When I read Richard Fernandez' post over at The Belmont Club I was again reminded of the magnitude of America's defeat in Vietnam. I was also filled with shame, grief and anger.
In 1971 I volunteered for the Navy after graduating from High School. Part of my motivation was the desire to prevent Communism from devouring another nation and locking it's peoples in bloody chains. I had already read a good deal about what the end results of communist takeovers did to the subject populations, how they were caged in prisons of the soul and ground down under tyrant's booted heels. I strongly believed that this fate ought not befall anyone, and that it was worth the price of my life to prevent it if I could. I was in Vietnam at the end of our direct military involvement, and returned to civilian life a few months after the fall of Saigon.
In the years since I've spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what really happened there. The more I learn the less I like what I see. This article pretty well sums it up. The Left got control of the narrative and things went to hell after that. There has been a lot of fallout since then (despite the statements of John Kerry), and just when I think it's finally over, there's more. America defaults on it's solemn promises and a people die. Not just a few people, but a people. We Americans have become a people without honor.
And here's the strange thing. The very Left that left the Hmong twisting in the wind (then closed their eyes to it, denied that it ever happened and shunted it down the memory hole) now wants to do the same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And in once again betraying America's solemn commitments declare that America will win renown and respect for it! I can see it now: America the Faithless Friend, the Betrayer of Oaths, the Traducer of Allies, America the Craven, celebrated throughout the world for her statesmanship and sagacity. America undergoing the Global Test! America acquiescing in every kind of wickedness and fellating every two bit tinpot tyrant in hopes of winning an approving smile and a Nobel Peace Prize!
Inconstant "friends" are never to be trusted. Alas, my country is one such.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Curiosity
I have, since forever, it seems, noticed how much time I waste, but not as I'm wasting it. I've been aware that occasionally I get wrapped up in my addictive cycles which just burn time like crazy (fascination, avoidance rituals, indulgence, despair). Yet I periodically become aware that I have done nothing towards either achieving my goals or even decent daily maintenance, and am surprised, and doubly surprised as I know I have not taken a whirl on my baby-blue merry-go-round. Does this mean I've got a new addiction I haven't noticed before? If so, what is it?
A post by Gil Bailie at Reflections on Faith and Culture kind of woke me up. When I was in the CRICs, when custody of the eyes was discussed, I always interpreted that as "don't be watching the gorgeous cuties with your tongue hanging out." Withdraw tongue, close mouth, look elsewhere, think about bicycle chains or pine trees or sandstone or a text of Scripture or ANYTHING else. Eventually it got better, but the underlying tendency to be involuntarily captured at unexpected and awkward moments by the sudden and piercing awareness of feminine pulchritude has never really gone away, though it is thankfully much less frequent now and more easily dealt with (a topic for another day).
The root of sin, I have often said, is lodged in the wounds of the human heart, and all human hearts are wounded, forced as we all are to live in an imperfect world. I have found that as my heart is healed, not only does my propensity to sin decrease (or at least the kinds of sins that were the despair of my youth), but I find deeper wounds and a correspondingly deeper sin. All sin, is I think, an ineffective anesthetic, it promises to cure the pain, but in the end it only makes it worse.
So, what is going on here, why, and what to do about it?
I offer these few notes to help keep me honest and draw me back into the question when I'd rather be haring off after some other distraction.
A post by Gil Bailie at Reflections on Faith and Culture kind of woke me up. When I was in the CRICs, when custody of the eyes was discussed, I always interpreted that as "don't be watching the gorgeous cuties with your tongue hanging out." Withdraw tongue, close mouth, look elsewhere, think about bicycle chains or pine trees or sandstone or a text of Scripture or ANYTHING else. Eventually it got better, but the underlying tendency to be involuntarily captured at unexpected and awkward moments by the sudden and piercing awareness of feminine pulchritude has never really gone away, though it is thankfully much less frequent now and more easily dealt with (a topic for another day).
The root of sin, I have often said, is lodged in the wounds of the human heart, and all human hearts are wounded, forced as we all are to live in an imperfect world. I have found that as my heart is healed, not only does my propensity to sin decrease (or at least the kinds of sins that were the despair of my youth), but I find deeper wounds and a correspondingly deeper sin. All sin, is I think, an ineffective anesthetic, it promises to cure the pain, but in the end it only makes it worse.
