With the government’s sudden fixation with violence and terrorism (as defined by Janet Napolitano, at any rate), it’s worth going over what “security” is.
The big picture, of course, is important; government has a constitutional duty to defend the country. It’s one of a very, very short list of duties actually spelled out for a legitimate government in the Constitution; it’s one of the few legitimate reasons any government exists.
Secure the borders? Absolutely. There is not a nation in the world worth the title that doesn’t protect its own sovereignty. There’s a reason for this; we formed a nation for a reason. We intend it to be disctinct from other nations. If tomorrow all of the world’s other nations upheld freedom, the rule of law, the value of the individual, and (after November, 2012, God willing) the free market. Of course, the United States is a nation of immigrants, and indeed we need immigrants to keep rejuvenating this nation; nations with unchanging cultures become ossified and stagnant. But the key is that immigrants must come to the United States, rather than bringing Ireland or Finland or Greece here.
But that’s fodder for the upcoming “Culture” installment.
Protecting us from criminals? Yep. That too. The law-abiding citizen should be secure on his/her property, with his/her possessions, and his/her rights. The law should
Which is where government keeps screwing up. It’s not just governments run by crime bosses and warlords – Russia and Tadjikistan and the Congo – that break this rule. In the UK, a law-abiding citizen who defends his home, property or self from a burglar, robber or attacker with any kind of force frequently faces stiffer punishment than the criminal involved. In Chicago – a city prowled by gangs armed barely a degree behind the Fedayin Saddam fashion curve – the full weight of the city’s legal system waits to fall upon the citizen who dares resist the thugs with a .22 handgun.
Any dictator can make you “secure”; the streets of Rome were safe enough under Mussolini. But that’s not security, any more that a dictator (or university dean) giving you a few minutes to say what you want within a bunch of carefully set-up guidelines is “freedom of speech”. “Security” that exists only at the pleasure and to the purposes of ones’ leaders – masters, really – isn’t security at all. It’s the kind of “Security” that a flock of sheep get when escorted by a pack of wolves; it exists only for the needs of the wolves, not the flock.
“No problem, Mitch. America’s not like that!”
Gun control laws that burden the law-abiding more than criminals – that’s almost all of them – don’t enhance “security”.
Property forfeiture laws that penalize the innocent (which one is supposed to be, until proven guilty) do not make us more “secure”.
Federal “watch lists” that stimatize mainstream (if temporarily out-of-power) dissent make us less secure.
A government policy that is more accomodating to those that would kill us than to those who have defended us doesn’t make us more secure.
That’s what I want; that’s what this nation needs; a government that knows “Security” protects the nation while upholding the citizen.
As a boy growing up in the Soviet Union, Sergey Brin witnessed the consequences of censorship. Now the Google Inc. co-founder is drawing on that experience in shaping the company’s showdown with the Chinese government.
The internet may be many things, for better or worse, but one would have to backtrack history to the invention of the printing press to find an innovation that has done more for the free flow of information, expression and commerce.
China will never threaten America’s dominance unless and until its people enjoy the same freedoms of speech and enterprise that Americans do.
The Democracy Corps-Third Way survey released Monday finds that by a 10-point margin — 51 percent to 41 percent — Americans think the standing of the U.S. dropped during the first 13 months of Mr. Obama’s presidency.
Democracy Corps and Third Way lean just a tad to the left, which makes this next bit absolutley hilarious:
“This is surprising, given the global acclaim and Nobel peace prize that flowed to the new president after he took office,” said pollsters for the liberal-leaning organizations.
It was surprising – the the same way it shocked us that Milli Vanilli wasn’t all that talented.
But the numbers apparently were bad enough that even DN/3W couldn’t whitewash ’em:
On the national security front, a massive gap has emerged, with 50 percent of likely voters saying Republicans would likely do a better job than Democrats, a 14-point swing since May. Thirty-three percent favored Democrats.
