Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/ NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
vdh bump
Outstanding VDH article! Thanks for posting.
i can't do anything about any of this stuff. i need to become shallow myself, never remembering what it's like to actually worry about our soldiers and our country and the holocaust that's coming.
but i will never forget to pray that God, who controls the universe, will have mercy on his people.
"Almost all the Western media outlets failed to distinguish Lebanese civilian from military casualties... the Lebanese defense minister reminding the world that the Lebanese planned to renege on their responsibilities to disarm Hezbollah, whining that if Israel couldn’t do it, how could the Lebanese... the pathetic obsession of the Middle East with lost manhood is explicable by a society immersed in gender apartheid, patriarchy, and tribalism."
It's amazing that VDH can cram so many profound yet common-sense truths into a single column, let alone within single paragraphs and sentences.
I disagree. The Jimmy Carter wing of the Democratic Party will always seek the path of cease fire without reason. They mistake delayed war for peace and, like Chamberlain, only make the eventual war that much worse - but they will never see their own fault, they will only blame the administration that happens to be in power when the Shiite finally hits the fan, especially if that administration happens to be Republican.
I've given up any hope that they can be reasoned back to some semblence of sanity. When confronted with massive media manipulation in Lebanon, they downplay it. When confronted with the war crimes of Hiz staging attacks from civilian areas in a deliberate attempt to provoke Israeli represials for propaganda value, they can only bleat about proportionality. When informed of UN duplicity, their faith in that disfuncitonal organization is unwavered. When presented quotes from HIz and Iran that they seek the destruction of Israel in particular and Jews in general, they simply pretend that the speakers really didn't mean that. When asked to learn from history, they just re-write it to provide the lessons they wish to have, not the lessons they need to have.
In other words, their belief system has become so ingrained that they will cling to it despite any facts to the contrary. Any such belief system first becomes absurd and then dangerous. So they are worse than useless any longer - they are an obstacle towards any kind of real security for this country or the world. They will make contradictory demands as a result that are worse than just simply doing nothing - such as calling for a return to a law-enforcement approach to fighting terrorism after they have worked for years to limit the effectiveness of such. And their hatred of all things military is deeply woven into their psyches, to where it cannot be unravelled.
A conservative editor once told me the only cure for the Vietnam-era liberal was death - they will take these views to the grave. Until then, our job is to continually throw their contradictions back in their faces for the world to see and judge them by accordingly. And not gently, but with all the force and harshness we can muster - no more debate. The reaction must be akin to what is done to a dog that just crapped on the rug, and for the exact same reason.
One can only hope that VDH is correct!
There doesn't seem to be a lot of confidence in this so-called cease-fire agreement. "Craven" is the perfect word, here, although "treasonous" of the hopes of the rest of the world might bemore appropriate.
Every informed person in the universe is aware of the true nature of both the Lebanese as presently constituted (having gotten rid of a good percentage of non-muslims over the last 20 years), and we won't even talk about hezbollah, the thousands of Syrians and God-knows how many iranian Mass Murderers in the picture at the moment.
Oh yes. I almost forgot the U.N. peacekeepers, known from experience to be effective only if moved into an area where there is no conflict, no weapons and no food or medicine; in other words, among helpless people. This definitely ain't it.
We live in interesting times...
Simply excellent. Thanks for posting this gem.
Let's hope he's right but one gets to wondering what it will take to wake up the masses.
Great article. I think that the Islamists are overplaying their hand. It has become increasingly obvious since 9/11 that acts of Islamic terrorism have been and are being inspired by a religious ideology that is bent on world domination. That these are not disconnected acts of violence that have been "caused" by the actions of Westerners. While the liberals and the anti-Semitic paleo-cons persist in a state of denial about who and what this enemy really is, most open-minded people realize that radical Islam is very dangerous, indeed.
I wonder how much more useful and lifesaving it might have been in the long run if experts like VDH had been candid up front? Say, years ago?
The ingredients in the poison muslim mix have been there for the world to see for generations, and the duplicity which characterizes muslim "agreements", historically, crystal clear.
What these killers need are ultimatums, not coddling and additional treatment as equals, or even as civilized. Behave or die.
Yes, when the final hammer falls on them, we will be inundated with countless images of dead children, kittens and teddy bears but (in most instances) children, kittens and teddy bears are not blowing up civilians to tiny pieces of bone, flesh and blood worldwide. But only until they are old enough to join the cowardly killers.
The timid, the cowardly, the clueless lack the gene to see the obvious.
Outstanding article, per usual.
"...talking heads in some stale Viagra infomercial."
This is almost Steyn-esque. Outstanding perspective. VDH is back on his A-game.
"As the cliché goes: the Middle East needs to wake up and disown Islamic fascism."
We need to wake up too; the best may be that the worst is still to come: Islam will allow us to wake to our nobler spirits, showing what values the West stands for and will fight for.
A truly amazing author! Thanks again.
I enjoy his writings and especially his last book.
Wanna bet?
The very same handwringers will be wailing for "peace"...and UN intervention...and "serious negotiations"...or, not to put to fine a point on it, appeasement.
Hansen is being far more optimistic about the state of the Western World's conscience than I am.
Bump.
VDH has a way with words.