simple truth, or having accepted it, believe that the triumph of evil is unimportant compared to keeping faith with their own peculiar fantasy of the world.

The tragedy and irony of Mr. Fox's death at the hands of terrorists is, in my mind anyway, overridden by the tragic and misguided mentality that sees no moral difference between people who deliberately commit unspeakable evil and those whose role is to protect innocents from unspeakable evil.

Wretchard quotes Mr. Fox as saying about his reasons for going to Iraq:

We are here to stand with those being dehumanized by oppressors and stand firm against that dehumanization. We are here to stop people, including ourselves, from dehumanizing any of God's children, no matter how much they dehumanize their own souls.

Mr. Fox went to Iraq in order to stop people from having dehumanizing thoughts. His death would have more meaning if he and his organization were committed to stopping the dehumanizing behavior. Personally, I don't care much what other people think or believe. What matters to me is how they behave toward me and toward others. I allow them the freedom of their thoughts, no matter how depraved; but an important line is crossed when they act on those depraved thoughts and believe they have the right to harm or oppress others.

But then, I don't want to mess around that much with their thoughts (unless they ask me to help them; which would presume some insight on their part); nor do I want to save their souls particularly (I figure their immortal soul is their own business). I want to stop them from killing people.

Mr. Fox and his organization would perhaps like to control and/or change people's thoughts for really really good motives; and he apparently believed deeply that to do so would help to save their souls. It is truly ironic he did not seem to appreciate that his heartfelt desire was not too dissimilar--though perhaps more passive--to the desires and motivations of the people who murdered him.

It is that flaw in thinking that enabled Mr. Fox's death and underscores its fundamental meaninglessness. It is that flaw in thinking that will continue to enable the murderous fanatics who killed him; and which will lead to the deaths of many other souls.

Michelle Malkin has much more on the story.

UPDATE: In response to several annoyed people in emails who ask me what is wrong with wanting to change a person's thinking, my response is simple: nothing is wrong with it. But, their question sort of reminds me of the old joke: "How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one. But the lightbulb has to really want to change."

I would have to say that it seems to me that even before you work to change a person's mind, you must control their violent and malevolent behavior. If you cannot control it; then you must denounce it in the most unequivocal terms. If it is possible to reach them on an intellectual level -- then you denounce their underlying ideology and present your arguments as forcefully and logically as possible, as we recently observed this person doing.

Sometimes,this is all you can do.

What you should not do is to make excuses for evil. What you should not do is to compromise with it. What is completely outrageous and morally indefensible is this statement made by Fox's organization explaining his death at the hands of conscienceless, murderous thugs:

"We believe that the root cause of the abduction of our colleagues is the U.S.- and British-led invasion and occupation of Iraq."

In my professional opinion, the people who could write such a perverted statement desperately need to have their heads examined and obtain professional help. They themselves are the "root cause"--the enablers and apologists extraordinaire--who permit and encourage evil to flourish in today's world.

One person like Wafa Sultan does more to further the cause of peace, justice, and human dignity than do legions of these so-called "peace" activists.

Pacifists and the Triumph of Evil

Neo-neocon has started a fascinating series of posts on pacifism. In this first one, she discusses Gandhi's response to the holocaust:

When I read this passage of Gandhi's, I experience a profound weariness. I have long felt that religions focusing on the transient nature of life on earth and emphasizing instead the glory of the world to come, although giving much comfort and joy to their adherents, run the risk of exhibiting just this sort of thing: a callous disregard of suffering in the here and now (not that they inevitably fall into that trap, of course).

Here Gandhi, with what I believe were the best intentions, does just that. He is casually suggesting the Jews use his method of satyagraha (which he developed and honed against the far milder British) against the Nazis, an example of an attitude that can at best be called naive, and at worst, fatally flawed.

I, too, feel a profound weariness at the rationalizations of Gandhi--and all others whose rigidity on this subject make them aid and abet tyranny and human misery. They think they hold to their principle of pacifism because they are compassionate and caring human beings. But the results of pacifism say something different.

Ralph Peters, in commenting about our recent crop of pseudopacifists (I say "pseudo" because I don't believe for a moment that they are against war--only against the U.S. waging war to defend its interests) has this to say:

A popular theme last weekend was, "War, what is it good for?" Well, the answer is that war's good for plenty of things. It freed and forged our nation. War liberated millions of black Americans from bondage. War stopped Hitler, if too late for many millions of his victims (peace at any price tends to have a very high price, indeed).

And our troops liberated 50 million human beings in Afghanistan and Iraq — who are far more grateful than the protesters or our media will accept.

In this infernally troubled world, war is sometimes the only effective response to greater evils. And there is evil on this earth. It would also be easier to sympathize with the anti-war protesters if they occasionally criticized the terrorists who bomb the innocent.

But the protesters don't really care about Iraqi suffering, or terror, or the Taliban's legacy. They're a forlorn mix of Bush-haters who reject election results that they don't like and drifting souls yearning for a cause to lend their failed lives meaning.

As for the pathetic Ms. Sheehan, since she insists on speaking in the name of our troops, let me suggest that she does not even speak for her own son, a man who joined our military of his own volition and who died for a cause far greater than any represented on the National Mall last weekend.

I must return to the quote I keep on my sidebar that is attributed to Edmund Burke: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Gandhi was a good man, but when it came to the holocaust, he proposed that nothing should have been done. If we had followed his lead, how many millions more people would have died? How many today would live under the boot of the Nazi philosophy?

War is a terrible choice. No reasonable person could believe that it is benign or intrinsically "good" to wage war. Yet, it is sometimes a choice that reasonable people need to make simply because there is evil in the world and it cannot go unchecked--not if you truly care about other human beings.

Pacifists cannot deal with this simple truth, or having accepted it, believe that the triumph of evil is unimportant compared to keeping faith with their own peculiar fantasy of the world.

Some Explaining To Do

Jimmy Carter went off the deep end some time ago, but his latest op-ed piece suggests that he is still sinking into what must be a bottomless hole.

Fortunately McQ at QandO takes the time to discuss the current departure from reason, so I don't have to.

You have to wonder though, what in heaven's name is wrong with this man? He exemplifies in many ways a decent and caring human being. He believes in God and in right and wrong. And yet, he never misses an opportunity to support and excuse dictators, tyrants, and totalitarian regimes wherever he can find them.

He says he stands for peace, but the policies he advocates make war more likely--by appeasing and actively enabling of those for whom war is a way of life.

He has even been quoted as saying that he didn't think the American Revolution was a necessary war and that our "disagreements" with the British Crown could have been handled in a peaceful manner.

Jimmy Carter is a very very dangerous human being. He is the very worse sort of pacifist; the kind that gives people who truly desire peace an extremely bad taste in their mouth. Because the foundation of his pacifism is a determined and incalculably cruel passivity and tolerance toward genuine evil in all its manifestations.

His is that deluded brand of pacifism that not only does not actually advance the cause of peace; but encourages, advocates, and even legitimizes the very leaders and thugs who are responsible for the oppression and enslavemust of millions of people all around the globe.

It was people like Jimmy Carter who tried to prevent America's entry into WWII; and people like Jimmy Carter who blindly trusted and closed their eyes to the horrors of the Soviet "experiment", and gave the Soviet Union carte blanche to enslave a large portion of the world under a communist yoke. It was people like Jimmy Carter who were willing to believe that utopia was just around the corner then--just before millions died under Stalin and Lenin and the soul was crushed out of a people; and it is people like Jimmy Carter who today foolishly and naiively will believe anything said by any two-bit psychopathic despot anywhere in the world; but steadfastly refuse to believe that America's democratically-elected president might be telling the truth.

It is as if the Jimmy Carters of the world instinctively are attracted to and support with every fiber of their being, those nations, individuals, and policies which interestingly, in reality, represent the exact opposite of the values they are so vocally espouse (you know, things like Peace, Freedom, Human Dignity, Democracy...)

Well, I shouldn't be surprised. I see people all the time who do this sort of thing and manage to screw up their personal lives quite nicely. Without insight or self-awareness; without a willingness to take personal responsibility, or expect it of others; without the integrity to act in the real world to support what you believe--instead of adhering to some absolute ideal world that doesn't exist--you can expect little else but chaos and disaster in your sad, difficult life.

But when this level of cluelessness and passive malevolence is exhibited by prominent ex-presidents; as well as the leaders of a major political party and its hysterical minions--well, its potential destructiveness to the entire nation is enormous.

Someday, Jimmy Carter will meet his Maker, and he will have some serious 'splainin' to do.

UPDATE: Kobayashi Maru has more on the sincerely misguided Carter.