So, what is going on here, why, and what to do about it?
I offer these few notes to help keep me honest and draw me back into the question when I'd rather be haring off after some other distraction.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Cargo Cult
The more I look at it, the more the secular left appears to be a whopping
great cargo cult, hoping to achieve "humanity" without in the slightest
understanding what it means to be human.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Victims
We in the West idealize the victim. We see others as victims, and we see ourselves as victims. The victim status confers status. So very naturally we seek that status, and to the extent that we identify with it we draw our self esteem from it. We look around for a victim niche to give us legitimacy, value, worth. We post-Christians, have embraced the Tree, but have repudiated He who hung upon it, we cling to the symbol, make of it an idol and spurn the salvation He wrought upon it.
No wonder our enemies despise us! We have embraced weakness and cast off strength, and called ourselves noble for having done so. We have done so because we seek to be compassionate. We feign compassion, which, bereft of relationship, vulnerability and love. To us, wrapped in our self congratulatory bacchanal, the other is no more than a prop on our stage, to be cast away when we tire of the act. "Give me that adulation the unconditional moral authority demands!" "Oh, you poor thing, you, let me stroke my ego by pandering to your victimhood."
The World seeks balance, and has raised up for us a mirror image. Having exalted ourselves by a sham weakness, there is raised up against us those who will, if we permit it, we hollow men, dstroy us with the invincible vision of their strength. We are too stupid to see them for what they are, but pander to them and debase their equally unhinged humanity by labeling them with the highest accolade we know. "You are a victim of all sorts of socio economic psychological deprivation! Let us stoop to you and bestow upon you the blessings only we can give, oh you unholy sainted victims! Let us understand your quaint non-Western ways, come bask in our unconditional multicultural regard. Come titillate us and we will condescend to you."
No wonder they hate us. They do not see themselves as victims, but as victors. Fired by the dark beauty of their demonic vision they long to destroy us who have lost ours, traded away for a pat on the head. Their lives have meaning, and they live it to the full. Their lives have passion and drink it to the dregs. And we, vacuous idolaters, stand paralyzed and agape, uncomprehending as they first utter then carry out their murderous threats. If this is indeed all we have become, we deserve the fate that will overwhelm us. And the world will be engulfed in a darkness fit to extinguish even Bethlehem.
No wonder our enemies despise us! We have embraced weakness and cast off strength, and called ourselves noble for having done so. We have done so because we seek to be compassionate. We feign compassion, which, bereft of relationship, vulnerability and love. To us, wrapped in our self congratulatory bacchanal, the other is no more than a prop on our stage, to be cast away when we tire of the act. "Give me that adulation the unconditional moral authority demands!" "Oh, you poor thing, you, let me stroke my ego by pandering to your victimhood."
The World seeks balance, and has raised up for us a mirror image. Having exalted ourselves by a sham weakness, there is raised up against us those who will, if we permit it, we hollow men, dstroy us with the invincible vision of their strength. We are too stupid to see them for what they are, but pander to them and debase their equally unhinged humanity by labeling them with the highest accolade we know. "You are a victim of all sorts of socio economic psychological deprivation! Let us stoop to you and bestow upon you the blessings only we can give, oh you unholy sainted victims! Let us understand your quaint non-Western ways, come bask in our unconditional multicultural regard. Come titillate us and we will condescend to you."
No wonder they hate us. They do not see themselves as victims, but as victors. Fired by the dark beauty of their demonic vision they long to destroy us who have lost ours, traded away for a pat on the head. Their lives have meaning, and they live it to the full. Their lives have passion and drink it to the dregs. And we, vacuous idolaters, stand paralyzed and agape, uncomprehending as they first utter then carry out their murderous threats. If this is indeed all we have become, we deserve the fate that will overwhelm us. And the world will be engulfed in a darkness fit to extinguish even Bethlehem.
