Supporting the war without supporting PNAC

When anyone in the antiwar crowd finds out that I support the War in Iraq, he or she automatically labels me a “neocon”. Most of them are actually clueless as to what one is, but that doesn’t stop them from making the accusation.

In a generic sense, neoconservatives are former liberals who became disgusted with the leftward shift of the Democrats which occurred during the Cold War and especially Vietnam. Basically, they were liberals who were staunchly anti-communist and couldn’t accept that the Democrats weren’t. Irving Kristol is considered by many to be the godfather of the movement.

More specifically, though, the current crop of neoconservatives are products of the think tank called the Project for a New American Century or PNAC. They believe that global peace, cooperation and prosperity must be promoted through a process of Americanizing the parts of the world where freedom doesn’t currently exist. They are convinced that the United States must assert itself, through force if necessary, though not exclusively; to interject American style economics, culture and government in places that have no tradition of freedom or democracy.

The idea is that if nations that are currently dangerous to us and the free world become more like the United States then they won’t be a threat anymore. These people believe that they can truly Americanize Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, thereby making them inhospitable for terrorists and thus removing safe havens for the Osamas of the world and eliminating their funding and their potential sources for weapons of mass destruction.

It’s a beautiful idea. If it only would work in the real world. However, it won’t. What? I’m rejecting the PNAC agenda? Then I must oppose the war in Iraq? Not hardly. I think anyone who opposes the war in Iraq is dangerously naïve or a traitor. But that is a different issue that I will get to later. Right now, let’s stick with my problems with PNAC and the neocons.

First, the neocons believe that everyone wants to be free. They look at the world through the prism of the Cold War and the fact that the citizens of the satellite states of the Soviet Union were slaves and truly longed for freedom. In fact, no one can question the fact that the vast majority of people under Soviet oppression dreamed of living as free men and women. However, that doesn’t necessarily translate to the Middle East.

You see, most of today’s neoconservatives arestudents of Leo Strauss. Without going into great detail about Straussian thought, let me just say that Strauss discounted the role of religion in a people or a culture. He viewed religion as something that can be replaced by another value system to provide order and stability in a society.

I know, President Bush is very religious. Regardless of what the Left thinks, the President is evangelical through and through. The fact is that Bush isn’t a true neocon, regardless of how his enemies try to paint him into a corner. Bush believes that spreading the United States’ freedom to our enemies is a mission from God. PNAC has no such ideas.

Strauss was familiar with Marxist thought, Leninist thought, Trotsky and Mein Kampf. He saw how these philosophies were used in Europe. He never looked at the Middle East and Islam, though. In Europe, Christianity is mostly ritual. In the United States religion is fraught with materialism. Islam, though, is completely different.

Islam means “submission”. Muslims consider freedom to be evil. Whereas children in Communist countries are brainwashed to believe that freedom will corrupt them in this life, Muslim children are raised to believe that anything other than complete submission to the authoritarian rule of Sharia law will condemn them to Hell.

The result is that Muslims will resist freedom the same way they would resist a bacon sandwich. These people aren’t slaves of some dictator. They are submissive servants because they truly believe that Allah wants them to be. As a result, PNAC has as much chance of Americanizing the adults of the Middle East as I have of regrowing the hair I lost when I was in my twenties. It AIN’T gonna happen. In twenty or thirty years we might be able to raise a generation of people in those countries that would embrace freedom, but to do it in the short term is next to impossible.

Like I said earlier though, that doesn’t mean that I agree with the leftist appeasers. I believe that we have to defang the Middle East. Their internal politics is unimportant. Saddam had played games for twelve years. It had to end at some point. He never accounted for all of his known quantities of chemical weapons. He made overtures to terrorists. After 9/11, that made him to big of a risk to leave in power under ANY style of containment. Additionally, after 9/11, we needed to have a demonstrative example to all of the other nations on the list of terrorist states. We must use Iraq to make sure that the only things exported from the region are oil and rugs, not terrorism.

I don’t agree with PNAC’s agenda because I don’t think it is achievable. However, I agree with Bush on how he is handling the War on Terror, INCLUDING the war with Iraq. PNAC, like most leftists believe a global community is possible. I hold no such illusions. Basically, PNAC and the American Left are two sides of the same coin.

