Monday, March 31, 2008

SANITY SQUAD LIVE TONIGHT !

UPDATE: Even better than "Fitna" --watch this from MEMRI-TV:

And these dysfunctional human beings think that a movie like "Fitna" does their religion damage....

Please join us for another Sanity Squad podcast this evening at 8:00 pm! Siggy, Shrinkwrapped, Neo and I will be discussing Geert Wilder's movie "Fitna" (see below) and the ongoing campaign against the Sadr militias in Basra. Hang onto your hats!

Click on the button below to listen live:

Listen to The Sanity Squad on internet talk radio

The call in number is is (646) 716-9116. Showtime is a 8 PM tonight.

And, if you haven't seen "Fitna" yet, take 15 minutes to watch it. It really shows nothing new (i.e., that readers of this blog haven't heard about), but it shows it graphically and with very little comment. Watching it is an act of freedom and defiance against those forces that want nothing more than to destroy the very values upon which western civilization is based.

STATING THE OBVIOUS

Democrats are shocked, shocked....


[Eric Allie]

And they will be even more stunned by the time Denver rolls around; but what did they expect from the disenfranchised and oppressed who have no other options open to them?


[M.e.Cohen cartoons]

Sunday, March 30, 2008

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES

Image hosted by Photobucket.com Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry
**NOTE: I am now getting many more submissions than I can possibly include in the weekly Carnival. Please don't be offended if your submission is not used (oh, okay, be as offended as you like) as it only means that for a variety of reasons I wasn't able to fit it into the "flow" as I put together each Carnival.

REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. Talk about an 'inconvenient truth" ... All the news that's "Fitna" to print? What's all the uproar? It could be a recruiting film for the mujahudeen! CAIR for Dummies...or is it for Dhimmicrats?

2. Taking the whole concept of "useful idiot" to an entirely new level. Sheesh. And then there's outright collaboration with the enemies of civilization.

3. Yet even more Palestinian oppression by the evil Israelis..and a rather blatant insensitivity to Islamic culture. Obviously, pro-peace = anti-Israel.

4. "Keep Calm and Carry On" ?--today the motto would be "Act Hysterically and Give Up at the First Opportunity". But then, the world is full of idiots.

5. Perhaps John Edwards can ajudicate? They ajudicate with their feet in Bolivia...chasing the Brazilian dream.

6. Hey! It's OK cause everyone can 'misspoke'! Anyway, it's not 'misspeaking' its lying. She thought she was Olympia Snowe? Fact-checkers can be brutal!

7. I don't see monkeys coming out of her butt any time soon, do you? She's going all the way.

8. ANYONE but McCain, por favor! H-U-G / O-C-H / A-V-E-Z, Mickey Mouse.... Oops...think progessively idiotically (but at least they corrected it). 25 years of progress[ism]...and all we get is this lousy Glenn Greenwald?

9. Moving beyond Jeremiah's generation..or following in his footsteps? Mamma Mia! There goes the Italian vote. Her [garlic] nose is out of joint...and so is mine! But when HE says it it is holy writ--not stereotyping or insensitive racism. Finally! A typical White Person speaks at last....and struggles with a great white shark shock....

10. Affairs, dope, coke and this, too?? I wonder what else he hasn't told us?

11. There is a dark horse candidate that can save the Dems...but only if they cho-cho-choose him! It's definitely a gory prospect.

12. Climate change makes us crazy? Somehow, I think it might be the other way around. I like NY in spring...how about you?

13. People who voluntarily keep themselves in the dark? A bright light in a vast sea of darkness. But, as you might expect, Kim Jong Il likes it.

14. Yummmmmmmm. What in heaven's name are they complaining about? People would love to vacation there! Contraband confectionaries--for a different kind of inmate!

15. Deeply cool performance art. If you want cool, dude, translate the COTI into jive! What a great idea! Saddam look-alike in hypnotic performance.

16. Uh-oh. This sounds like a Star Trek episode...but who will save us?

17. Clearly, the International Atomic Energy Agency is not up to any task .

18. Maybe if you talk rrrrreal slowwww every minute will last longer? The incredible shrinking product.

19. Heads-up bowling...see the French ESPN archives! In those days, it was bowling for 'social justice'.

20. Don't go to this guy's dojo. No feminist trailblazers on this show...

***************************************
Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:

Heard the Word of Blog?

Saturday, March 29, 2008

BLOGGING BURNOUT

Sorry for the light to non-existent posting, but I think I'm suffering from blogger burnout and, not coincidentally, there are a number of personal issues I must attend to today.

The Carnival will go up on Sunday as usual; and perhaps I'll be back to "normal" by Monday or so. Consider this an open thread --since there's always plenty of insanity going on in the world to discuss.

Just round up all the usual suspects and have at it :-)

Also, feel free to donate to the perpetuation of the blog...My PayPal and Amazon buttons are located on the sidebar.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

A SOBERING REALITY

No wonder Islamic apologists don't want this movie to be seen.... Go take 15 minutes and watch Geert Wilder's film "FITNA" over at HotAir.

It is a sobering look at Islam through its own words and the behavior of its believers. Come back and tell me what you think.

**WARNING** Some of the images are very graphic.

UPDATE: A second sobering reality: the film has been taken down at LiveLeak (go to the link above and click on the video and you will find out why); but you can find it at My Pet Jawa.

I propose that as many bloggers as possible either link to this copy or post it on their blogs. If anyone has the embed code, send it to me and I'll gladly post it here. As many commenters have noted; the film shows us nothing we do not alreadly know about a the behavior of a large portion of Islam's believers, but the most important thing is that WE CANNOT ALLOW THREATS FROM THESE BARBARIANS TO SILENCE US FROM SPEAKING THE TRUTH.

DEAD END

No matter which direction they decide to go...



Cartoons by Lisa Benson

LOVE THEME FROM THE DEMOCRATIC TITANIC

Victor Davis Hanson points out all the reasons why Hillary's campaign will continue, despite any calls for her to drop out to avoid tearing the Democratic Party apart:
The Democratic solution is far more complicated than one thinks, and no one should write Clinton off yet. If Hillary wins a majority of the remaining states, and some of them by wide margins, and is able to count Florida, it is not at all clear that she will be all that far off in the aggregate vote. And then she will adduce three or four powerful arguments—1) she has won the large in-play states, (2) she has the greater momentum finishing the primary season, (3) her delegates are predicated more on popular voting, Obama's more the result of caucuses, (4) she may be running stronger against McCain in the majority of polls.

Obama's ace-in-the-hole argument that the super-delegates should not 'steal' the nomination from someone who comes to the convention with the greater delegate count and perhaps total popular vote ( and to do so, would forfeit his supporters in the general election) is balanced by Hillary's supporters' own implied defection should Obama be nominated.

That might be more interesting an argument than one thinks. She might suggest that while Obama's supporters might stay home should she win, hers are more likely to jump to McCain should Obama be nominated and do the nominee much more damage.


Indeed, Hanson is correct but he fails to make the most powerful argument, and for me the most compelling one when discussing either of the Clintons; and that is the psychological reason why Hillary will not stop her campaign until the bitter bitter end.

A little while back, I said in a post titled,Hillary and the Politics of Personal Destruction:
....as things get closer to the wire....she will not go down without swinging.

We have enough information about Hillary's behavior--particularly her behavior under stress--over the last decade or so to be able to make reasonable predictions about her future behavior....

Certainly, both sides of the political aisle suffer from excesses of narcissism. But I think it is reasonable to predict that we will see no "Mitt-Romney-for-the-good-of-the-party" moment from Hillary, when and if she is eclipsed by Barack.

For the narcissist it is always a zero-sum game she plays with other individuals. From the perspective of the narcissist, if someone else "wins", the narcissist "loses". It cannot be otherwise, since on some level they know that their own talent and skills are way overblown. Hence, they cannot hope to "win" based on those talents alone. Thus, the behavior of the classic narcissist is mostly directed toward making others lose so they can win by default. To that end, there is no behavior or tactic that is considered out -of-bounds or over-the-top.


Right now, as political analysts all seem to agree that Hillary doesn't stand a chance of getting enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination, they have forgotten how dangerous and truly obsessed she is with power. Like the narcissist she is and has always been, if she cannot win she will do her utmost to make Barack lose--and then she will win by default.

Thus it is unlikely that the Democrats will persuade Hillary to drop out for the good of the Party (SHE knows what is for the good of the Party, in the same way that SHE knows what is good for you and I in health care and all other areas, after all). So, expect her campaign to go on and on and on....and on.

MY CAMPAIGN WILL GO ON AND ON...
(Love Theme From The Democratic Titanic)

Every night in nightmares
I see him, winning.
That is how you'll know I'll go on.

No matter the vote count
Or polls or projections...
My campaign must always go on.

Indeed, I was born to lead
I believe I'm destined to go on.
Dues paid, I've watched Bill get laid;
Now it's my turn to win
I'm entitled to go on and on....

Just once, no matter how brief
I'll be Commander-in-Chief
And the world will know who's in charge.

Power's not half as much fun
Unless you're The Big One
And that is why you know I'll go on

Indeed, I was born to lead
I believe I am destined to go on.
Dues paid, I've watched Bill get laid;
Now it's my turn to win
I'm entitled to go on and on....

