Reader Mail
Bad, Bad War
Readers think foreign. East and West. Fade to Blackwell. Plus more.
FAN MAIL
Re: David N. Bass's
Obama's Abortion Spending Spree:
You guys are hysterical, and you are whipping yourselves up into hysteria ON PURPOSE.
That report was submitted by a large coalition of organizations including the American Association of University Women. It was NOT solicited by the Obama Transition Team, any more than any hysterical pseudo-conservative report was solicited. It's a part of transparency in government, something you guys simply cannot understand.
How did you get ADDICTED to the adrenalin associated with hatred and hysteria? How did you AVOID developing critical thinking? What on earth makes you think your opinions are worth anything at all if they are arrived at by irrationality and expressed so sneakily that you HIDE the nature of the report and the nature of its association with Obama?
God protect us from the CRAZIES at The American
Spectator!
-- Hilda F.
Morris
Elmwood Park, Illinois
HAWKS CIRCLE
Re: Tom Bethell's The Good War? Maybe Not:
A war more destructive to the essence of the West than was World War II is raging even now, though our putative leaders feign ignorance of its existence, for politically expedient reasons.
This war, however, is a quiet, slow-motion erosion of the core cultures of the West, by the decades-long flood of millions of unassimilable-yet-fecund immigrants.
At the same time, the economies of the West are being undermined by the mercantilist trade policies of ambitious states -- China, India, Korea, and the lot -- intent on the beggar-thy-neighbor model of international trade developed by postwar Japan. The upshot: Asia exports container ships and imports FedEx packages.
Who, then, will resist this tide of events? Certainly not the
soi-dissant leaders of the West, who are more concerned about
re-election than the welfare of their countries.
-- David Govett
Davis, California
Mr. Bethell, there are no "good wars," only wars. We still call the first Gulf War a "good war" yet it didn’t rise to the level of a large WWII battle and didn’t resolve the central matter, leaving the matter unfinished for another generation. I happen to think WWII did resolve a few matters at hand and was the only way possible given the general unprepared nature of the West for War. Mankind has been fighting wars since the beginning of time, and they range from bad to really bad. There is no rational substitute for war and people like Chamberlain and Buchanan keep trying to find a non-lethal way to deal with what is on the first order an irrational behavior. If we could reason our way out of wars we certainly could have put an end to simple murder in our own societies centuries ago.
Chamberlain’s mistake was not giving Poland a war guarantee. It was to give a guarantee that he had no means or preparations for. In a card game that is called a bluff, in international affairs it is called wishful thinking with millions of lives on the line. Chamberlain’s Plan A (negotiation) was all that he ever envisioned and thus when push came to shove he became desperate with someone that knew more about what Britain and France could do than their own elected officials would admit to themselves. That’s what appeasers ultimately do, they bluff until someone calls them on it. Hitler was a much better card player and he had made the preparations to back up this plans. It only takes one side to have a war but two to not have one. That salient fact gets lost in all the wishful thinking about past wars and all the what ifs that eventually surround them.
Those who believe Poland could have survived as a nation and people if they had signed a pact with the Germans are delusional at best. Name me a pact Hitler kept. Using actual results of German advances while fighting a two- and eventually three-front war it takes a bit of a stretch to see how Russia could have survived if the West had sat out the war had Hitler gone east and not West first. A whole lot of first rate German forces were tied down in the West and Mediterranean from 1940 on, that would have been quite useful on the Eastern front along with those so called anti-Communist Polish forces. Had Germany succeeded in Eastern Russian and consolidated its economic gains and grown even stronger, the combined forces of both France and Britain would have lasted about 6 days in 1942 against battle hardened forces, not six weeks in 1940. The US would be faced with invading Britain from the US not France from Britain. I can hear it now from Buchanan’s ancestors, "we aren’t bleeding for the Brits and Frogs..."
On balance Chamberlain’s idiotic mindset was probably the only
thing that put the brakes on Germany’s expansion and ultimate
conquest of all of Europe. The evil that undermines that I think
is not subject to revisionist history. No rational person wants a
war but only fools think they can reason one from starting.
-- Thom Bateman
Newport News, Virginia
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frost| 12.31.08 @ 7:49AM
Poor Mr. David. Israel rocketing the terrorist factions in Gaza? Ah, if he were to check (and maybe be honest), methinks he'd find that the Hamas (and maybe a few Hezbollah) have been lobbing their rockets into the civilian landscape of Israel on pretty much a daily (if not hourly) basis. Hey, when you're outnumbered 100-1 and are surrounded by the multitudes wishing to kill you/drive you into the sea, and, when you've withdrawn your forces to the Arabs could have their "self-determination"?
No, I'm not Jewish, and I have no ax to grind, 'cept in the pursuit of simple justice - - only to hear the supercilious argument about "proportionate response" which is bordering on laughable, if it weren't so tragic a rejoinder....
And Dubya speaks, and Dr. Rice (now an apparent Foggy Bottom convert to Pabulum Puke diplomacy) - - and the world condemns?
