Category Archives: War

Snub ‘Snob Conservatism’

Elections 2008, John McCain, Neoconservatism, Politics, Republicans, Ron Paul, War

From “GOP, RIP?”: “Chief among the leftist factions that would hate to see a recrudescence of the Right are neoconservatives. Enter David Brooks, whose sinecure at the New York Times is a testament to the ‘mushy middle ground’ he has so successfully occupied. … Brooks has flourished in the neoconservative sorority. … he, nevertheless, now sees fit to reinvent himself as a Republican ‘Reformer.’ Brooks the Reformer has been brooding about the dangers of ‘slashing government,’ if the Republican faction he calls ‘Traditionalist’ manages to unseat neocons like himself.”

Now Jack Hunter of Taki’s further distills the essence of the Brook’s bastardized (neo) conservatism: … “But if [David] Brook’s snob conservatism, Thompson and Romney’s wannabe-Reagan-imitations, Huckabee’s holy-rolling and McCain’s mad-bomber mentality are all just stylistic variations of the same Republican policies, it is worth noting the one candidate in 2008 who attracted widespread, bipartisan support, based not only almost purely on his ideas – but ideas that stood in stark contrast to the rest of his party. Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign reflected the antiwar sentiment that helped elect Obama and the anti-government outrage that now defines the grassroots Right. Paul, unlike his fellow 2008 presidential contenders, not only rejected the failed policies of the Bush administration, but despite his lack of charisma, possessed the only political platform that might have had a chance of winning – while remaining conservative to the core.

But strict, limited government conservatism is of little concern to establishment men like Brooks, which makes him completely useless. … ‘the reformists, whose new ideas are not conservative and whose old ideas are the ones that destroyed the Bush GOP, are the very last pundits Republicans should heed.’

Indeed. And if the American Right needs a new, better identity – as many rightly believe it does – a good start might be to move as far away as possible from the politics and person of David Brooks.”

Snub 'Snob Conservatism'

Elections 2008, John McCain, Neoconservatism, Politics, Republicans, Ron Paul, War

From “GOP, RIP?”: “Chief among the leftist factions that would hate to see a recrudescence of the Right are neoconservatives. Enter David Brooks, whose sinecure at the New York Times is a testament to the ‘mushy middle ground’ he has so successfully occupied. … Brooks has flourished in the neoconservative sorority. … he, nevertheless, now sees fit to reinvent himself as a Republican ‘Reformer.’ Brooks the Reformer has been brooding about the dangers of ‘slashing government,’ if the Republican faction he calls ‘Traditionalist’ manages to unseat neocons like himself.”

Now Jack Hunter of Taki’s further distills the essence of the Brook’s bastardized (neo) conservatism: … “But if [David] Brook’s snob conservatism, Thompson and Romney’s wannabe-Reagan-imitations, Huckabee’s holy-rolling and McCain’s mad-bomber mentality are all just stylistic variations of the same Republican policies, it is worth noting the one candidate in 2008 who attracted widespread, bipartisan support, based not only almost purely on his ideas – but ideas that stood in stark contrast to the rest of his party. Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign reflected the antiwar sentiment that helped elect Obama and the anti-government outrage that now defines the grassroots Right. Paul, unlike his fellow 2008 presidential contenders, not only rejected the failed policies of the Bush administration, but despite his lack of charisma, possessed the only political platform that might have had a chance of winning – while remaining conservative to the core.

But strict, limited government conservatism is of little concern to establishment men like Brooks, which makes him completely useless. … ‘the reformists, whose new ideas are not conservative and whose old ideas are the ones that destroyed the Bush GOP, are the very last pundits Republicans should heed.’

Indeed. And if the American Right needs a new, better identity – as many rightly believe it does – a good start might be to move as far away as possible from the politics and person of David Brooks.”

Update II: Taleban Storm Nato Outpost

Foreign Policy, Terrorism, The Military, War

One of the most ruthless generals of the French Wars of Religion was Blaise de Monluc. Unlike our military’s modern-day cheerleaders, he had no illusions about the saintliness of his warriors and their commanders. “Acknowledging the atrocities of soldiers, he declared that princes carried a heavier load of sin, for ‘there is no evil in war of which they are not the cause.'” (TLS, September 25, 2009)

Yet dare to even entertain the idea that the American military is not always a force for good, and that the princely Stanley McChrystal, commander of the 100,000-strong US and Nato force in Afghanistan, is not omniscient and should never be made omnipotent with respect to the Afghanistan war—and you are unpatriotic.

Left and Right: this is the prevailing wisdom.

By now you’ve heard that, by Times’ telling, “300 insurgents swarmed out of a village and mosque and attacked a pair of isolated American outposts in a remote mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan with machineguns, rockets and grenades.

They first stormed the Afghan police post at the foot of the hill in the province of Nuristan, a Taleban and al-Qaeda stronghold on the lawless Pakistan border. They then swept up to the Nato post. The battle lasted all day. American and Afghan soldiers finally repelled them, with the help of US helicopters and warplanes — but at heavy cost.”

What does the fact that “Eight American soldiers and two Afghan policemen were killed,” and that the Taleban “captured 35 policemen whose fate would be decided by the movement’s provincial council” tell you?

Americans are fighting to the death for a futile fantasy; while the Pashtun police men wink and nod at their Taleban brethren, not quite able to decide whether the latter are friends or foes.

To wit: One battalion “lost two soldiers, with three wounded, late on Friday when an Afghan policeman opened fire on his American colleagues during a joint operation to clear the Taleban from villages around the Nerkh valley.

US and Afghan investigators are trying to determine whether the policeman was a covert member of the Taleban or made a mistake. Either way, the attack fuelled the distrust that many Nato soldiers feel towards the Afghan security forces they are training as part of the coalition’s eventual exit strategy.