Once there, there's nothing I'll fear,
And at last I will be vindicated!
It's true, I'm the best thing for you
I'm so sure I'll be super delegated;
As soon as I win, and after the spin
Hillary Rodham Clinton will go on and on.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

MORALLY TWISTED


Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world's oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.

Palestinians have none of these characteristics. There has never been a Palestinian country, never been a Palestinian language, never been a Palestinian ethnicity, never been a Palestinian religion in any way distinct from Islam elsewhere. Indeed, "Palestinian" had always meant any individual living in the geographic area called Palestine. For most of the first half of the 20th century, "Palestinian" and "Palestine" almost always referred to the Jews of Palestine. The United Jewish Appeal, the worldwide Jewish charity that provided the nascent Jewish state with much of its money, was actually known as the United Palestine Appeal. Compared to Tibetans, few Palestinians have been killed, its culture has not been destroyed nor its mosques looted or plundered, and Palestinians have received billions of dollars from the international community. Unlike the dying Tibetan nation, there are far more Palestinians today than when Israel was created.

None of this means that a distinct Palestinian national identity does not now exist. Since Israel's creation such an identity has arisen and does indeed exist. Nor does any of this deny that many Palestinians suffered as a result of the creation of the third Jewish state in the area, known -- since the Romans renamed Judea -- as "Palestine."

But it does mean that of all the causes the world could have adopted, the Palestinians' deserved to be near the bottom and the Tibetans' near the top. This is especially so since the Palestinians could have had a state of their own from 1947 on, and they have caused great suffering in the world, while the far more persecuted Tibetans have been characterized by a morally rigorous doctrine of nonviolence.

So, the question is, why? Why have the Palestinians received such undeserved attention and support, and the far more aggrieved and persecuted and moral Tibetans given virtually no support or attention?


Prager then goes on to answer his own question. Read it all.

First and foremost is the fact that the Palestinians' use of terror has captured the world's attention, and, instead of bringing the condemnation such behavior deserves, it has brought them a continuous flow of money and sympathy. In fact, the resourceful Palestinians have managed to leverage their escalating terrorist tactics--murdering as many innocent people as possible--into the enviable status of gold-medal victimhood; all the while deliberately ensuring that their society remains as pathetic as possible to continue the con.

The Palestinian have depended for decades on the creation and export of two fundamental products: (1) terrorism and (2) victimhood. Far from "creating the conditions for an 'irreversible' economic collapse in Hamas-controlled Gaza, the Israelis have made a herculean effort to assist the Palestinians over the years, particularly to support the development of a Palestinian middle-class and to develop the institutions and attitudes necessary for a free society.

Sadly, they have been thwarted in those efforts by the two precious Palestinian commodities that have been marketed for decades by the dysfunctional Palestinian leaders.

These leaders manipulate Palestinian "victimhood at the hands of Israeli oppression" so convincingly and with such great gusto, that they have conned the international community into believing that Palestinians have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for the garbage dump their society has evolved into. The poor, oppressed suicide bombers of Palestine have become the "opiate" of the leftist masses.

In a series of posts about Palestinian psychopathology, Siggy has this to say:
The Palestinians, as a group and as a society, have failed. Unlike other Arabs in the region, they live in close proximity to a vibrant and free society. They know and see the benefits of what living in a free society means. They also know to acknowledge Israel’s successes, they have to acknowledge their own failures. Culturally, that is too high a price to pay.

The cycle of violence is not simply destined to perpetuate itself- the cycle of violence is reinforced and ever escalating. Dysfunctional behaviors that were unknown or unheard before have become commonplace.The self destructive behavior of the Palestinians comes about as the result of the integration of exaggerated love and exaggerated hate into a fused single exaggerated emotion. What distinguishes the two becomes no more than a blurred idea. Thus, violence directed at each other is a appropriate as violence directed at the Israelis.

This kind diseased thinking is not just about violence. Even the wildest conspiracy theories, widely welcomed and accepted, become a reflection of a dysfunctional defense mechanism and absurdity. As Arab religious and political leaders whip crowds into a wild frenzy, warning of ‘Jewish plots’ to control the world, these same religious and political leaders have no trouble promising that ‘Muslims all over the world will work together to control the world’ and that the ‘flag of Islam will fly over the White House’ and the British Parliament. Those who resist will be destroyed.

These kinds of projections are used by religious and political leaders to control and feed the fantasy with the intoxication of absolute power....

There is a difference between backward societies and failed ones. Backward societies are unaware of the possibilities in front of them. Failed societies have squandered the opportunities that have been afforded them.


In the escalating and seemingly endless psychopathology of the Palestinians you can begin to see and understand the core premises and abnormal psychology that fuels the terrorist/jihadist vision, which is based on a hatred so consuming, it has not only destoyed the very soul of the Palestinian people, but it threatens to envelop the entire world with its madness.

For every professional victim, there are hordes of victimhood pimps urging them on to even greater heights of victimhood in order for the pimps to bask in a glow of moral righteousness and virtue. You can see this in the adoption of the Palestinians as "global chic" by the morally bankrupt and mindless intellectual elite of the left, as they glorify and worship Palestinian dysfunction and pathology.

The reason why the critics of Israel always seem to ignore Palestinian atrocities and give them a free pass on having any responsibility for the lack of any progress or civilized behavior in their present-day culture is clear. I wrote in that earlier piece:
The West for the most part has the attitude that somehow, allowing the Palestinians to suffer the consequences of their choices and behavior would be "punishing them". A typical proponent of this attitude, for example, is former President Carter, who has consistently and regularly advocates that Israel's actions should be punished, but that the Palestinians must be given a free pass by civilization.

Carter blithely discusses the "devastating consequences" of Israel or American actions, but I have yet to see him--or any others who put forth the same compassionate view-- grapple with the "devastating consequences" of the Hamas charter. Or of suicide bombers. Or of the intent, stated repeatedly by the leaders of the Palestinians and sanctioned by the Palestinian people who voted to elect Hamas, to destroy Israel.

Carter and the other terrorist enablers of the West ignore Palestinian behavior with the cultivated cognitive dissonance of today's postmodern left. The obsession of the West with the eternal victimhood cult of the Palestininas has been the single biggest psychological impediment toward peace in that region.

Why should the Palestinians' behavior ever change? What could possibly motivate them to be civilized? Or deal honestly with Israel? They have every reason to believe that the Carters of the world will always let them off the hook--and bail them out--no matter what they do or how badly they behave.

When it comes to seeking peace; or establishing a civil and productive society the Palestinians have shown themselves to be completely hopeless and only focused on war.

In fact, they are so committed to war; so determined to continue on their path homicidal violence for violence' sake, that they are indoctrinating the next generation into the cult of death (and they don't even need Mickey Mouse to do it).

Western leaders are amazingly slow learners. They have been excusing the Palestinians and vilifying Israel for decades now, and yet they wonder why peace is so elusive in that part of the world.

The Palestinian Con is one of the greatest deceptions in the history of the world.

And the Western world, which is the actual victim of the con seems bent on never calling these flim-flam artist to account for undermining every peace process; breaking every truce; squandering every chance; and worshipping death. It is truly amazing how the West, instead of understanding the con, are willing accessories to it and instead view the con artist as the victim and constantly act to protect and defend him. What would you say to a victimized senior citizen who delusionally protects the perpetrators of a scam who have robbed him of all his savings? You would rightfully think he is out of his mind and feel pity at how the ravages of age have compromised his cognitive functioning.


If you have any doubts about the power and sanctity that can be yours if victimhood status can be officially confered upon you; or of the endless moral benefits of being "oppressed"; just consider the central Palestinian role in the quasi-religious cult of victimhood that is part of today's pervasive leftist dogma.

In the holy book of leftist belief, "victimhood" is the most celebrated quality deserving of attention and pity. This is in part because many on the political left have a pathologically narcissistic need to see themselves as "champions of the oppressed", hence the constant need to find and maintain an oppressed class of people to champion. But it also dovetails nicely into the the Marxist dialectic that underlies that ideology. The world is divided up into two groups, you see: the oppressors (i.e., white, male,heterosexual, Republican, Americans or Israelis) and the oppressed (everyone else).

The Palestinians are probably one of the most underserving victim groups in history. With the help of their own leaders, in connivance with the enabling behavior of the international political left, they have evolved into a homicidal mob that is more of a death cult than a society.

With every invitation to rejoin the civilized world that has been offered up to them, the Palestinians have instead chosen cultural suicide. They would much rather kill Jews than work to create a life for their children.

In fact, they'd rather their children kill Jews, too.

Now compare and contrast the Palestinians with the relatively gentle culture of Tibet and the non-violent philosophy of its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. You can also compare and contrast the deliberate brutality of China and its Communist leadership with Israel. China's brutality and oppression is almost always given a free pass by the left in much the same way they have extended to Fidel Castro and other despotic totalitarian and authoritarian regimes their devoted loyalty and sympathy. Israel, as a Democratic and morally conscious nation actually works hard to spare innocent human life is automatically condemned whenever they respond to Palestinian provocation simply because it represents Western values and is by definition of the neo-marxists of our day, an 'official' oppressor. The left always calls Israel's response to the provocations "disproportionate"; but in reality, it is the left's moral equivalence that is so disgustingly disproportionate.