Friday, June 16, 2006
On Both Sides of the Gate
Last night I was teaching the Parenting Class and the subject for the lesson was "Gangs." As I listened to the remarks of various people, many of whom had had close encounters with gangs, the parallels between gang activities and the modus operandi of terrorists struck me quite forcefully. Typically, gang members recruit through intimidation, 'forcing' a prospective recruit in joining by threatening him or his family with violence. Once in, of course, the gang pretty much devotes itself to creating havoc in the community it claims as its 'turf', starting with the gang members' own families. Naturally this kind of intimidation also keeps the neighborhood quiet as well, "Say anything and we'll get you."
Interestingly these are the same tactics that the 'insurgents' have been using in Iraq. They enter a community, kill a few people, kidnap a few more, and basically take the place over by reducing the locals to fearful, quiescent, compliant cooperators. This is what they are doing in the Sudan, this is what they did in Afghanistan. But it is not simply a question of "these" particular bad guys we don't like doing it to these other folks here or there. This is a pattern of how evil works in the world. This is what the Vietcong did in Vietnam. This is what the Gestapo did in Germany. This is what the Bolsheviks did in Russia. This is how evil cows people the world over. This is how civilization is stripped away and life becomes not worth living.
The Belmont Club has made the point that the so-called War on Terror is actually not a war on a method, nor is it a war against a revived Islamic Fascism, but a war against all those forms of criminal gangsterism that seek to create chaos in order that they might profit from them. This is an anti-civilizational movement that has always been with us. At the moment the focus on those criminal elements which hide behind the veneer of Islamic fundamentalism and are focused on the destruction of the United States. There are others, and although the US is certainly a popular target, it is not the only one.
The fact is that the forces that seek to destroy civilization are not just the ones we met in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 9/11. Those same forces are alive and well in the midst of us, although their goals are not so grandiose, nor are their resources so vast. Consider the 18th Street Gang, which has become the largest gang in the country last I heard. They are engaged in drug trafficking, arms smuggling, murder, kidnapping, extortion, prostitution, etc. with links to the Mexican Mafia and other organized crime syndicates. They are alive and well and thriving in our midst. They are not alone. The toll from the activities of these terrorists (make no mistake about it!) within our own society in terms of money, lives and human suffering far exceeds that spilt in Iraq, yet not a voice is raised in complaint. It is positively surreal.
I've seen a lot of people yelling about the injustice of the United States being the world's policeman. Two points to make about this: 1. Policeman, police thyself; 2. before you dismiss the policeman from his beat, consider what the alternative is.
Interestingly these are the same tactics that the 'insurgents' have been using in Iraq. They enter a community, kill a few people, kidnap a few more, and basically take the place over by reducing the locals to fearful, quiescent, compliant cooperators. This is what they are doing in the Sudan, this is what they did in Afghanistan. But it is not simply a question of "these" particular bad guys we don't like doing it to these other folks here or there. This is a pattern of how evil works in the world. This is what the Vietcong did in Vietnam. This is what the Gestapo did in Germany. This is what the Bolsheviks did in Russia. This is how evil cows people the world over. This is how civilization is stripped away and life becomes not worth living.
The Belmont Club has made the point that the so-called War on Terror is actually not a war on a method, nor is it a war against a revived Islamic Fascism, but a war against all those forms of criminal gangsterism that seek to create chaos in order that they might profit from them. This is an anti-civilizational movement that has always been with us. At the moment the focus on those criminal elements which hide behind the veneer of Islamic fundamentalism and are focused on the destruction of the United States. There are others, and although the US is certainly a popular target, it is not the only one.
The fact is that the forces that seek to destroy civilization are not just the ones we met in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 9/11. Those same forces are alive and well in the midst of us, although their goals are not so grandiose, nor are their resources so vast. Consider the 18th Street Gang, which has become the largest gang in the country last I heard. They are engaged in drug trafficking, arms smuggling, murder, kidnapping, extortion, prostitution, etc. with links to the Mexican Mafia and other organized crime syndicates. They are alive and well and thriving in our midst. They are not alone. The toll from the activities of these terrorists (make no mistake about it!) within our own society in terms of money, lives and human suffering far exceeds that spilt in Iraq, yet not a voice is raised in complaint. It is positively surreal.
