[Tolik]

Victor Davis Hanson moral clarity huge BUMP  [please freepmail me if you want or don't want to be pinged to Victor Davis Hanson articles]

If you want to bookmark his articles discussed at FR: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-victordavishanson/browse

His NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

[Peach]

A most excellent article.

[Enterprise]

"The reason that states are not rushing to install imams as rulers or open their borders to al Qaeda training camps is not that they like democracy, but rather that they are just now beginning to fear the dire consequences of such action."

Not quite ready to meet their 72 virgins I guess.

[RAY]

The war on terror is a war of wills, and Victor Davis Hanson makes great points.

However, we must stay the course and be very through in cleaning up every remnant of these terrorist cells and their feeder systems. It appears that it will be a never ending task.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[Reo]

Excellent article, but Al Gore = George McClellan? Al Gore & Howard Dean = George McGovern. Wesley Clark = George McClellan. When Clark had the momentary lead, I was looking forward to a replay of the 1864 campaign.

[MattinNJ]

Brilliant.

[Valin]

Victor nails it again.
But before we start planning victory parades let's remember this war is going to be going on for a long while(decades?)
This is why the upcoming election ids so important. President Bush for all his faults, missteps MUST(imo) be reelected! The thought of Howrd the duck Dean(or any of the other moral midgets) moving into 1600 Pennsylvania ave. is enought to send me screaming into the night

[carton253]

In the last two years our enemies have lacked not the will but the power to defeat us; we in contrast had more than enough power but not enough will.

Benjamin Netanyahu was asked to speak to a Congressional committee right after 9/11. He ended his speech by saying, The terrorists do not lack the will to destroy us. They lack the means. We have the means to destroy them, but we lack the will. Then Bibi went on to say that this war came down to a race to see if the terrorists got the means before we got the will.

[arfan]

One of the best articles I've read in a very long time concerning our current historical context...

Thank you, Tolik, for posting this....

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Brilliant.

[taxcontrol]

Likewise, a struggle now exists for the heart and minds of Americans, to be liberal or conservative.

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

Excellent article.

[Ancesthntr]

VDH once again hits the nail on the head: the chief factor that will determine the outcome of this war is the will of the US to fight, sometimes not by the Marquis de Queensbury rules, until our enemies are defeated. It is plain that Bush will continue to do so, but he can only do so if he is reelected. Despite all of the mistakes that he's made in other areas (Medicare expansion, signing the hideous CFR bill into law, his stance on the AWB, the assault on our civil rights under the Patriot Act), this area is the most critical. Unless we win this war, all the rest doesn't matter - because someday we'll wake up to one or more atomized US cities. If/when we win, all of the other mistakes can be fixed (and, if we are fortunate, they can be fixed while we are winning.

I point of curiosity: why is VDH writing columns and not advising the President on a daily basis?

[boris]

This is utter nonsense. We are engaged in the beginning of a multiple-decade war against an unconventional opponent using asymmetrical means.

Indeed, the case can be made that we have already lost--I have made it repeatedly here. We invaded the wrong country, insisting on "nation building", while our covert enemies obtain aid and comfort in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc. We have failed to secure our borders, take out the terrorist leaders and their supporters, or even make serious attempts to eliminate sleeper cells and moles on our territory.

Our chief of "Homeland (In)security" advocates amnesty for illegal aliens. We continue to issue visas to citizens of known terrorist nations; continue to educate them in our colleges and universities.

We are in deep denial. Eventually the reality will confront us again--when the Sears Tower comes down, or the Golden Gate bridge is demolished.

--Boris

[Tuscaloosa Goldfinch]

Excellent article.

[Gritty]

Baathists and al Qaedists hope to demoralize our electorate and bring in a Howard Dean or his clone and with him a quick American exit from Baghdad.

As usual, Hanson cuts to the quick.

A great article, by a great modern historian!

And if there were another September 11, then all voluntary restrictions on the use of the full extent of American power will be off — and the response would be too terrible to contemplate.

I don't think our enemies, either foreign and domestic (and I include the fellow-travelers in the Democrat Party), realize this fully. They will, if it happens!

[Carry_Okie]

There are plenty of third-world revolutionaries today, but very few who wave the hammer and sickle.

Venezuela, Brazil, IIRC Ecuador, and parts of Colombia come to mind.

[.cnI redruM]

>>>>>>>>>In the last two years our enemies have lacked not the will but the power to defeat us; we in contrast had more than enough power but not enough will. But all that is changing as we ever so slowly become angrier while they get weaker.

Wow. VDH is someone I have to read 2 or 3 times. He's both deep and brilliant.

[Cicero]

Obviously the most dangerous factor at the present time is the enemy within--the peaceniks, the leftist academics, the Democrats, the leftist media, the leftist entertainment industry--all working together in hopes that Bush will fail.

Before things improve they will very likely, as Hanson suggests, seem to get worse. Terrorist activity will increase. The Democrats and the media will pull out all the stops as November 2004 approaches. We must hope for a crushing Bush victory, because although Bush can be faulted on many subsidiary issues, he is clearly the better choice on the main issues: pursuing the war on terror, reforming our tyrannical judicial system, and rolling back the Culture of Death.