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My generation grew up inside the recriminations about Vietnam,

Viet Nam was a war led by cynical men, and lost by cynical men. The absolute cynicism with which it was conducted scarred a generation. The men leading it never believed in it, and never believed it could be won.

This is one of the outcomes of this war. Having seen what is possible when your leadership is committed to victory, who has not wondered what might have happened had the Viet Nam War been led by moral men, committed to victory?

This is the price of electing empty suits to positions of leadership. Does anyone not notice that they were Democrats?

And liberals... had to ask themselves if in the end American hypocrisy mattered enough to outweigh the actual result - if confused and cynical motives (oil, presidencies, imperialism etc) could diminish the simple humanitarian triumph.

Why does she imagine that her confusion is ours? We didn't awaken yesterday to discover Iraq on our map. This day has been coming for a long time. I was aware of Saddam since the seventies, and I have been expecting bad things from him for decades, I have been wondering how we would ultimately confront him. I have never doubted, since the seventies, that we would eventually have to confront him. And I am nobody. This is not about oil, this is not about presidential politics, this is not about imperialism (try and locate our fantasy empire on the fantasy map and let me know what you find). This is about a mass killer with dreams of grandeur.

I have heard friends say "This isn't about saving Iraqis, we don't care about them"... And the truth is that the person speaking doesn't care about them, but others have been aware and looking for a way to settle this thing for a long time. We finally did it. Events and personalities and circumstances have finally come together in a way that has allowed it to happen. I make no apology for wanting this day to come, or for believing that this day had to come.

I only wonder why it is that the intellectual elite are always confused, and always way behind the curve on these things?

I only wonder why it is that the intellectual elite are always confused, and always way behind the curve on these things?

I have concluded that "elites" are, by and large, merely celebrities. They are experts mostly in the sense that
an "ex" is a has-been, and
a "spurt" is a drip under pressure.
Ex-spurts of that sort herd together for safety in numbers, never daring an independent thought which might--horror of horrors--net them bad PR.
And reporters emphatically belong to that category of ex-spurt. And they all herd together and accuse conservatives of exactly the intellectual sloppiness and conformity of which they themselves are exemplars.

"I only wonder why it is that the intellectual elite are always confused, and always way behind the curve on these things?"

The TRUE intellectual elite (Kissinger, Cheney, Krystol, O'Reilly, yourself and millions of others) is not confused at all. Perhaps you meant the leftist/liberal self proclaimed elite? Because they are ALWAYS confused and ALWAYS miscalculate because they ultimately despise your happiness and the freedom you enjoy because they feel you and your freedom threatens their self-importance and the fantasy world they live in.

A lot of American academics have lost their credibility because the LIES they have been spewing in the privacy of the classroom to inexperienced youngsters all these years is becoming exposed. These so called "teachers" and "professors" are in fact nohing more than charlatans and quacks spending time and YOUR taxdollars enriching themselves and indoctrinating children and young, inexperienced adults with anti-American slogans, failed political and economic theories, and immorality.

Ironically, American culture is indeed so dynamic and pervasive that we even export Anti-American slogans and platitudes which are mindlessly lapped up without independent examination and regurgitated by other leftist "intellectuals" in some other countries.

You don't need to take my word for it, you can independently verify this for yourself by comparing the anti-American rantings of "professors" from Berkely, Cornell, etc. in the 1960's to the leftists in Europe, and the rest of the world since the 1970's and you will see they parrot the anti-Americanism that was first preached in the US. (To this day, these spineless rodents add absolutely nothing to society and simply enjoy the fact they collect generous pay and benefits packages to essentially lord over impressionable youngsters who are also vulnerable to their grades)

The Viet Nam debacle was started by RATS, micro-managed stupidly by RATs, lost by RATs and leftist rioters, the commie media and finally deserted by Tricky Dick. If she got all her Viet Nam info from films, then her lack of brains is made evident.

Nice post. We finally did it. Events and personalities and circumstances have finally come together in a way that has allowed it to happen.

Yes, I've had a powerful sense of alignment with this Iraq war, that all these layers of things have come into a sort of momentary syncronism -- kind of like a motor hitting top-dead-center or a cornfield moving into that perfect angle where it resolves into orderly mile-long rows. We've been presented with a chance to kill a whole flock of birds with one stone. In going to war with Iraq, we've liberated the Iraqis, put an end to Saddam's WMD threat, sent a message to the islamoterrorists, rattled the cages of Syria, Iran, North Korea, etc, chopped off the UN at the kness, made France and Germany look weasely, humiliated the radical anti-war Left, taken the first step in detoxifying the Middle East, polished up the prestige of the American military, and moved a long way towards taking the post-Vietnam tarnish off the moral legitimacy of large-scale American military unilateralism -- and I'm sure I've missed a bunch. Our effort in Iraq so far has been an extraordinarily high-yielding proposition.

"I only wonder why it is that the intellectual elite are always confused, and always way behind the curve on these things?"

Could it be they are self-proclaimed intellectual elite, that are living in their own fantasy. When reality knocks them down, they become confused and bewildered.

I sure wouldn't consider any of them intelligent. Absolutely, no common sense.