“The erosion since May is especially strong among women, and among independents, who now favor Republicans on this question by a 56 to 20 percent margin,” the pollsters said in their findings.
A dedicated lefty might respond “yeah, but that’s just polling Americans”. True – which is something the poll has in common with Presidential elections.
More importantly, though? The whole “America lost respect during the Bush years” meme also pretty much polled only Americans. Most foreigners who answer public opinion polls hate America, while a significant subset simultaneously hope to immigrate…
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the September 11 attacks on the United States a “big fabrication” that was used to justify the U.S. war on terrorism, the official IRNA news agency reported.
…guaranteeing him a post-term job either on Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, or writing for Minnesota “Progressive” Project along with 9/11 trutherGrace Kelly.
Michael Yon reprints a letter from an officer in the 82nd Airborne; at a firebase in remote Afghanistan, our Spanish allies are apparently O making life just a little bit miserable for our troops stationed there:
2) Qal E Naw: The Spanish are not interested in helping in anyway, and are trying to make us decide to leave based on their unacceptable treatment of Americans. Our refuelers [soldiers who refuel helicopters] that are living there have to run out, unroll the hoses, pull security, and roll everything back up. They have asked for gravel along the FLS as it is currently calf deep mud, but the Spanish refuse to make any improvements. They asked for a T barrier (just one) to put at a 45 degree angle outside the fence where the FARP [Forward Arming and Refueling Point; where helicopters land for ammo and gas] has to be set up so they can run for cover in case there is small arms fire, the Spanish say no and refuse to make any improvements. They asked for a small gate where their billets are located so they can access the FARP directly rather than going a half mile loop to get out the gate, but the Spanish said no and refuse to make any improvements.
It’s not just logistics – it’s the petty stuff, too:
They [sic] guys are living hard (we understand that) but have to do laundry by hand as all of their stuff is stolen if they turn it into the laundry, they discussed this with the Spanish, but they refuse to many any improvements.
And not-so-petty:
They refused to allow a Marine detachment that was dropped there to come into the wire or feed them overnight. Our refuelers had to fight the Spanish to bring them in and squeeze them into the two small tents that they have and give them MREs as they [sic] Spanish wouldn’t feed them. Is this how we allow our Coalition partners to treat Americans?
Well, that’ll be intersting.
Yon:
So, our soldiers and Marines, living in rough conditions at the far tip of the spear, apparently are being treated with contempt, with all basic support denied, from laundry to the conditions of the field on which our troops do their thankless job. If this report is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, the Spanish are endangering the lives of our warriors by failing to provide basic safety.
Yon is going to get his report to Defense Secretary Gates.
Palestinian protesters have added a colorful twist to demonstrations against Israel’s separation barrier, painting themselves blue and posing as characters from the hit film “Avatar.”
The demonstrators also donned long hair and loincloths Friday for the weekly protest against the barrier near the village of Bilin.
They equated their struggle to the intergalactic one portrayed in the film.
I think the Navi lost me when they sent a suicide bomber into the human pizzeria.
Thousands of protesters from across Japan marched today in Tokyo to protest against U.S. military presence on Okinawa, while a Cabinet minister said she would fight to get rid of a marine base Washington considers crucial.
Some 47,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, with more than half on the southern island of Okinawa.
Residents have complained for years about noise, pollution and crime around the bases.
…please don’t feel me disrespectful in noting that you had a grade-A chance of averting this whole situation up through December 6, 1941.
I work at a company that employs (like a lot of American companies these days) a very large number of south-Asian subcontractors. Most of them come from one rather large Indian vendor. And that vendor threw a little “Understanding India” session for us a few weeks back.
It was interesting, of course; other cultures fascinate me, India more than most. I grew up around a fair number of South Asians in North Dakota (it’s a long story), and had some exposure to the culture. Still the vendor session was fascinating.
And frustrating; to try to explain a culture as old, broad, multifaceted and complex as India in 90 minutes was a little like – well, trying to explain cricket to Americans.