PNAC wants to make the world a happy place by making it like the United States. The Left wants to make the world into a combination of Swedish economic policy and French foreign policy with Amsterdam’s morality thrown in for good measure. Both ideas are silly, but if I had to choose, I would rather have the world like the United States instead of having the United States become like the world.

Damned if you do...

Just to make it clear, there is nothing, short of mass suicide, that the Bush administration can do that wouldn't result in incessant carping by the leftists in this country.  This week confirmed this once again.

The Homeland Security Department announced  that it had information of a specific threat of action by Al Qaeda this summer.  The Justice Department went farther and gave names of suspects and asked Americans to be on the look out for these particular people.  The administration didn't raise the threat level, but did take extra measures.

Did the leftists in this country praise the administration for being proactive and for warning the public?  Not a chance.  The left immediately began spreading the claim that Bush did this for political reasons to distract the country and to improve his sagging poll numbers.  Once again, their hatred for Bush outweighed anything else.

These are the same people who want to know why Bush didn't do something more when he received a Presidential Daily Briefing on August 6, 2001, that was titled "Bin Laden Determined To Attack United States".  The memo spoke in generalities about things that the government had seen before, but Bush was supposed to do something different and was supposed to warn the public.  Now, when he is proactive, the leftists claim that it is only for political reasons and question whether there is a real threat.

Of course this consistent inconsistency on the part of the Left is expected.  They hate President Bush and his team and little else matters.  They criticize proactivity and preemption now, but demand it in hindsight. 

Let's consider the recent find of a sarin filled artillery shell in Iraq.  First, EVERYONE including the French, knew that Saddam hadn't accounted for more than two thirds of the weapons grade sarin that he was known to have.  Even the imbecilic "Bush lied" crowd can't deny that.  Now, let's assume that we hadn't attacked Iraq.  Let's assume that this shell had, instead, been discovered by its detonation in Washington D.C.  Further, let's assume that the detonation was conducted properly and that the sarin was released, killing thousands.

If, during the subsequent investigation, it was discovered that the shell had come from Iraq, can you not see the Grand Kleagle and the owner of Teddy's Driving and Diving School rising to the floor of the Senate to make pronouncements?  The speeches would go something like this:

"Our great and glorious leader, Bill Clinton, had told us for years what a threat Saddam Hussein's Iraq was.  President Clinton was instrumental in establishing a policy for this government that demanded regime change in Iraq.  This administration (sneer sneer) ignored that policy.  This administration (sneer sneer) even after 9/11, did not take the threat from Iraq seriously.  President Clinton and his capable staff had recognized that Iraq was dealing with terrorists on the issue of weapons of mass destruction.  Secretary Cohen confirmed that when he explained to this body why it was necessary to bomb the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan.

This administration (sneer sneer) ignored these warnings.  Since 1998, it has been the policy of the United States to work toward regime change in Iraq.  This administration (sneer sneer) failed to act on that policy, EVEN after 9/11, and now, we have thousands dead in this very city from a weapon of mass destruction that came from Iraq.  Yes, the weapon came from Iraq, but the blood is on the hands of George W. Bush." 

The leftists would have demanded impeachment.  However, since the President did act proactively, and preemptively, the leftists want his head for an "illegal" war.  The bottom line is that regardless of what he does, the leftists in this country are going to attack George W. Bush.  Logic doesn't matter.  Reason doesn't matter.  Consistency doesn't matter.  All that matters is their seething hatred that blinds them to anything else, even to the fact that their behavior encourages the Islamists.

Fighting a war against Islamic terrorists is hard enough, but when you have to fight a fifth column of hate filled carpers at home, it becomes next to impossible.  I know, leftists in this country say they don't support the jihadists.  That may be true, but they sure do act like it. 

 

Two Thumbs Up?

Cannes attempted to elect Michael Moore "god" this past week.  The city went crazy for him (no pun intended) and his new "documentary" (his term, not mine) "Fahrenheit 911".  Apparently the fact that his previous film, "Bowling For Columbine" was almost as truthful as "Spinal Tap" is less important to the artsy crowd than his neo-socialist anti-American political leanings.

