printStrange doings at the Israel bashing American Conservative. The September-11 issue follows on the horrible heels of Israel’s war in Lebanon—a war which I repudiated in “Israel Risks Squandering Moral High Ground,” “Call Off the Israeli Air Force!,” and in blogs such as “In Politics, Rubbish Rises to the Top.”
But lo-and-behold, and completely contrary to its traditional chronic anti-Israelism, TAC has published a piece in support of that war by the impressive Israeli military historian, Martin van Creveld. As I say, as much as I admire van Creveld and support Israel’s fight for survival against the manifestly savage societies surrounding it, I couldn’t, in good conscience, endorse that war. The Israeli people, as I wrote in “Israel Has Something To Be Proud Of,” appear to tilt in my direction.
I digress. The point here is that never in a million years would I have expected to see this article in TAC after a war “evil” Israel waged on a neighbor.
I expected a counterpoint, correcting the omission, but there was none—not a substantive one, at least. A sappy fellow called Stewart Nusbaumer offered an atmospheric piece, full of fatalism and cliches (“cycle of violence”), that described the pain of war as experienced by ordinary Israelis—Arabs and Jews. He mixes in some subtle TAC theology (read “The Final Solution to the Jewish State” to understand what that is). In this instance, allusions to a dispute that has been plaguing the region for 4000 years. The revisionist implications are that Israel’s local Arabs can be traced to the inhabitants Abraham (Avram then) encountered on arriving from Ur.
Also, when Nusbaumer describes a waitress who expected to be called up, you know he is having another less-than-credible epistolary moment. The reason you didn’t see any Israeli women soldiers on the Lebanese front is because Israel doesn’t allow them in combat. And so it should be! Everyone knows that, bar a few rare amazons, women can’t fight like men, and that they disrupt the essential life-preserving camaraderie among soldiers by eliciting chivalry and introducing sexuality into an already deadly situation. Israelis can’t afford to ignore these factors. Being an ex-US marine, Nusbaumer may not be aware of this politically incorrect reality.
So what, if anything, explains this out-of-the-mold issue? Well, in all likelihood this is a fluke and the magazine will resume its nutty “free Palestine” screeching. On the other hand, if TAC’s readers and mine overlap at all, then they may have heard a thing or two from their subscribers. Most paleos I hear from are profoundly traditional, appreciate the “Hebraic Bond,” and are nowhere-near ready to replace it with the Arabist, pro-Palestinian, radical chic of the hard left, hitherto TAC’s stance. We’ll have to wait and see.
I’m surprised that you decided to comment on this fellow’s discription of a woman being ‘called up’. I see a lot of articles, lately, that deal with women in arms, but none of them take the stance you do with regards to them serving in war.
Just random thoughts, but I wonder if the current climate in our culture is causing fewer men to enlist in the Forces. These are some general musings – so they could be wrong – but it doesn’t seem as though the military exudes a masculine drive anymore. In fact, it seems as though nearly all aspects of it’s once masculine nature has left, from the Marine’s original motto ‘looking for a few good men’ to even the term ‘servicemember’ instead of ‘serviceman’. Maybe this is why fewer men have been enlisting. [Great observation, echoed here in “Osama’s Snickering at Our Military“]
In fact, the units that seem to have the highest camaraderie are all male units, like Special Operations, despite their notoriously high attrition rates.
Then again, I might be off base with this one. [I don’t think so]
I’m sorry but I don’t see the connection. I agree with your point about women in combat units, but being “called up” does not necessarily entail being sent into a combat unit. (And yes I’m aware that contrary to popular feminist myth, Israel does not put women in combat positions, quite aside from the necessity of training in arms in a country where there are no safe places.)
The large majority of people in uniform are support personnel (clerks, mechanics, medics etc) doing the jobs that enable the military to put a man under arms in combat. The ratio ranges from 7:1 to perhaps as high as 20:1. Air forces are of course, mostly support personnel and a very few combat fliers. Many, perhaps most of these jobs are gender neutral.
And as I recall, during WWII the recruiting slogan for the Women Marines (the B.A.Ms) was “Free a man to fight!”
[The point was that, given the silly tenor of TAC piece, the call-up detail was likely a rhetorical embellishment.]
