Mark Steyn: Stop Whimpering, We're in a Battle

The Telegraph ^ | April 20, 2004 | Mark Steyn

[quidnunc]

"This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper." I'm saving the end of the world for my final column, but T S Eliot's words seem at least as pertinent to the present war – or "war", according to taste. It will be decided not by the bangs – whether in Fallujah or Bali or elsewhere – but by the whimpers. And, although the bangs have got a little louder in recent weeks, it's the whimpers that have become deafening.

Whimpers, whimpers everywhere. On American TV, the network sob-sisters tut sympathetically with the "Jersey Girls", four media-savvy 9/11 widows who've decided that metaphorically speaking George W Bush was at the controls of the planes that slammed into the World Trade Centre. Beltway reporters are a-twitter about the biennial doorstopper from The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, this time a huge book sourced up the wazoo portraying the President as a simpleton Christian avenger whose obsession with Iraq is a dark pathology as ingrained as paedophilia.

For some reason, this is being portrayed as some kind of dramatic revelation rather than media conventional wisdom for the past three years – or, come to that, the President's openly stated position: judging from the Campaign 2000 press coverage, he more or less campaigned as a religious halfwit bent on toppling Saddam. Does anyone actually read Woodward's books? I know I've never finished one. But every cable news channel is pretending to be riveted by the change to some alleged "Gotcha!" moment on page 743.

-snip-

[Eurotwit]

"This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper." I'm saving the end of the world for my final column, but T S Eliot's words seem at least as pertinent to the present war – or "war", according to taste. It will be decided not by the bangs – whether in Fallujah or Bali or elsewhere – but by the whimpers. And, although the bangs have got a little louder in recent weeks, it's the whimpers that have become deafening.

Whimpers, whimpers everywhere. On American TV, the network sob-sisters tut sympathetically with the "Jersey Girls", four media-savvy 9/11 widows who've decided that metaphorically speaking George W Bush was at the controls of the planes that slammed into the World Trade Centre. Beltway reporters are a-twitter about the biennial doorstopper from The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, this time a huge book sourced up the wazoo portraying the President as a simpleton Christian avenger whose obsession with Iraq is a dark pathology as ingrained as paedophilia.

For some reason, this is being portrayed as some kind of dramatic revelation rather than media conventional wisdom for the past three years – or, come to that, the President's openly stated position: judging from the Campaign 2000 press coverage, he more or less campaigned as a religious halfwit bent on toppling Saddam. Does anyone actually read Woodward's books? I know I've never finished one. But every cable news channel is pretending to be riveted by the change to some alleged "Gotcha!" moment on page 743.

These days, the whimper of defeatism has several modulations. Sometimes it's a firm stand for some bogus principle, like that of Senor Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister who campaigned for office on a pledge to bring home his troops from Iraq unless the UN took over on June 30. Since then, Washington has agreed to let Kofi Annan's envoy put together the arrangements for the new transitional government. But Senor Zapatero has ordered the boys home anyway.

Sometimes the defeatist whimper emerges as a cocky metropolitan sneer, like that of Rod Liddle in last week's Spectator, braying that Iraq was better off under Saddam. Sometimes it comes out as whiney narcissism, like that of the White House reporters at President Bush's press conference last week. Bush wasn't on good form. He was punchy and rambling. But no matter how bad he was, the press corps looked worse. I happened to watch the speech from the United States Naval Academy where I was taking part in their foreign affairs conference and I can tell you the questions I got from the midshipmen were a lot smarter than the ones the President got from the blow-dried blowhards. What do you think your biggest mistake was? Are you going to apologise to the American people? Do you think you'll lose the election? If you had to name the most pathetic loser to occupy the Presidency, would you have difficulty coming up with a name other than your own? Etc, etc.

The biggest whimpers of all come from the 9/11 Commission. Have you been watching it? Me neither. But, when I catch the odd 10 minutes, I begin to feel as anti-American as Margaret Drabble and Harold Pinter. In its ghastly exhibitionist ersatz-legalism, it represents all the most malign features of American life. Tony Blair should have offered to loan Lord Hutton. Instead, a mélange of hacks and has-beens mugs for the cameras round the clock, and any piece of government paper from the summer of 2001 containing the words "plane" and/or "Muslim" is taken as evidence of Bush's complicity.

In fact, the so-called incriminating memo is notable mainly for its confirmation of the woeful state of US intelligence. The mention of "media reports" in the first sentence is a sly admission that you could have found out all the stuff in this "classified" briefing by reading the papers. If you'd read a piece by Kenneth Timmerman in the July 1998 Reader's Digest, you'd have been much more informed. Bush would have been better off spending half an hour in a well-stocked dentist's waiting room than reading CIA briefings, and the ensuing root-canal surgery would have been a lot less painful than listening to the Commission poseurs.

