Victor Davis Hanson: So Lucky to Have Them

VDH ^ | April 18, 2004 | Victor Davis Hanson

[quidnunc]

American soldiers are as impressive abroad as we are embarrassing at home

These are not really dark times. Rather I think in some ways they are among the finest in our history. No other country would or could send its youth 7,000 miles away to end fascism, implement consensual government, and adhere to its principled mission amid cynicism, cheap caricature, and increasing danger.

Let us pay little attention to a commission of ex-politicians, media-hungry know-it-alls, and Washington insiders. In the current 9-11 hearings, along partisan lines and to the hisses and applause of the stacked gallery, grandstanders have tried to take apart a government even as it wages war for our national survival. None of our ancestors would have entertained such a circus — haggling over Roosevelt’s culpability for Pearl Harbor as Americans were dying at Okinawa.

The performances of Mssrs. Ben-Veniste and Kerrey, along with Ms. Gorelick, are so self-contradictory, so at odds with their own past recorded statements, and so patently partisan that they have managed in a space of a few days to question what heretofore have been mostly reputable careers. So pay no attention to them at all. Any good that will come out of such an investigation in the midst of a terrible global war has already been forfeited by the commission’s election-year timing and cheap manner of inquiry. If we wished to win this war, it would be far better instead for Americans to review those so rarely played tapes of the falling towers, the innocents jumping from so high above, the toxic cloud that engulfed the city, and the mug shots of those creepy Middle Eastern mass murderers than to allot blame to us rather than to them.

Let us pay no attention either to a series of pundits, senior statesmen emeriti, and public triangulators who opposed the Iraqi war, then quickly got on board after the three-week victory (“we are all neoconservatives now”) — only most recently in their infinite wisdom they claim that the entire enterprise was flawed and mistaken from the outset as the Marines renew war in the streets of Fallujah. If in two weeks, the US military crushes Mr. Sadr, disbands his militias, and subdues the Sunni Triangle, as the Iraqi interim government suddenly basks in its reflected glory, these same critics will metamorphosize yet a third or fourth time into supporters of “remaking the Middle East landscape.”

-snip-

[Captain Kirk]

Thank you for honestly admitting that you want to also expend American blood and treasure in the Western Sudan and Zimbabwee. I appreciate the candor.

[Miss Marple]

I expect that The Sudan is getting a bit nervous, as Libya has gone over to our side, at least nominally, and our military sits there in Iraq as a constant threat. The Sudan may decide like Libya simply to throw in the towel without firing a shot.

And I expect Zimbabwe to be taken care of by Commonwealth countries, not the US.

However, should for some reason Blair fail in his efforts, I would not be adverse to rescusing the people of Zimbabwe from theri situation. But then, I am not an isolationist.

[Mr. Silverback]

Bump for later reading.

[AZLiberty]

If he ain't married I am gonna get in my car and drive over ...

I'm married, to a woman, so I won't be competing with you.

But let me repeat: VDH for Secretary of State!

Learning the classics (and I don't mean '50s rock music) used to be a standard part of a good education. I wish I -- and all my boomer colleagues -- had been exposed to more of this, instead of "Greening of America".

[Utah Girl]

Ping

[lainde]

bttt