The Axis of Cluelessness

I thought this was an interesting interview by Hugh Hewitt with Victor Davis Hanson on Radioblogger. Here is an excerpt:

HH: Professor Hanson, you talked about the left in the article at National Review.com today. Our first hindrance is moral equivalence. Our second shackle is utopian pacifism. The third restraint is multiculturalism. The question, and it's a very serious question, is can the left be rescued from these three chains?

VDH: I don't know. It was rescued before in the 50's, remember. There was a strain, the Henry Wallace Party. And a group of concerned, sophisticated Democrats decided that was not where to go, and got tough on the Soviet Union, were the architects of the Cold War, and produced people like Scoop Jackson, Harry Truman, JFK. And then Vietnam started that detour again, and we haven't really gone back yet. We've tried to, a little bit sometimes with Bill Clinton's middle course. But I think what's happened is they've come very close...they won the popular election in 2000. They came within three or four points in the last election. But they have no political power, in the sense of no majority in the House, none in the Senate, no presidency, no Supreme Court, no majority of state legislatures or governors. And that creates a frustration. And rather than to do the hard work of laying out an agenda, that would give the American people a clear-cut choice, they just look for an Abu Ghraib scandal, a Koran flushed at Guantanamo, a Karl Rove, any little scandal they think that can get them in power on the cheap. And it's not going to work. Not in a time of war.

Hanson discusses a number of things, but particularly what is needed to win the war. He is absolutely correct about the current strategy of the Democratic Party--a strategy that is unconcerned with this war, and which in fact is tied up in the three chains that Hewitt queries Hanson about: moral equivalence,, utopian pacifism, and multiculturalism.
Let's just call the three together the "axis of cluelessness". All three styles of "thinking" are actually representative of an ideology that provides a shortcut to doing the hard work of living: rational thinking and making judgements about the real world. Two crucial faculties that are necessary for human survival.

It is one thing to say, "live and let live" -- which is the essence of tolerance. It is quite another to say that we are no better than the people trying to kill us because we choose to defend ourselves. That their culture is just as good as ours; and that peace is worth any price (except fighting for it). That is sheer idiocy. That is utter cluelessness. That is suicidal.

That is what is being embraced by the Democratic Party and most of the Left today.

Noone seems to wonder --if these three psychological strategies have any merit or truth in them at all--then why do their proponents (1) give priority to all cultures-- except for Western culture (which is inherently inferior to any primitive culture on the face of the planet according to the Left); (2) perceive worth and give understanding to all actions no matter how misguided or in error--except our own actions; and (3) strive for "peace" by being behaving violently?

Until we can confront the very real danger that these three convenient and easy thought shortcuts present to rational thought, then we cannot possibly achieve a victory over the forces that threaten Western Civilization.

We won't even be allowed to name them.

PEACE LIKE A RIVER, i.e., DENIAL RIVER

ShrinkWrapped has an excellent discussion on how people's conscious thoughts and actions, often reflect contradictory unconscious desires. In particular, he focuses on unconscious aggression:

Nowhere is this more significant than in our understanding of aggression. People typically fear their primitive aggression and defend against their awareness of the intensity and depth of their aggression as well as against the expression of their aggression. Yet it is a truism that unconscious impulses always seek ways to find discharge. It is not uncommon to see parents who are committed pacifists, who commit themselves to having homes which display no evidence of aggressive toys, raise children who are themselves aggressive and problematic; via the magic of unconscious processes which include identification and projective identifications, fantasy formation, primitive parent-child introjection and incorporation, among many others, the child becomes the agent for expressing the parent's disowned and disavowed unconscious aggression.

When our oldest was ~5, he often played with a neighboring child whose parents were ideological liberals and aggressively anti-aggression. This child owned no guns and wasn't allowed to play with toy soldiers, watch violent cartoons, etc; there were many other rules governing his play too numerous to enumerate. His parents were what one might refer to as "controlling" people (which is why we did not maintain a long term friendship.) We would carefully place our son's militaristic weapons/toys out of sight when this child came to visit. On one of his last visits, in his mother's presence, he quite cleverly took bites out of his grilled cheese sandwich in just such a fashion as to create a gun which fit quite nicely in his tiny hand; he proceeded to shoot everyone and everything in sight. His mother was quite apologetic, though I suspect managed in her own mind to blame us for her son's behavior. You will not be surprised to find that he was having some "issues" in kindergarten with aggression.
[...]
I have wondered for quite some time if this kind of projective identification is an aspect of the Left's fascination with, and (denied) support for, anti-civilization violence.

Indeed. This is the sort of psychological dynamic that is hard for a psychiatrist to miss--unless he or she has issues with their own aggressive impulses.

Shrink is absolutely correct in asserting that by denying our own aggressive natures we end up enabling and supporting the aggression of others. The most blatant example is the appeasement of terrorism and terrorists by the political left and the Democrats; or any who are totally invested in seeing themselves as "antiwar" as they cozy up to enemies whose explicit goal is to destroy our civilization.

Thomas Sowell wrote an essay sometime back about "pacifists versus peace", and said:

One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.
"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements -- that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.

Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.
[...]
There was a time when it would have been suicidal to threaten, much less attack, a nation with much stronger military power because one of the dangers to the attacker would be the prospect of being annihilated.

"World opinion," the U.N. and "peace movements" have eliminated that deterrent. An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.

That has been a formula for never-ending attacks on Israel in the Middle East. The disastrous track record of that approach extends to other times and places -- but who looks at track records?

Many people have forgotten that one of the most well-known pacifists of all time--Gandhi--proposed that nothing should have been done about the holocaust or the Nazis. How many of his admirers have considered what the consequences would have been if the world had followed Gandhi's lead? How many millions more people would have died? How many today would live under the boot of the Nazi philosophy?

Antiwar protestors always make a point of asking rhetorically what war is good for? You have heard them chanting this query at almost every one of their peace marches. The truth is that no sane person wants war, but aggression may be the only possible response to evil.

And in human history, there have been many evils far worse than war.

As Sowell states, there has been more attention paid to cease-fires; treaties; and prevention of war in the middle east than anywhere else on earth. The result has been the continued enabling and appeasement of an intolerable evil that thrives on hatred and that has grown strong and sure of its holy mission to kill.

But still, even today after decades of self-delusion, the rhetoric continues, as diplomats insist on getting back on "the roadmap" that should lead to peace; but which--surprise! surprise!--seems to lead only to more violence and death.

Maybe it is time to give up on the idea of a Mideast Peace where it has come to either enabling one group of psychopaths versus another?

By not getting in touch with our own aggression, we have abandoned the very means by which peace could actually come about.

This reality puts me in mind of a patient--I'll call her Petunia.

Petunia was a young woman with many problems, but she was particularly upset one day because this boyfriend that she had broken up with just wouldn't leave her alone. On closer inquiry, I discovered that in the past week she had phoned him 4 times; picked him up from work every evening; and let him spend the night at her apartment twice.

"I thought you said you were upset because he's not acting like the two of you are broken up?" I asked in some surprise.

She looked at me in astonishment. "He isn't! He seems to think we are going to get back together."

"But aren't you giving him that impression by initiating phone calls to him and picking him up and especially by letting him spend the night at your house," I countered?

Petunia did not understand my confusion. "So? That doesn't mean I want to get back together with him. I'm just being kind." She smiled then--contemplating, I suppose, what a nice person she was.

She truly couldn't understand how her behavior might lead him to think she really didn't mean exactly what she said.

Like Petunia, the antiwar crowd seems to think that all they have to do is be "kind" and chant pleasant slogans about "peace" and "support the troops by bringing them home" and as if by magic, peace will break out! Why is it, do you suppose, that these same clueless, insightless and pathetic people never protest against the real warmongers in Tehran, Damascus, Gaza, Beirut... or Somalia or Sudan or--well, anywhere..and only seem to be able to protest against America and Israel who continually work hard to prevent the loss of innocent lives, particularly in comparison with those that they fight.

There is a serious problem here in understanding that a person's actions speak louder than their words. And, from a psychiatric perspective, even if the actions are not louder, then they are far more honest.

This is why, though I listen carefully to the words people say, I also carefully observe how they behave if I really want to understand what is going on inside their heads. The discrepancies that lie between actions and words are most revealing, as ShrinkWrapped noted above.

If the peace movement really were a peace movement, its members would be denouncing the true threats to peace and trying their damndest to disarm and neutralize the likes of Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. etc.