As Prager notes:
If Tibet had been crushed by a white European nation, the Tibetans would have elicited far more sympathy. But, alas, their near-genocidal oppressor is not white. And the world does not take mass murder committed by non-whites nearly as seriously as it takes anything done by Westerners against non-Westerners. Furthermore, China is far more powerful and frightening than Israel. Israel has a great army and nuclear weapons, but it is pro-West, it is a free and democratic society, and it has seven million people in a piece of land as small as Belize. China has nuclear weapons, has a trillion U.S. dollars, an increasingly mighty army and navy, is neither free nor democratic, is anti-Western, and has 1.2 billion people in a country that dominates the Asian continent.

A fifth reason is the world's Left. As a general rule, the Left demonizes Israel and has loved China since it became Communist in 1948. And given the power of the Left in the world's media, in the political life of so many nations, and in the universities and the arts, it is no wonder vicious China has been idolized and humane Israel demonized.


Yes, the world's priorities are upside-down and topsy-turvy; and its values have become morally twisted. It rewards and encourages Palestinian dysfunction by championing the perpetrators of violence and terror--and most of the world doesn't even seem to mind that the hatred and calls for genocide against the Jews have become an end in itself.

In a recent article on the Tibetan situation, Spiegal suggested that, "It cannot be ruled out that some have thought of transforming their pacifist struggle into a resistance movement akin to the Palestinian struggle."

Frankly, it would serve the world right if they did; and in so doing plunged that part of the planet into the same mindless chaos, violence and hate that typifies the "Palestinian Struggle". Don't get me wrong, here. I have nothing against the Palestinians having their own state. But they truly prefer to hate and kill more than they want to build a real society.

Nevertheless, how can the Tibetans fail to notice the moral inversion and perversity; that characterizes the world's attitude toward them? Tibet's truly just cause for a return to its statehood; as well as the deliberate crushing of both their cultural and religious heritage by the communist Chinese have been virtually ignored by the rest of the world for decades; while Palestinian terror and violence; murder and genocide are constantly rewarded, applauded, and appeased.

Can you imagine the IOC even considering Israel as a host for Olympic games? Yet China was feted and honored with this economic, political, and public relations plum.

Isn't it time to stop this moral insanity?

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

THEY BOTH 'MISSPOKE' OR LIED OR SIMPLY EXERCISED THEIR POSTMODERN TRUTH OPTION

After all, who can know Truth anyway in this brave, new postmodern world? (Just kidding)

Hot Air is taking a poll, though, and Obama seems to be 'winning' in the BEST Democrat Liar Sweepstakes (so far).

Considering how disliked Hillary is and how holy Obama has been made out to be, you might think that Hillary's lie would outvote Obama's. But it hasn't, and I think there's a psychological reason for this peculiarity.

Most people can understand the temptation for the self-aggrandizing lie; the little exaggeration that makes you seem smarter, braver, etc. etc. In the psychology business, we call it "faking good" and people do it all the time on psychological tests--even when they are extremely talented and accomplished individuals. Answers to certain questions often make up what is called the "lie scale" of this type of psychometric test.

But the lie a person weaves to exculpate himself from appropriate condemnation of unacceptable behavior seems (to most people, anyway) less acceptable and frankly has no redeeming characteristics. Particularly if while doing the excusing, you casually throw your dear old grandma to the wolves.

Just sayin'.....I wonder what my readers think?

THE DIALOGUE ON RACE BEGINS



...and it goes downhill from there.

The inimitible Christopher Hitchens has this to say about the two most memorable aspects of Obama's 'historic' speech:

You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)
[...]
But is it "inflammatory" to say that AIDS and drugs are wrecking the black community because the white power structure wishes it? No. Nor is it "controversial." It is wicked and stupid and false to say such a thing. And it not unimportantly negates everything that Obama says he stands for by way of advocating dignity and responsibility over the sick cults of paranoia and victimhood.

That same supposed message of his is also contradicted in a different way by trying to put Geraldine Ferraro on all fours with a thug like Obama's family "pastor." Ferraro may have sounded sour when she asserted that there can be political advantages to being black in the United States—and she said the selfsame thing about Jesse Jackson in 1984—but it's perfectly arguable that what she said is, in fact, true, and even if it isn't true, it's absurd to try and classify it as a racist remark.

You know, I don't think I am ever going to grow tired of this brouhaha or the 'healing' dialogue it spawns --particularly since it fully exposes for all to see the complete and total intellectual and moral bankruptcy of both the Democrats and the political left.

Let's see...how many Sundays are there between now and November ?

LISTEN TO THE SANITY SQUAD'S CHINESE BUFFET

Click to listen to last night's Sanity Squad on the events in China and Tibet;as well as the resurrection of the Obama-Wright connection. Click on the button below:
Listen to The Sanity Squad on internet talk radio

Monday, March 24, 2008

SANITY SQUAD LIVE TONIGHT !

Please join us for another Sanity Squad podcast this evening at 8:00 pm! Siggy, Shrinkwrapped, Neo and I will be discussing a number of topics including the situation with China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama and its larger psychological implications.

Click on the button below to listen live:

Listen to The Sanity Squad on internet talk radio

The call in number is is (646) 716-9116. Showtime is a 8 PM tonight.

THE POSTMODERN ZIPLESS FUCK

TigerHawk notes the unwillingness of Western Liberals to stand in support of moderate Islam:

The Western left, especially of the chattering class variety, generally believes that foreign hostility including but not limited to jihadism is an understandable reaction to one or more Western sins, whether capitalism, materialism, cultural or actual "imperialism," or Zionism, and that it will end only if we stop sinning. This much is obvious to anybody who attends lectures on national security at a major university and who listens to the questions from the professors and students in the audience. Well, if one believes that foreign hostility is purely or even mostly a function of our own immoral policies, "moderate" Muslims are offensive in three ways. First, in arguing that jihadists ought to be held accoutable for their own hostility the moderates impeach the left-wing view of the world, and nobody appreciates that. Second, the moderates lend credibility to the idea that Western sins are not sins at all, which means they are in fact "stooges" of the capitalists, imperialists, and Zionists. Third, they force Western liberals to express a "value judgment" about a non-Western institution -- Islam -- and that is an enormous no-no according to two generations of scholarship, one generation of schooling, and half a generation of corporate compliance training.

Two examples of the deepest fears of the left can be found on yesterday's Easter op-ed pages.

First, there is Erica Jong's musings from HuffPo as she tells us why she is so horribly afraid that the evil Republicans might win the election:

And yet we have had great candidates before--think Al Gore--and lost to the low-level conniving, smearing and swift boating of the GOP (Grandiose Old Plutocrats).

The GOP stands for nothing today but looting the national treasury for the rich. George Dubya Bush once addressed them as the "haves and have mores"--clearly he is one of them--but maybe he will have less now that the Carlyle Group is running out of money. Maybe he'll have a little rachmones for the have-less and have-nots, though I doubt it.

If anyone in Washington read history, they'd understand that any empire that spends more in war than on its people eventually goes down in flames. The Persians, Greeks and Romans proved it--see Herodotus--and the British, French, Belgians, Dutch and Germans proved it all over again in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But does anyone care?

Apparently not. It's a rule of history that when an empire gorges on guns and forgets butter, that empire winds up on the scrap heap of history.

Dubya could have learned this at Yale had he not been drunk or stoned all the time and figuring out ways to avoid going to 'Nam.

But he doesn't know and doesn't care. He thinks, "The surge is working." Dick Cheney and Condi Rice tell him so. And now McCain echoes them. And our idiot corporate press--which has no time to read or think or dig for information (too busy getting pix of Kristen-Alexandra's tattoos) doesn't give a shit either. Leave that to the book-writers. That's safe enough since Americans don't read--especially not big thick books about history.

Yes, only the courageous "book-writers" (like her!) care. Note the casual dismissal of stupid American (except, I imagine those who are clever enough to read her books).

Next, there is Erica's soulmate, Robert, who expresses his own terrible fear:

And I will hazard a terrible guess: that we have lost Afghanistan as surely as we have lost Iraq and as surely as we are going to "lose" Pakistan. It is our presence, our power, our arrogance, our refusal to learn from history and our terror – yes, our terror – of Islam that is leading us into the abyss. And until we learn to leave these Muslim peoples alone, our catastrophe in the Middle East will only become graver. There is no connection between Islam and "terror". But there is a connection between our occupation of Muslim lands and "terror". It's not too complicated an equation. And we don't need a public inquiry to get it right.

Somehow, I don't think that it's the "audacity of hope" thing that brings these two great thinkers together in their assessment of the horrific sins of George Bush and Western Civilization in general. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Both are certainly audacious enough to hope for the defeat of the REAL enemy: Bush, America, Israel and the West. That they come together on the Easter op-ed pages--is that not a perfect example of a zipless fuck, or what?

As TigerHawk notes, this fundamental belief in the Original Sin of the West continues to give the Jihadists and murderers of Islam a complete moral pass. By their own careful postmodern 'reasoning', it is only by the defeat of the West in Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere--beginning with the Republicans in the U.S.--that the way is then cleared for the imposition of an International Order of Peace, Justice and Brotherhood which will sweep the world as Islamists everywhere will lay down their arms. If only the West would stop sinning and killing see the Light !

With great intellectuals like these two giants of the left, who needs stupidity?

Sunday, March 23, 2008

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES - Happy Easter !

Image hosted by Photobucket.com Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry
**NOTE: I am now getting many more submissions than I can possibly include in the weekly Carnival. Please don't be offended if your submission is not used (oh, okay, be as offended as you like) as it only means that for a variety of reasons I wasn't able to fit it into the "flow" as I put together each Carnival.

REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. What makes shrinks laugh ...we can also laugh at great moments in hypocrisy.

2. Building a religion? Your own personal Jesus. And there are very strict quotas.

3. Is Barack left or Wright...or justand example of postmodern rhetoric at its finest? Grandma's, watch out for those grandsons!

4. The Trinity tap-dance. You can do it to this great Album! Or watch the Fox show..... What did he know and when did he know it? I didn't know he starred in "Throw Mama From the Train" "Throw Grandma Under the Bus"... Wright, ridin' dirty with Bill.

5. Soaring rhetoric is not her thing. Big Question: was it more condescending to black people, white people or Americans in general? Nevermind, here's stuff 'typical' white people like. The inequality is undeniable.

6. Oh the humanity! But at least its egalatarian horror.... LOLOL! ...Now, just wait till they bring us socialized medicine--then everyone's privacy will be violated!

7. Osama Bin Laden, call your office! Yarmulke yahoos. Just another form of Holocaust denial.

8. This sounds like a plan. Return with us now to those thrilling days of ...today! Survive a 'silly' emergency and listen to the Ministry of Silly Sharia Laws.

9. John Kerry, nuanced foreign policy analyst.

10. Another catastrophic consequence of global warming! Hey, it could happen. Frankly, I'll never tire of making fun of Al Gore, nobel laureate and inventor of both the internet and global warming. The mystery of global warming's missing...heat.

12. If you ignore the threats of terrorism and the glorious communist air quality, China's Olympic games promise to be really a lot of fun. either way, Beijing makes its point....

13. An appropriate ode to Eliot Spitzer! Now somebody needs to write one for the Tehran Chief of [Religious] Police! The Supremes have issued their ruling.

14. Do you Love economic advice ? Because, because if you do, reality bites.

15. Keep Christ in Christmas, but take Him out of Easter? Maybe this cathedral is why....at the National Cathedral, no less!

16. A Peep Show and then a Peeps show...

Happy Easter Everyone!
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Saturday, March 22, 2008

A JOYOUS EASTER TO ALL



AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.


-Dylan Thomas

THE LEGACY OF THE 'TYPICAL' LEFTIST

Can any of you remember any campaign when everyone in the news media so calmly and matter-of-factly discussed in detail things like "the black vote" or "the hispanic vote"? Can any of you ever remember the sort of blatant racism and offhand stereotyping ("typical white") that now rolls off the tongues of commentators and candidates?

Is this the sort of "dialogue" that Obama had in mind? Is this the sort of "racial tranacendence" we were promised by the Democrat's messiah?

Or, is this simply the end game maneuvers of the Democratic's multi-decade pimping of identity politics and victimhoodology?

The only legacy that the candidacy of Barack Obama is going to leave with the American people is one of racial polarization ;divisiveness; and identity politics taken to the nth degree. Amazingly, this could have been predicted at the very start of the campaign as the two Democrat-approved victim groups lined up to do battle for the nomination, each believing they represented the purist victims of the evils of the white male capitalist oppressors.

If ever there was an example of how people regularly delude themselves into thinking they are doing "good", when in fact they are leaving the door open to the worse aspects of their own human nature, this qualifies.

Let me give you an example of how human nature typically operates--better expressed as "how 'good' intentions do not guarantee 'good' results":
A rigorous statistical examination has found that smoking bans increase drunken-driving fatalities. One might expect that a ban on smoking in bars would deter some people from showing up, thereby reducing the number of people driving home drunk. But jurisdictions with smoking bans often border jurisdictions without bans, and some bars may skirt the ban, so that smokers can bypass the ban with extra driving. There is also a large overlap between the smoker and alcoholic populations, which would exacerbate the danger from extra driving. The authors estimate that smoking bans increase fatal drunken-driving accidents by about 13%, or about 2.5 such accidents per year for a typical county. Assuming a smoking ban is still worth it, the results suggest the need for a more aggressive approach to drunken driving - or a nationwide smoking ban.

Adams, S. and Cotti, C., "Drunk driving after the passage of smoking bans in bars," Journal of Public Economics (forthcoming).


This "but I meant well" defense is the increasingly familiar cry of the 'typical' clueless leftist do-gooder, who makes it his or her business to force us to do what they believe is 'best' for us. They go about their daily lives trying to control every little aspect of everyone else's life for their own good and supposedly that of society. They rail against the 'oppression' of the free market and capitalism (see Barack's race speech for good examples of this); and speak of 'empowerment' and 'power to the people' and other catch phrases of the warmed-over marxism they perpetually spout.

The do-gooder leftist in all the various ideological incarnations--the antiwar crowd, the environmental crowd, the communists, socialists, and assorted collectivists--offers the rationale that he does what he does for the "common good" and for "social justice", "peace" and "brotherhood". His high-minded, self-righteous rhetoric justifies (to him anyway) imposing his will and beliefs on others for their own good; and he will not hesitate to use whatever coercive capablity he has at hand to get others to do what he wants and what he says.

The capitalist, on the other hand, is overtly out to pursue his own selfish profit, and understands he must use persuasion. That is, he must convince people that his ideas and the products of his mind are better than all the rest so that they will be willing to part with their hard-earned money to possess them. His desire for power over others is manifested in an indirect manner because people must wnat what he has to offer and believe that they will benefit from an interaction with him.

There is no parallel social limitations on the behavior of the leftist. This tyrant wannabe does not feel the need to convince others of the veracity or even the effectiveness of his ideas; nor does he accept defeat when others are not interested or resist their implementation. He knows in his heart what is best for everyone, and he will use coercion, if necessary. First he will try guilt. Then when human nature fails to live up to his expectations, he will give fatherly admonishments and point you to the one true way. He will be gravely disappointed in you, when you still don't see things his way. This will be the ultimate justification for his do-gooder plans.

It's really cute how Obama has framed the current debate: if you don't vote for me, then it will be definitive proof of the latent racism of America. It will prove that Reverend Wright is absolutely correct in his assessment, don't you see? Are we the KKK of America, after all--or will we be redeemed by doing the right and proper thing--i.e., vote for a man or woman on the basis of his or her color or gender and not on the basis of his or her ideas?

This is the casual racism and sexism that the do-gooder left has done for the legacy of the Democratic Party. By manipulating the Blacks, the Women, the Gays, the [insert your favorite victim group here] they have fashioned for themselves a 'rainbow coalition'--or to put it another way, a' politically correct' path to power that actively promotes racism, sexism--and any other prejudice they can think of--all in the name of eliminating or opposing racism, sexism and prejudice. Wow.

In other words, they bring about and make worse the very thing they claim to be opposed to; but at least in the process they make their dupes feel really really good about themselves and fully 'empowered'.

The leftist's desire for power is direct and absolute; and this is a direct consequence of the utopian ideology that drives them.

There is no area of your life which will escape his intrusive psychopathology, because he justifies it by saying he is really doing it for your sake--from banning smoking to telling you how you must vote to avoid being a racist or sexist oppressor of the innocent.

The clever leftist always manages to hide these darker motivations--the envy, greed, and desire for power (for this is human nature)--and pretend they don't even exist--even to himself. He tells himself he does not possess such dark motives; that his motives are pure and uncontaminated by the kind of self-serving goals the selfish capitalists pursue. They see themselves as the 'pure' embodiment of salvation even as they utter the same old banal platitudes and silly slogans and chants for "peace", "brotherhood" and "justice". These slogans and chants comfort the leftist; and even as the consequences of their cluelessness wreak havoc and discord all around; they are still able to feel oh so good about themselves. And that is what is important, after all.

Experiencing too much knowledge and insight about the their unconsciousness motivations would make the 'typical leftist' extremely uncomfortable; perhaps even causing him to question some of his basic assumptions about himself or his beliefs.

This is the essence of the "dilemma of the utopians". They see themselves as so pure and righteous; so correct and virtuous; how is it possible that their beautiful utopian dreams always turn into such horrible human nightmares?

You can then count on the true leftist believer to close his eyes not only to his own internal reality, but also to the external reality that proves the uselessness of his beliefs in the real world. Few on the left have ever acknowledged the nightmare of the Soviet gulag; or Lenin's purges; or China's crackdowns. Few have ever even accepted the incredible human cost their ideologies have taken on humanity; the death the suffering and misery. Even today, they actively support all the future Stalin's (like the thug Chavez) in their grabs for unparalleled power. Chavez, of course, follows the pure utopian aspirations of the typical leftist and is only allowing himself to become "dictator for life" because he wants to help his people.

Even fewer will admit that the lovely policies supposedly to promote social justice and to eliminate racism and sexism have actually had the reverse effect of encouraging its rise; as they tacitly maintain and nurture a victim class and a victimhood mentality that grows more and more entitled and bitter every day.

Thus we have the logical and inevitable progression: from supposedly trivial smoking bans to 'racial unity' and tolerance through the acceptance of reverse racism and bigotry in the name of political correctness and the larger 'good' to moral relativism on an even larger scale, i.e., overt dictatorship.

The legacy of the 'typical' leftist is almost always just the opposite of what they believe it is. Such is the power of the unconscious mind; and such is the reality of self-deception and the mindless worship of emotions over reason.

Friday, March 21, 2008

POT CALLING KETTLE BLACK ?

