[mac_truck]

Let us pray that the Olympics go well — despite the fact that they take place in the eastern Mediterranean, among a populace that is both without formidable military power and has expressed in a recent poll (by nearly a 90-percent majority) the belief that the United States is the chief threat to world peace.

Worth repeating. The 2004 summer olympics would seem an ideal target for Al Quada. Not to mention Greece's home grown terrorists.

[Fester Chugabrew]

"What has been amazing about the war so far is not that we have been winning, but that we have been doing so — quite unlike our increasingly exhausted enemies — without the full mobilization of our vast economic, political, material, and human resources."

Don't forget to add the albatross of the left.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

ping

[jordan8]

We are beginning the third year of this multi-theater conflict, and it resembles the Punic War after the Carthaginian defeat at the Metaurus in 207 B.C., the year of decision of 1863, or the autumn leading to Alamein and Stalingrad.
This article is a bit over the top, to say the least.

[WaterDragon]

Hanson is awesome as he puts the present war in the perspective of history!

[diotima]

Ping!

[Billthedrill]

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.

Hanson has elsewhere made the point that democracies are among the easiest forms of government to influence and manipulate as long as it comes in a form short of killing violence. Once that threshold is crossed those peoples become unrecognizably violent and implacable until the issue is decided on the battlefield. One of the things that Old Europe is only now coming to recognize is that 9/11 has kicked the United States into that mode and that old methods of public disapproval and derision no longer evoke the apologetic response from Americans that they used to.

...Europeans loudly pronounced a new anti-Americanism and talked of a separate "German way"; Americans silently seethed and were resigned to give them their wish...

...And in that moral calculus, September 11 shocked an affluent and at times self-satisfied American citizenry into confessing that it was no longer either too wealthy, too refined, or too sensitive to kill killers.

The above two quotations I took from the stunning epilogue to Hanson's Ripples of Battle, a book I finished this morning on the bus and with which I am only now coming to terms. All of his books are fine pieces of scholarship; this one was no exception, but things were kicked into an entirely different plane when the epilogue, which details the implications, the "ripples," of 9/11 in the context developed in the other battles (Okinawa, Shilo, and Delium) in the book, sets forth in clear terms the reason for much of the disarray our European alignment seems to be finding itself. In Hanson's words, "the world...had suddenly cracked apart and would not be put back together with quite the same pieces."

I would strongly recommend this book for those who enjoy placing current events in the broad historical context and interpreting them through classical models. The book is worth the purchase price for the epilogue alone, IMHO.

[PogySailor]

Another outstanding VDH article.

[x]

Hanson's temperament and his point of view dictate his conclusion in advance. In other words, he'd write a similar column whatever the situation was or whatever war we were in. He's certainly inspirational, but he's not a good guide to foreign policy. Trust someone who is actually there or who has knowledge of the region, not an armchair historian who finds examples to justify what he's already decided to be true. Even if he's right about Iraq, the fact that he'd be writing the same sort of column about any other war doesn't inspire trust in his conclusions.

[Spok]

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.

And the Repulicans solidify their hold on Congress and the Whitehouse, and American liberals crawl back into the ooze whence they came.

[BufordP]

So how come you didn't highlight the whole thing in red? Tough wasn't it?

If he were a ballplayer they'd call him Grand Slammin' Hanson.

[onedoug]

Printout ping, please. Thank you.

[headsonpikes]

Over here.

[judicial meanz]

Victor David Hanson makes excellent points in this article, and his knowledge of history is impeccable. It is my opinion a very definite crossroads has been reached, but there are still many pitfalls that can pop up on the way.

Wars have been lost after achieving initial strategic advantages. Look at Germany and the initial phases of the Blitzkrieg into Russia as an example.

Wars have been lost due to politics as well. An example of this is Germany's surrender in WWI and Russia in WWI, as well as our withdrawal from Vietnam due to political pressure from the smelly ones.

We have to realize that this war is being fought on a political, strategic, industrial, tactical, and economic plane, against a number of foes, not all still clearly defined.

The enemies of our country are neocommunist globalists, islamo-fascists, Wahabbis, and anti-American Americans, as well as traditional enemies like the Taliban and Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

[colorado tanker]

Qaeda Delenda Est!

[Utah Girl]

More historical analysis from Victor Davis Hanson.

[CIBvet]

Bump

[Lando Lincoln]

Great post Tolik! Hope you are well!

Lando

[Former Proud Canadian]

With saddam in custody, has the "tipping point" been reached?