Instead, like the parents who are so desperate to squelch their own aggressive impulses they unconsciously enable and facilitate their children's violent behavior; these "pacifists" actually champion the terrorists; rationalizing terrorist behavior; refusing to call them to account for their uncivilized and barbaric actions;, demanding cease-fires with them (never acknowledging that there is no way to hold them to account when they break the ceasefire, as they inevitably do); and have little or nothing to say about the standard terrorist operational policies that deliberately target the innocent.

You can find these these brave and loving peace activists marching in solidarity with these foul groups; proudly wearing the latest "hate couture", and imagining that their fashion statement shows how tolerant and compassionate and virtuous they are. They are unable to even appreciate the irony that it serves to demonstrate the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of their pacifist ideology.

In today's world, those who are truly evil know they can get away with practically any horror; and that there will always be a large cadre of dupes who are willing to rationalize, excuse, or minimize any atrocity.

For all their rhetoric to the contrary, the actual beneficiaries of the "antiwar" movement are the warmongering tyrants of the world whose naked aggression remains unchecked and is always rationalized away. The only outcome in the real world of all that lovely pacifism is the triumph of evil.

War is a always a terrible choice. No reasonable person could believe that it is benign or intrinsically "good" to wage war. Yet, it is sometimes a choice that reasonable people need to make simply because evil exists in the world and it cannot go unchecked--that is, not if you truly care about innocent human life.

If you cannot consciously tap into the aggressive side of your human nature and permit the use of aggression and even violence to serve the good; you will inevitably end up serving all that is evil in the world.

Pacifists cannot deal with this simple truth. In reality, they don't care much about human suffering, misery or even death; let alone the legacy of evil in the world. Through a variety of psychological defenses, they have managed to deny, displace, distort, and project real evil away. There cannot be found even a trace of psychological insight among all those angry marchers who violently and adamantly demand peace at any price.

For the carefree members of the antiwar movement, the triumph of evil is unimportant when compared to their own narcissistic need to appear virtuous and good. Like the parents ShrinkWrapped writes about, they will always find a way to externalize the blame for the consequences of their own self-delusion. Like Petunia, they will emphasize rhetoric over action; good intentions over actual behavior.

Antiwar activism is simply part of the left's ongoing struggle against reality; specifically, the reality of human nature. Aggression and violence are an integral part of human nature and are essential for human survival. These dangerous human qualities can either serve that which is good and decent about humanity, promoting human life and liberty and civilization; or, they can be used to support that which opposes life, liberty and civilization.

That is how the unconscious works; and how projective identification protects the user from having to come to terms with their own aggression. As these insightless fools bask in the glow of their radiant virtue, they fail to notice their own complicity with and appeasement of evil. Having absolved themselves of the requirement of making difficult moral choices in the real world; they have instead chosen the easy and facile rhetoric of self-delusion. That is why they are not bothered by real human suffering in the here and now; or by real oppression and tyranny. Their primary concern is in maintaing the fantasy that they are devoid of all those evil aggressive impulses that they, and they alone are the embodiment of perfect "peace" , "justice", and "brotherhood".

The track record of pacifism is horrendous. Not only do "peace movements" fail to bring peace; but by protecting, appeasing, and minimizing true evil, they ensure that war--when it inevitably comes--costs even more in terms of human suffering and lives.

"WE SHOULD HAVE SUNK EVERY ONE OF THEM"

Ralph Peters is 100% correct:

EARLY Sunday morning, the US Navy lost its nerve and guaranteed that American sailors will die at Iranian hands in the future.

As three of our warships passed through the Straits of Hormuz, five small Iranian patrol craft rushed them. As the Revolutionary Guard boats neared our vessels, an Iranian officer broadcast a threat to our ships, claiming they'd soon explode.

The Iranians tossed boxes into the water. Mines? Just in case, our ships took evasive action.

The Iranians kept on coming, closing to a distance of 200 meters - about two football fields. Supposedly, our Navy was ready to open fire but didn't shoot because the Iranians turned away at the moment the order was given.

We should've sunk every one of them.

The Mullahs are religiously-sanctioned bullies. The President of Iran is a short, pathetic thug. What is the best way to deal with these grownup bullies and thugs?

They are already engaged in killing Americans and have been for quite some time. And they know that they have several layers of protection that make it safe for them to behave as they like. They have deduced on the basis of past responses to their provocative actions that there will be no consequences for such behavior--wither from those who are the direct recipients of that behavior; or from the international community at large.

In "Showdown at the U.K. Corral" I wrote:

Consider, if the leaders of the free world cannot respond appropriately and decisively to the latest Iranian hostage crisis (and you think they would remember the consequences of the last one--particularly on the so-called "legacy" of Jimmy Carter), then the crisis will only escalate. What Carter did (and didn't do) 25 years ago paved the way for 9/11 and the many crises we are dealing with today; what future horrors will the selfish and malignant pacifism of today's left pave the way for in the next decade?

The Mullahs are watching and have a great big Cheshire cat grin on their face. They almost certainly have concluded from the useless British and international response that they can get away with practically anything now.

The key behavioral factor in extinguishing undesirable behavior is never to reinforce the behavior you are trying to extinguish. This fact is essential to understand, particularly when dealing with bullies who hail from a shame-phobic culture. The desire to preserve honor and avoid shame to the exclusion of all else is one of the primary foundations of the culture, and it has the side-effect of giving the individual carte blanche to engage in wrong-doing when they believe they have the upper hand.

In fact, any and all attempts to placate or reason with them will only result in their behavior escalating. That is because they sense weakness; and your weakness presents them with the opportunity to maximize both their own honor (such as it is) and your shame.

Bullies and thugs will not suddenly develop respect for your profound desire for peace and your non-violent, even appeasing, intentions--no matter how sincerely you express them. On the contrary, they conclude that you are weak and that there will be no consequences if they continue to push you around.

Once again, Iran has confirmed their beliefthat they are dealing with a paper tiger when they take on the West.

Charles Krauthammer noted that multilateralism and turning to the "international community" to handle the bad guys in the world has been singularly ineffective:

The result is utterly predictable. Nothing has been done about the Iranian bomb. In fact, the only effective sanctions are those coming unilaterally out of the U.S. Treasury.

Remember the great return to multilateralism — the new emphasis on diplomacy and "working with the allies" — so widely heralded at the beginning of the second Bush administration? To general acclaim, the cowboys had been banished and the grown-ups brought back to town.

What exactly has the new multilateralism brought us? North Korea tested a nuclear device. Iran has accelerated its march to developing the bomb. The pro-Western government in Beirut hangs by a thread. The Darfur genocide continues unabated.

The capture and release of the 15 British hostages illustrate once again the fatuousness of the "international community" and its great institutions. You want your people back? Go to the EU and get stiffed. Go to the Security Council and get a statement that refuses even to "deplore" this act of piracy. (You settle for a humiliating expression of "grave concern"). Then turn to the despised Americans. They'll deal some cards and bail you out.

(***see cartoon below for more on the complex UN multitasking activities as they deal with evil in the world)

This pattern of positively reinforcing the negative behavior of our enemies as we simultaneously negatively reinforce every effort to confront and deal with that negative behavior indicates a psychological denial and delusion so profound that it is simply stunning in its pathology.

No matter how you look at it--either from a behavioral or a psychological perspective--it seems clear that things are only going to be going from bad to worse in the immediate future. And make no mistake about it, Iran will do something like this again. And the next time they will be interested in seeing how much further they can go with their antics--Can they kill an American or two without reprisal? How about kidnap some sailors right off the ship? They already know they can send explosives to Iraq and detain Americans without too much outrage or reprisals.

As Peters says at the beginning of his article, our tepid response to the Iranian attempt to humiliate our Navy has ensured that Iranian provocations will escalate.

********

SHOWDOWN AT THE U.K. CORRAL

The O.K. Corral in Western mythology has come to symbolize the struggle between the law (civilization & order) and the roving bands of outlaws and bandits who roamed the Old West robbing and rustling (barbarism and chaos). I grew up with mostly cowboy heroes--the ones who brough law and order, just to be clear--and one of them was Wyatt Earp. Of course, since then he's been historically "deconstructed" by the postmodernists along with his brothers and Doc Holliday; and the Clantons and their ilk have been romantically idealized and given victim status (so what else is new?).

I mention this because we are today in our own version of the O.K. Corral--and the consequences of the postmodern deconstruction are painfully evident. We are living in a global Tombstone where outlaw nations like Iran can steal and kill at will. The international community--the civilized community--seems to be paralyzed and in denial. They have denigrated the "cowboy" Bush; they have deconstructed all their heroes; and now, there is nothing that stands between them and the Iranian gunslingers who want to take over the town and kill as many of them as necessary. In true pathetic victimhood fashion, they wail and weep, hoping that the town will be taken over so that their lives can be spared.