(No racial pun intended...at least I don't think it was, since that would be so very un-PC )



UPDATE: Charles Krouthammer calls Obama's speech a "brilliant fraud" and asks:
Does he not see the moral difference between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one's time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race hatred?

....But Obama was supposed to be new. He flatters himself as a man of the future transcending the anger of the past as represented by his beloved pastor. Obama then waxes rhapsodic about the hope brought by the new consciousness of the young people in his campaign. Then answer this, Senator: If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright's rants, but young people as well. Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?


Instead of being a 'vessel of redemption', the uninsightful and extremely conflicted Obama is going to excacerbate the racial divide, rather than heal it. It has already started. Forgive him, he knows not what he does. He's just another political pot-- a pot with a modicum of rhetorical brilliance yes--but just a pot, after all.

QUANTIFYING SACRIFICE IN THE US MILITARY; QUANTIFYING IRRESPONSIBILITY IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

In a post this week , I said:
What he[ Perle] calls incompetence and mismanagement; indecision and confusion; and failure --these are all normal and expected events during a war. I defy Perle--or anyone--to give me an example of a perfectly competently managed war that never had any indecision or confusion; or setbacks and even failures during their course.

All these factors are always a part of any human endeavor, most particularly any military endeavor, as surely as are either victory or defeat. I believe some General once said that the key to achieving victory is simply being less incomeptent and less confused than your enemy and outlasting him... and if there isn't a General somewhere who said something like that, then there should be.

Though it is far too politically incorrect to note that from an historic perspective, the losses in this war simply cannot compare to any previous war; nor can the incredible efforts that have been made to spare innocent human life as much as possible on the part of the American forces.

I do not minimize those losses or the sacrifices that have been made. It is not a matter of numbers; nor do I take anything away from the courage of those who gave their life for their country by asserting that loss of life has been historically low in this war. But it places the "cost" that Perle talks about in some perspective and minimizes the associated hysteria we have come to associate with each and every death. Instead of hysteria, let us associate a well-deserved honor for each death that preserves and protects our own values and liberty.


Today, GatewayPundit has an excellent series of graphs quantifying that sacrifice. Here's a brief summary:
Iraq War (5 years)-- 3,990
Batan Death March (one week)-- 10,000
Battle of Guadalcanal (186 days)-- 7,099
Battle of Guam (20 Days)-- 3,000
Operation Market Garden (9 days)-- 3,664
Battle of the Bulge (41 days)-- 19,276
Battle of Iwo Jima (39 days)-- 6,821
Battle of Pusan Perimeter (61 days-Korea)-- 6,706


If you have not seen this data, it is worthwhile to go and have a look. Again, without minimizing the courage and sacrifice of those who have given their life in Iraq or Afghanistan, what does this comparative information tell us?

It tells us that sacrifice has become a 'dirty word' in the Democratic Party lexicon; that any sacrifice for any purpose is too large to bear.

This party of self-aggrandizing fools should retrospectively surrender to Hitler and Hirohito and make things right. Of course, we should instantly begin a withdrawal of forces from both Germany and Japan as we have been occupying those countries for decades now.

How I despise what the Democratic Party has become, as they argue among themselves which candidate can 'get us out' of Iraq faster and which candidate was more against getting in in the first place. Last night on the Fox All Stars Mort Kondracke and Mara Liasson both stated that what the Democrats are saying now will change if either is elected because they simply could not be so irresponsible to abandon Iraq. Charles Krauthammer disagreed, as do I.

These clowns have been completely irresponsible for the last 7 years as they have undermined and minimized the accomplishments in both Iraq and Afghanistan. They have hovered like vultures, gleefully chortling whenever the battles turned against the troops, solemnly pointing to the death of each and every soldier as evidence of incompetence and mismanagement. When they weren't pushing the image of our military as the poor victims of the warmongering Bush Administration, they were hyping the image of soldiers, sailors and marines as sadistic murderers.

Make no mistake about it. They will abandon Iraq in a heartbeat if it is politically expedient to do so. They are beneath contempt.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

OSAMA, LET'S TALK, SHALL WE?

The reclusive Osama Bin Laden emerged from his dank, smelly cave to threaten the EU over the Mohammed cartoons:
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden threatened the European Union with grave punishment on Wednesday over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

In an audio recording posted on the Internet, Bin Laden said the cartoons were part of a "crusade" in which he said the Catholic Pope Benedict was involved.

The message was released on the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The cartoons were first published by the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 but a furor erupted only after other papers reprinted them in 2006.


Good heavens! Doesn't Osama understand that Islamic anger over these cartoons is counterproductive? That his comments are not only wrong but divisive? I understand that the dear man--almost an uncle really since our association dates back some 7 years now--is an occasional fierce critic of Western Civilization, particularly American Domestic and Foreign Policy...but still....

NOTE TO OSAMA, THE CAVE DWELLER:

We have a choice in this country, Osama. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism and violence. We can tackle jihad only as spectacle – as we did in during the WTC attack– or in the wake of tragedy, as we do in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play your and Dr. Zawahiri's tapes on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the doomsday, and make the only question in this war you declared in 1998 whether or not the American and Westerners sympathize with those horrible, offensive cartoons of Mohammed. We can pounce on some gaffe by George Bush as evidence that he's playing the 'Crusader' card, or we can speculate on whether backward and impotent Muslim men will all flock to Al Qaeda regardless of its intellectual content.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that we’ll only be talking about some distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this exchange, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk openly and honestly about the medieval religion you are trying to spread violently throughout the world that is stealing the future of Muslim children and Christian children and Jewish children and Hindu children and Buddhist children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids must all submit to Islam and kill infidels; that those kids who don’t submit, deserve to die and are allah's problem. These children of the world are our kids--yours and mine, and we must not let them die or suffer because you prefer to death to life and mentally still reside in the Middle Ages instead of the 21st century. Not this time.

Are you with me, Osama? Let's talk.... My position can be summed up as follows:




I'm sure you will have to agree, Osama, that under the brilliant new guidelines that were disclosed in a recent historic speech, that this kind of thing is no longer able to be considered politically incorrect or even particularly offensive. Thanks for being so understanding!

THE OBAMA DEFENSE

Here's the way the defense works:
I predict Obama has bequeathed to us a new lexicon, a novel way to explain away racist outbursts.

Obama has sanctified the doctrines of moral equivalence (the private racial slight is balanced by the televised public hatred; everyone has a pastor in some ways like Wright, etc.) and contextualization (you must understand Wright's context and background; the good that he does; the protocols of the black church, etc.). The result is a lowering of the bar for the next racial outburst, since the perpetrator will immediately resort to the Obama defenses. And since we now know that Obama heard some of these "controversial" Wright sermons and did not object, we can see that his earlier, once just condemnation of someone like Imus — like many of his initial defenses of Wright—may now be inoperative:

"I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus. But I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude. ... He didn't just cross the line. He fed into some of the worst stereotypes that my two young daughters are having to deal with today in America. The notions that as young African-American women — who I hope will be athletes — that that somehow makes them less beautiful or less important. It was a degrading comment. It's one that I'm not interested in supporting." (October 2007)

The new sophistic Obama, however, would recount to us all the charity work and good that Imus had once done and still does, that we don't understand the joshing of the shock-jock radio genre that winks and nods at controversy in theatrical ways, that Imus was a legend and pioneer among talk show hosts, that Obama's own black relatives have on occasions expressed prejudicial statements about whites similar to what Imus does, that we all have our favorite talk shows, whose hosts occasionally cross the line, and that he can't quite remember whether he'd ever been on the Imus show, or whether he ever had heard Imus say anything that was insensitive — and therefore he could not and would not disown a Don Imus.

This is the real message of the Obama racial transcendence candidacy.


And here is how it will operate in Obama's foreign policy:



Cartoons by Gary McCoy

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

IF YOU TRULY WANT HOPE AND CHANGE FOR THE WORLD, TRY NEOCONSERVATISM

...not the same warmed-over and ineffective socialist solutions hyped by Obama or Clinton.

Despite rumors to the contrary, even those perpetrated by once-prominent neocons, neoconservatism is actually alive and doing fairly well. Not only did neoconservative philosophy win the Cold War, but neoconservative policies continue to win key battles with the terror-obsessed medievalists we are fighting in Iraq and elsewhere; as well as with the liberal 'progressives' and the dead-end totalitarians of today's antiwar movement.

From a recent editorial "With Iraq Improving, Will Neocon Ideas Return?" by Victor Davis Hanson has this to say:
...for a variety of unforeseen reasons, the furor and partisan bad blood over Iraq are lessening here in the States. The debate over Iraq seems to be changing from "we can't win" to whether victory is worth the aggregate costs.

Expect this new battle to be more retrospective, as each side tries to inflate or deflate how much blood and treasure have been spent on the Iraq War - and whether the cost has led to greater American security both in and beyond Iraq.

As fear of defeat in Iraq recedes from the political landscape, look to a growing consensus elsewhere. "Neocon" - the term often used to describe "new" conservatives who today support fostering democracy in the Middle East - may still be a dirty word.

But if you take the anger about George Bush out of the equation, along with the Iraq war and the fear of any more invasions by the U.S., why not support democratic reform in the Middle East? We know the alternatives only play into the hands of terrorists.... (emphasis mine)


Good question. Hanson further argues that:

A year from now, neither George Bush nor a quieter Iraq will inflame Democrats. And without these familiar bogeymen, they will to have to state what they are for, rather than what they are against.

