Only Choice Is To Win The War Or Lose It (American Moment Can't Be Ceded To 25 Percenters Alert)

Chicago Sun Times ^ | 10/29/2006 | Mark Steyn

[goldstategop]

I was on C-SPAN the other morning, and a lady called in to complain that ''you are making my blood pressure rise.'' Usual reason. The host, Paul Orgel, had asked me what I thought of President Bush and I replied that, whatever my differences with him on this or that, I thought he was one of the most farsighted politicians in Washington. That's to say, he's looking down the line to a world in which a radicalized Islam has exported its pathologies to every corner on Earth, Iran and like-minded states have applied nuclear blackmail to any parties within range, and a dozen or more nutcake basket-case jurisdictions have joined Pyongyang and Tehran as a Nukes R Us one-stop shop for all your terrorist needs. In 2020, no one's going to be worrying about which Congressional page Mark Foley is coming on to. Except Mark Foley, who'll be getting a bit long in the tooth by then. But if it really is, as Democrats say, ''all about the future of our children,'' then our children will want to know why our generation saw what was happening and didn't do anything about it. They will despise us as we despise the political class of the 1930s. And the fact that we passed a great prescription drug plan will be poor consolation when the entire planet is one almighty headache. My caller at C-SPAN thought this Bush farsightedness shtick was ridiculous. And, though I did my best to lower her blood pressure, I can't honestly say I succeeded. But suppose the ''Anyone But Bush'' bumper-sticker set got their way; suppose he and Cheney and Rummy and all the minor supporting warmongers down to yours truly were suddenly vaporized in 20 seconds' time. What then?

Nothing, that's what. The jihad's still there. Kim Jong Il's still there. The Iranian nukes are still there. The slyer Islamist subversion from south-east Asia to the Balkans to northern England goes on, day after day after day. And one morning we'll switch on the TV and the smoke and flames will be on this side of the Atlantic, much to President Rodham's surprise. Bush hatred is silly and parochial and reductive: History is on the march and the anti-Bush crowd is holding the telescope the wrong way round.

"We're in this grand ideological struggle," said the president two days later. "I am in disbelief that people don't take these people seriously." He was sitting in the Oval Office with a handful of columnists including yours truly. At the risk of making that C-SPAN caller's head explode, it was a great honor. I wasn't the only foreigner in the room: There was a bust of Winston Churchill, along with those of Lincoln and Eisenhower. A war president, a war prime minister, a war general.

Bush was forceful and informed, and it seems to me he performs better in small groups of one-night-only White House correspondents than in the leaden electronic vaudeville with Helen Thomas, David Gregory and the other regulars. (You can judge for yourself: Michael Barone has posted the entire audio at U.S. News & World Report's Web site.) He dismissed the idea that going into Iraq had only served to "recruit" more terrorists to the cause. (General Pace told me last week that, if anything, the evidence is that Iraq has tied up a big chunk of senior jihadists who'd otherwise be blowing up Afghanistan and elsewhere.) The president's view is that before it was Iraq it was Israel; with these guys, it's always something. Sometimes it's East Timor -- which used to be the leftie cause du jour. And, riffing on the endless list of Islamist grievances, Bush concluded with an exasperated: "If it's not the Crusades, it's the cartoons." That'd make a great slogan: it encapsulates simultaneously the Islamists' inability to move on millennium-in millennium-out, plus their propensity for instant new "root causes," and their utter lack of proportion.

"We need to be on the offense all the time," said the president. I pointed out that, when the military are obviously on offense -- liberating Afghanistan, toppling Saddam -- the American people are behind them. But that it's hard to see where the offense is in what to most TV viewers has dwindled down to a thankless semi-colonial policing operation with no end in sight. How about a bit more offense? Syria's been subverting Iraq for three years. Why not return the favor?

"We are on the offense," he insisted, sounding sometimes as frustrated as us columnists that so much of the wider momentum had become (in Charles Krauthammer's words) "mired in diplomacy." Still, it was a different conversation than most Bush encounters with the media-political class. I happened to be plugging my book on a local radio show this week just as a Minnesota "conservative" (ish) Democrat joined the herd of stampeding donkeys explaining why they were now disowning their vote in favor of the Iraq war. What a sorry sight. It's not a question of whether you're "for" or "against" a war. Once you're in it, the choice is to win it or lose it. And, if you're arguing for what will look to most of the world like the latter option, you better understand what the consequences are. In this case, it would, in effect, end the American moment.

Does that bother people? Bush said something, en passant, that I brooded on all the way home. Asked about poll numbers, he said that 25 percent of the population are always against the war -- any war.

That sounds about right. And it's a bit disturbing. To be sure, if Canadian storm troopers were swarming across the 49th Parallel or Bahamian warships were firing off the coast of Florida, some of that 25 percent might change their mind, though it might be a bit late by then. But, as America's highly unlikely to be facing that kind of war in the foreseeable future, that 25 percent's objection to the only wars on offer is rather unnerving.