And then I thought; how would I explain America to a foreigner new to the country?
Not all the usual “civics in ten minutes” stuff – the broad strokes of our history and culture. I got to wonder – what’d be a good, entertaining crash course in “what is America” to someone who’d never been here before?
And I thought; almost every culture in the world, from the poorest village in rural Pakistan to the eighties in Manhattan, has one form of communication in common; the movie. Even if you don’t speak a foreign language, you can often make out at least the broad outlines of what a movie is trying to say.
So my question is this; if you had to pick five movies to explain America to someone from another country who had only the usual civics-class understanding of our nation and culture, what would they be?
Every single time there’s a major disaster, you solemnly intone that after three days, you’re not going to recover any survivers trapped beneath any rubble.
French rescue workers pulled a 24-year-old man alive from the rubble of a hotel in Haiti on Saturday, 11 days after an earthquake devastated much of the country.Wismond Jean-Pierre, who had no visible injuries but was severely dehydrated, was immediately loaded into an ambulance and taken to a hospital for treatment.
Lt. Col. Christophe Renou, a rescuer with the French team, called the three-hour effort “a miracle” as he was briefly overcome with emotion. Other members of the team — assisted by American and Greek workers — were seen weeping with joy following the rescue.
“This is God,” Frank Louvier, the chief of the French rescue team, said as he pointed to the sky.
A musical about Barack Obama’s “Yes we can” election campaign premieres in Germany this weekend, including love songs by the president to his wife Michelle and duets with Hillary Clinton.
This doesn’t entirely not make sense; “The world” was perhaps Obama’s biggest constituency.
The venue for the premiere seems appropriate since the optimism of Obamania remains largely intact in Germany, about a year after Obama, an accomplished public speaker, became America’s first black president. One campaign highlight was a July 2008 speech to some 200,000 people in the heart of Berlin about the world, the U.S. and its place in it.
To be fair, “Peanut Farmer From Plains” just closed last year in Munich, after a 32 year run.
Back in the eighties, I thought it’d be fun to get a group of conservatives together and publicize a “Tachometer to Tyranny”. It’d have basically been a gauge of some sort that would represent the consensus of a number of conservative thinkers about the speed at which the world was driving towards one-world dictatorship.
Of course it would have been a biased indicator! That was the point!
It was, of course, a response to the “Bulletin of Atomic Scientists'” “Doomsday Clock”, which was prominently on display during the eighties as a barometer (to mix my gauges) of lefty opinion about the state of the world.
The minute hand of the famous Doomsday Clock will be moved at 3pm this afternoon, for the first time in two years.
The timepiece in New York conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction, which is represented by midnight.
I’m wondering if the media – which cover every “adjustment” of the clock with breathless, unquestioning credulity – ever asked themselves “why was it that the “Bulletin’s” “scientists” became the most pants-wettingly depressed about Ronald Reagan’s actions – the very actions that made it possible to adjust the clock “backwards” shortly after his administration?
Oh, that’s right. Must not question them; the science is settled.
The 86-year-old governor of a southern Indian state resigned, a day after a television news channel broadcast a tape allegedly showing him in bed with three women.
I’m feeling the love from Norwegians here at home but as my Lefse-loving colleague posted mere minutes ago, Obama is not feeling the love from Norwegians abroad.
Norwegians are incensed over what they view as his shabby response to the prize by cutting short his visit.
Okay, so you’re nonplussed. Let’s apply a modicum of analysis to the situation.
You gave the Peace Prize to a President via a nomination and selection process that began in late 2008 and was closed to candidate submissions in February 2009. The President at that time hadn’t even exhausted a roll of toilet paper in the Presidential Potty. At least that would have been an accomplishment.
As it were, at that point in time, and arguably at the current one as well, the President had not advanced the cause of peace, or frankly any cause for which he campaigned so vigorously.
Even the President himself said he didn’t deserve it. In this case I don’t think he was employing his signature brand of transparently false humility. I think he really meant it.