If Democrats keep Congress and win the presidency, they probably won't do things much differently in Afghanistan. America's role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict also won't change much. And if the next president is a Republican, it's a safe bet he won't invade any new countries.

As the Democrats move closer to the controversial neoconservative position of actively supporting democratic reform in the Middle East; and they will claim that their strong idealistic diplomacy is the proper corrective to the Bush administration's unilateral misadventures.


In other words, as long as things go well in Iraq, the Democrats (and the soft neocons) will end up arguing that they were for neoconservatism before they were against it; that it was only the incompetent application of those idealistic principles that they were opposed to, not the idealism itself.

What Hanson refers to as the "soft neocons" are really "utopian" neocons--those who can only support freedom and democracy when there is no imperfection, mess, or sacrifice in the equation.

But recognition of that fundamental truth is exactly why neoconservatism works in the real world; and why both democracy and capitalism also work--they all permit imperfect human nature to operate freely trusting that each person's interest and pursuit of individual happiness will optimize the overall good of society. None denies the reality that human beings are imperfect; none of the underlying principles that characterize any of these concepts depend on human perfection or perfectibility; and this is in stark and deadly contrast to the the utopian fantasies that gripped the 20th century--communism, socialism and fascism. As we know from experience in the real world these particular utopian fantasies led only to human suffering, misery, oppression and death when they dominated the political scene.

Recently Richard Perle, who has been a fairweather neocon at best, made the following observation "We Won Years Ago": (hat tip: American Power )
For those who never considered that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq posed any threat to the United States, the idea that we might “win” is, by definition, inconceivable. For those who worried that Saddam’s regime might one day provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, the end of his regime was a “win” the day Baghdad fell. For that small and much-maligned group who regarded the invasion of Iraqi as an act of risk management, weighing the costs of war against the risk of leaving Saddam in place and hoping for the best, the notion of victory has been swamped by a debate over its cost.

And the cost has been high—far higher than I believe was necessary. That cost was driven by colossal mismanagement, chronic indecision about strategy, tactics and even goals, confusion about whom to trust among Iraqis and allies alike, a failure to deal effectively with Iranian and Syrian involvement in the conflict, and a shocking level of incompetence within the Bush Administration....

Contrary to the view of many critics of the war, we did not go into Iraq mainly to impose democracy by force in some grand, ambitious (and naive) scheme to transform Iraq and then the region as a whole into a collection of happy democracies. It is notable that the critics who charge that this was our core objective never cite evidence to support their claim....

Without military action we could not have decisively managed the threat from Iraq. It is now managed: Saddam will not be sharing WMD with anyone. Judged against that measure, we have already won in Iraq, despite all the failures of policy and implementation that followed the destruction of his regime. To be sure, that victory has come at a terrible price, and whether it can be sustained remains to be seen. After all, we once “won” against the Soviets in Afghanistan, only to see the Taliban regime, aligned as it was with Osama bin Laden, emerge to threaten us directly in a way Afghanistan never did under Soviet occupation. But in the larger picture, driving the Soviets from Afghanistan, even if the means were crude and even if we suffered later from unintended consequences, was an important factor in our victory in the Cold War, which was the larger picture.

There is a larger picture with respect to Iraq, as well, and there is reason to hope that it will vindicate what we have done there. We have demonstrated in Iraq that we will act to protect ourselves. We have shown that we will fight terrorists where we find them, even when the cost is high. We, and now much of the world, have begun to take terrorism seriously. This is in good measure because we have been willing, in Iraq and Afghanistan, to go beyond the instruments of law enforcement and plaintive pleas to ineffective international institutions on which we once relied. We have, as the always wise Fouad Ajami put it, created, “from Egypt to Kuwait and Bahrain, a Pax Americana [that] anchors the order of the region. In Iraq, the Pax Americana, hitherto based in Sunni Arab lands, has acquired a new footing in a Shiite-led country.”

Such success as we have achieved in Iraq, like the strategic and tactical failures there that went before, is due largely to the (bewilderingly episodic) leadership of President Bush. He found the courage to offer the surge when he was under immense pressure to withdraw. He understood that the advice coming from his Secretary of State amounted to accepting a thinly masked defeat while the advice from Congress amounted to defeat, period.

The gains could be reversed, of course, and if some of the candidates for president have their way, they will be. But it is already significant that Iraq has faded as a partisan political issue, not because there is a shortage of Democrats—the implacable “leadership”, Pelosi and Reid come to mind—who want us out whatever the consequences, but because the turnaround has dimmed the star of withdrawal, retreat and isolation.

After the ordeal that Iraq and the belated but absolutely necessary mobilization against Muslim extremism have imposed on us, it would be the final, tragic irony if what has been achieved were squandered by a new administration more concerned with honoring a foolish, irresponsible commitment to the antiwar sentiment of left-wing Democrats and isolationist Republicans than to the safety of the nation.


Perle is correct that understanding the larger picture--both in looking retrospectively at the Cold War, as well as right now at the war in Iraq (and Afghanistan for that matter) is absolutely essential. It is in our national interest to be seen by the Arab world as willing to do what is necessary to protect ourselves even when the cost is high; it is in our national interest to take terrorism and terrorist states seriously; it is in our national interest to make sure that we speak softly (i.e. diplomatically) and carry a big stick. The "innefective international institutions on which we once relied" are practically useless--and in many cases worse than useless--in the age of terrorism. These idealistic institutions have been infected with the same disease that was thought to be eradicated once and for all when the Soviet Union and other communist states ignomoniously collapsed under the weight of their own contradictions.

Let us take a moment to examine the political left here and abroad who are wholly committed to these mostly useless institutions and the utopian "internationalism" they promte; and who have, both consciously in some instances and unconsciously in others, worked in parallel to Muslim fanatacism, continually enabling and encouraging its extremism and rewarding its pathological behavior, because it suited their own utopian agenda. Thus has the terrorist/jihadi agenda has escalated and expanded over several decades unrecognized and unopposed and culminating in Al Qaeda's unnoticed declaration of war in the 90's.

These are the forces now influencing the Democratic Party, which would willingly squander the hard-won victories our military forces have achieved and halt the spread of democracy and freedom which will protect our nation in the long run.

American society with its freedom and tolerance has been a comfortable home for the antiwar 'progressive' left with all its dead-end totalitarians (who call themselves variously marxists, socialists, or communists). These groups differ from the Muslim extremists in one fundamental sense: they don't want to take us back to the barbaric Middle Ages--they are far too intellectual and modern for that! They simply want to return to the middle of the last century when it seemed that their ideology would continue its rise to global power, unopposed and unquestioned.

Neoconservative philosophy stood in the way of a successful Communist jihad in the Cold War and ultimately defeated it.

But this stunning defeat--that occurred without a shot being fired really-- did not exactly represent the "end of history" as Francis Fukayama once famously proclaimed. Forces from the previous century had already set in motion the next phase of the ongoing battle between the forces of freedom and the forces of tyranny.

What most people think of as neoconservatism is actually just the foreign policy component of a larger philosophy; a component that came into most people's awareness after the events of 9/11, when most people began to realize that the larger epic battle between good and evil; freedom and tyranny was still going on--even as we merrily went our way in the 90's (the decade of denial).

While most people now recognize that there is some sort of problem with Islam and terrorism, many still seem to be of the opionion that solving the problem is optional.

On the contrary, solving the problem is an absolutely essential task for the future of Western civilization. And the solution is not simply findng the correct military response to the assymetrical warfare adopted by the terrorists; it must also involve confronting the factors within Western civilization that are determined to destroy it for its own good.

Before the West can completely defeat Islamic terrorism, we must recognize that those groups and ideologies defeated in the Cold War have disguised their ideologies and taken them mainstream in the U.S., hijacking the educationl system; much of the media; and almost the entire Democratic Party. The Cold War was never won in any of these key areas of American life.

Whether they are willing to face the truth or not, the remnants of those defeated in the Cold War have regrouped and reinvented themselves only now they call themselves progressives and they have no problem appeasing, enabling, and surreptitiously--and sometimes openly-- supporting terrorism; because in the rise of Islamic fanatacism, they see a way for their own bankrupt ideology to rise again on a global scale.

Before addressing why neoconservatism offers the only possibillity of spreading real hope and change in this world, let me first discuss these groups and ideologies.

In our own society it is the so-called antiwar faction, made up of a collaboration of leftist progressives and the openly socialist/communist groups who have succumbed to international hysteria and fear; and whose greatest desire is to admit defeat, declare surrender, run away, ignore, and/or pretend that the very real problems posed by the Islamic fanatics don't exist or can be wished away. This is where neoconservative philosophy comes in. The leftist progressives and dead-end totalitarians (who I often refer to as "neo-marxist fascists") can only be effectively countered with ideas that expose the moral and intellectual bankruptcy that have sapped the will of the West and plunged it into nihilistic despair.

This pervasive nihilism is promulgated and promoted by the West's own intellectual elites as postmodernism. But there is nothing modern about it, and in its own way it is as primitive and barbaric a philosophy as that which drives the Islamic extremists.