The invaluable Brussels Journal recently translated an interview with the writer Oscar van den Boogaard from the Belgian paper De Standaard. A Dutch gay "humanist" (which is pretty much the trifecta of Eurocool), van den Boogaard was reflecting on the accelerating Islamification of the Continent and concluding that the jig was up for the Europe he loved. "I am not a warrior, but who is?" he shrugged. "I have never learned to fight for my freedom. I was only good at enjoying it."

Too many of us are only good at enjoying freedom. That war-is-never-the-answer 25 percent are in essence saying that there's nothing about America worth fighting for, and that, ultimately, the continuation of their society is a bet on the kindness of strangers -- on the goodnaturedness of Kim Jong Il and the mullahs and al-Qaida and what the president called "al-Qaida lookalikes and al-Qaida wannabes" and whatever nuclear combination thereof comes down the pike. Some of us don't reckon that's a good bet, and think America's arms-are-for-hugging crowd need to get real. Van den Boogaard's arms are likely to be doing rather less of their preferred form of hugging in the European twilight.

[Conservativegreatgrandma]

WOW!!! Wish I could state it like that.

[Gritty]

Steyn is right on target.

They may be only 25%, but it's almost immpossible to successfully fight a war when the biggest fools in our country own most of the megaphones and control half the politicians!

[DUMBGRUNT]

Canadian storm troopers were swarming across the 49th Parallel

WOW that Harper has sure turned Canada around! Figures, they would try to grab a few acres while everyone is enjoying the extra hour of sleep!

[Obie Wan]

Come on guy's, go easy on the 25%'ers huh. After all they're not completely anti-defense.Remember the time Bill Clinton fired a cruise missle into Iraq and blew the ass off a camel in the desert? The 25%'ers all stood up and cheered the great defense measure taken by our fearless leader for that military foray !!!

[Valin]

"So, you would vote for Hitler or Stalin if they had run opposite Bush " ?????

Here's your answer


http://letters-rejected.blogspot.com/2006/04/better-if-saddam-still-in-power.html

April 8, 2006
better if Saddam still in power
The Sydney Morning Herald
Sydney

Tony Blair asked when addressing the Australian parliament, ‘Would the world be better off if Saddam was still in power?’
The only possible answer is ‘yes!’
Iraq would not be reduced to rubble, art and artifacts of world significance would still be housed and in the care of the Iraqis, infrastructure, as run down and neglected as it might be would still exist, hospitals, although stocked with minimal medicines and up to date equipment, due mainly to the embargos would still be staffed and functioning, as would the electricity, water and sewage.
Some hundred thousand Iraqis, slaughtered by, or as a result of the invasion would still be alive.
Yes, Saddam is a low life. He invaded a neighbouring country because he thought it would increase his security, or he coveted their oil reserves, or whatever.
He had people arrested, tortured, killed, without reason and without trial. His retaliation to attack was beyond all proportion and he skimmed all the wealth he could from the Iraqi people for himself or his cronies.
He lied about his countries affairs and his intentions to both his people and the world at large.
Yes, there is no doubt he is a low life! No different to Bush and the US - lead coalition, really.

[reformedliberal]

Those idiots are only responding to their inculcation of the past 30 years.

First, the left defined *being good* as being pacifist, tolerant, politically correct, environmentally correct et al. Then all they had to do was remind people that if they deviated from any of these stances, they were, by definition, NOT being good. Everyone has been taught that the highest good is that action which makes them feel better about themselves.


That was the goal of all those self-esteem programs. The progressives are quite open about their belief that "everyone wants to be good".

I see daily the hypocrisy of all this: people who refuse to save and invest because it would make them part of *the system*. People who refuse any medical treatment that is mainstream, preferring to *support the community* of alternative practitioners, where all their beliefs are either catered to or fine-tuned if they are in even the most minute deviation. People who will react to studies proving that recycling is wasteful, expensive and doesn't accomplish its goals by saying:"I don't care. I do it for me." People who are religiously organic and hire exterminators for their own homes. Global warming fanatics who take frequent vacations to places only reachable by airplane.

They ask why, if we were really attacked on 9/11, we didn't bomb Saudi Arabia off the map. They simply refuse to accept any explanation longer than a bumper sticker. They have their catechism and they will stick to it until it kills them.

This group is distinct from the one you reference in that they read newspapers, have never watched FNC but hate it because they have read in their papers that it is a Republican mouthpiece, who hate *the rich*, but support the billionaires on the left and who are despondent about global warming, but feel powerless to do anything about it and angry that those they invest with all sorts of magical powers (ie: Republicans in government)aren't forcing the entire country to waste time, treasure and energy helping to end a natural climatic phenomena. All this crowd wants is organic milk, available pot, a small landholding in the country and the opportunity to feel good about themselves for not being part of "the machine".

Not contradicting you, at all, just wanted to vent about other segments who hate Bush and the war and the USA as we knew it. Bush personifies reality and reality doesn't make them feel superior or good about themselves and is, therefore, the main enemy.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

The Muslims want to return the world to the Dark Ages

And they are probably going to resort to nuclear weapons to try and accomplish it.