It would appear the Nobel committee has so depreciated the value of their vaunted prize that even the winners think it a joke.
The White House has canceled many of the events peace prize laureates traditionally submit to, including a dinner with the Norwegian Nobel committee, a press conference, a television interview, appearances at a children’s event promoting peace and a music concert, as well as a visit to an exhibition in his honour at the Nobel peace centre.
You might have considered the consequences of awarding your “prize” to an opportunistic fraud like Al Gore and America’s (heretofore) worst President, Jimmy Carter. Word has it Kanye West is on the short list for 2010.
The visit will test Obama’s rhetorical skills as he seeks to reconcile acceptance of the Nobel peace prize with sending an extra 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan.
Of course, because troops have never brought peace to anyone anywhere, right? God only knows what form of “peace” Norway would have today without the Russian troop invasion of 1944, liberating Norway from the (then fleeing) Germans. Maybe Hitler would still be hiding out at the foot of the Galdhøpiggen.
White House officials said that Obama, who was planning to work on the final draft of his speech on his flight from Washington to Oslo, would directly address the issue of the irony of being awarded the peace prize while escalating the war.
Just his speed as he just finished one featuring the irony of spending our way out of the federal deficit. Wait’ll he tries to plug his teleprompter’s 120 volt American plug into those goofy European outlets.
In an interview with The Times, [British Defense minister] Bob Ainsworth said that the Government would not follow Washington’s promise to start pulling out in 2011. “You can’t put a time on it. You’ve got to look at conditions,” he said.
He accepted that the public would not tolerate the war “going on for ever”, but insisted there was no deadline for withdrawal. “Nobody is talking about a drawdown, we are talking about bringing more in there . . . but we are talking about transition.” He said that it would be wrong to set a date for the start of troop reductions.
His comments reflect dismay at the highest level in the British Armed Forces about Mr Obama’s suggestion this week that US troop withdrawals would start by mid-2011. Britain expects to have substantial forces on the ground in Afghanistan for at least five or six more years.
It’s depressing to see how adept Obama is at undercutting our allies’ governments – from his yanking the rugs out of under the Polish and Czech governments on missile defense, to leaving Georgia undefended by anything but a phalanx of furrowed brows, to now basically telling the Brits (and the many smaller allies, the Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Lithuanians, Norwegians and others who’ve spent years fighting alongside the US) that all of this expense and sacrifice is intended to do no more than bring the whole exercise in for a “soft landing” in time for Obama’s next election bid.
“We thought he was a cannibal,” the Venezuelan leader said, referring to Amin, whose regime was notorious for torturing and killing suspected opponents in the 1970s. “I have doubts. … I don’t know, maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot.”
Most despotic rulers are!
Mary Karoro Okurut, spokeswoman for the ruling National Resistance Movement, said Amin was not worthy of such consideration.
“Anybody who says that Amin was good has something wrong with him,” she said on Sunday. “Amin was brutal. He killed many Ugandans and made many run into exile. There is something wrong with whoever praises Amin.”
He praises Castro, Obama and Amin. Hm.
This is becoming a situation so complex only President Obama can handle it. He’ll need to apologize to the people of Uganda for Chavez (because after all, he was trained by the US, during his Army career – just like Al Quaeda!), and then to the people of Venezuela for the patronizing act of apologizing for them and their ruler.
Perhaps if he threw in a nice deep bow to Chavez, it’d all go away.
Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama for the second time in seven months on Wednesday, but guards on board the U.S.-flagged cargo ship repelled the takeover attempt, the EU’s naval force said.Pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama last April and took ship captain Richard Phillips hostage, holding him at gunpoint in a lifeboat for five days. Navy SEAL sharpshooters freed Phillips while killing three pirates in a daring nighttime attack.
Somali pirates attacked the ship with automatic weapons early Wednesday about 350 nautical miles east of the Somali coast, but guards on board the craft fired back and thwarted the attempted hijacking.