We're in a world'o'hurt, gang; may the New Year bring some fresh ideas and common sense, please!
carol hellman| 12.31.08 @ 10:22AM
Not to worry though. Our eminently qualified president-elect (obama) will quickly dispatch his supremely qualified secretary of state (hillary) to make everything hunky-dory.
Never in the course of history have two more unqualified people been put into positions of responsibility.
Well, this is "the change we have been waiting for". A year from now I'm going to start asking
"how's that change you voted for working out?"
Thomas| 12.31.08 @ 10:57AM
Mr. David seems to be a bit informationally deficient in his description of the situation in Gaza.
The violence in Gaza has been going on between Arab and Jew for far longer than 40 years. When still a British protectorate, tensions between the groups culminated in the Palestinian Riots of 1929. This resulted in the expulsion of the smaller Jewish population from Gaza by the British. This did not halt violence between the two groups which continues until the present day. Following the rejection of the UN mandated Palestine Partition Plan by the Arab population, the Arab world attempted to drive the Jewish citizens of the newly created state of Israel into the sea. The Jews held the coastal partition set aside for them and it became the modern state of Israel. Egypt occupied the Gaza and administered it until it was taken, by the Israelis, during the War of 1967. Gaza shares a common border with Egypt to this day, so it is hardly Israel, exclusively, that is blockading Gaza.
Now, it is a matter of record that all during the "ceasefire" cum "truce", Qassam missiles have repeated been fired into Israeli territory from Gaza. It was these continuing attacks that caused Israel to tighten her border security. As for the missile attacks, by the Israelis upon targets in Gaza during the "truce", he neglects to point out that those were directed at high level, wanted, Hamas terrorists who were reportedly engaged in active terrorist activities against Israel, including firing Qassam rockets into the country.
As to Qassam rockets entering Israel from the Gaza causing no casualties, this statement is just plain incorrect.
There is certainly an unbalanced Middle East Policy in this region, but it does not stem from the Israelis and the U.S. It stems from the rabid anti-Jewish Palestinian Arabs of Hamas, Fatah and the smaller jihadist groups in the region. Since the 1990's, Israel has attempted to force a two-state solution to the problem and the Arabs have refused to this compromise time and time again.
So, it might be a good idea to start with accurate historical Facts rather than cherry picking those, or inventing those, that bolster your position. Groups like hamas, Fatah, et al., want it all. By that stance, they may lose everything.
Lu| 12.31.08 @ 4:18PM
The Palestinian "people' have a country, it is called Jordan. We should study the history of that area of the world. There has never been an independent Arab "Palestine' nation nor Palestinian people. Palestine came into existence in one of the many occupations by Roman Crusaders. To insult the Jews, the Romans renamed Judea Philistia, after their enemy the Philistines. The Philistines died out thousands of years ago. They are not the same people calling themselves "Palestinians" today. The Palestine and Palestinians is a figment of Arab propaganada.
Mark Long| 1.1.09 @ 9:59AM
Regarding Christopher Orlet's "Myth of the Secular West": Orlet seems to be praising the concept of Separation of Church and State which, as a legal doctrine, has done great damage to our country over the years. Along with many of the disastrous social and educational policies of the 1960s and 1970s, removing expresses of faith from schools, court houses, and other public places have brought about numerous social pathologies such as the breakdown of families, increased crime, poverty, teen pregnancies, and suicides. From a legal standpoint, even a layman like myself can see that it is a flawed doctrine. First of all, its origin was a private letter by Thomas Jefferson to a group of ministers originally meaning the opposite of how it is understood today. Second, purely as a Constitutional concept I would think that religious freedom should be viewed as a whole. The First Amendment contains five separate rights (four of one counts speech and press together) and the Establishment Clause is immediately followed by "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It stands to reason that they should work together. Any ruling, like many Supreme Court cases over the past 60 years, that emphasis only one part over the other is a grave injustice. Constitutional scholars might disagree but they also advocate the "Living Constitution" theory which is Orwellian Newspeak and just an excuse to rewrite it at will.
Mark Long| 1.1.09 @ 9:59AM
Regarding Christopher Orlet's "Myth of the Secular West": Orlet seems to be praising the concept of Separation of Church and State which, as a legal doctrine, has done great damage to our country over the years. Along with many of the disastrous social and educational policies of the 1960s and 1970s, removing expresses of faith from schools, court houses, and other public places have brought about numerous social pathologies such as the breakdown of families, increased crime, poverty, teen pregnancies, and suicides. From a legal standpoint, even a layman like myself can see that it is a flawed doctrine. First of all, its origin was a private letter by Thomas Jefferson to a group of ministers originally meaning the opposite of how it is understood today. Second, purely as a Constitutional concept I would think that religious freedom should be viewed as a whole. The First Amendment contains five separate rights (four of one counts speech and press together) and the Establishment Clause is immediately followed by "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It stands to reason that they should work together. Any ruling, like many Supreme Court cases over the past 60 years, that emphasis only one part over the other is a grave injustice. Constitutional scholars might disagree but they also advocate the "Living Constitution" theory which is Orwellian Newspeak and just an excuse to rewrite it at will.
fewf| 3.9.10 @ 3:10AM
newenergy plays an important role!