The Ugliest American

Today, I'm ashamed to be an American.

Maureen Dowd may have just written the stupidest column ever to grace the NYT - a column full of the sort of myopic provincialism that, had it been written by an Idaho Republican, would have been held up as a prime example of Red state redneck ignorance by the likes of...well, Maureen Dowd.

You wonder how many votes he scared off with that testosterone festival: the taunting message, the self-righteous geographic litany of support? The Philippines. Thailand. Italy. Spain. Poland. Denmark. Bulgaria. Ukraine. Romania. The Netherlands. Norway. El Salvador.

Can you believe President Bush is still pushing the cockamamie claim that we went to war in Iraq with a real coalition rather than a gaggle of poodles and lackeys?

I'm not asking Dowd to have the faintest clue about the histories of 35 other nations...

...no. That's not true. I am. If a newspaper wants to make a serious claim to be America's "Newspaper of Record", either Dowd or one of her editors had better be literate enough about world history to at least know that Dowd's statement is moronic, if not precisely why.

But I don't like Dowd. I'm going to go into the precisely why.

The Professor quoted Tim Blair:

Reader Matt F. writes: " didn't know that poodles were eligible for service in the Australian SAS. Please clarify.? That line confused me, too, Matt. As far as I was aware, the only role for poodles in our SAS was as occasional target practice (they're cheap and speedy).

The British, Australian and New Zealand militaries have some of the only troops in the world that can keep up with the US. Their Special Air Service (SAS) are among the best special forces in the world - our Delta Force is modeled after the SAS. The British Royal Marines invented the term "Commandos" as we understand it today.

The Dutch? Forget the wooden clogs - the 1,100 Dutch troops in Iraq include their Marine battalion, which spent most of the Cold War with the British Marine Commandos, as well as with the USMC. While the unionized Dutch military has taken a lot of flak over the years, their Marines are pretty much exempt from this.

How about the Scandinavians? While Norway's government far enough left to keep Dennis Kucinich purring happily, their troops are reportedly just fine. Their Special Forces operated with ours in Afghanistan, and likely are doing so today. The Danes are even better-regarded; their Army earned a lot of respect from US troops in the Balkans, and their special forces, the Jaegerkorpset, are among the best in NATO. Both nations learned something in WWII that Maureen Dowd hasn't had to - that pacifism is fine (both nations are renowned for their pacifistic governments), but if you don't back up your pacifism with a strong will to defend it, it's really worthless. Norway and Denmark's militaries are among the best in Europe.

You'd think an alleged feminist like Dowd would pay special attention to the Poles. Leave aside the fact that the Poles have one of the longest and most distinguished histories of fighting for liberty - their own and others - in all of Europe. Forget even that they have nearly 3,000 of their troops there already, actively fighting. You'd think a "genuine feminist" like Dowd would know that Poland's GROM special forces unit, which fought in both Gulf Wars, is one of the very few special forces units to include women.

3,000 South Koreans operate in Iraq today, including their Special Forces and Marines. They've spent fifty years training to fight Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il's immense military, in one of the most dismal climates on earth.

Lapdogs? Poodles?

Jason Van Steenwyck talks about more allies - the Fijians, who developed a reputation for courage in the Golan Heights in the seventies that, according to Steenwyck, they still earn today, among others.

So look at the list of nations with troops in Iraq. Check out the nations that have histories of reclaiming their liberties from brutal dictatorships - Romania, Bulgaria, Nicaragua, Spain, Lithuania, and on and on. Nations that have sacrificed enough blood for their own liberty to overflow the cocktail glasses at every Manhattan club that Maureen Dowd has ever closed down.

I thought it was Conservatives that were supposed to be ignorant, stupid and provincial?

Dowd is, of course, shilling for the idea that the United Nations would have given us "legitimacy" that 35 other nations wouldn't. So what would getting UN "Support" have gotten us? 3,000 French troops, maybe the same number of Germans. Some of the UN's usual suspects - most UN peacekeeping missions include a battalion (500 or so) of Swedes or Irish or Brazilians or Indians. Helpful? Sure. And so would a battalian of Martian Gravity Tanks, which would be just as likely, because as long as the UN vote was controlled by a French veto, and the French were operating under their strategy of containing US power, there would be no UN support if President Bush spent 14 months or 14 years begging for it.

Get over it, MoDo.

(Via the Professor)

Posted by Mitch at January 23, 2004 06:47 AM