Victor Davis Hanson Ping !
Let me know if you want in or out
Posted on 11/19/2004 5:58:06 AM PST by Tolik
Let me know if you want in or out
Don't have to go past the first line to find sloppy fact checking....
You are right it's 2001. Obvious typo. How about everything else?
I gained a lot of respect for VDH after I read "Who Killed Homer," and I'm a big supporter of preserving the Western Tradition (I spent 6 semesters studying Latin, now a PhD student in Medieval Literature). However, his political rants are growing increasingly tiresome.
Read later
Those on the left who are ignorant of history lectured the Bush administration that democracy has never come as a result of the threat of conflict or outright war — apparently the creation of a democratic United States, Germany, Japan, Italy, Israel, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, and Afghanistan was proof of the power of mere talk. In contrast, the old realist Right warned that strongmen are our best bet to ensure stability — as if Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been loyal allies with content and stable pro-American citizenries. In truth, George Bush's radical efforts to cleanse the world of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, bring democracy to the heart of the Arab world, and isolate Yasser Arafat were the most risky and humane developments in the Middle East in a century — old-fashioned idealism backed with force in a postmodern age of abject cynicism and nihilism.
Quite literally, we are living in the strangest, most perilous, and unbelievable decade in modern memory.
Professor Hanson uses the eye of a fine historian to observe today's events, and he brings an excellent pen to their chronicle.
It is a pity that those who style themselves as journalists cannot bring themselves to read such an accomplished writer and historian.
The typo is a mistake--but the entire article is accurate. Better one typo than whole paragraphs of lies--as the NYT is wont to feed us!
Please add me to the VDH list!
What an eloquent response--thank you!
Rants? Tiresome?
What exactly do you find so unpalatable about VDH's editorials?
In September and early October 2002 we were warned that an invasion of Afghanistan was impossible — peaks too high, winter and Ramadan on the way, weak and perfidious allies as bad as the Islamists — and thus that the invasion would result in tens of thousands killed and millions of refugees.
Meanwhile back in the real world
More good news from Afghanistan
Winds of Change ^ | 11/15/04 | Arthur Chrenkoff
Posted on 11/19/2004 8:07:05 AM CST by Valin
Badam, a Pashtun nomad, might have been the oldest voter in Afghanistan's recent presidential election. While birth records are sparse in his country, Badam's mother had once told him he was born in the year of "zeym" (the inundation), as 1894 is still remembered in collective memory - making Badam 110 years old.
"Badam is old enough to remember some of the crucial moments in Afghanistan's early twentieth-century history. During the reign of the modernising King Amanullah [1919-29], he fought under Khan Haji against British forces. 'At that time I was a handsome boy and I had the strength to fight against British,' he said. "Now, by voting, Badam said he felt as if he had struck another blow for Afghan independence. 'I know it's not appropriate for my age, but I danced the Atan [a traditional Pashtun dance] today because it's one of the happiest days of my life,' he said.
"He said he could count such days on the fingers of one hand. 'The first was on my second wedding day, which was a love match, and the second was five years later, when I became father of a son,' he said. 'The third is today, when I decide my own destiny'." Millions of Badam's younger countrymen - and women - shared that experience with him just over a month ago. After decades of war and oppression, which left one million dead, forced some five million to flee across borders, and utterly devastated and impoverished the country, the Afghans are finally finding some reasons to be happy. Largely out of the international media spotlight, Afghanistan continues to progress along the winding road to peace, freedom and democracy. Here are some snapshots from the past four weeks of that journey:
Society
Reconstruction
Humanitarian Aid
The Coalition Troops
Security
(Excerpt) Read more at:
http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/005887.php#more
bttt
Hanson Bump!
VDH nails it again!
Ooooo.....ready, aim.....zot?
Added to the ping list.
BUMP for VDH
Now there is scant concern for apartheid in the Middle East, abject oppresssion of women, or appreciation of democracy as a higher form of politics.
Now the left has put human rights on the shelf. The implicit message to the masses is 'tough luck -- you're on your own as long as a Republican is in charge'.
The pursuit of human rights under Bush must be categorized as imperialism, and it must be suppressed for the sake of leftist petulance. Bush has taken the humanitarian mantle from the left, and leaves them sputtering excuses for regimes like the Taliban.
The Viking Kitties have found you increasingly tiresome.
Don't the door hit you in the @ss on the way out.
V.D. Hanson tells it like it is! Especially... 'Reactionary Old Europe, in concert with the ossified American Leftist elite, unleashed everything in its ample cultural arsenal: novels, plays, and op-ed columns calling for the assassination of President Bush..." He definitely has a way with words, and we do indeed live in interesting times.
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