Of course, the art and movie crowd has always tended to be more leftist than the general population.  There must be something about living in a $4 million Malibu mansion that contributes to beach erosion that causes you to want to end inequities in the world and save the environment.  But in recent years this leftist tendency has reached kook proportions.

For instance, Norman Mailer said of the 9/11 hijackers: 

"Americans can't admit that you need courage to do such a thing. For that might be misunderstood. The key thing is that we in America are convinced that it was blind, mad fanatics who didn't know what they were doing. But what if those perpetrators were right and we were not? We have long ago lost the capability to take a calm look at the enormity of our enemy's position." 

Yep, he wanted people to consider whether the terrorists of 9/11 were justified.  Of course, if you read what many of the artsy elites said after the attacks, you can find similar comments.  In fact, Moore himself stated that "There is no terrorist threat in this country. This is a lie. This is the biggest lie we've been told."

I just wish that the American people could have seen Moore and the artsy leftist elites at Cannes without any editing.  They hate this country.  And who do they support with this hate?  The Democrat party.  Other than New Age Messiah wannabe, mega rich mega socialist (Why do the mega rich want to be socialists?) George Soros, the Democrat party big money donors are typically celebrities.

The media typically doesn't let you know how far to the left these pampered artists really are.  But in Cannes, with a twenty minute standing ovation for Moore's insane slanderous farce, and his receipt of the Palme D'or, they showed themselves for what they really are.

No conspiracy theory is too far out for them.  No obscene justification for support of our enemies is beyond their comprehension.  Remember, these are the people like Janeane Garafalo, who said, "(W)hen Communist U.S.S.R. was a superpower, the world was better off."  Or perhaps try this one from Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, "Let's get rid of all the economic (expletive) this country represents! Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win!"  A fascinating comment, given the fact that Chrissie has become a successful artist because of our economic fecal matter.

Like I keep saying, these people hate America, but they like Democrats.  If pressed, these people won't even deny it.  Look for a quote of Michael Moore praising America.  The best you will do is  this, "I like America to some extent."

These are the people that want you to vote for John Kerry.  They hate the United States.  They hate our traditions.  They hate our superpower status.  They hate our economic system.  They hate our military.  They hate our political system.  And they support John Kerry.

Any questions?

Consistency Demands It

The American Left, which years ago was a strong supporter of the nation of Israel, has become decidedly pro-Palestinian over the last several years.  On the fringes, you will even find people who claim that the United States and Israel are the only terrorist states on the planet.  Even more mainstream leftists complain that if Israel didn't control our foreign policy we would have fewer problems in the world.  See Ernest Hollings.

Let's make sure we understand the basics, though, before going further.  There has NEVER been a nation called Palestine.  The so-called "Palestinians" from the West Bank and Gaza were citizens of Egypt and Transjordan, later Jordan, prior to 1967.  In 1967, the armies of the Arab states massed in preparation for a major attack against Israel.  Israel beat them to the punch and humiliated them with relative ease.

In the process, Israel took over the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and much of the region called Sinai.  The Arabs who lived in those regions were told by the Arab nations to stay put and become refugees and, thus, they became pawns in the Arab world's attempt to finish what Hitler started.

As years passed by, and the Middle East remained a powder keg, and the American Left began to more closely resemble the European Left; sympathy for the refugees became animosity toward Israel.  There's something in the psyche of leftists that makes them believe that the underdog is ALWAYS right, whether said underdog is really right or not.

Leftists began echoing the Arabs in their outrageous statements toward Israel.  Their demands for Israel to sacrifice "land for peace" became the norm rather than the exception.  Even some leftist Israelis, forgetting Hitler's demands for Austria and the Sudetenland and where those demands led, have taken up the cause of giving land to an enemy that wants to see the people of Israel drown in the Mediterranean.

Given all of that, it is time that American leftists begin practicing some consistency.  This country called the United States is built upon "occupied" land.  Much of the Southeastern United States was the domain of the Cherokee and the Shawnee.  My home county in Tennessee contains holy sites to the Cherokee nation.  Florida is the homeland of the Seminole.  The Plains states are the home of the Lakota, the Pawnee, the Crow and others.  Texas, California and parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada were taken from Mexico, and even Mexico took them from the indigenous peoples.