Jeff Jacoby calls the smell in the air right now "irresolution"; I call it "fear" and its stench is almost overpowering. Never in my wildest dreams when The Sanity Squad recorded its last podcast about the Iranian showdown at the UK corral, did I imagine that there would be not only a tepid response, but a downright cowardly one. As the British cower and the US Congress prepares to surrender, the aggression against the West only increases in intensity and brutality.

....this is how totalitarian aggressors react to faintheartedness.
"In Middle Eastern warfare," writes retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters in the New York Post, "a classic tactic has been to retreat in the face of strength, but to attack when your enemy withdraws or shows signs of weakness." British troop pullouts and congressional cut-and-run votes prompt not fewer outrages and less mayhem, but more. The smell of irresolution doesn't satiate the totalitarians' appetite; it makes it keener.

The Men of West are too fearful to take a stand (what if it was unpopular with some people?) and instead they prefer to run away which allows them also to maintain their denial and delusion. The forces of civilization are willing to get out of Tombstone and let the outlaws and barbarians take over.

Consider, if the leaders of the free world cannot respond appropriately and decisively to the latest Iranian hostage crisis (and you think they would remember the consequences of the last one--particularly on the so-called "legacy" of Jimmy Carter), then the crisis will only escalate. What Carter did (and didn't do) 25 years ago paved the way for 9/11 and the many crises we are dealing with today; what future horrors will the selfish and malignant pacifism of today's left pave the way for in the next decade?

The Mullahs are watching and have a great big Cheshire cat grin on their face. They almost certainly have concluded from the useless British and international response that they can get away with practically anything now.

Where are the heroes today who can lead? Who can face the outlaws at the U.K. Corral? Who can unflinchingly face the armies of the dark lords of Islam and refuse to let them pass? We are saddled with psychotic and delusional Denethors in Europe; and a Congress of mesmerized Theodens; and there is no one with enough moral courage or strength of will to confront the evil that is the source of the poisonous paralysis. The air is drenched with fear and hopelessness and defeat.

And if you look at the contenders for the 2008 Presidential sweepstakes, none of them gives me any confidence at all that things are likely to improve.

Dialogue and Diplomacy; talk and more talk is only useful if Iran and its leaders are reasonable people who desire to change their ways and become a part of the international community.

Well, why the hell should they change their ways? They get everything they want by being the hostile, provacative bullies and thugs they are. They have shown very little interest in the international community unless it does things their way. But we keep talking, as Lowry notes:

If talking with the Iranians doesn't work, it is because we aren't talking to them enough, or the wrong people (i.e., not the U.S.) are talking to them, or when we're talking to them, we aren't saying the right things, or we haven't talked to them long enough, or maybe they don't realize just how very sincere we are in our talking. But, surely, sometime soon, if we just keep talking and offering to talk, all these "misunderstandings" will fade away.

In deterrence theory, this is called "mirroring," judging someone else's intentions by looking at your own. James Baker -- the head of the late, great Iraq Study Group -- concluded that Iran wants stability in Iraq and is amenable to negotiations, no doubt partially because he himself wants stability in Iraq and is amenable to negotiations. Indeed, there is no dispute that can't be worked out by haggling with James Baker, but he has never taken any hostages, denied the Holocaust or claimed to have had a halo -- all exploits of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The old saw about a liberal being someone who won't take his own side in a fight applies here. When the Bush administration presented evidence that the Iranians have provided material used to kill American troops in Iraq with roadside bombs, Democrats exploded in outrage -- at the Bush administration, for not being convincing enough, for having delayed the release of the intelligence, for being overly belligerent toward Iran, which just wants to talk to us.

NEWSFLASH: The Iranians don't want to talk to us. Or, rather they will talk with us as long as we keep up the pretense that they are reasonable; and while they are talking with us, they will continue to do whatever they want. Keep the hostages (since they will suffer no consequences at all); continue to make their nuclear bomb (because they will suffer no serious consequences); and flaunt international law (because no one seems to care and they are hardly likely to be called to account for not following the Geneva Convention); keep providing explosives and personnel to fuel the Iraq insurgency (Bush will get blamed instead of them). Life is good.

It doesn't take a shrink to figure out their agenda. Any kid dealing with a bully understands what the bully wants.

Remember the old joke? How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, but the light bulb really has to want to change. Has the Iranian leadership done anything to change its behavior lately? Or has their bad behavior actually escalated as they witness the lack of response in the West?

These enemies are not like us. They do not share our values; nor do they desire peace.

SC&A have noted:

One of the accepted hallmarks of civilized society is an accepted code of moral behavior. No matter one’s prejudices, biases or beliefs, we are all expected to behave in a certain way. We are all expected to treat others, regardless of their religion, culture or creed, in the same way we ourselves expect to be treated. If that accepted code of moral behavior is not present in a particular society, that society cannot be counted as civilized....

...free and civilized people demand free and civilized societies. They identify with and demand solidarity with similar free and civilized societies. Those in free and civilized society who demand otherwise are themselves living in a fantasy.

Arab apologists and ideologues see confrontation and subjugation, rather than negotiation, as the vehicle for addressing grievances. As the last few years have shown us, violence and the threat of violence can only reinforce those notions.

The Arab world today is recognized for it’s hate and belligerence and not the enlightenment, science, art and literature that contributed to the progress of humankind.

Whatever civilization these societies once may have had, they abandoned when they took up jihad and terror; and as Rich Lowry points out, they have long ago stopped being a part of the international community or the civilized world.

They are just backwaters of hate and violence; swamps of irrationality and deceit. And we are afraid of them (at least the people we elect to lead us seem to be) and they know it and can count on it.

I am saddened and humiliated by the West's response even as I attempt to understand why we have paralyzed ourselves. In a way, the West has been hostage to terror for long enough now to see that we are suffering from some sort of psychological trauma--at least that is how we have been behaving.

The appeasement and coddling (see this for the most recent suck-up) of these barbarians on the part of Western leaders is a type of projection. We are not projecting our bad feelings or qualities into the other, we are instead projecting the very best within us. Anna Freud called it "identification with the aggressor" and it highlights the passive victimhood mentality that has taken hold of the peoples of the West.

So far, the showdown at the U.K. Corral is unlikely to have a positive outcome for the forces of civilization. The Iranians will keep their hostages for as long as they can inflict shame on the West (see here for a discussion of shame cultures) and accumulate "honor" by our shame.

The last hostage crisis that Ahmadinejad particpated in lasted well over a year until a real cowboy was able to stand up to him and his band of thugs and get the hostages home.

I am hoping that somewhere out there in our global Tombstone is a Ronald Reagan /Wyatt Earp or some other cowboy type, who is willing to stand up to the forces of lawlessness and tyranny.

But I am probably only engaging in wishful thinking.

BENEDICT WEIGHS IN ON CULTURAL RELATIVISM

From Pope Benedict's UN speech yesterday:
"This reference to human dignity, which is the foundation and goal of the responsibility to protect, leads us to the theme we are specifically focusing upon this year, which marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document was the outcome of a convergence of different religious and cultural traditions, all of them motivated by the common desire to place the human person at the heart of institutions, laws and the workings of society, and to consider the human person essential for the world of culture, religion and science. Human rights are increasingly being presented as the common language and the ethical substratum of international relations. At the same time, the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights all serve as guarantees safeguarding human dignity. It is evident, though, that the rights recognized and expounded in the Declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high-point of God's creative design for the world and for history. They are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks. This great variety of viewpoints must not be allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are universal, but so too is the human person, the subject of those rights."

Well said.

By the way, after reading the Pope's message at the UN, I was kind of surprised at the way it was being reported. Turns out, the AP made up some things and spun some other things that he said. Benedict did not deliver quite the "socialist-US bashing manifesto' they might like you to believe.

Pope Benedict, I think, is pretty clear that human rights and human freedom are the key issues that must be addressed in the world today. He is particularly concerned about freedom of religion and that countries where this is restricted are violating human rights (who might he be talking about, I wonder? Hmmmm.).

If we want to see the consequences of leftist socialism-lite, utopian pacifism, moral equivalence, and cultural relativism, then we need only look at how easily Europe and the leftists in this country have surrendered the fundamental values of Western civilization to the shrill (and violent) demands of Islamic fanatics--all done in the spirit of multicultural tolerance and politically correct compassion.

Europe, having given up any objective standard by which to mediate the vastly different perspectives and feelings of its varied populations; having abandoned reason altogether in favor of the expression of feelings no matter how destructive or unreasonable; and, finally, having endlessly touted the critical importance and essential need to "belong" to one's race, tribe, religion or group first and foremost; the outcome is what Stephen Hicks refers to as "group balkinization" --with all its inevitable and inescapable conflict.