Good to see that Maersk Shipping ignored Obama Administration advice to “apologize to the pirates”.
OBAMA: Uh, welcome, ladies and gentleman. Before I get started, I’d like to give a quick shout-out to my good friend and world-wide hero Al Gore for the efforts he’s making to, uh, save the world. He’s sparing no effort to convince people, including some of the efforts that, uh, your people, uh, Emperor Akihito, perfected during your father’s time. (Akihito shifts nervously on his feet). I think the world owes him more than just the Nobel Peace Prize. I’d suggest perhaps they make him pope. (Robert Gibbs starts clapping; stops after a few awkward seconds). He’s also reaching across the aisle to call, uh, Sarah Palin “gung ho“. Anyway. Just a big shout out.
Crowd claps nervously.
OBAMA: OK. Now, Hiroshima. I’d like to start by thanking my lord and liege, Emperor Akihito, for inviting me here.
OBAMA turns, bows deeply. Stays bowed long enough to tie shoes with tongue.
AKIHITO Nods.
OBAMA (remains bowed)
AKIHITO. (clears throat)
OBAMA (remains bowed)
AKIHITO: Er, mister president? Carry on.
OBAMA: Thank you, sir. At any rate, I’d like to express my offical sorrow and apology for the mistakes on the part of my predecessors that led to the inhuman attack on this city, and for the deaths of all the women and chidren who were for the deaths of all the women and chidren who werefor the deaths of all the women and chidren who werefor the deaths of all the women and chidren who werefor the deaths of all the women and chidren who werefor the deaths of all the women and chidren who were…
I started watching Youtube vids from twenty years ago tonight – and I couldn’t stop.
Here’s an excellent, contemporary report from the CBC that shows some of the immediate background – but still reports on the Deutsche Democratische Republic as a going concern.
More about the extended, but brief and dramatic, collapse of East Germany:
…including the delicious irony that the actual motivation for the crashing of the Wall was an on-camera flub by East German Politburo member Guenther Schabowski, who muffed the announcement of the opening of the border, causing immense confusion between the crowds and the East Germany border police.
In the above video, the part between three and four minutes in – about the first break in the dam, where the East German commander at the Bornholmerstrasse gate decided to disobey a direct order and opened the crossing – is almost too powerful to watch. It’s the first video I’ve seen in twenty years of the very first group to be allowed to cross from the communist East to the free west, freely and without bureaucratic buncombe (much less dogs and machine guns chasing them). As the gate opens, as the people stream past the confused border guards (East and West), they look like kids tiptoeing down the stairs on Christmas morning; the first ones through walk gingerly, as if they expect the whole thing to get yanked away from them. And then the weight of numbers dispels all doubt.
Another documentary about the schwehrpunkt at Bornholmerstrasse:
If Obama wins in 2012, then I have a hunch election night 2016 will look a lot like that.
The Bundestag (West German Parliament) breaks into the German national anthem:
It was twenty years ago today that the Berlin Wall fell.
It’s hard to remember at twenty years remove that it, and the Communism it represented, didn’t just get swept away in a wave of small-l liberal euphoria.
Dinesh D’Souza, in his excellent bio of Reagan, notes that between 1980 and 1983, the experts were united in their belief that the “Second World”, Communism, was here to stay. Make no mistake, people had recovered from the spell of Walter Duranty long enough to know that the Soviet system was cruel and corrupt gangster-run autocracy even worse than Chicago. The publication of The Gulag Archipelago and other releases from the samisdat media, and the flood of people who fled Germany from 1948 through 1961, popped the bubble of acceptability that had accompanied travesties like Stalin’s “Man of the Year” awards in 1939 and 1942, and Stalinism’s embrace by “intelligentsia” throughout the West (including the early version of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer/Labor Party). The stories of the thousands of heroic Soviet-bloc citizens who risked death and imprisonment fleeing their foetid, starving, lumpen homelands inspired many a young patriot in the day.