To be consistent, the Left should demand that the government of the United States end its occupation of North America.  In fact, the American Indian has a more legitimate claim to kick out the whites than the "Palestinians" have to kick out the Jews.  The natives were here for ten thousand years before the first white guy ever arrived.  The "Palestinians" have no such LEGITIMATE claim.  The whites took land from Native Americans by unprovoked conquest and aggression.  Israel took Gaza and the West Bank in a defensive war AGAINST aggressors.

Consistency demands that the Left call for the United States to abandon any claim to its occupied lands.  I realize that could result in the native peoples demanding that all non-American Indians be expelled from this land.  That is their right to make such a demand.

In fact, as a show of good faith, I would recommend that leftists go ahead and leave now.

Politically Correct Wars

Times sure have changed.  In the American Revolutionary War, we called British troops "redcoats" and "lobsterbacks".  In World War I we called the enemy "Krauts" and felt no shame.  In World War II we were doing our best to kill "Japs" and in Vietnam, before John Kerry became Hanoi's Ambassador to Washington DC, we were fighting "Gooks".  It is a simple fact of war that killing the enemy requires a certain level of dehumanization.

For the vast majority of Americans, it would be difficult to pull the trigger on Joe who has a wife, a couple of kids and a widowed mother who sends him cookies once a month.  Therefore, we have to decide if we want to win the war or empathize with our enemy.

Think about the documentaries you've seen over the years regarding the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  You've seen the interviews with the Japanese citizens, mostly children, who were scarred forever by those blasts.  Imagine if the American public had seen interviews with these people before the bombing.  Imagine that an NBC newsreel crew had been in Hiroshima in April and May of 1945. 

We would have seen the wife of a Japanese infantryman killed on Guadalcanal.  She would be holding her young son on her lap, with a picture of her husband beside her.  The reporter would have asked her what she was going to tell her son about his father.  She would have said that he was a brave man, but she didn't understand why the United States wanted to control Asia in the first place.  There would have been many similar interviews and when shown to movie audiences in this country, the American people would have begun to question why we were doing what we were doing.

There would have been no atomic bomb dropped.  In fact, there might not have even been support for an invasion of Japan.  President Truman, still getting his act together after FDR's death might be pressured to negotiate a peace agreement with the Japanese Empire.  One can only imagine how the following fifty years would have unfolded.

Fortunately, none of that happened.  We simply thought of Japan as the enemy and maintainedour resolve to achieve COMPLETE victory. How times have changed.

President Bush can't even call our current enemy what it really is, Islamofascism.  He has to use veiled phrases like "enemies of freedom".  He has to repeatedly make pronouncements that this "isn't a war against Islam".  We are constantly reminded about the sensibilities of the "Arab street".  Hands are wrung over collateral damage.  The mistreatment at Abu Ghraib is more important than the brutal sawing execution of Nick Berg.  We are told over and over that we must not allow our rage to control us.

Political correctness and pop psychology are more important today than winning.  We have to be sensitive while fighting an enemy who has no such sensitivity.  This attitude will get us beaten.  Our enemy believes that beheading is a proper response to humiliation.  Our enemy doesn't hesitate to call us "evil".  Yet, our modern culture wants us to repeatedly engage in self examination and recrimination, EVEN while they're shooting at us.

Don't get me wrong.  Compassion and love of humanity are two of the things that make our nation great.  However, there is a time and a place for everything.  We showed compassion and humanity after World War II to Germany and Japan and they thrived for decades because of it.  However, we waited until we had completely defeated them before we showed it.

Let's win the war, THEN worry about being politically correct.  Otherwise our political correctness will only serve as an epitaph on our national tombstone.

Democrats admit who they are

There is one political story, this year, that refuses to go away. The Democrats, even the far leftist Democrats, keep insisting that their number one choice for John F. (Vietnam War Hero) Kerry’s veep is “maverick” Republican John McCain. No matter how many times McCain denies any interest and reaffirms his commitment to seeing President Bush reelected, the Democrats won’t give up their love affair with the pro-life war hero.