Today's left is a nothing more than the hallow shell of what was once known as "liberalism"; and it is held together by the empty and meaningless rhetoric of postmodernism, a sort of intellectual nonsense, otherwise known as political correctness and multiculturalism (or, cultural relativity).
It was the hijacking of classical liberalism in the 1960's by the political left that led to the defection of many prominent liberals and to the articulation of neoconservative ideas. These prominent liberals observed how the fundamental precepts of liberalism were literally reconstructed to suit the needs of socialists and communists who could not bring themselves to accept that their ideology was a catastrophe.

All over the world it was becoming apparent that political and social collectivism was an abject failure in practice--i.e., in the real world. Where implemented, collectivist policies led to intractable poverty and misery economically; as well as unbelievable oppression and the crushing of the human spirt politically and morally.

I have discussed elsewhere how the recent revival of socialism and its collectivist/totalitarian agenda in the late 20th and early 21st century was made possible by the adoption of postmodern epistemology, rhetoric and politics by western intellectual elites. This revival insures that a constant stream of hate will always be directed toward neocons and neoconservatism because they are the ones who truly carry the torch of classical liberalism. What has driven the left around the bend is the fact that those people and countries formerly under the yoke of communism and leftist ideologies are the best witnesses against them. These are the people who understand and value neoconservatism because they understand clearly in their own lives that the hope for freedom and change is more than mere rhetoric. its ideas. This reality is what drives the left crazy and powers the venomous hatred they espouse for all neocons.

I have noted before:
Multiculturalism and political correctness are two of the fundamental pseudo-intellectual, quasi-religious tenets-- along with a third: radical environmentalism--that have been widely disseminated by intellectuals unable to abandon socialism even after its crushing failures in the 20th century. These tenets have been slowly, but relentlessly absorbed at all levels of Western culture in the last decade or so--but primarily since the end of the Cold War.

All three have been incorporated into most K-12 curricula and all other learning environments. They have been at the forefront of attempts by leading academics and academic institutions to rewrite most of history and undo thousands of years of Western cultural advancement. And further, as the culture has been completely saturated with this toxic brew, any attempt to question the tenets' validity or to contest their value is met with hysterical accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, imperialism, bigotry, or--worse of all --intolerance or insensitivity.

It just so happens, that these tenets represent three of the four pillars that are the foundation of an evolving epistemological, ethical and political strategy that the socialist remnants in the world have developed and are using to prevent their ideology from entering the dustbin of history.


[For more on postmodernism and its implications, see posts here, here, here here and, of course, here.]

In order to succeed in undoing and undermining the clear and unambiguous evidence of socialism's and communism's utter human toxicity, the totalitarians of the political left had to undermine nothing less than reality, reason, and truth. Furthermore, they had to deconstruct and invalidate human consciousness, making sure that the everyone understood that the only apparatus available to humans for perceiving reality--the mind--was completely unreliable, and that the evidence of the senses must therefore be discounted. This intellectual strategy resulted in a pervasive cultural relativism and intellectual nihilism that permeated all aspects of society and intellectual thought. Words and language were redefined to mean whatever one wanted; history was deconstructed--ostensibly to expose it's lies, but really to render it meaningless; and the ideas and values that were the foundation of Western civilization were mocked and shown by postmodern "logic" to be no better than any other random ideas.

In the postmodern world, "freedom" is just another word for nothing left to lose; and not significantly different from "slavery"; "democracy" is just as much a fraud as tyranny and cynically used by totalitarian and authoritarian regimes to give themselves international cache; that which has always been considered "the good" in a moral sense has become as evil as "evil"; and so on and so forth.

Armed with this sort of convoluted thinking, twentieth century postmodernists set themselves up as culturally and morally superior to all other humans in history; and with the postmodern relativistic advantage, they could--and did-- pass judgement on everyone and everything that came before.

Thus from the 'superior' postmodern perspective, there was nothing of value to learn from a slave-holding Thomas Jefferson; there is no moral superiority in a system or nation like the United States-- that strives toward increasing individual human freedom and dignity compared to a system or a nation that doesn't even recognize the rights of the individual. There is no difference between right and wrong; good and evil--all are suspect, all are hypcritical, all are imperfect; and thus all such concepts are rendered irrelevant.

The key to this undoing of that which is good and conflating it with that which is evil; of deconstructing the reality and reason upon which more than 5000 years of civilization is founded; is through the nihilistic process of deconstructing and reinterpreting the historical past and redefining and undermining its meaning.

As an example of this process, consider the points that Victor Davis Hanson makes as he discusses Senator Obama's proposals educational reforms:
“He said schools should do a better job of teaching all students African-American history "because that's part of American history," as well as women's struggle for equality, the history of unions, the role of Hispanics in U.S. and other matters that he suggested aren't given enough attention.”

"I want us to have a broad-based history" taught in schools, he said, even including more on "the Holocaust as well as other issues of oppression" around the world.”


But anyone familiar with the historical illiteracy of today’s college student understands that more of the “oppression” history that Sen. Obama is advocating is precisely the problem, not the solution. Our high school students already know who Harriet Tubman is, but not U.S. Grant or Shiloh. They have been introduced to Crispus Attucks, but not Alexander Hamilton. They know World War II largely as the Japanese internment and Hiroshima (cf. Reverend Wright on that), but have not a clue about the Bulge or Okinawa or the Munich travesty.

In other words, it is precisely this pick-and-choose therapeutic curriculum of "oppression" history presented as a melodrama of winners (white male Christian capitalists) and losers (women, people of color, the working classes) that has ensured an entire generation of historical illiterates, who can’t distinguish between the profound and trivial, or identify basic names, dates, and places to ground even their politically-correct views. They are told to remember and repeat that Hiroshima is bad, but not why or how it occurred, what were the alternatives, and what were the consequences in a war of bad and worse choices.

Instead the sins innate to mankind—war, oppression, slavery, bias, etc.—are nearly always presented as sins unique to the West in general, or to America in particular. We hear always of commission, never of the remediation, always of our terrible past, never of the pretty awful present that goes on outside the United States.

What we need from a healer at this late date is not advocacy for more gripe-history that tries to portion out equal victim status to various competing constituencies under the guise of multicultural brotherhood, but rather tries, in holistic and inclusive fashion, to explain both the noble and tragic history of the United States, an experiment that was and is not perfect, but still very good and preferable to all the alternatives.


In the mind of the postmodern politician, the only important aspects of history are those that fit in with the marxist dialectical view of the world. Oppressors and oppressed; noble victims and ignoble white, male heterosexual (i.e., Republican/conservative/capitalist) oppressors. We listened to even more of this sort of rhetoric just yesterday in Barack Obama's "race speech". While it had some moments of clarity, it quickly degenerated into yet another rehash of the left's postmodern talking points--a rather "elegant farce" in the end.

You are probably very familiar with this ubiquitous leftist drill--or your children are at any rate-- since it is now frequently applied to anything valued in the West. By using the now-common relativistic formula, all individuals and thinkers in the past are ridiculed, demeaned, and scorned because they fail to live up to postmodern and politically correct standards of conduct (unless of course they are of an approved 'victim class'--then they can have any inconsistency imaginable). Thus, their ideas are considered meaningless and described as "hypocritical"--the absolutely worse possible sin from the leftist perspective.

Thomas Jefferson, George Washington--all the Founding Fathers for the most part--did not have the "superior" consciousness of the postmodern intellectual: they were slaveholders! Yet, they nevertheless dared to consider the problem of human freedom, bound as they were to the cultural norms of their time.

That they could not entirely break out of the culture of their time, but still could push the envelope of civilization forward is irrelevant to the postmodern left. From the left's perch of moral superiority they blithely dismiss these "white males" as hypocrites with no moral standing. Thus are the foundations and the generationally built constructs of civilization invalidated and destroyed. Is it any wonder that all that is left is the nihilistic garbage that postmodernism deems as "reality"?

But consider, if we do not understand the past; if we abandon the ideas that underlie our values and our morality-- how can we appreciate who we are today? If we are only allowed to think of Thomas Jefferson as a hypocritical colonial slaveholder, then we are forced to pronounce his ideas on the struggle for human freedom as no better and no worse than Hitler's Kampf.

And so, Jefferson's mind-blowing, paradigm-shattering declaration, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" has no more meaning or worth than Yasser Arafat's statement that, "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war; we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel." Both are either completely meaningless; or both are examples of freedom-fighters--who cares which? Bush = Hitler; Good = Evil; Freedom = Slavery; there is no way to judge because the nihilistic relativism we subscribe to has taken away our ability to morally distinguish and discriminate between right and wrong.

By disgarding reason and reality; by abandoning the past and embracing moral and cultural relativism, the left has brought us to this place where we are morally and physically paralyzed and cannot distinguish between the deliberate targeting and killing of innocents and the accidental killing of innocents despite herculean efforts to avoid it; between waging war to give people a chance at freedom and democracy; and waging war for domination and imperialism; between standing up for what is right and accepting the consequences, and abandoning one's values and surrendering with "honor" to the scum of the earth.

By mocking intellectual giants like Thomas Jefferson and dragging him through the postmodern mud; by equating Bush with Hitler; or the behavior of the Palestinians with the behavior of the Israelis; the actions of the U.S. military with the actions of the Islamofanatic terrorist thugs-- the left is desperately trying to numb the mind of the West. Who are we to judge? they scream, desperately trying to prevent history from judging their own unbelievable and pathological destructiveness, their own morally repugnant behavior and ideology.