But while the bloom was long off the rose of western acceptance of Communism, the number of western intellectuals who seriously believed in 1980 that the decade would see the fall of the Berlin Wall and, in short order, communism itself would have fit in a single room at a Ramada Inn.
There had been resistance, of course; in Budapest and Gdansk in 1956, Prague in 1967, Gdansk again in ’71 – all put down with ruthless brutality by the authorities, including the Soviet military.
And so I’m not aware that anyone held out that much hope for change in 1979 – thirty years ago – when Lech Walesa, a young electrician in Gdansk, led a pro-democracy union strike in Gdansk. The movement had traction, of course – it swept Poland, and threatened to spin out of control; the Polish Army under General Wojciech Jaruzelski staged what amounted to a last-ditch military coup to bring down the government and declare martial law to quell the strikes, siccing “ZOMO” thugs (no, it’s not Polish for SEIU) on the protesters and strikers. Jaruzelski was reviled around the world for the action – although there is evidence that history has misjudged the General, that he acted as did many in the Polish Army, as a Polish patriot, to prevent a Soviet invasion, which would have been much, much worse).
And indeed, had the status quo ante held sway after 1980, nothing much would have happened.
But in 1980, the election of Ronald Reagan signalled an end to detente – the diplomatic legitimazion of the Soviet gangster regime. Reagan jacked up the rhetoric war, and the civil support for trade unionists behind the Iron Curtain (with considerable help from Margaret Thatcher, the Pope and, speaking of strange bedfellows, Lane Kirkland of the AFL-CIO), as well as building up the US military from its post-Vietnam nadir (although to be fair Jimmy Carter had realized the problem, and taken a few of the necessary high-level steps to start facilitating this). The rhetorical confrontation peaked at Reagan’s classic Brandenburg Gate speech in 1987…
…but the diplomatic war had reached its Battle of Stalingrad at the Rejkjavik conference the year before, when Reagan called Gorbachev’s bluff on intermediate-range nukes. Lily-livered pundits in the west flew into a panic, expecting mushroom clouds over London…
…but Gorbachev blinked. He realized the communist East could not outlast the free West. He accelerated the “liberalization” of the USSR and the Communist bloc – not to extinct it, initially, but to try to save it.
It was too late. The Poles tossed aside the commies, followed by the Czechs.
It didn’t go entirely without a fight, though. As the Baltic States – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – tried to follow neighboring Poland’s suit, Soviet soldiers attacked some demonstrations.
But in dizzyingly short order, the Communist Bloc, which had killed tens of millions of people in the previous seventy years (estimates range from 20 to 60 million) and floated on a sea of blood that dwarved even Hitler’s monumental crimes against humanity, fell, kicked to the curb in a sea of ebullient humanity.
The left never got it. Some of them had backed the wrong team. Others were so invested in the idea that capitalism and western-style liberty were obsolete that they couldn’t wrap their arms around the new reality.
Some believe that if western-style democracy and liberty were so cool, the nations left in the wake of the fall of The Wall should have been able to get up and run from the get-go. I distinctly remember Tom Brokaw, in 1992, describing Poland’s difficulties in changing from a command economy to free-enterprise. “Et wrold sheem thut Eesturrrn Yurp’s ukspurramunt in Kapetelezm hez FEHLED” (“it would seem Eastern Europe’s experiment in capitalism has failed“), he said, with no further comment, apparently seeking his own Waltern Cronkite “this war can not be won” moment, writing off three whole years of effort on Poland’s part. He was wrong, of course; Poland survived, and thrived. And while the road to prosperity has been difficult for some former Soviet counties (indeed, for Russia itself, which may or may not be socially amenable to small-L liberal goverment), most of Eastern Europe thrives today, free of prowling Black Marias and windowless trains in the dark for long enough that people are starting to forget what they meant.
Which must be an incredible blessing.
But Brokaw’s pronouncement, more than anything I can remember, started curing me of the habit of watching network news.