I’ve never been a McCain fan. I’m an ideologue. I don’t want to find common ground with leftists. I simply want them beaten, soundly. But that is neither here nor there. I am simply fascinated by the Democrat party’s roving eye in their search for a vice presidential candidate for the Junior Senator from Hanoi.

The Democrats and the press have thrown every grenade, RPG, rocket and missile available at President Bush. He has been wounded and is bleeding, but John Kerry hasn’t advanced. He should be up by ten or twelve points. Yet, he’s consistently within the margin of error in most polls. That is very telling. Oh, and the problem isn’t that people don’t know Senator Kerry. The problem is that people do know him.

Talk to Democrats on the street. Kerry isn’t their first choice, nor their second choice in many cases. It doesn’t matter to committed Democrats. They would vote for an anonymous candidate just to beat Bush. Hatred doesn’t win elections though.

Speaking as an ideological extremist, extremists are a minority. The politically active are a minority. Most Americans don’t pay enough attention to politics to hate one candidate or another to the extent to affect their vote. The apathetic need someone with whom they can identify and respect in order for them to elect that candidate over an incumbent.

So why do the Democrats need McCain on the ticket? It’s simple. They know John Kerry has absolutely nothing to make people WANT to vote for him and they know that the party of Ted Kennedy, Maxine Waters, Barney Frank and Fortney Stark is too kooky, too unpatriotic and too enamored of the United Nations to lead the nation after September 11.

The great unwashed masses in the Red States of 2000 cringe when they see the leaders of the Democrat party making the same statements that you hear on Al Jazeera. Leftist elites on Martha’s Vineyard and in Berkeley might cheer when the founder of Teddy’s Driving and Diving School makes a statement comparing the U.S. military to Saddam’s torturers, but people in Madisonville, Tennessee and Beckley, West Virginia know better. As Zell Miller has said, the Democrats are a “national party no more”.

Democrats can’t be who they really are and get elected nationally. Face it, most of the Democrat leaders more closely resemble Noam Chomsky than Norman Schwarzkopf. If their political beliefs don’t mirror those of Vladimir Lenin they certainly mirror those of John Lennon. Their war hero is tainted by his support of the enemy when he returned from Vietnam. Therefore, they need to borrow one from the Republican party.

In effect, the Democrats are acknowledging to the American people that they aren’t fit to lead this nation in this dangerous time.  They are admitting who they are, AND who they aren't.

But Seriously Folks...

The humorous art forms of satire and caricature require that real characteristics be exaggerated to ridiculous extremes in order to generate laughs.  I am here today to announce that the American Left can no longer be satirized or caricatured.  There is absolutely no legitimate way to exaggerate their positions anymore.

Do you think I'm exaggerating?  Let me give you some examples brought on by the photographs showing the treatment of certain prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

First, we have the image of West Virginia's favorite Grand Kleagle, Robert Byrd, who made a fine Confederate General in "Gods and Generals", dismayed by images of people being demeaned and humiliated primarily on the basis of their ethnicity and nationality.  I'm sure the distinguished Senate orator could have given those prison guards some pointers.

Then we have the court jester of Camelot, Ted Kennedy, outraged over photographs showing sexual domination and bondage.  Would he have been happier if the prisoners had drowned in a car in the Euphrates?  Or perhaps it would have been different if the photographs had resulted in charges against his nephew.  It made sense to have Teddy on national television talking about rape rooms.  There was probably one in the Kennedy compound in Florida.

Oh, it gets even better.  Barney "I have a brothel in my basement" Frank comes out of a viewing where videos of male American military personnel were shown having sexual intercourse with female American military personnel, and expresses that he was "saddened" by the images.  I'm sure he was.  The question is, though, what was it that saddened him.

Then, to top off the absurdity, we have an entire chorus of American leftists demand that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resign or be impeached because he failed to stop or allowed such "war crimes" to occur.  Of course these same people have John Kerry bumper stickers on their SUVs.  You know John Kerry.  The Vietnam War hero who has admitted to PERSONALLY committing atrocities against the innocent civilians of Vietnam.

All this and I haven't even mentioned Maxine Waters or Fortney Stark or Sheila Jackson Lee.  As I said at the beginning, it's official.  Caricatures of the Left are impossible.  To the leftists, absurdity is a synonym for mainstream.