The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that counter-intelligence was severely hobbled by the so-called "wall" erected between the CIA and FBI. Who put up this "wall", or at any rate extended it several feet higher than previously? Why, former Clinton-era Deputy Attorney-General Jamie Gorelick. Has she testified before the Commission? Well, no, because she's on it. That would seem to be a prima facie conflict of interest. But instead she's huffing indignantly about being a victim of "partisan rancor". "Partisan rancour" is wholly improper unless directed at Bush and Ashcroft.

The other bombshell revelation from the hearings was trampled into oblivion in the stampede to Woodward's book and other flim-flam. Commissioner John Lehman remarked that "it was the policy [before 9/11] and I believe remains the policy today to fine airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory."

In other words, when Mohammed Atta's five-man terrorist crew went to check in that morning at Boston, the airline would have been punished by the Federal Government if it had questioned more than two of them. And that still applies today. And, if you were to suggest changing that regulation, you'd be drowned in whimpers from the New York Times, the Democratic Party and the ethnic grievance industry.

It's often said that the terrorists are only a "small minority" of Muslims. True. But, when it's well connected with everyone from the House of Saud to Pakistan's nuke maestro A Q Khan, a small minority can do a lot of damage. Likewise, the whimperers are only a minority of the American people, but they're even more plugged in – in the media, in politics, in the academy. The only relevant Vietnamese comparison is this: then as now, for America it's a choice between victory or self-defeat.

[eureka!]

bump for later read

[goldstategop]

President Bush talks to God? Oh my gosh - Laura Ingraham would say that scores for him with folks from flyover country - you know the place where the elites look down on you and say you aren't one of them. The President is right where Americans are and that's driving the Elites bonkers.

[Eurotwit]

The only relevant Vietnamese comparison is this: then as now, for America it's a choice between victory or self-defeat.

[tet68]

If you'd read a piece by Kenneth Timmerman in the July 1998 Reader's Digest, you'd have been much more informed. Bush would have been better off spending half an hour in a well-stocked dentist's waiting room than reading CIA briefings, and the ensuing root-canal surgery would have been a lot less painful than listening to the Commission poseurs.


Steyn Bump!

[irv]

Does anyone actually read Woodward's books?

He doesn't write them to be read. He writes them to be worshipped. And the media comply.

[Mr. Mojo]

It's often said that the terrorists are only a "small minority" of Muslims. True. But, when it's well connected with everyone from the House of Saud to Pakistan's nuke maestro A Q Khan, a small minority can do a lot of damage.

But then it's not a small minority anymore. Terrorist enablers and financers are terrorists themselves. ......and that's no small minority.

[NutCrackerBoy]

I've had an epiphany about that whimper of Teddy Kennedy's - you know, Iraq is Bush's Vietnam!. W was right, of course, that this is the wrong message to be sending to our allies and enemies. But the silver lining is, those same allies and enemies will see that the thunderings of the senior Massachusetts senator amount to a hill of beans when it comes to America's resolve.

[McGavin999]

The only relevant Vietnamese comparison is this: then as now, for America it's a choice between victory or self-defeat

Mark always seems to have one line that literally gives me chills.

[Lyford]

steyn bump

[McGavin999]

I see you chose the same line. :o)

[Rooivalk]

I really do not understand the mindset of the defeatists. Do they think that if America followed their 'advice' and cut and ran that the jihadists would be satisfied?

Have they ever looked at the history of appeasement?

[GailA]

It's the LIBERAL press and the RATS that have their panties in a wad.

[GailA]

Local talk host here in Memphis mentioned that woodward interviewed a guy name Casey for his last book who was comatose...Mr Casey's wife was fit to be tied.

Any one have more info on this. He was CIA or FBI couldn't hear which.

[MamaLucci]

....and any piece of government paper from the summer of 2001 containing the words "plane" and/or "Muslim" is taken as evidence of Bush's complicity.

Steyn skewers the left like no one else.

[okie01]

Let's say it again.

The only relevant Vietnamese comparison is this: then as now, for America it's a choice between victory or self-defeat.

Because it is the absolute truth!

[Miss Marple]

Woodward said in his book on the CIA that he had interviewed Caey on his deathbed. Problem was that Casey was not allowed visitors other than family. His wife threw a fit.

Of course, no one at the Washington Post did anything about this obvious lie.

Woodward always says he "stands by his reporting." Well, big whoop. He will try the same thing with this book, only this time, the Republicans were smart and spoke up about the errors right away. AND certain people made tapes of their interviews, like Donald Rumsfeld. Hahaha!

[Stirner]

Casey (William, I think) was Nixon's (and Ford's, I think) CIA director. Woodward supposedly interviewed him on his death bed as he suffered from brain cancer. It's hard for me to believe that Woodward can get these interviews when he is invariably hard on his Republican subjects.

[GailA]

Found one item so far and have posted it. bob woodward