Posted on 11/03/2014 5:26:34 PM PST by Enza Ferreri
"Red Herrings" is a brilliant historical article by Andrew C. McCarthy that explains one of the most important reasons of the current dominance of the Left in the West (and more than that).
It's a review and a defence of Diana West's book American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character (Amazon USA) (Amazon UK) , which was published last year and provoked much controversy, as you can gauge from the review itself.
The way Joe McCarthy has been treated in America reminds me a bit of the way Enoch Powell has been treated in Britain: both were fundamentally right and both were vilified. But Farage wouldn't say that - especially about the latter - in a million years.
The only misconceived thing of the article is when it quotes Diana West's favourable view of "Enlightenment logic".
The Enlightenment has brought to Europe the first sparkles of totalitarian thought. Marx was an intellectual heir to the Enlightenment.
The problem is that we ourselves have been indoctrinated by intentional "disinformation" - possibly of Soviet origin -, and it takes us time to get through the fog.
Here's part of the very long article:
Stumbling into a barroom brawl was the last thing I’d intended. Lined up on one side: sculptors of a hagiography that is now conventional wisdom crow about a noble conquest over totalitarian dictators. The other side bellows: “Nonsense! In defeating one monster, your heroes merely helped create another, sullying us with their atrocities and burdening us for decades with a global security nightmare.” The first side spews that its critics are deranged, defamatory conspiracy-mongers. The critics fire back that these “court historians” are in denial; their heroes did not really “win” the war, they just helped a different set of anti-American savages win—in the process striking a deal with the devil that blurred the lines between good and evil, rendering the world more dangerous and our nation more vulnerable.To readers of American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character, this heated debate will sound familiar. American Betrayal is the bestselling author and syndicated columnist Diana West’s cri de coeur against Anglo-American collusion with Stalin’s hideous Soviet Union in the war that vanquished Hitler’s hideous Nazi Germany. The controversy swirling around the book exposes a chasm on the political Right: on one side, admirers of Franklin Roosevelt’s World War II leadership; on the other, detractors who blame FDR’s indifference to Communism (and, particularly, Communist infiltration of the U.S. government) for the rise of what Ronald Reagan dubbed “the evil empire.” The resulting acrimony is what put me in the mind of the aforementioned brawl I wandered into twenty years ago, involving a different, albeit related, episode: the Central Intelligence Agency’s collusion with the Afghan mujahideen, which hastened the Soviet death throes.
I was a federal prosecutor in 1993 when the World Trade Center was bombed. We indicted the offending jihadist cell for levying a terrorist war against the United States. Several of the terrorists had been major mujahideen figures. Their lawyers thus thought it exculpatory to claim that they could not have conspired to wage jihad against America; after all, they had actually been allied with America in the jihad against the Soviets. The provocative claim was implausible as a defense, the Soviets having left Afghanistan (and the USSR having collapsed) years before the Twin Towers bombing. Still, it is standard procedure to investigate even dubious defense claims. Hence, my unwitting stumble into a heated controversy.
The cia and Reagan administration veterans passionately proclaimed that the $3 billion in aid and armaments funneled to the mujahideen—matched dollar-for-dollar by Saudi Arabia, with Pakistani intelligence as our “cut-out” for deniability purposes—was an unvarnished triumph. The war became the Soviets’ Vietnam, bleeding the Red Army to death even as a humiliated Kremlin buckled under the pressure of Reagan’s arms build-up. In sum, I was told, “Look, we liberated half the world from Communist tyranny. Case closed.”
Yet, it wasn’t that simple. The mujahideen begot al Qaeda. A fifth of the U.S. aid, plus most of the Saudi contribution (real money in those days), was channeled to virulently anti-American terrorists. They proceeded to take their jihad global . . . eventually to Manhattan. The rest is history—the history we’ve been struggling with for two decades.
Bttt
Wow. Looks like defeating one enemy may help create the next. Who knew?
A really stupid argument, IMO. In the immortal words of A. Lincoln, “one war at a time.”
bump
Great post - thanks!
If America collapses, communists everywhere will realize the hard way they too had been duped by islam.
Islam and Communism may both be bad things, but they are also dire enemies. Has the author heard of Chechnya?
Anyone who thinks that Islam is a secret ploy created by the Commies or vice-versa needs serious psychological counseling.
John Adams was in Paris on April 15, 1778, and wrote this recollection of a conversation he was present at:
"The greatest part of the Conversation was concerning Voltaire. He was extolled to the Skies as a Prodigy. His Eminence in History, Epick Poetry, Dramatick Poetry, Phylosophy, even the Neutonian Phylosophy: His Prose and Verse were equally admirable. No Writer had ever excelled in so many Branches of Science and Learning, besides that astonishing multitude of his fugitive Pieces. He was the grand Monarch of Science and Litterature. If he should die the Republick of Letters would be restored. But it was now a Monarchy, &c. &c. &c."
I think Adams had his tongue in his cheek while writing these lines.
I note, however, that liberals seem to have more hatred for McCarthy than any other historic American figure--including genuine racists. I guess Communism is just that important to them.