There are those who still say the whole fall of The Wall was Gorbachev’s idea – an idea that requires a preposterous suspension of disbelief, buying the notion that the Politburo – think Capi di Tutti Capi in Russian – would turn the Premiership over to anyone whose goal wasn’t the survival of the system.
Whatever.
My many friends and acquaintances and neighbors and co-workers over the past twenty years who fled to the West tell me that they and their people back home remember who their real friends are.
So – Fröhliche Zwanzigste Jahre der Freiheit, Deutschland. Und viele mehr.
May the rest of us remember.
At least better than our feckless current leadership does. Obama blew off the observance, just as he blew off Poland’s observance, six weeks ago, of the beginning on its soil of the greatest single cataclysm of human history.
Just as well. He’d probably deliver a heartfelt apology for the US having won.
“I think that what’s needed is not additional forces,” the former Soviet leader said through a translator, “this is something that we discussed, too, years ago but we decided not to do it. And I think our experience deserves attention.”
Maybe that’s why a month has lapsed while Barack Obama dithers over Afghanistan…he’s getting advice from anyone and everyone.
While you’re at it, Sir, why don’t you seek counsel from Jimmy Carter on hostage negotiation.
Whitney Tilson has another take on the August Case-Shiller numbers, which sent housing bulls into spasms of glee a few days ago.
The sequential increase in prices in August was less than the sequential increase in July. This, Whitney believes, is the start of the seasonal downturn that will take house prices down another 10%-15% by the middle of next year.
Sigh.
Well, at least Obama’s gotten the government out of the mortgage business – right?
One of the Administration’s big campaigning points (back when Obama was campaigning before the election, as opposed to whatever he’s been doing this past nine months) was that he’d re-establish America’s purported image abroad.
Which, at this remove, brings up two questions:
With whom, exactly, has our image improved since January, in any meaningful way (and by “meaningful” I am not referring to cheap talk and blandishments like the utterly meaningless Nobel Peace prize)?
More importantly: Of the countries that hated, disliked, were utterly ambivalent to, or competed with the United States in 2007, which did not exhibit precisely the same feelings toward us in 2000? For purposes of this discussion, leave out the Taliban goverment in Afghanistan and the Ba’ath government in Iraq. List ’em, and give specifics, please.
But it’s this part that stuck me; this was the bit that had me nervous even before the election. Democrats – I was about to write “liberals”, because there used to be a distinction when it came to foreign policy, but I’m not so sure anymore – have a certain “style” about fighting wars.
And Obama might as well be Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Ted Kennedy or Algore:
Here is our anti-terrorism policy.
1) Euphemism: hope that words can change reality—“overseas contingency operations” aimed at “man-caused disasters” (this will mean there is no more terrorism as our enemies are no longer demonized)
Remember when critics – mostly liberal, many of them correct – used to barber on about how crazy some military terminology sounded to civilian ears? Now “Neutralized” sounded so much nicer than “Kill”? How “Prep Fire” was so much more clinical than “hose the entire area down”?
“Man-Caused Disaster”?
As a language geek, I suppose I can say it’s accurate enough.
But if you’re a 20 year old kid being asked to go over seas at some considerable risk to fight for this country, how do you think the idea of losing an eye or a leg or a life in a “man-caused disaster” sounds?
Like your leaders are clueless?
2) Apologies to Islam: boast that Muslims fueled the Renaissance, invented printing, pretty much gave the world our present civilization, while we offended them after 9/11 (this will mean no more plotting inside the US to kill us all, as they sense our newfound empathy)
Societies go through peaks and valleys. Germany gave the world Bach, Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller, Nietzche, Wagner and the Hamburger (and, to be fair, Marx, Freud and Nietzche); then, there was the little matter of the Nuremberg Laws, World War II, the Warsaw Ghetto and Treblinka. German society had to see to a few touch-ups.