As an ex-military man from the Viet Nam conflict, I wouldn’t want to share a foxhole with a female while facing the enemy. Call me anti-quated, call me a pig, but I think being a soldier is a man’s job and war is a nasty business. I wouldn’t want my daughter in it. Heck, the way it is nowadays, I wouldn’t want my boys in it. The feminists have gone way too far in their quest for equality.
I agree with all of those that say women should only be in supporting roles and not in combat. I would not want to be in the trenches with a woman because men are simply stronger and quicker – necessities in combat. I also think women would be a sexual distraction for me.
I guess I agree with what was said in ‘Snickering at our Military’. But I think that this ‘problem’ is very un-political that fixing it is not practical. I see billions spent on antiquated conventional warfare weapons (even, hiliariously, naval ships with bigger guns) but I don’t see a real strategy to take care of something like this. Actually, if you looked at headlines and the like, you would never think there was any problem at all.
Hopefully someone at the top understands that some changes needs to be made.
Then again maybe not…
Nice article, but woe to you when you wrote it! I bet you got flammed for that sucker – especially the final few sentences. Ouch.
I read this blog when it was new, but haven’t had a chance to respond until now.
I have subscribed to TAC since its inception, but will likely let my subscription lapse at next renewal. The magazine has become a one trick pony. Also, Buchanan’s recent proposal of foreign aid to Hamas was just too darn much. Indefensible.
With that said, TAC isn’t quite as one-sided in ALL issues as it has been in the case of Israel. For instance, about a year ago TAC published an article that basically lambasted Buchanan over his thesis that America ought not to have entered WWII when it did. One contrary article doth not an open forum make, but hey, it is Buchanan’s mag. He and his cronies can publish whatever they please. That they occasionally stray from the party line is more than can be said for lots of other publications.
Finally, I note, with respect, that you pay a lot of attention to Buchanan. Granted, most of this attention is in the form of pointed criticism. Still, I can’t help but think that you respect his intellect. I sure do, though I’ve lost some following his hypocritical foreign-aid suggestion.
Dan,
I do indeed respect Pat Buchanan’s intellect, and have often said so. In my first critique of his position, “The Jewish Connection,” I wrote:
“Buchanan is one of the few American patriots left among the ‘nattering nabobs.’ He is a thorn in the side of the swarm of ‘neoconservatives and their pseudo-conservative allies—Messers Limbaugh, O’Reilly,’ and Savage—with whom Buchanan is forced to joust.”
In “Buchanan of Arabia,” I called him “brilliant,” although I said he was “consistent in his inconsistencies.” (Economic protectionism included.)
That he is so bright and seems a really nice man makes his position on Israel even more incongruent, irrational, and inconsistent with his valiant defense of the West. (See “Death by the West.”)
—ILANA
Thanks for the reply, Ilana. I was familiar with the first quote from “The Jewish Connection”; not with the others.
I am hopelessly ill-suited to serious scholarly work because I tend to be defensive of those I like, even when they are difficult to defend. In PB’s case, I cheered him on when he skewered that silly Burke woman from NOW who protested the absence of women at the Masters. I loved The Death of the West, which I consider a devastatingly brilliant work, both for its honest demographic analysis and, even more so, its calling-out of “the politics of posture”. Perhaps his own analysis can shed some light on his blindness in the case of Israel. In The Death of the West, chapter “Intimidated Majority”, Buchanan writes, ” ‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,’ laments T.S. Eliot’s J Alfred Prufrock. So, too, have our cultural elites. But in their minds they daily heave a cutlass against Nazis, fascists, and Klansmen who would otherwise fall upon defenseless and persecuted minorities. Why shouldn’t one feel good about oneself?”
In the same way that silly pseudo-radicals envision themselves as courageous protectors of the down-trodden, so may Buchanan believe himself to be a fair arbitrator between Israel and those who openly seek its destruction. Or maybe it is what I feared: that he is at heart an unrepentant anti-Semite.
I am defensive of those I like when they are difficult to defend. Not when they’re impossible to defend. Thus the imminent end to my American Conservative subscription.
Very eloquent, Dan. You may be a one-case study, but your position seems to support what I said in the “AC 180º?” post. Decent, clear-thinking paleos can’t abide the moral and intellectual decay TAC exhibits. I will be following up with another separate post about Taki’s latest decrepitude. This is his last.