And yes, the "enlightenment" pollution of American ideology is the USA's "original sin."
The “Enlightenment” “heroes” were largely in the employ of the financial elite “banksters” of those days.
If you have a solid understanding of the fundamentals of Biblical doctrine and also of math, logic, business and finance, and you really go through their writings... and you’ll have to rethink some very fundamental economics basics that you’ve been taught (as they are very subtley but very dramatically anti-Christ)... you’ll start finding little rotten things all over.
One example of a required rethink is the famous fractional reserve banking and “increasing the money supply”. The truth is so simple you’ll probably chuckle at not seeing it all along.
The elites and their top talent are very, very, very tricky, and most illusions are very simple - once you know enough how the trick works.
Studying Enlightenment figures is further complicated by the way things always are: people are not all in one simple classification.
Some were literally in the employ of the financiers and knew something of their real motives.
Others were perhaps benefitting from the financiers largesse and undoubtedly did not see the “big picture”, but just pressed on trying to further their own careers.
Many “intellectuals” and “activists”, of course, had no idea of what was really going on, they simply bought into the “movement” or “idea” they were all “into”, and they pushed it like crazy, not having any idea who they were really benefitting and how. They were essentially sheeple unwittingly working for their masters, like most of society.
As far as Enlightenment figures and Christianity goes...
Some were really solid Christians, some perhaps just attended Church but clearly exhibited a lack of being able to apply the Bible to their lives, while still others were publicly anti-Christian, atheist, etc.
As far as organizational “operatives”...
The freemason movement was big in Europe, and was and undoubtedly still is, like most significant organizations, plagued with a few mininions of the financiers joining up, moving up the ladder, and setting up their own little secret organization within the uppermost parts of the organization. Such tactics are used regarding Churches, political parties, etc., and are very helpful to the elites in their operations against us dumb sheeple.
Enlightenment intellectuals had the effect, like the elites’ intellectuals still do today, of tending to effect support of a wonderful trade and finance environment for the elites and at the same time a stinky one for the sheeple. They also knowingly or unknowingly worked against Biblical Christianity, undermining it, promoting immorality, etc.
Needless to day, I was very dismayed at finding out about the truth about my former Enlightenment heroes, and now have to resign myself to being all skeptical and such until I at least do a small but tedious review of their “resume”.
Once again, were it not for my faith in Jesus Christ, I’d be seriously bummed out.
It is not the arming but the disarming of the Afghan population after the Soviets left that caused a vacuum for terrorism of foreign fighters to get in there.
The UN disarmament and the lack of help for General Massood was what precipitated 911 later on, along with Clinton policy of budget cuts and refusing to heed repetitive offers by Sudan to have Bin Laden handed over.
At the same time Clinton voted for the arms embargo in Yougoslavia leading to the massacre of Croates at the hands of Serbs.
The original essay is an incoherent attempt to push a bunch of conservatives' buttons and hope for a "Hell yeah!"
My response is just: WTF?
Because “progressives” in the West believe the bull-$hit and think their lives wouldn’t be impacted.
You have eloquently described a majority of my world view.
I also love the idea of what I though the U.S.A was, but have come to realize that the evil of satan and the brokenness of mankind has been insidiously destroying her Godly foundation since inception. (Have you heard of Catherine Austin Fitts and her Solari report?)
I wonder whether the world is on the cusp of another destructive descent into chaos like WWII, WWI, or the dark ages ... or if we're going to experience the beginning of Daniel's 70th week.
Ah, good to be on the same page, if that page is truthful.
I had not heard of Catherine, I checked out her internet presence, lol, it was very interesting.
We need more like her to come forward.
Obvious mistake to deal with HUD as a contractor - and there’s no need to have government support of any kind to get where we need to go economically, that is, squash the elites, other than to use legitimate legislative actions and prosecution mechanisms.
Lessons learned.
It’s very difficult - especially for those who were part of the financial system for most of their careers - so see certain things that are incredibly simple.
As far as the future, the Bible presents an optimistic viewpoint, that, though there be good times and bad times, that Christ’s Kingdom is victorious on earth in time and history. However, as always, we can’t predict the details of the future very much at all, other than what’s quite straightforward.
Just living in America today, in a nice town, looking out the window at a beautiful fall day, it’s hard to imagine some of the dark days of the 20th century in various parts of the world.
Even so, it’s also hard to imagine the dark, evil forces we wrestle with currently when looking out that same window.
We know that God preserves his own children, and God’s elect can not be plucked from his hand.
And we know from the Bible’s optimistic eschatology, which never says that the Great Commission will fail, but that through our trials and tribulations, falling away and revivals, there will ultimately be progressive dominion of Christ over the nations:
Hebrews 10
“9 Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
10 By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:
12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
13 From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.”
Psalm 22
“27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
28 For the kingdom is the Lord’s: and he is the governor among the nations.”
Of course, knowing this should not give the believer reason to be slack, but encouragement and motivation for the Kingdom-building work of living every day fully according to God’s Law Word, the Bible.
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