That politically correct road which the left has taken us all down--billed as the path to peace and harmony--has instead led to a land dominated by emotions; a place where barbarism of the most primal sort is tolerated and excused; and where the human rights that the Pope talks about have been all but abandoned.

And, why should we be surprised at this destination? Why would peaceful coexistence be expected to result from a movement that has done everything in its power to eradicate universalism and undermine the very idea of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and foist multiculturalism and tribalism into the public consciousness?

The Pope lauds the UN for its stand on basic human rights, but the words of the UN are often a far cry from its actions in the real world. All one has to do is take a look at the membership of the UN's own 'Human Rights' committee to see how far that organization has distanced itself from reality.: the worse human rights offenders in the world are given a platform with which to trumpet their own bigotry and oppression.

And the world yawns.

But this is a natural consequence of multiculturalism and the dogma of political correctness. Multiculturalism after all celebrates--not belonging to the family of humanity--but to one's sexual, racial, ethnic, or religious identity above all else. Political correctness simply provides the eggshells that everyone can walk around on so as to not offend the feelings in other groups (unless, of course, you belong to that one particular culture that is given a pass because of its unique evil; and for which offending is obligatory--you know which culture that is, don't you?)

Like many ideas of the left, including multiculturalism, what you wind up with is exactly the opposite of what was promised.

Other false promises were the claims that socialism and communism made about eliminating poverty and ushering in "social justice". What these ideologies were good at was delivering misery instead of happiness; poverty instead of wealth; enslavement instead of freedom. So it is no surprise that the dogma of multiculturalism and political correctness, instead of harmony, have resulted in lethal discord.

The surrender of 2500 years of Enlightenment values has slowly brought to all of Europe an almost-impenetrable intellectual and moral darkness. Here in the New World, we need to recognize what is happening there, before that same darkness envelops and paralyzes us.

On this issue, Pope Benedict has been a voice crying out in the wilderness and a beacon of moral clarity.

IRAN IS BUOYANT & THE WEST IS CATATONIC

Yesterday, there was this tidbit in the news:

Buoyant Teheran warns of further kidnappings
By Gethin Chamberlain, Philip Sherwell and Tim Shipman, Sunday Telegraph

Hardliners in the Iranian regime have warned that the seizure of British naval personnel demonstrates that they can make trouble for the West whenever they want to and do so with impunity.

The bullish reaction from Teheran will reinforce the fears of western diplomats and military officials that more kidnap attempts may be planned.

The British handling of the crisis has been regarded with some concern in Washington, and a Pentagon defence official told The Sunday Telegraph: "The fear now is that this could be the first of many. If the Brits don't change their rules of engagement, the Iranians could take more hostages almost at will....

"Iran has got what it wants. They have secured free passage for smuggling weapons into Iraq without a fight," one US defence department official said.

It is also clear that the Iranian government believes that the outcome has strengthened its position over such contentious issues as its nuclear programme. Hardliners within the regime have been lining up to crow about Britain's humiliation, and indicated that the operation was planned.

Conservative parliamentarian Amir Hassankhani, a former member of the country's Revolutionary Guard and supporter of the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told the country's semi-official Fars news agency: "The arrest and release of the British sailors proved that if Iran's issues and demands are overlooked at the international level, the Islamic republic can create different challenges for the other side."

In "Showdown at the U.K. Corral" I wrote:

Consider, if the leaders of the free world cannot respond appropriately and decisively to the latest Iranian hostage crisis (and you think they would remember the consequences of the last one--particularly on the so-called "legacy" of Jimmy Carter), then the crisis will only escalate. What Carter did (and didn't do) 25 years ago paved the way for 9/11 and the many crises we are dealing with today; what future horrors will the selfish and malignant pacifism of today's left pave the way for in the next decade?

The Mullahs are watching and have a great big Cheshire cat grin on their face. They almost certainly have concluded from the useless British and international response that they can get away with practically anything now.

The key behavioral factor in extinguishing undesirable behavior is never to reinforce the behavior you are trying to extinguish. This fact is essential to understand, particularly when dealing with bullies who hail from a shame-phobic culture. The desire to preserve honor and avoid shame to the exclusion of all else is one of the primary foundations of the culture, and it has the side-effect of giving the individual carte blanche to engage in wrong-doing when they believe they have the upper hand.

In fact, any and all attempts to placate or reason with them will only result in their behavior escalating. That is because they sense weakness; and your weakness presents them with the opportunity to maximize both their own honor (such as it is) and your shame.

Bullies and thugs will not suddenly develop respect for your profound desire for peace and your non-violent, even appeasing, intentions--no matter how sincerely you express them. On the contrary, they conclude that you are weak and that there will be no consequences if they continue to push you around.

I wonder if anyone remembers that Iran has a nuclear program that the West has vowed to stop? Certainly Iran now knows that they are dealing with a paper tiger.

Charles Krauthammer notes that multilateralism and turning to the "international community" to handle the bad guys in the world has been singularly ineffective:

The result is utterly predictable. Nothing has been done about the Iranian bomb. In fact, the only effective sanctions are those coming unilaterally out of the U.S. Treasury.

Remember the great return to multilateralism — the new emphasis on diplomacy and "working with the allies" — so widely heralded at the beginning of the second Bush administration? To general acclaim, the cowboys had been banished and the grown-ups brought back to town.

What exactly has the new multilateralism brought us? North Korea tested a nuclear device. Iran has accelerated its march to developing the bomb. The pro-Western government in Beirut hangs by a thread. The Darfur genocide continues unabated.

The capture and release of the 15 British hostages illustrate once again the fatuousness of the "international community" and its great institutions. You want your people back? Go to the EU and get stiffed. Go to the Security Council and get a statement that refuses even to "deplore" this act of piracy. (You settle for a humiliating expression of "grave concern"). Then turn to the despised Americans. They'll deal some cards and bail you out.

Of course, we can count on the Democrats to try to prevent America from doing any such thing, because when it comes to being fatuous, the rest of the international community has nothing over them.

This pattern of positively reinforcing the negative behavior of our enemies as we simultaneously negatively reinforce every effort to confront and deal with that negative behavior indicates a psychological denial and delusion so profound that it is simply stunning in its pathology.

No matter how you look at it--either from a behavioral or a psychological perspective--it seems clear that things are only going to be going from bad to worse in the immediate future.

I really wonder what it will take before the West wakes up; and sometimes I worry that we're not simply asleep, we're catatonic.

CHEAP SURRENDER

Victor Davis Hanson reflects on 2500 years Enlightenment values in Western thought, and those who are traitors to that tradition:

The new enemies of Reason are not the enraged democrats who executed Socrates, the Christian zealots who persecuted philosophers of heliocentricity, or the Nazis who burned books. No, they are a pampered and scared Western public that caves to barbarism — dwarves who sit on the shoulders of dead giants, and believe that their present exalted position is somehow related to their own cowardly sense of accommodation.

What would a Socrates, Galileo, Descartes, or Locke believe of the present decay in Europe — that all their bold and courageous thinking, won at such a great cost, would have devolved into such cheap surrender to fanaticism?

Just think: Put on an opera in today’s Germany, and have it shut down, not by Nazis, Communists, or kings, but by the simple fear of Islamic fanatics.

Write a novel deemed critical of the Prophet Mohammed, as did Salman Rushdie, and face years of ostracism and death threats — in the heart of Europe no less.

Compose a film, as did Theo Van Gogh, and find your throat cut in “liberal” Holland.

Or better yet, sketch a cartoon in postmodern Denmark, and then go into hiding.

Quote an ancient treatise, as did the pope, and learn your entire Church may come under assault, and the magnificent stones of the Vatican offer no refuge.

There are three lessons to be drawn from these examples. In almost every case, the criticism of the artist or intellectual was based either on his supposed lack of sensitivity or of artistic excellence. Van Gogh was, of course, obnoxious and his films puerile. The pope was woefully ignorant of public relations. The cartoons in Denmark were amateurish and unnecessary. Rushdie was an overrated novelist, whose chickens of trashing the West he sought refuge in finally came home to roost. The latest Hans Neuenfels adaptation of Mozart’s Idomeneo was silly.

But isn’t that precisely the point? It is easy to defend artists when they produce works of genius that do not offend popular sensibilities — Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws — but not so when an artist offends with neither taste nor talent. Yes, Pope Benedict is old and scholastic; he lacks both the smile and tact of the late Pope John Paul II, who surely would not have turned for elucidation to the rigidity of Byzantine scholarship. But isn’t that why we must come to the present Pope’s defense — if for no reason other than because he has the courage to speak his convictions when others might not?

