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My moose likes cheese.

As per Cicero, failure to remember what has gone on before condemns us to remain forever children. The hubris of “knowing unquestionable truth,” “imposing non-negotiable demands,” “answering history’s call” and “paying any costs” in the endeavor is the path which Washington and Jefferson forbade America ever to take.

So what is wrong with this picture? This idiot has forgotten it was Thomas Jefferson who sent the United States Marines to "the shores of Tripoli!"

These people want America to initiate an all-out war with all of the enemies of its “only reliable ally in the region,” starting with Iraq, whether they be real, potential, or imagined, and regardless of whether this is in the interest of the United States to do so. ...“Bush positioned himself exactly at Israel’s place: without saying it, he clarified that Israel’s enemies are also America’s foes.”

Good point. Notwithstanding all the anti-Saddam hype, Iraq is only a threat to its immediate neighbors and to Israel.

I say to hell with the wretched people of the Middle East and let them fight to the finish themselves.

Ultimately they and terrorists need each other, and feed upon each other. The victim is the Old Republic. The winner is: Empire.

"For a thousand generations the Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire."

a realistic attachment to the national interest–the art of the diplomatically possible–has the potential to realize moral purposes, while the mantle of “morality” leads to the moral collapse of Western and American values that we have witnessed with the interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo.

This bears repeating.

Several good points. The one I found most striking is this:

It is indeed desirable and necessary to have informed, responsible and willing citizens participating in the effort to protect the nation at home and present its best image abroad, but this can be done properly only if the participants in this endeavor are imbued with “enlightened nationalism” based upon the Golden Rule, in line with the U.S. Constitution and in accordance with the true spirit of “citizen-soldiers.”

... Mr. Bush’s plea for participation is coupled with further centralization of authority and decision-making, which inculcates passivity into the population.

The logic of justifying the missile defense project by September 11 has never been explained.

Let me explain for you then.

In 1990, Iran is believed to have received the modified Scud C missile with a range of over six-hundred kilometers. About this time, North Korea began assisting Iran's efforts to become self-sufficient in ballistic missile production. North Korean technicians reportedly work in Iranian missile factories producing both surface-to-surface and anti-aircraft missiles.

Last year, according to news reports, North Korea exported to Iran twelve rocket motors designed for the nearly one-thousand-kilometer range Nodong missile. Last month, according to news reports, additional North Korean missile components were loaded aboard an Iranian transport jet. North Korea's traffic in missiles and other weapons technology is adding to the dangers of an already volatile Middle East.

In a joint communique last October, the U.S. and North Korea agreed that the "resolution of the missile issue would make an essential contribution . . . to peace and security in the Asia Pacific region." Since then, the U.S. has again raised concerns about North Korea’s missile program and its exports of weapons technology. President George W. Bush has expressed particular concern "that the North Koreans are shipping weapons around the world." He emphasized the need for "complete verification" of the terms of any future agreements with North Korea. The U.S. continues to hope that North Korea will take steps to meet these concerns.

However, more than two years ago North Korea tested a space launch vehicle, the Taepo Dong-1, which it could theoretically convert into an ICBM. This missile would be capable of delivering a small biological or chemical weapon to the United States, although with significant targeting inaccuracies. Moreover, North Korea has retained the ability to test its follow-on Taepo Dong-2 missile, which could deliver a nuclear-sized payload to the United States.

Add to the mix, the FACT that the Chinese are providing "unspecified" technical support to the North Koreans raises the very horrific specter that the Nuclear and missile launch technology that was supplied to the Chinese by the Clinton Administration could be incorporated into the ICBM's being manufactured in North Korea.

Finally, there is no doubt that North Korea has sold and supplied not only Nations, but terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

This is an interesting analysis to look at now and in the coming days. Just off the top of my head, two things:

1) A lot of really sophisticated analyses don't take into account where we're standing right now, and what we should do from now on. There's plenty of room for criticizing where we stand, what our government is, what we've done up to this point, but a political figure has to think about what to do from this point on, carrying all the baggage that intellectuals don't have to. So Bush's approach will of necessity differ from Trifkovic's.

2) When I read a neo-con telling me all the countries we have to invade with only the scantiest of grounds, I think that they are extremist, crazy and bloodthirsty. When I read a paleo tell me that Islam is the enemy, I have to wonder if the same isn't true of them. Maybe it's pro-Serbism. Or maybe it's the feeling that if we are to remain a Christian society in Christendom we have to have some opponent or "other" to define ourselves against so that we can avoid getting sucked into secularist and managerial globalism. Or maybe it's due to the Muslim immigration that threatens to make Europe less Christian and less Western. But why paleos should want to sound more extreme and militant than those that they criticize is a mystery. The initial paleo argument that live and let live isn't always a bad policy or an impossible option gets called into question when we realize that paleos too can be crusaders at heart.

It certainly is worth thinking about, though, that every war that we get into tends to be transformed into a crusade to change the world. Democracy puts a high value on human life. Therefore, when blood is shed in war, there has to be a higher, transcendent and redemptive meaning. And once the rhetoric is geared up one can't stop short of total victory. But what comes out of war is never as utopian as it's made to appear. Defeating one enemy may be necessary, but new enemies will move into the void created or arise out of it. The end result is often cynicism.

Interesting message from David Brooks at the Weekly Standard. The war means that the Republicans are back on top. It's also transformed them into McCainites. Something else to worry about.

Bump for a terrific article. And congratulations to RedBloodedAmerican for reading it in four minutes.

BTTT