This is their quest. To establish themselves as the arbiters of moral behavior by behaving immorally; of being "reality-based" without the necessity of having to acknowledge reality; of speaking "truth" to power, without being capable of recognizing truth (isn't all truth relative, after all?).

Just as the Saudis have let the wahabbi religious fundamentalism genie out of the bottle, inflicting it on Islam; so too has the political left let loose the genie of postmodern moral relativism onto Western civilization. The two genies have much in common since both work in tandem to destroy the human mind and spirit. Islamic fundamentalism is actively destroying millions by its soul-murdering ideology; while postmodern nihilists apologize and enable the barbarians at the gate , even as they destroy the very ideas that built the gate in the first place and which offers the only hope for liberating those millions from the boot of fanatical oppression.

They elevate clowns like Hugo Chavez; swoon over despots like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Fidel Castro; have champagne toasts with fruitcakes like Kim Jung Il. And they admire and promulgate the propaganda of the worse barbarians and murderers in history. They fail to consider the logical inconsistency of their own relativistic arguments: all truth is relative, they say; but then they would have no basis upon which to assert that their "truth" (i.e., postmodernism) is anything but rubbish also. If all cultures are good, then why is Western culture uniquely evil?

The political left refuses to look unflinchingly at the consequences of their ideology or their behavior--and, as much as they want to deny it; as much as they demand people like me retract what I am saying, it is their ideas and their precious utopian nihilism that are the problems that must be addressed before we can win the war on terror; before civilization can address the evil unleashed in Darfur, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Iran, Somalia, Iraq and elsewhere.

The greatest threat to their ideology is human freedom.

President Bush in his 2005 Inaugural Address said:
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.


So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal (someday, perhaps) of ending tyranny in our world.

Now this would definitely be just another useless utopian dream...except for the reality of the United States of America, and the incredible historical success of combined political and economic freedom to bring about progress and improve human life.

Bush's words are what neoconservatism stands for in the truest sense. Unlike utopian ideologies (socialism and communism), neoconservatism acknowledges the reality of human nature, both the good and the bad; but chooses the good; it seeks truth from history and uses it to better the world now--not by imposing useless utopian fantasies, but by supporting human freedom and individuality and opposing tyranny (through a variety of means, including the application of diplomatic, military, financial and persuasive power) wherever it is found; it recognizes that all men and women are entitled to life, libery and the pursuit of happiness; and it understands that freedom is often messy and chaotic; while tyranny is forced orderliness and thoroughly deadening to the human soul.

Charles Krauthammer wrote a 2004 article proposing a foreign policy for a unipolar world --what he called democratic realism:
This conservative alternative to realism is often lazily and invidiously called neoconservatism, but that is a very odd name for a school whose major proponents in the world today are George W. Bush and Tony Blair--if they are neoconservatives, then Margaret Thatcher was a liberal. There’s nothing neo about Bush, and there’s nothing con about Blair.....

Beyond power. Beyond interest. Beyond interest defined as power. That is the credo of democratic globalism. Which explains its political appeal: America is a nation uniquely built not on blood, race or consanguinity, but on a proposition--to which its sacred honor has been pledged for two centuries. This American exceptionalism explains why non-Americans find this foreign policy so difficult to credit; why Blair has had more difficulty garnering support for it in his country; and why Europe, in particular, finds this kind of value-driven foreign policy hopelessly and irritatingly moralistic.Democratic globalism sees as the engine of history not the will to power but the will to freedom....

Yet they are the principal proponents today of what might be called democratic globalism, a foreign policy that defines the national interest not as power but as values, and that identifies one supreme value, what John Kennedy called “the success of liberty.” ...democratic globalism is an improvement over realism. What it can teach realism is that the spread of democracy is not just an end but a means, an indispensable means for securing American interests. The reason is simple. Democracies are inherently more friendly to the United States, less belligerent to their neighbors, and generally more inclined to peace. Realists are right that to protect your interests you often have to go around the world bashing bad guys over the head. But that technique, no matter how satisfying, has its limits. At some point, you have to implant something, something organic and self-developing. And that something is democracy.

But where? The danger of democratic globalism is its universalism, its open-ended commitment to human freedom, its temptation to plant the flag of democracy everywhere. It must learn to say no. And indeed, it does say no. But when it says no to Liberia, or Congo, or Burma, or countenances alliances with authoritarian rulers in places like Pakistan or, for that matter, Russia, it stands accused of hypocrisy. Which is why we must articulate criteria for saying yes.
Where to intervene? Where to bring democracy? Where to nation-build? I propose a single criterion: where it counts.

Call it democratic realism. And this is its axiom: We will support democracy everywhere, but we will commit blood and treasure only in places where there is a strategic necessity--meaning, places central to the larger war against the existential enemy, the enemy that poses a global mortal threat to freedom.

Where does it count? Fifty years ago, Germany and Japan counted. Why? Because they were the seeds of the greatest global threat to freedom in midcentury--fascism--and then were turned, by nation building, into bulwarks against the next great threat to freedom, Soviet communism.

Where does it count today? Where the overthrow of radicalism and the beginnings of democracy can have a decisive effect in the war against the new global threat to freedom, the new existential enemy, the Arab-Islamic totalitarianism that has threatened us in both its secular and religious forms for the quarter-century since the Khomeini revolution of 1979.

Establishing civilized, decent, nonbelligerent, pro-Western polities in Afghanistan and Iraq and ultimately their key neighbors would, like the flipping of Germany and Japan in the 1940s, change the strategic balance in the fight against Arab-Islamic radicalism.

Yes, it may be a bridge too far. Realists have been warning against the hubris of thinking we can transform an alien culture because of some postulated natural and universal human will to freedom. And they may yet be right. But how do they know in advance? Half a century ago, we heard the same confident warnings about the imperviousness to democracy of Confucian culture. That proved stunningly wrong. Where is it written that Arabs are incapable of democracy?
By proudly reclaiming the history of Western Civilization, which has been built slowly with great idea after great idea; and which always strives for the good, but is never perfect; neoconservatism remains the only antidote for anti-reality, anti-mind, anti-truth postmodern relativism.


Whether the defeatist Democratic Party likes it or not; whether the leftist progressives or the overtly neomarxist fascists of the left like it or not; success in Iraq and Afghanistan--and make no mistake, from an historical perspective, both battlefields have dramatically changed the dynmaics of the conflict between Islamism and Western Society in favor of the West for now--has more than validated neocon ideas and policy.

These ideas and policies have already been victorious, not only in the Cold War, but against the terroists (medievalists); and also against the bankrupt ideology that continues to infuse the progressive (i.e., leftist ) movement and their thinly-disguised totalitarian agenda from the previous century.

There is one thing on which I disagree vehemently with Perle, however. He states that, "...the cost has been high—far higher than I believe was necessary. That cost was driven by colossal mismanagement, chronic indecision about strategy, tactics and even goals, confusion about whom to trust among Iraqis and allies alike, a failure to deal effectively with Iranian and Syrian involvement in the conflict, and a shocking level of incompetence within the Bush Administration...."

What he calls incompetence and mismanagement; indecision and confusion; and failure --these are all normal and expected events during a war. I defy Perle--or anyone--to give me an example of a perfectly competently managed war that never had any indecision or confusion; or setbacks and even failures during their course.

All these factors are always a part of any human endeavor, most particularly any military endeavor, as surely as are either victory or defeat. I believe some General once said that the key to achieving victory is simply being less incomeptent and less confused than your enemy and outlasting him... and if there isn't a General somewhere who said something like that, then there should be.

Though it is far too politically incorrect to note that from an historic perspective, the losses in this war simply cannot compare to any previous war; nor can the incredible efforts that have been made to spare innocent human life as much as possible on the part of the American forces.

I do not minimize those losses or the sacrifices that have been made. It is not a matter of numbers; nor do I take anything away from the courage of those who gave their life for their country by asserting that loss of life has been historically low in this war. But it places the "cost" that Perle talks about in some perspective and minimizes the associated hysteria we have come to associate with each and every death. Instead of hysteria, let us associate a well-deserved honor for each death that preserves and protects our own values and liberty.

For further perspective, consider this recently released study :
According to the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington, 949 suicide bombers killed 10,119 people and wounded 22,995 from the beginning of 2004 until now. Data compiled by the AP through its own reporting found that between April 28, 2005 and March 13, 2008 there were 708 incidents involving suicide bombings, with a total of 14,633 Iraqis wounded and 7,098 killed.


The typical suicide bomber are alienated young Saudi men, age 18-20, from large families who are "desperate to stand out from the crowd and make their mark."

These suicidal mass murderes come from a culture that routinely oppresses women; and which offers few opportunities for its youth--either male or female-- except for martyrdom and pursuit of an afterlife.

If ever there was a population that needed hope and change, in the form of freedom and opportunity--this depraved culture would rank #1.

Of course, it is not only the Middle East that suffers from severe deficits of life, liberty and opportunities to pursue one's own individual happiness. We can reasonably surmise that there will always be some degree of human misery and oppression in the world because tyrants--and tyranny--arise from ordinary defects in human character and consistently appeal to the worse of human nature.

Because of that unfortunate reality, those of us who support real progress; value human life and liberty; and stand for civilization, must always be on the alert.

It is my contention that neoconservatives are the true proponents of HOPE--a hope that is concieved in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all humans are created equal; and the only intellectual force that can encourage and bring about political, economic, and moral CHANGE to alleviate poverty and give every human being a chance at achieving their own happiness.