I've seen a lot of people yelling about the injustice of the United States being the world's policeman. Two points to make about this: 1. Policeman, police thyself; 2. before you dismiss the policeman from his beat, consider what the alternative is.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
On the Toons Madness
Much has been made of the recent reaction to the Danish cartoons in the Muslim world, almost as much as was made of the Danish cartoons in the Muslim world. The reaction to the cartoons is, of course, insane. First, because the issue lay dormant for four months until certain imams went on tour to promote the issue. Secondly because images of the prophet have circulated at various times and places since time immemorial without raising this kind of stink. Did the Muslim world riot when historical books in the west depicted the prophet? Did the Muslim world come unglued when an image of Mohammed was put on the U. S. Supreme Court building? Did the Muslim world spontaneously combust when images Mohammed were printed in Time magazine? Not that anybody noticed. Of course, at those times there don't seem to have had government sponsored organizers egging the mobs on. And of course, the mobs are happy to go nuts on command, beats watching the flies buzz around, I guess.
Note to self on a business opportunity: manufacture, import and sell the national flags of Western countries anywhere with a Muslim majority. Just for laughs, soak one in every 72 with fire retardants.
Why now? Why the four month long Silence of the Imams? It seems to me, to promote the agenda of the Islamists. It has been said by many that what Islam needs now is a good, old fashioned Reformation. Others have suggested that they had one, and that Wahabiist Islamism are the results. As a Johnny come lately, Islamism needs to demonstrate it's power and dominance in the Muslim religious world. What better way than by defining themselves as the most righteous of all believers? And who wants to lose that righteousness contest? Of course it is also possible that those other purveyors of Islamic righteousness are using this as cover to distract the West from the development of nuclear arms.
As all this gets commented on there is a curious division of opinion developing. On the one hand are those who say, "Will you look at that! Those folks are nuts, and they are even more nuts if they think that they are going to tell us what we can and cannot say and publish!" On the other are those who say, "Well, we know that this stuff upsets them, so we ought not to do that. We know they are nuts so we have to be sensitive."
Among those leading the "Sensitivists" is Hugh Hewitt, who asks a very interesting question in his blog (http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2006/02/05-week/index.php#a001261): "Are we at war with Islam? Do you want a war with Islam?" I agree with him that the sane answer is, and ought to be "No, and No." Unfortunately this tends to lead to a kind of self censorship imposed not by a genuine adherence to our own principles, but a pandering to the overwrought hypersensitivities of those who exploit their capacity for infantile histrionics to accomplish just exactly that end. War is a terrible thing, I know, I've been to war. Worse than war is to have succumbed to the dictates of foreigners without having done battle for one's own interests and one's own integrity.
But the question is ill posed. In 1941 America did not want the US to go to war with Japan. But that is just exactly what happened. Since most folks didn't want war with Japan (Hugh does not allow mention of the struggle with the Teutonic side of that affair, so I will omit it for his sake), why then did that war come about?
It came about because certain ideologies took hold in Japan (and in that other place) which were inimical to the United States and the Western Democracies. People espousing those ideologies rose to positions of such prominence and power and so as to dominated the culture at the time that they hijacked entire nations, reshaping them to mirror those ideologies. Those ideologies, Militarism in Japan (some other ism in Northern Europe at that time), rose up on the strength of their representative nations to pose a mortal threat to the United States and the world. American reluctance to confront those ideologies was laid aside and we defeated those nations, put an end to the ideologies and then helped those nations restore their own native national identities in peace.
I suggest to you, gentle reader, that Islamism, a pernicious totalitarian ideology, is attempting to capture the religion of Islam. I do not think it has entirely succeeded as yet, may yet fail to do so, or it may succeed. The Islamists have brought war to us, and would have both Islam and us believe that they are the true face of Islam. That is why they must be faced and fought, or they surely will be the face, the voice and the bloody hand of Islam. I do not for a moment believe that we can influence that struggle within Islam (weak and dislocated as it may be) by pandering to Islam as a whole or to the Islamists in particular. Doing so will no more achieve peace in our time than Chamberlain did at Mun . . a certain city in Europe.
Antagonizing the Muslim peoples of the world will surely not help either. The Danish cartoons were not antagonistic, but were seized upon by Islamists and used as propaganda. The West is very vulnerable to this kind of thing as so much of our open societies can be used as agitprop. If we censor ourselves, imposing a virtual sharia on ourselves out of fear of causing offense, we are self betrayed, self defeated.