Note also the constant subtext in this new self-censorship: fear of radical Islam and its gruesome appendages of beheadings, suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices, barbaric fatwas, riotous youth, petrodollar-acquired nuclear weapons, oil boycotts and price hikes, and fist-chanting mobs.

In contrast, almost daily in Europe, “brave” artists caricature Christians and Americans with impunity. Why?

For a long list of reasons, among them most surely the assurance that they can do this without being killed. Such cowards puff out their chests when trashing an ill Oriana Fallaci or Ariel Sharon or beleaguered George W. Bush in the most demonic of tones, but prove sunken and sullen when threatened by a Dr Zawahri or a grand mufti of some obscure mosque.

Hanson suggests that if we want to see what "boutique socialism, utopian pacifism, moral equivalence, and cultural relativism" have wrought, we need only look to the cheap surrender of Enlightenment values and the reflexive cave-in to the demands of Islamic fanatics--all routinely a part of European life now, and done in the spirit of multicultural tolerance and politically correct feeling.

Europe, having given up any objective standard by which to mediate the vastly different perspectives and feelings of its varied populations; having abandoned reason altogether in favor of the expression of feelings no matter how destructive or unreasonable; and, finally, having endlessly touted the critical importance and essential need to "belong" to one's race, tribe, religion or group first and foremost; the outcome is what Stephen Hicks refers to as "group balkinization" --with all its inevitable and inescapable conflict.

That politically correct road which the left has taken us all down--billed as the path to peace and harmony--has instead led to a land dominated by emotions; a place where barbarism of the most primal sort is tolerated and excused.

And, why should we be surprised at this destination? Why would peaceful coexistence result from a movement that has done everything in its power to eradicate universalism and foist multiculturalism into the public consciousness?

Multiculturalism after all celebrates--not belonging to the family of humanity--but to one's sexual, racial, ethnic, or religious identity above all else. Political correctness simply provides the eggshells that everyone can walk around on so as to not offend the feelings in other groups (unless, of course, you belong to that one particular culture that is given a pass because of its unique evil; and for which offending is obligatory--you know which culture that is, don't you?)

Like many ideas of the left, it should now be apparent to anyone with a brain, that--in the case of multiculturalism -- the exact opposite of what was promised ends up being delivered.

Just as the false promises of socialism and communism were found to lead to misery instead of happiness; poverty instead of wealth; enslavement instead of freedom--so too, have multiculturalism and political correctness, instead of harmony, brought lethal discord.

The cheap surrender of 2500 years of Enlightenment values is slowly leaving all of Europe in an impenetrable intellectual and moral darkness. Here in the New World, we need to recognize what is happening there, before that same darkness envelops and paralyzes us.

The very first time we allowed the adherents of a medieval and primitive religion to believe that their feelings about that religion trump all the values of western civiliztion; the minute we began to apologize for our successes and make excuses--or even blame ourselves--for their failures; we stepped onto the same path taken by Europe. That path leads to the same place the Europeans find themselves in now.

It is a place where Reason cannot be appealed to; nor tolerance--for the Islamists believe in neither. So here we are, all of us, on the PC highway to hell.

It may be late in the journey, and it may be too late for Europe, but perhaps it is time for us to get off this path while we still can--if we still can.

I personally have no objection to Islam reaching their final destination of hell alone.

No surrender.

UPDATE: Is it already too late? Wretchard makes this related point:

The frontline of the War on Terror has gradually spread to encompass every activity, place and clime. Its shadow lurks whether one is traveling by air, speaking at a public forum, writing a book, applying to teach at a university or giving a Papal speech, working as a nurse or teaching philosophy. Today you have to be really, really careful. The really ironic effect of multiculturalism in both the Islamic world and the West is that it has brought the return of the clandestine act and secret speech. No longer is it possible:

To live undaunted, unafraid
Of any step that I have made;
To be without pretense or sham
Exactly what men think I am.

To be that was to enjoy a freedom we have already lost; and it was never free.

As they say, read the whole post.

DEFENDING BUGS BUNNY

When I read Bill Kristol's editorial on "Bugs Bunny Democrats", the in the Weekly Standard recently, my initial response was that he wasn't being fair to old Bugs by comparing him to the gormless Democrats. So, it was interesting to see several other readers take him to task for this in the next issue:
"I MUST TAKE ISSUE with the characterization of the Euro-Democrats as "Bugs Bunny Democrats" in William Kristol's editorial ("The Bugs Bunny Democrats," Aug. 21 / Aug. 28). Although I realize Kristol's analogy is based on Bugs Bunny's diet, the carrots that the "European wing of the Democratic party" is so fond of offering are all the "EuroDems" have in common with the discerning and determined Bugs.

Bugs Bunny survives by outwitting his opponents. His probing catchphrase, "Eh, what's up, doc?" usually begins his exposition of their follies for all to see. He has demonstrated the willingness to eschew political correctness and directly confront his antagonists' intellectual failings. To Elmer Fudd's clueless, misdirected assertion that "Somethin's scwewy awound here," Bugs is quick to point out that it "could be you, doc."

Granted, Bugs Bunny does show patience with his antagonists, but only up to a point. Once the threat to his security becomes clear, he is willing to take action. He has been known to confront his tormentors with a definitive, "Of course you realize, 'DIS means war!" I doubt that any of the EuroDems have the grit to follow such an example.

Bugs Bunny's bravery is a matter of record. A member of the greatest generation, he took on World War II archvillains such as Herman Goering and even Adolf Hitler himself. In recognition of his fighting spirit, the U.S. Marine Corps awarded Bugs an honorary officer's commission.

Now, "Elmer Fudd Democrats" would certainly be an appropriate description. Perhaps even "Daffy Duck Democrats." But I think we can be sure that there is not a Bugs Bunny among them.

JOSEPH W.T. PUGH
Haddonfield, N.J.

and

WILLIAM KRISTOL brilliantly analyzes the naive pacifism of contemporary liberalism, which focuses on foreign policy carrots to the exclusion of sticks. But tying the carrot metaphor to Bugs Bunny is unfair. Bugs always frustrated and defeated those trying to destroy him. Just ask Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Giovanni Jones, Marvin the Martian, and others who experienced Bugs's unique, and hilarious, forms of payback. A little bit Brooklyn, a little bit Bronx (as Mel Blanc, who supplied the voice, once put it), Bugs embodied America's fighting spirit at its best. Our political leaders and foreign policy elites could learn a lot from him.

MATTHEW BERKE
Madison, N.J.

Both letter writers make excellent points. Bugs has long been a favorite cartoon character (I really like his, "What's up, Doc" line). He is cool and funny under pressure; and he makes his opponents look like complete idiots. You've got to admire that.

As one of the letter writers mentioned, Bugs was something of a war hero during WWII, pushing for War Bonds early in the war; and starring in a number of war-themed cartoons:

Several titles were designed to boost American morale by placing Bugs in wartime themes (such as airplane hijacks by mythical gremlins in "Falling Hare"(1943) and a few others had Bugs take on America's enemies, most notably the infamous "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips", a now-rarely seen film with Bugs fighting the Japanese on a Pacific island.

It occurs to me that we could use Bugs these days to boost American morale here at home; and of course to mock the current crop of clueless Elmer Fudd's.

THE INSANITY OF THE CHICKEN DOVES

Tomorrow will be the 230th birthday of the United States of America. To a large extent, we owe our very lives and our liberty to a group of men and women over the last two centuries who have placed duty, honor, and love of country before other considerations; and who have been willing to fight the battles necessary to preserve the freedom of America.

In today's world--where many are in complete denial about the threat this country faces; and haven't a clue as to how freedom is preserved or defended to begin with-- we are frequently witness to a mindless anti-military insanity that characterizes one side of the political spectrum in this country. They protest violently about military recruitment on university campuses. They scream and chant about being for peace--these unwitting (and witting) agents of the enemy--and seem oblivious to the fact that their behavior only causes more death; and just happens to empower those who glory in mindless violence.

The enemy's agenda is also being waged at the K-12 level, as well as at the university level. Most recently by the indoctrinated parents and teachers, recruits in the army of the left--who have the honor and privilege of living in a free country, protected by courage of individuals who place personal honor and duty to their country before their very lives--yet, those wage this battle against the very idea of a military force, can't be bothered to understand the price of Freedom; nor are they capablie of appreciating the consequences of their knee-jerk pacifism.

