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-

[jokar]

Thanks for posting.
bump for later read

[bondjamesbond]

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

Steyn, as he so often is, is right on the money.

Iraq is not Vietnam. But if we want to be realistic about it, Vietnam was not "Vietnam". "Vietnam" has become the all purpose leftist bugbear of a intractable quagmire that is unwinnable. This was not true of Vietnam at the time and it is doubly not true about Iraq today.

The one parallel between Vietnam and Iraq is that if we pull out before achieving victory, the region will degenerate into internercine genocide which defies the imagination.

In Cambodia the Khymer Rouge executed everyone who wore glasses, on the suspicion that they were part of the literate elite. If we withdraw prematurely in Iraq, the coming bloodbath will make us long for such days.

[Tolik]

If you'd read a piece by Kenneth Timmerman in the July 1998 Reader's Digest, you'd have been much more informed.

Indeed:

 

 

What We Knew…and Didn't Do
By Kenneth Timmerman
April 13, 2004                   http://www.rd.com/common/nav/index.jhtml?articleId=9527512

In July 1998, Reader's Digest published Kenneth Timmerman's report, "This Man Wants You Dead." Three weeks later -- with more than 200 innocent civilians torn to bits by al-Qaeda bombs in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam -- bin Laden's face was plastered in newspapers around the world.
 

[VadeRetro]

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.

That's easily explained. "The Jersey Girls" = "Peaceful Tomrrows" brought to you by "The Tides Foundation" brought to you by "The Heinz Endowments" brought to you by Teresa Heinz Kerry.

[VadeRetro]

Woodward is slyly referred to as "Mortuary Bob" to this day based on his famous William Casey interview.

[jwalsh07]

The network sob sisters would be Chris Mathews and Howard Fineman. Nice work ladies.

[hopespringseternal]

Woodward couldn't be a journalist unless he was a fraud.

More and more, I am finding that journalism is a wholly fraudulent enterprise. Oh, there are good journalists here and there, but most of them are intentionally deceptive most of the time.

The especially bold liars like Woodward are loved and admired by the rest for their ability to be dishonest.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

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.

LOL! And thanks for the link, I'll follow it as soon as I post this.

[VadeRetro]

Woodward couldn't be a journalist unless he was a fraud.

As you go on to point out, he could be one. He just wouldn't be a legend in his field. And he wouldn't be Woodward.

[Forgiven_Sinner]

"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."

Immediately made me think of Ann Coulter's comment this week:

From: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1117928/posts

"Meanwhile, another 9-11 commissioner, the greasy Richard Ben-Veniste, claimed to be outraged that the CIA did not immediately give intelligence on 9-11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar to the FBI. As we now know – or rather, I alone know because I'm the only person in America watching the 9-11 hearings – Ben-Veniste should have asked his fellow commissioner Jamie Gorelick about that. "

So only Ann is watching the 9-11 commision--and Mark Steyn agrees!

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

FReeper analysis of Readers' Digest Article:

Kenneth Timmerman: This Man Wants You Dead
[1998 article about Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda]
Reader's Digest ^ | July 1998 | Kenneth Timmerman

[Petronski]

I wanna be like Mark.

[Rummyfan]

William Casey, former Director of the CIA, was on his death bed when Woodward allegedly 'interviewed' him, with no one else present.I have to confess I read WIRED way back when but that is the last thing by Woodward I will ever read.

[Rummyfan]

Thank you Mark Steyn! Wish I could have sat in on the conference at the Naval Academy he mentions.

[irv]

Isn't this the guy who had an extensive "tell all" interview with a comatose man???

Bingo! That's the guy! To Conservatives, who value facts and morality, he has NO credibility. To Libs, who value Liberalism, he's a hero.