Islam has a great history, indeed. In some places – most of India, Indonesia and the Balkans – it has a history of getting along just fine with its neighbors in pluralistic societies, just like Germans live next to Poles and French and Danes in Europe and, for that matter, in the US.
And as with that unfortunate stretch in the thirties and forties with the Germans, it only takes a few million bad apples to screw it up for the rest; as with the Germans, there’s the little matter of that sect that wants to kill the Jews, have a big piece of the world to rule for itself, and destroy its enemies.
3) “Bush Did it”: a) blame Bush the Impaler for our unpopularity and shredding the Constitution to pacify the Middle East and Europe; while stealthily keeping in play most of his protocols like Predators (more attacks in last 9 months than Bush did in 3 years); tribunals, renditions, intercepts, wiretaps, and Guantanamo, etc.); (this will mean that we copy Bush, but blame him for our failures and claim success as our own).
Mr Hanson, I believe you’ve got it.
4) Reach-out: Become socialist at home, and UNish abroad, to convince an Ahmadinejad, Assad, Chavez, Putin, and others that we are a declining, 1950s British-like socialist state, a threat to no one, exceptional in the manner that Greece is, and becoming, as Pravda boasts daily, more like them than they like us (this will mean, why hate us when we are one of you?)
And you’ll note how well that worked in keeping peace between Nazi Germany and the USSR, who were functionally pretty identical…
5) Declare victory and leave: there is a reason why Afghanistan and now Iraq have flared up since Obama took office, and it may well have to do with the fact that radical Islam, defeated in Iraq, stalemated in Afghanistan, suddenly bets that with a little push here and there, Obama will declare victory and leave, with something like “We can’t win Bush’s wars.” If I were a terrorist, I might think, “One or two more big death days, and this American government will Mogadishu its way home”).
They’re already making those noises.
In a year or two, al Qaeda will begin to suspect we are the weaker horse. They hated us when we were strong, but they will hate us even more when we appear weak.
Europe is beginning to seethe with contempt for the US – partly over the Administration’s early social gaffes, and partly because of its fecklessness.
The Administration sold the Poles and Czechs down the river, causing two nations that have risked boundlessly to express their allegiance to the US to openly wondering if the US is good for its obligations.
Israel is nervous that the US has abandoned it – or at least that it will when the chips are down, one day.
Georgia is still rebuilding from when the Soviets Russians gang-raped it.
Our president bowed to a tin-pot potentate.
Afghanistan is spiralling into the toilet. (Thankfully, the grownups were in charge long enough to buy Iraq a decent chance).
The Administration is pushing socialism, which is inevitably disastrous for the environment, and gundecking capitalism, which is the world’s best hope for benefitting the environment.
Iran is building nukes, and there’s not a damn thing we can (or will) do about it (short of defend against them – which the Administration eschews on dogmatic grounds).
China – a nation that’s killed tens of millions of its own people – is ascendant, while the US,which as recently as twenty years ago freed hundreds of millions, is rapidly neutering itself.
President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
Of course, after Algore, “cheapening the brand” is all very relative.
Um, “congratulations”, Mister President.
UPDATE: Or as Mo Rocca says on Twitter, “Nobel Peace Prize officially awarded to “Not George Bush.” Most passive aggressive Nobel ever?”
UPDATE 2: Nominations for the Peace Prize were due by the end of January.
Ten days after Obama was inaugurated.
UPDATE 3: A friend of mine wrote asking if the Onion hadn’t pulled the ultimate hoax. He wasn’t alone.
Extraordinary efforts? I’m sorry, but what extraordinary efforts has he made? This prize should be given for a major lifetime achievement, and while I like Obama, this is really, really jumping the gun.
Even lefties – some of them – are astounded by this.
UPDATE 5: A prize winner who actually earned one – Lech Walesa, 1983 winner and former president of Poland:
“So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far,” former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, said Friday. “He is still at an early stage.”
Also, his record since the nominations closed, on February 1, has been so utterly dismal…