Let us call them CHICKEN DOVES, because they prefer to die rather than fight for freedom; and they insist that we all should die along with them.

This philosophy illustrated in this article:

Parents and teachers are complaining that the latest issue of a popular magazine for preteens amounts to little more than an early recruitment pitch for the Army.

Cobblestone magazine, which is put out by Carus Publishing in Peterborough, is aimed at children ages 9-14 and is distributed nationwide to schools and libraries. Its latest issue features a cover photo of a soldier in Iraq clutching a machine gun and articles on what it's like to go through boot camp, a rundown of the Army's "awesome arsenal" and a detailed description of Army career opportunities.

Most controversial has been a set of classroom guides that accompany the magazine, which suggest teachers invite a soldier, Army recruiter or veteran to speak to their classes and ask students whether they might want to join the Army someday.

Oh, the HORROR! Children being exposed to an honorable profession that embraces duty, honor and country. Oh the SHAME! To ask men of valor and conscience to come and speak about their job defending the country.

In case you wonder what kind of a perverse fantasy world such people live in--it is one where they are so aghast at their own rageful and violent nature that they refuse to acknowledge they even possess such feelings. This enables them to wrap themselves in moral virtue and project those unacceptable impulses onto convenient targets so that they can remain morally pure and untainted. They see themselves as the anti-war movement, but they are truly the repositories of an unconscious cesspool of violence and hatred that breaks through quite regularly in their speech and behavior.

Who in their right mind doesn't prefer peace to war? How do these people imagine that peace is achieved, when there is one side in a conflict whose goal is to ultimately subdue the planet to their fanatical beliefs?

Our faithless chicken doves might easily demonstrate moral uprightness by bringing their insane talking points to the agents of the Taliban or to Al-Qaeda; both of whom regularly recruit children for their suicidal and homicidal ventures. The chicken doves of the left might actually show some real courage and real integrity (and I would honor them for that, even if I thought they were still stupid); because, if they truly believe what they claim they do, they would become "human shields" for the Iraqis and Israelis who are the object of the enemy's murderous hatred on a daily basis.

But you will notice that there is nary an anti-war "human shield" valiantly standing up to the enemy, is there? And do you know why?

Because these hypocritical chicken dove individuals know full well that they would be killed without hesitation or mercy; and their headless bodies thrown in the gutter by the barbarians they enably and support. It is sooooo psychologically convenient to pretend that the real evil is the US military; or Israel--anyone but those who must be stopped for all our sakes.

It is also so convenient to pretend that they protest the very idea of war "for the sake of the children." But Thomas Paine, in writing about the American Revolution captured the essence of the chicken dove philosophy:

I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.

But the basic chicken dove is psychologically naiive. He or she desires peace at any cost (except if they have to do anything) merely to cover up their own sense of moral inadequacy; to be able to remain blissfully in denial and delusion, so that they don't have to look in the mirror at their own souls, shrunken and dessicated by an ideology that was almost--but not quite--wiped out by the turn of the century.

They are infected with the moral delusions of grandeur of yet another outbreak of socialist/utopian ideals. It is an epidemic, and the left is the carrier. It turns the brains of true believers to useless mush, mindlessly repeating the same meaningless slogans that led to such widespread death, enslavement and misery in the 20th century.

But here is information about the magazine issue that is being protested from the Cobblestone website . See what you think:

When we think of the U.S. Army, we often associate it with the most recent war. However, the Army has a rich history that reaches far beyond current politics. As the Army has grown from being a part-time, loosely organized force in the Revolutionary Era to one of the best-trained militaries in the world, it has also contributed to peacetime culture and made possible huge advances in technology. In this issue we explore the work of the Army Corps of Engineers; the role of the Army National Guard in responding to domestic natural disasters, and Army training programs for doctors, teachers, and technicians. We'll also explore more traditional topics such as boot camp, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and what it means to be a career Army officer. A timeline of major wars in which the Army has played a role and a glossary of common military terms are also included.

I think it is a sad day for the United States and its brave military forces when a magazine for children is criticized because they dare to present those who choose to defend our liberty in a positive light; a light so shiningly bright that those who wander around with their eyes permanently shut are morally offended at what they are incapably of seeing.

These Are A Few of My Favorite Blogs...

Neo-neocon finishes her series on "The Varieties of Pacifism." Check it out--it is well worth your time.

ShrinkWrapped defends Michelle Malkin from "Liberal Racism";

Gagdad Bob initiates a new blog (One Cosmos) ;

The Anchoress thinks the press might well regret demanding an investigation into the Plame "outing";

SC&A are having some really bad days with the Islamofascist Nazi Dentist (IND for short) -- just scroll down and feel his pain;

The Gates of Vienna is on a roll exposing all sorts of jihadists in the US (again, just scroll down); and,

GM over at GM's Corner wants to vote the bastards out and places "A Pox on Both Their Houses".

UPDATE: Blog meets Network TV! The Anchoress speaks at CBS.

STRANGE LOVE: HOW THEY LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE IRANIAN BOMB

Recent articles in the MSM (see here and here) suggest that the left is gearing up for an all out assault on the possibility of war with Iran. They intend to do this by using the talking point that "they can live with a nuclear Iran."

SC&A have an important post up that discusses the ramifications of this full court press by the antiwar crowd to undermine efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and "prevent" war:

It is not the Israelis who have threatened the Arabs or Iran. It is just the opposite. It is the Arabs who constantly threaten the Israelis with extermination. It is the Arabs and Iranians who announce ‘Israel’s destruction is near’ or the ‘fires of hell will engulf the Israelis.’ Those messages are reinforced in media, school curriculum and preached from the pulpit. Other messages, even less obtuse, praise and endorse the idea that Iran and the Arab world must acquire nuclear weapons for ‘balance’- and to endorse their stated foreign and religious policies of extermination.

There is a very big difference between the Israelis and the Iranians and the Arab world when comes to nuclear weapons. For the Israelis, they are real deterrent. For the Iranians, nuclear weapons are hammer, to be used to blackmail the west- or worse.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize Mahmoud Ahmadenijad’s pronouncement of his affection for Jews is suspect when his best friends are proud supporters of racism and genocide. The Iranians are the major political, economic and military backers of Hassan Nasrallah and Hizbollah. Nasrallah, never shy refers to Jews as ’sons of monkeys and pigs’ and has expressed his delight that there are so many Jews in Israel- ‘It will save us the trouble of rounding them up.’ Given the Iranian penchant for supporting Hizbollah, et al, do we really want to take the chance that the Iranians might supply that terrorist organization with a small nuke, to be deployed inside Israel?

Siggy is also very cognizant of the historical parallels and the devastating consequences of this sort of psychological denial:

Imagine being a black person in a neighborhood where you are surrounded by KKK members who for decades have promised to lynch you. They have no problem stating what is they have in store for you and they teach those lessons to their kids in neighborhood schools and in summer camps and and even in churches. Parents display their pride as their children play games like ’slaughter the nigger!’ and express their desire from a young age to participate in the killing of blacks.

One can only imagine the scenario if the Iranian and Arab world nuclear ‘imbalance’ and ‘inequality’ of nuclear programs were allowed to be addressed. If history tends to repeat itself, we have plenty to consider.

Prior to WWII, Hitler broke the Treaty of Versailles, rearmed Germany to the extreme, beat the drums of war and put that nation on a war footing. The Europeans, loathe to fight another war, recalling the horrors of WWI, did everything they could to avoid another conflagration, even turning a blind eye after Hitler waltzed into Czechoslovakia and took the Sudetenland. They believed him when he said ‘that was all he wanted, to correct past injustices suffered by the German ethnic minority.’

(Does that ring a bell yet?)

Chamberlain, the gold medal champion of European denial and psychopathy, went to Berlin and met with ‘civilized’ Hitler to much newsreel fanfare. He returned home to an adoring crowd, waving a piece of paper ’signed by Herr Hitler.’ There was to be no war, Chamberlain assured a nervous nation and continent. In fact, he soothed European fears and declared, ‘There will be peace in our time.’

"Peace" in Chamberlain's time translated into millions of Jews exterminated before the West finally woke up and confronted the unbelievable evil that they had "learned" to stop worrying about as they indulged their psychological denial.

In fact, we can translate "learning to live with a nuclear Iran" into "learning to live without Israel and the Jews". Because that is what the practical consequence of this leftist line of reasoning amounts to.

Will we wait for the equivalent of more than 2000 WTC's when (not if) a nuclear Iran inevitably pursues it's religious destiny--the one that Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs have repeatedly emphasized over the years? You must admit that would be a strange sort of "love" and "compassion", wouldn't it?