I think the Muslim/non-Muslim fight will ultimately go nuclear.

Entire Muslim nations may have to be vaporized for the rest to adopt a rational view of other religions.

The tenets of their death cult leave no room for peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims.

Everywhere Muslims control government, they make it a crime to be non-Muslim.

The recent case of a man who was sentenced to death in Afghanistan for daring to convert from Islam to Christianity is a sobering example.

If there are "moderate" Muslims, they are not in charge.

They rejoice in the death of "infidels."

They reduce religious differences to a "kill-or-be-killed" choice.

[Valin]

I think the destroy-Bush-at-all-costs crowds is the results of a gimme-NOW generation. They have never learned to have to wait for anything, so they never think past today, the moment, themselves.

I hate to say it, but you can find people like that right here. I had a freeper actually complain to my that after 3 1/2 years we're still fighting and Iraqi is still not peaceful. Wat too many people seem to think this is like a movie, where the hero saves the day and rides off into the sunset all in 2 1/2 hours.

[Valin]

The radical loser
Der Spiegel ^ | 1/12/05 | Hans Magnus Enzensberger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1694568/posts

Posted on 09/02/2006 5:55:01 PM CDT by Valin


snip)

There is also no mistaking other similarities, such as the fixation with written authorities. The place of Marx and Lenin is taken by the Koran, references are made not to Gramsci but to Sayyid Qutb. Instead of the international proletariat, it takes as its revolutionary subject the Umma, and as its avant-garde and self-appointed representative of the masses it takes not The Party but the widely branching conspiratorial network of Islamist fighters. Although the movement can draw on older rhetorical forms which to outsiders may sound high-flown or big-mouthed, it owes many of its idées fixes to its Communist enemy: history obeys rigid laws, victory is inevitable, deviationists and traitors are to be exposed and then, in fine Leninist tradition, bombarded with ritual insults.

The movement's list of favourite foes is also short on surprises: America, the decadent West, international capital, Zionism. The list is completed by the unbelievers, that is to say the remaining 5.2 billion people on the planet. Not forgetting apostate Muslims who may be found among the Shiites, Ibadhis, Alawites, Zaidites, Ahmadiyyas, Wahhabis, Druze, Sufis, Kharijites, Ishmaelites or other religious communities.

(snip)

Contrary to what the West appears to believe, the destructive energy of Islamist actions is directed mainly against Muslims. This is not a tactical error, not a case of "collateral damage". In Algeria alone, Islamist terror has cost the lives of at least 50,000 fellow Algerians. Other sources speak of as many as 150,000 murders, although the military and the secret services were also involved. In Iraq and Afghanistan, too, the number of Muslim victims far outstrips the death toll among foreigners. Furthermore, terrorism has been highly detrimental not only to the image of Islam but also to the living conditions of Muslims around the world.

The Islamists are as unconcerned about this as the Nazis were about the downfall of Germany. As the avant-garde of death, they have no regard for the lives of their fellow believers. In the eyes of the Islamists, the fact that most Muslims have no desire to blow themselves and others sky high only goes to show that they deserve no better than to be liquidated themselves. After all, the aim of the radical loser is to make as many other people into losers as possible. As the Islamists see it, the fact that they are in the minority can only be because they are the chosen few.

[1066AD]

I think van den Booger is right. A Swedish gov't minister was quoted a few weeks ago as saying they must be nice to the muslims so that they would reciprocate when they were in charge. In other words they'll go down without a fight.

[finnigan2]

"The Muslims want to return the world to the Dark Ages"

- I think Steyn refers to this trend somewhere in his book as the "reprimitization" of large areas of the world.

[Mygirlsmom]

While it is still there, I would urge everyone to listen to the podcast at belling.com Click on "Hour Two - Part Two".

Mark interviewed a woman who founded the group "Arabs for Israel". It's an amazingly compelling interview that shows the huge magnitude of what we're up against.

[Valin]

Arabs for Israel
Arabs and Muslims who Support the State of Israel and the Cause of Peace in the Middle East

http://www.arabsforisrael.com/

[Louis Foxwell]

I wonder if 25% of those interned in Hitler's concentration camps thought they belonged there. Clearly 25% (or more) of those living under Democrat slave-state programs want more of the same.
A study of the pathology of suicide as it relates to opposition to policies that ensure national security is in order.

[finnigan2]

"That war-is-never-the-answer 25 percent are in essence saying that there's nothing about America worth fighting for, and that, ultimately, the continuation of their society is a bet on the kindness of strangers --"

Isn't that last phrase a famous quote from a Tennessee Williams stage play, The Glass Menagerie(or was it: A Streetcar Named Desire?).
All I remember is that some tortured soul in the play remarked in despair that throughout her whole life, "I have always relied on the kindness of strangers."
The allusion here is somewhat obscure but typically Steyn by being particularly apt.

[Tom D.]

That's from "A Streetcar Named Desire".