We had to have our dog (of eighteen years) euthanised on Friday night, and I’ve been walking around in something of a funk since. I still occasionally ‘see’ her out of the corner of my eye, sleeping in her favorite spot next to my chair in the livingroom. Or I hear the jingle of the tags on her collar, or expect to bend down and pet her when I open the door to come into the house.
I asked to spend some time with her in an examining room before the vet administered the injection, and it was difficult to finally give him the go-ahead. Spent about half an hour petting her and saying good-by. What made it even more difficult was that, even though she was on pain medication and heavily sedated, whenever I would say a word that had some special meaning to her, her little tail still wagged and she would weakly raise her head off the table and look into my eyes. I continued to pet her and talk to her while the doctor administered the injection, and, when her little body stopped breathing, eighteen years of unconditional love and loyalty died along with her.
Give Digger a special (more special than normal) scratch behind the ears for me tonight, you hear? :)
Back to the subject at hand ...
I couldn’t agree more with your comment, ‘Hitchens is such a great writer, I'm glad his talents have finally found a cause worthy of them.’
I have read articles of his with which I took great issue, and others that made me want to stand and applaud. This is surely among the latter, and may even be his best!
The insight below is worth saving (in fact, it's priceless). We would do well to save it for those times when we cross paths (as all of us do) with a useful idiot (95%) or a genuine Marxist (5%) who has been leftist-indoctrinated regarding the liberation of Iraq. You know – those whose Iraq-mantra is limited to one or more of the following:
‘The Iraq war is being fought for Halliburton’ … or ...
‘Bush lied. We have found no weapons of mass destruction’ … or ...
‘There was no connection between Hussein and al Qaeda’.
We need not argue about the failures and the mistakes and even the crimes, because these in some ways argue themselves. But a positive accounting could be offered without braggartry, and would include:
(1) The overthrow of Talibanism and Baathism, and the exposure of many highly suggestive links between the two elements of this Hitler-Stalin pact. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who moved from Afghanistan to Iraq before the coalition intervention, has even gone to the trouble of naming his organization al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
(2) The subsequent capitulation of Qaddafi's Libya in point of weapons of mass destruction--a capitulation that was offered not to Kofi Annan or the E.U. but to Blair and Bush.
(3) The consequent unmasking of the A.Q. Khan network for the illicit transfer of nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea.
(4) The agreement by the United Nations that its own reform is necessary and overdue, and the unmasking of a quasi-criminal network within its elite.
(5) The craven admission by President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder, when confronted with irrefutable evidence of cheating and concealment, respecting solemn treaties, on the part of Iran, that not even this will alter their commitment to neutralism. (One had already suspected as much in the Iraqi case.)
(6) The ability to certify Iraq as actually disarmed, rather than accept the word of a psychopathic autocrat.
(7) The immense gains made by the largest stateless minority in the region--the Kurds--and the spread of this example to other states.
(8) The related encouragement of democratic and civil society movements in Egypt, Syria, and most notably Lebanon, which has regained a version of its autonomy.
(9) The violent and ignominious death of thousands of bin Ladenist infiltrators into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real prospect of greatly enlarging this number.
(10) The training and hardening of many thousands of American servicemen and women in a battle against the forces of nihilism and absolutism, which training and hardening will surely be of great use in future combat.
At the risk of attempting to perfect perfection, I would add one more positive to Hitchens’ comprehensive list. Even though it would require the agreement of a potentially democratized Iraq, a permanent strategic U.S. military presence in that area of the Middle East would provide an excellent strategic defense positioning (much moreso than the Naval base at Guantanamo Bay affords us a presence among our enemies here in the west), for our own security as well as that of Israel.
I share Hitchens’ frustration with both Bush’s and Blair’s seeming inability to educate the citizenry on all ten areas of ‘victory’. But, then again, when one considers the power of the unelected/unaccountable media … and combines it with the fact that an administration, whose military’s performance has performed minor miracles, boasts a lousy PR machine, Hitchens’ ten items seem doomed to remain forever hidden from the line of sight of the average American.
The sad fact is that, even if you or I were to show Hitchens’ list of ten victories to a member of the passively uninformed Americans, odds are they wouldn’t even recognize a name, or an organization, on the list … and couldn’t identify even one of the mentioned countries on a map. And, even sadder, that pathetic fact wouldn’t even bother them.
Read those ten exceptional positives over again. And then ask yourself, ‘How many of my neighbors are even familiar with the names and places mentioned, or the terms used?’ Unless you live in a much more enlightened neighborhood than I, I suspect your answer will be, ‘Few, if any.’
I saw a blurb on FoxNews the other night, excerpted from the Tonight Show, in which Jay Leno asked a random woman on the street, ‘Can you tell me who took second place in the American Idol contest this year?’ Without hesitation, she answered, ‘Bo Bice.’ When asked who lost the 2004 presidential election, she hesitated a bit and then responded, ‘Was it Mondale?’
Brit Hume laughed as he signed off. By laughing, he wasn’t acknowledging (although I suspect that he knows) that there are more such women-on-the-street than most of us would like to believe. As a matter of fact (call me a pessimist if you like), I believe they far outnumber us. And, until we stop rewarding and encouraging the entitlement mentality ... and wall off our southern border ... we will find ourselves representing a smaller and smaller minority with each passing day.
Hitchens (and Krauthammer, and a dwindling number of others of their ilk) write painfully insightful commentaries warning us about the demise of this republic. But their efforts are more and more becoming synonymous with handing a kindergartener Orwell’s ‘1984’ or ‘Animal Farm’, and then asking him what it means to him and his classmates. He’ll invariably open the book, toss it aside, and run out to enjoy recess.
The adult preference for ‘recess’ over knowledge comes with a price.
As Hitchens so eloquently observes, ‘An apparent consensus exists, among millions of people in Europe and America, that the whole operation for the demilitarization of Iraq, and the salvage of its traumatized society, was at best a false pretense and at worst an unprovoked aggression. How can this possibly be? … Childishness is one thing … but puerility in adults is quite another thing, and considerably less charming.’
Hitchens blames both Bush and Blair for scaring people, rather than reasoning with them or enlightening them. I do take issue with him on that. If a kindergarten class is outside playing during recess and a teacher is informed that toxic fumes have been released by a nearby factory, does she tell them, with alarm, to run inside the school, or does she sit down with them and attempt to explain the chemical composition of, and biological effects of, toxic fumes in order to reason with them and compel them to seek shelter of their own accord?
Scared is something we understand. Analyzing a large number of geopolitical occurrences and their potential consequences we’re too busy for.
Your quote in response #90 is beautiful! It speaks volumes … and so simply. So how come frogs (a la this one in the milk, and the proverbial one in the water that slowly heats from cold to boiling, etc.) are so useful in pointing out critical human political insights? Adding this profound (in its simplicity) quote to the others, I am developing a newfound respect for frogs. :)
He was killed in the great war alas, but some of his war poetry lives on, although a pitifully small amount it is.
What a terrible tragedy … which makes me await your package even more eagerly. Will be sure to set aside sufficient time to absorb its wonderful contents. :)
~ joanie ..
Vastly Illuminating, September 25, 2004