‘You don’t trust anybody, especially after an incident like this,’ said Specialist Raquime Mercer, 20, whose close friend died in the attack.”

Save your breath; Most Afghans have more affinity for the Taliban than for the democracy wielding Wilsonians.

Update I (Oct. 5): The Neocons-cum-Republicans, who have no principles other than to line up behind their man and against Obama, are cheering Gen McChrystal’s London sojourn to lobby for more troops. What’s next on the army commander’s media blitz? An appearance alongside McKenzie Philips on Larry King? Is there any aspect of American life that is not conducted in public or on camera?

It’s got to be obvious that the general knows nothing about the chain of command. He lacks discipline or a code of conduct. McChrystal’s a lobbyist in fatigues, guarding his fiefdom.

More importantly, Gen. David Petraeus conducted himself similarly. Although he didn’t lobby abroad for his cause, he assumed a decidedly political role. However, at the time, Republicans and their boy, Bush, were on board with Petraeus’ push for more war.

Update II: Diana West excerpts extensively from “From New Deal to New Frontier in Afghanistan: Modernization in a Buffer State.” This is worth a read, as are most of Diana’s posts.

With respect to the Helmand-Valley project in Afghanistan, Diana has mined Prof. Cullather for the Money quote:

Nation-building did not fail in Afghanistan for want of money, time, or imagination. In the Helmand Valley, the engines and dreams of modernization had run their full course, spooling out across the desert until they hit limits of physics, culture, and history.

More good material via Myron, written by Jim Sauer, “a retired Marine Corps Sergeant Major and combat veteran with over thirty years of service. Since retiring he has worked in support of U.S. Government efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel”:

The hard fact is that the “hearts and minds” of the Afghan “people” are not for sale! The descendants of “The Great Khan” and their tribal cousins have no interest in being Westernized in any way. And, the human sewers that serve as their political leadership can only be rented. Americans are interlopers in a land where interlopers generally have their heads lopped off.

Update III: Tossed and Gored By Gore Vidal

Constitution, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Democrats, Homosexuality, Intellectualism, Liberty, Literature, Military, Propaganda, Reason, Terrorism, The State, The Zeitgeist, War

Despite his surprisingly mundane and misguided ideas on politics and economics, brilliant belletrist Gore Vidal, at 83, still manages to dazzle with his original insights. In a country in which homegrown retardation is more pressing a problem than homegrown terrorism, that’s quite something.

Vidal recently gave an interview to the British Times from which it was clear that he no longer sees signs of the divine in Obama. Nevertheless, absent from the dismal score card he gave the president was a realistic appraisal of the putative gifts of Obama, a charmer who was elected based on his ability to sweetly say nothing much at all.

To his credit, Vidal is scathing about Obama’s talismanic, “solve that [war] and you solve terrorism” treatment of the Afghanistan war. At the same time he wants to see Obama, Lincoln-like, lord it over the people (especially with respect to health care). But those kinds of images go with the homoerotic territory.

In any event, his weak protestations over Obama are the least interesting of Vidal’s comments, the ones about Timothy McVeigh and the love that dare not speak its name the most interesting.

Read the interview.

Update I (Oct. 1): Some respect for Gore Vidal, please. He belongs to a generation of intellectuals who SERVED. Bravely. As a matter of interest, “Some 450 out of 750 Princeton graduates in the class of 1956 served in the military.” Samuel Huntington, one of America’s greatest scholars, served in the army. “All four of the Kennedy brothers served in the military; not one of the thirty Kennedy cousins has.” [Excerpted from Are We Rome?The Fall of An Empire And The State of America by Cullen Murphy, 2007, p. 82.]

Most of the neocon-minded war mongers have not served.

Of course, “our freedoms,” such as they are, do not come courtesy of our armed forces leveling this or the other far-flung protectorate abroad. That’s yet more neocon nonsense on stilts. Cheap sloganeering.

Update II: The proverbial Orwellian Ministry of Truth decrees how the peons think about the issues of the day. When it comes to Timothy McVeigh they’ve had the same degree of success as in ensconcing Rosa Parks as the new Founding Mother of America.

Vidal is rare and courageous in recognizing the legitimate effrontery against life and liberty that motivated McVeigh to commit his crime. He is also unique in acknowledging that McVeigh was not a rube, but a thoughtful man who had fought for his country and was familiar with its foundational principles and documents. Here is McVeigh on the American experiment gone wrong (haven’t you read the interview?):

I think it all has to do with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the misconception that the government is obliged to provide those things or has the jurisdiction to deny them. We’ve gotten away from the principle that they were only created to secure those rights. And that’s where, I believe, much of the trouble has surfaced.

The characters involved in the Waco massacre—our “brave” law and order officers and their puppet masters—deserved to be put to death too, but were not. Vidal has my respect for recognizing what the decidedly mediocre mind of a Rich Lowry has been incapable of. If Vidal were of a younger generation (like myself), his iconoclasm would have consigned him in mindless America to obscurity.

Update III: MORAL/INTELLECTUAL EQUIVALENCE. Conflating the causes for which McVeigh committed his cruel crime against agents and family of an oppressive government is akin to conflating MY causes with those of, in Myron’s taxonomy of the evil, the “Unabomber, Hitler, Stalin,” and I would add Al Gore (to round off the profile, and to poke at the humorless).

What sort of moral relativism is this? What kind of messy thinking is this? The causes and theories of the Unabomber, Hitler, Stalin (and Al Gore) were wrong on their logic and facts; McVeigh’s causes and motivation, if not his deeds, were right. What’s so hard about that? Kudos to Vidal, however confused he is about all else, for recognizing this.