Posted on 11/16/2001 1:18:14 PM PST by Cyber Liberty
It's amazing what a few visits from Mr. B-52 and his girlfriend Daisy Cutter can do to reacquaint the enemy with reality. An application of American firepower appears to have snapped the Taliban's spine and sapped their morale, resulting in liberation. Freedom. Celebration. This is what the anti-war forces have been secretly dreading: news reports of happy Afghans.
Men have lined up around the block to get their itchy Taliban-mandated beards shaved off -- and don't think the boys at Gillette aren't kicking themselves for not thinking of that endorsement opportunity. Women have dared to venture into public alone without fearing they'll be mashed into chum by zealous nutbrains. Music has filled the streets again. Music! Imagine living for years without hearing music; imagine the sweet flood of emotion upon hearing a song without fearing that the Anti-Melody Rapid Response Team is going to screech around the corner and shoot everyone.
One wonders what songs they played. But it doesn't matter; "The Pina Colada Song" would seem like "La Marseillaise" after a while.
The anti-war movement's response, of course, was noisy dismay. Two hundred demonstators marched on CNN HQ in Atlanta Nov. 11, demanding that the network run pictures of Afghans killed by errant bombs. Veteran's Day, two-month anniversary of the attacks: nice timing, guys. Noam Chomsky, our own little Quisling, popped up in India to denounce the United States and describe the attacks on Afghanistan as "a bigger terrorist act than what happened on Sept. 11."
It takes tremendous energy to maintain these hideous delusions. Chomsky must be exhausted. He must also be surprised every time he lands back in America and is not arrested; the nation he describes would surely clap him in chains and leave him in a basement to devolve to rat food and bones.
There is nothing that dismays the Chomskyites more than American success, regardless of the consequence to the people on whose behalf the protesters protest. Better a thousand Kuwaiti women be shipped off to Republican Guard rape camps than the U.S. keep Saddam's hands off the world's economic jugular. Better the Taliban dig its claws into the neck of a nation than the U.S. actually be seen as a liberator. Better that evil triumph, as long as flawed men don't act.
Which brings us to Bill Clinton. He made a much-criticized speech at Georgetown, and was slammed for suggesting that America deserved what it got on 9/11. That wasn't the point or gist of the speech. If Clinton was guilty of anything, it was his belief that his narcissistic gas-leak of a speech contained novel insights or rhetorical competence. He supported the war on terror, more or less, but reminded us all that the world has many problems, and we should do something about them. Brave words to speak on a college campus. But here's what really raised eyebrows:
"Those of us who come from various European lineages are not blameless. Indeed, in the First Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it, and proceeded to kill every woman and child who was Muslim on the Temple mound. ... I can tell you that that story is still being told today in the Middle East and we are still paying for it."
Who's this we, Lone Ranger? The 82nd Airborne never landed at Jerusalem. Jews didn't hijack planes and smack them into buildings to avenge the sins of the Crusaders. More to the point, a couple hundred Americans were blown up in Lebanon in the early '80s, and until 9/11 we didn't talk about it.
This is the Olympian view that will remain after the victories are forgotten, long after the Chomskys have combusted in a smelly burst of acrid flames, long after bin Laden and his ideas are dead. It's the tyranny of the long view. There are lessons to be learned from history, yes, but sometimes you have to pry the bony hand of history from your neck and reshape the tale, give the future a better history to consult.
History, after all, taught us that Afghanistan swallowed empires. History warned against quagmires. Well, history has just met the Daisy Cutter, and now perhaps the citizens of Afghanistan are liberated from more than the Taliban.
Imagine what they must be thinking:
Yesterday the American planes came; today we are free of the Taliban. History be damned. Let's dance.
(James Lileks can be contacted at james.lileks@newhouse.com)
(^: Clinton smart? ROTFL!
BTTT
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.