If the German people with all their "ordnung" and their restrained national character-- which might lead one to imagine they would have abhored all the chaos, disorder and destruction they unleashed in WWII--could perpetrate the genocide known as the Holocaust, then what can we expect from the Arabs, whose entire bloody history is one of belligerance and emotionality, rather than a willingness to accommodate and compromise? Has Iran "accommodated" homosexuals--or has it exterminated them?

Unfortunately, the unwillingness of the left in this country to face the reality of the rise of Islamofascism and the barbarism it has unleashed around the world has had the consequence of facilitating that barbarism and even encouraging it.

I think of such people as beyond mere psychological denial...In a previous post I refer to them as "denialists" because their reliance on this defense mechanism is more than transiently striking--it is a dedicated way of life. They proudly and defiantly wear the multicultural and PC blinders of the psychologically obtuse. Usually they refer to themselves as "progresssive" and "reality-based"; which just goes to show how creative and imaginitive they are.

But, the reality is that some people in denial prefer the lethal consequences of their denial as long as they don't have to question their own motivations, beliefs, and ideologies.

Those individuals, groups, or nations who live in the world of deep denial are essentially untouchable by reality or rational argument. They go through their daily lives secure in the knowledge that their self-image is protected against any information, feelings, or awareness that might make them have to change their view of the world. Nothing--not facts, not observable behavior; not the use of reason, logic, or the evidence of their own senses will make them reevaluate that world view.

Thus the antiwar crowd are more interested in the halo they have drawn around their own heads for being against war--something no sane person is for.

In my post "Peace Like A River, i.e., Denial River" , I quote from ShrinkWrapped's excellent discussion on how people's conscious thoughts and actions, often reflect contradictory unconscious desires. In particular, he focuses on unconscious aggression:

Nowhere is this more significant than in our understanding of aggression. People typically fear their primitive aggression and defend against their awareness of the intensity and depth of their aggression as well as against the expression of their aggression. Yet it is a truism that unconscious impulses always seek ways to find discharge. It is not uncommon to see parents who are committed pacifists, who commit themselves to having homes which display no evidence of aggressive toys, raise children who are themselves aggressive and problematic; via the magic of unconscious processes which include identification and projective identifications, fantasy formation, primitive parent-child introjection and incorporation, among many others, the child becomes the agent for expressing the parent's disowned and disavowed unconscious aggression.

When our oldest was ~5, he often played with a neighboring child whose parents were ideological liberals and aggressively anti-aggression. This child owned no guns and wasn't allowed to play with toy soldiers, watch violent cartoons, etc; there were many other rules governing his play too numerous to enumerate. His parents were what one might refer to as "controlling" people (which is why we did not maintain a long term friendship.) We would carefully place our son's militaristic weapons/toys out of sight when this child came to visit. On one of his last visits, in his mother's presence, he quite cleverly took bites out of his grilled cheese sandwich in just such a fashion as to create a gun which fit quite nicely in his tiny hand; he proceeded to shoot everyone and everything in sight. His mother was quite apologetic, though I suspect managed in her own mind to blame us for her son's behavior. You will not be surprised to find that he was having some "issues" in kindergarten with aggression.
[...]
I have wondered for quite some time if this kind of projective identification is an aspect of the Left's fascination with, and (denied) support for, anti-civilization violence.

Indeed. This is the sort of psychological dynamic that is hard for a competent psychiatrist to miss--unless he or she has issues with their own aggressive impulses.

Shrink is absolutely correct in asserting that by denying our own aggressive natures we end up enabling and supporting the aggression of others. And, the most blatant example is the appeasement of terrorism and terrorists by the political left and the Democrats; or any who are totally invested in seeing themselves as "antiwar" as they cozy up to enemies whose explicit goal is to destroy our civilization.

The actual track record of so-called "peace" movements is abysmal. Look at how the same sort of "peace" movement in the 1930's allowed the rise to power and the subsequent aggression of the most dangerous evil ever to confront the world.

Once again we are faced with a loud contingent of the clueless, who would rather deny their own aggressive impulses and embrace the delusion that they are saintly, compassionate people--proudly standing against the horrible evils of war--rather than confront reality.

Thomas Sowell once commented that, "If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent. "

Clearly it is not. And there is an important psychological reason for this reality. Every aggressor today has been recast by the political left as a victim of the imperialist West; and thus those aggressors know that the full force of the left's postmodern rhetoric and its antiwar fervor will provide a protective umbrella shielding them from any consequences for their aggression. No matter how egregious their behavior is; or how many innocents they slaughter, they can count on endless demands for cease fires, negotiations and concessions; and that the left will blame the West.

Antiwar protestors always make a point of asking rhetorically what war is good for? You have heard them chanting this query at almost every one of their peace marches.

The truth is that no sane person wants war, but aggression may be the only possible response to evil.

And in human history, there have been many evils far worse than war.

The result of all this antiwar activism and rhetoric has been the ongoing enabling and appeasement of an intolerable evil that thrives on hatred and that has grown strong and sure of its holy mission to kill.

But still, after decades of self-delusion, the rhetoric continues, as diplomats insist on getting back on "the roadmap" that should lead to peace; but which--surprise! surprise!--seems to lead only to more violence and death.

Maybe it is time to give up on the idea of a Mideast Peace where it has come to either enabling one group of psychopaths versus another?

By not getting in touch with our own aggression, we have abandoned the very means by which peace could actually come about. By undermining any action that could serve, in the real world, to cause Iran to consider the negative consequences of becoming a nuclear power, they are ensuring a much more dangerous and violent future.

If the peace movement really were a peace movement, its members would be denouncing the true threats to peace and trying their damndest to disarm and neutralize the likes of Iran, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and so on.

Instead they invite tyrants like Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia and laugh at his ridiculous assertion that "there are no homosexuals in Iran." Yeah, the left can laugh at this deliberate, cynical lie----and that's why they have stopped worrying and learned to love the idea of a nuclear Iran--even as the stooges of the Mullahs murder and terrorize Iranian homosexuals. Very funny.

They don't take the reality very seriously either.

In the blissful state of denial, these saintly "pacifists" fail to understand how their behavior actually champions the terrorists; and rationalizes terrorist behavior. They fail to appreciate that by refusing to call terrorists like the rulers of Iran to account--not through words, but through actions-- for their uncivilized and barbaric behavior, they, these wonderful, compassionate, antiwar activists have become the root cause of the even more deadly confrontation that will inevitably ensue.

In today's world, those who are truly evil know they can get away with practically any horror; and that there will always be a large cadre of dupes who are willing to rationalize, excuse, or minimize any atrocity.

For all their rhetoric to the contrary, the actual beneficiaries of the "antiwar" movement are the warmongering tyrants of the world whose naked aggression remains unchecked and is always rationalized away. The only outcome in the real world of all that lovely pacifism is the triumph of evil.

War is a always a terrible choice. No reasonable person could believe that it is benign or intrinsically "good" to wage war. Yet, it is sometimes a choice that reasonable people need to make simply because evil exists in the world and it cannot go unchecked--that is, not if you truly care about innocent human life.

If you cannot consciously tap into the aggressive side of your human nature and permit the use of aggression and even violence to serve the good; you will inevitably end up serving all that is evil in the world.

Pacifists cannot deal with this simple truth.

The left's antiwar activism is simply part of its ongoing struggle against reality. Watch for more hysterical rhetoric in the days, weeks and months to come regarding the Iranian situation.

Watch especially as the new meme about being able "to live with a nuclear Iran" is pushed aggressively in the press, and as supposedly "reasonable" people piously mouth it. Don't forget when you hear them say it what they are really saying; and especially don't forget that the political left once again, is perfectly willing to sacrifice millions of people on the altar of their own narcissism and psychopathology.

UPDATE: Carolyn Glick hears what the left chooses to ignore: "Ahmadinejad's Overlooked Message":

During his visit to New York this week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacked every basic assumption upon which Western civilization is predicated. Ahmadinejad offered up his attacks while extolling his vision of Islamic global domination.

Refusing to note his existential challenge to the Free World, the Western media concentrated their coverage of his trip on his statements regarding specific Western policy goals....

Ahmadinejad gave two major addresses this week - at Columbia University and at the UN General Assembly. He devoted both to putting forward his vision for global Islamic domination. And while the Western media sought hidden meanings and signals for peaceful intentions in his words, the fact is that on both occasions, Ahmadinejad made absolutely clear that his vision of Islamic domination cannot coexist in any manner with Western civilization. Consequently, Ahmadinejad's statements were not negotiating stances. They were the direct consequence of the world view he propounds. As such, they are non-negotiable....

Read on.