Victor Davis Hanson: In the Eye of the Beholder. Imagine if we’d reported on WWII the way we do now

NRO ^ | May 12, 2006 | Victor Davis Hanson

[AmericaUnite]

Fantastic analysis as usual. Thanks for the ping.

[zook]

Bravo. I've been saying this from the get-go. Our MSM today is disloyal; plagued by institutionalized anti-Americanism. It's to the point that we may never be able to wage, let alone win, any war, especially during a Republican presidency. The press won't allow it. I hate to be such a downer, but I often hear myself thinking, "America doesn't deserve itself anymore."

[Edgerunner]

This is the way the DUmmies see WW2...

[MEG33]

Heartbreakingly true.

[Edit35]

If one were to use this anti-NSA logic put forth by Dems, the US govt. should have gotten a court order during WWII before it could intercept those Nazi submarines which came inside US terratorial waters off NJ and NY.

After all, we shouldn't want to violate the Nazi combatants' rights now, do we?

[mtntop3]

Superb.

[billbears]

Imagine if we’d reported on WWII the way we do now

Imagine if Vic got back to his hack treatment of ancient history instead of incessant ramblings on something he has no clue about (of course he's not always that good on the ancient history either). Vic has made it evidently clear his treatment of historical fact outside of ancient history is questionable at best

[be4everfree]

good bye

[Ramius]

Hanson does another good one.

I've been thinking about things in these terms lately. It occurred to me the other day that, all things considered, The current War on Terror is actually going far better than World War II did. More victory, more decisive, fewer setbacks, and more continual progress. All with a dramatically lower rate of casualities, both in our forces and enemy civilian collateral losses.

While WWII was sometimes misreported to make things look better than they were, this war is being misreported the other way. There's a lesson here, yet to be complete. WWII sometimes went very badly, yet our Allied forces overcame those obstacles and eventually won the war. The War on Terror is going comparatively well, and the only real obstacle isn't the enemy... its the will of our own press to win. It remains to be seen which obstacle is the more impossible to overcome.

[Lando Lincoln]

Tolik, my good FRiend........Thank You.

Lando

[Gucho]

Bump! A good read.

[melancton]

Vic has made it evidently clear his treatment of historical fact outside of ancient history is questionable at best

But what he says gets the patriotic juices flowing, so it doesn't matter what the facts are.    

[billbears]

Are you going somewhere? Next, maybe Vic can regale us with a spot on WWI and the necessity of quelling dissent in that 'necessary' war...

[jazusamo]

Thanks for the great post. Sadly, the current naysayers will only scoff.

[Jack Black]

ping

[Madame Dufarge]

Another great one by VDH.

Too bad he didn't include old Joe Kennedy as one of the "courageous mavericks."

[GOPJ]

Next look for Coop’s recently completed and powerful American Gestapo this fall. Likewise, Jimmy Stewart remarked from the front lines above Germany (so unlike our president, who failed to serve in any of America’s past wars) that it is hard to know who the real enemy is after we have bombed the children of Hamburg. And Clark Gable is currently preparing a documentary on the Pacific theater, 12/7, that outlines the racist nature of that campaign that seeks the extermination of all the living Japanese we encounter.

Our modern Hollywood is sooooooo creepy... Thanks for the ping.

[kruelio]

This is way too heavy for most liberals to comprehend. Perhaps he should've written it with a 4th grader in mind like USA Today does.

[GOPJ]

...Meanwhile, we are no closer to victory over Japan. Instead, we are hearing of secret plans of invasion of the Japanese mainland slated for 1946 or even 1947 that may well make Okinawa seem like a cake walk and cost us a million casualties and perhaps involve a half-century of occupation. The extent of the current Kamikaze threat, once written off as the work of a “bunch of dead-enders,” was totally unforeseen, even though such suicidal zealots are in the process of inflicting the worst casualties on the U.S. Navy in its entire history.

Worse still, our sources in the intelligence community speak of a billion-dollar boondoggle now underway in the American southwest. This improbable “super-weapon” (with the patently absurd name “Manhattan Project”—in the midst of a desert no less!) promises in one fell swoop to erase our mistakes and give us instant deliverance from our blunders—no concern, of course, for the thousands of innocents who would be vaporized if such a monstrous fantasy bomb were ever actually to work.

ping

[359Henrie]

This was your division officer, right?