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June 29, 2007
June 28, 2007
The generational war
Yes, it is. Wretchard observes
An evil prepared over a long span of years requires years to undo. Whether the President or his audience ever really believed those words or understood their full import is another thing.
Whether the message that the current crisis will take years to resolve shall ever be believed is yet another matter. There is a very strong streak of impatience in politics. The very difficult is expected to be accomplished in two years. The impossible may take a little longer. Fortunately, real problems defy media impatience and society eventually shifts mental gears to deal with it. This happened with the AIDs crisis. Perhaps some day it will happen in the confrontation with the networked global insurgency. In the first years of the AIDs crisis there was great impatience and desperates hopes among sufferers for a "cure" round the corner. Something out of Harvard or Johns Hopkins. Interferon, maybe. With the passage of years came the acceptance that there was probably no single forthcoming "cure" Yet this realization was tempered by the gradual realization that while AIDs defied -- and still defies -- a Silver Bullet solution, real and important victories were constantly being won against the disease. A drug here, a drug there. Little by little the fearsome epidemic, which some actually believed would destroy the human race in the early frantic years, became gradually less terrifying. Today there are hopes that AIDs may someday become a serious, but chronic disease. Something that can be managed like hypertension. AIDs still kills, but we have a handle on it; and it is not the end of the world.
David Kilcullen, in explaining operations in Iraq, seems to be mentally at that point already. He does not categorically say 'we are going to win'. He says 'we are making progress here' and 'things are working there'. He is encouraged without being certain. He sees the political and the lead bullets strike home and knows things are not hopeless; that the enemy, like us, are simply men. If they can be defeated individually and in groups they can be defeated collectively. They too are uncertain of victory, perhaps more than we should be and yet have not despaired of it. To their credit they fight on in doubt, sustained by necessity, faith or habit born of a desert patience against adversity. Whether the West can do the same is open to question. It is one thing to criticize current strategy and call for better, to shift more of the burden to Iraqis, to use all the "sources of national power". But it is another thing to say: we have lost. From this there is no redemption; victory can never be guaranteed. But defeat can. What will happen? All Kilcullen can offer in the end is the assessment, "time will tell." Indeed it will.
I have always thought this. How many of our children will grow up with the background thought of an Islamic threat, just as my generation grew up in the shadow of nuclear annihillation? It's no longer duck and cover, it's root out and kill.
June 27, 2007
I've just about had it
From the comments, at this post-
I have been voting for Republicans in every national election since I cast my first eligible vote for Gerald Ford against Jimmy Carter in 1976 (whose increasing bitterness and pettiness as he ages assures me I chose well in that election). I have been about as loyal as you can get and not actually be a Party insider and conventioneer. But that's over now. I've finally come to see that George W. is in fact like his father - that is to say, no conservative. Plus he forgot who brung him to the dance.
I've hung in there with him on the war because I think it is the height of folly to pretend we are not in a struggle for the very survival of western culture in the war which radical Islam has declared on us; and also because, having lived through the mortification and dishonor of surrender in Vietnam, I cannot bear to see our military once again betrayed by the cynical jackals, moral cowards and political opportunists. But I see that George W., just like his father before him, has used Republicans to get elected and then ignored most of us in attempting to curry favor with the Democrats and the left.
That is the Republican Disease - an elected Republican trying to make the Democrats and the chattering class like him. It cannot be done - nor should such a humiliating display even be attempted.
And now my President accuses me of bigotry and prejudice because I want the borders of my country soundly secured before even addressing the question of what to do with millions of illegal aliens. Well that just about rips the rug. Thank goodness I can still count on at least one of my Senators (Sessions) to place loyalty to principle ahead of loyalty to person. I'm tired of carrying W's water just to have it tossed on me.
Now as for 2008, I can't vote for any Democrat (except Joe Lieberman) - but neither do I care to support any of the mediocrities now jostling to see who can move to the center (and beyond) the quickest. Anything short of a Fred Thompson candidacy has no chance of getting my vote - and I'm not promising anything to him.
Libertarian, just to make a point? Could be. Could be.
I couldn't have said it any better. A pox on all of them.
h/t Insty
June 22, 2007
OMG
The most awesome guitar in the world, ever, seriously.
It can be yours if you've got the loot.
If I was just 25 years younger...
June 20, 2007
I want one!
Ladeez and germs, I present- the H. R. Giger Backscratcher!
h/t Ghost of a Flea
June 14, 2007
Hello?
No, I haven't gone away- just been setting up a new exhibit, which seriously ate into blogging time. Pics and stuff to come though- hisssssss...
June 08, 2007
Reality take
DJ Drummond on where the world is today-
That's not to say everything is better. The world of the 21st Century is no Nirvana or Utopia. We have millions of offenders in sordid varieties of criminal behavior which were far fewer in ages past. Slavery and Piracy have once again become common practices in parts of the world. We face serious threats from groups which eagerly contemplate the deliberate extinction of entire classes of 'inconvenient' people. Financially, the divide between Rich and Poor remains unacceptably wide, especially since being poor still includes threats from Famine, Disease, and dismal prospects for the rising generation. And while long proven invalid, many people still embrace Fascism, Communism, Caste systems and Racial/Gender prejudice. And we must add to this the increasingly radical tide of violent protests, from the insanity of individuals who speak for the 'sanctity' of life by bombing buildings, people who show their love of Diversity by vandalizing the offices and property of the opposing political party, and people who "support" their nation by cheering on monsters who want to kill innocent civilians, in the name of 'dissent'. We have schools which neglect core academic skills in favor of politically correct curriculae, we see media which sometimes showcases entertainment which is vulgar and promotes immorality and violence, and we see a judicial system which rewards the side which has the most clever lawyer, but does not protect the innocent or encourage conscientious idealism. We obviously have a lot of work to do.