We must hold to our own values with integrity and courage. If wicked men hate us for them, well, that is their affair. If they will not grant us the same tolerance we not only grant them, but which they demand that we grant them, so be it. If it they choose war and start it, they will have it, rue it, and die for it.
We'd rather not have war. We've done it before. We'll do it again if we have to.
Note to self on a business opportunity: manufacture, import and sell the national flags of Western countries anywhere with a Muslim majority. Just for laughs, soak one in every 72 with fire retardants.
Why now? Why the four month long Silence of the Imams? It seems to me, to promote the agenda of the Islamists. It has been said by many that what Islam needs now is a good, old fashioned Reformation. Others have suggested that they had one, and that Wahabiist Islamism are the results. As a Johnny come lately, Islamism needs to demonstrate it's power and dominance in the Muslim religious world. What better way than by defining themselves as the most righteous of all believers? And who wants to lose that righteousness contest? Of course it is also possible that those other purveyors of Islamic righteousness are using this as cover to distract the West from the development of nuclear arms.
As all this gets commented on there is a curious division of opinion developing. On the one hand are those who say, "Will you look at that! Those folks are nuts, and they are even more nuts if they think that they are going to tell us what we can and cannot say and publish!" On the other are those who say, "Well, we know that this stuff upsets them, so we ought not to do that. We know they are nuts so we have to be sensitive."
Among those leading the "Sensitivists" is Hugh Hewitt, who asks a very interesting question in his blog (http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2006/02/05-week/index.php#a001261): "Are we at war with Islam? Do you want a war with Islam?" I agree with him that the sane answer is, and ought to be "No, and No." Unfortunately this tends to lead to a kind of self censorship imposed not by a genuine adherence to our own principles, but a pandering to the overwrought hypersensitivities of those who exploit their capacity for infantile histrionics to accomplish just exactly that end. War is a terrible thing, I know, I've been to war. Worse than war is to have succumbed to the dictates of foreigners without having done battle for one's own interests and one's own integrity.
But the question is ill posed. In 1941 America did not want the US to go to war with Japan. But that is just exactly what happened. Since most folks didn't want war with Japan (Hugh does not allow mention of the struggle with the Teutonic side of that affair, so I will omit it for his sake), why then did that war come about?
It came about because certain ideologies took hold in Japan (and in that other place) which were inimical to the United States and the Western Democracies. People espousing those ideologies rose to positions of such prominence and power and so as to dominated the culture at the time that they hijacked entire nations, reshaping them to mirror those ideologies. Those ideologies, Militarism in Japan (some other ism in Northern Europe at that time), rose up on the strength of their representative nations to pose a mortal threat to the United States and the world. American reluctance to confront those ideologies was laid aside and we defeated those nations, put an end to the ideologies and then helped those nations restore their own native national identities in peace.
I suggest to you, gentle reader, that Islamism, a pernicious totalitarian ideology, is attempting to capture the religion of Islam. I do not think it has entirely succeeded as yet, may yet fail to do so, or it may succeed. The Islamists have brought war to us, and would have both Islam and us believe that they are the true face of Islam. That is why they must be faced and fought, or they surely will be the face, the voice and the bloody hand of Islam. I do not for a moment believe that we can influence that struggle within Islam (weak and dislocated as it may be) by pandering to Islam as a whole or to the Islamists in particular. Doing so will no more achieve peace in our time than Chamberlain did at Mun . . a certain city in Europe.
Antagonizing the Muslim peoples of the world will surely not help either. The Danish cartoons were not antagonistic, but were seized upon by Islamists and used as propaganda. The West is very vulnerable to this kind of thing as so much of our open societies can be used as agitprop. If we censor ourselves, imposing a virtual sharia on ourselves out of fear of causing offense, we are self betrayed, self defeated.
We must hold to our own values with integrity and courage. If wicked men hate us for them, well, that is their affair. If they will not grant us the same tolerance we not only grant them, but which they demand that we grant them, so be it. If it they choose war and start it, they will have it, rue it, and die for it.
We'd rather not have war. We've done it before. We'll do it again if we have to.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Peace With Honor
Clearly the best of all possible worlds is for the United States to be at peace with the people of Iraq and of the world. It is in the vital national interest of both countries and the civilized world that peace come through victory, the victory of the United States and our allies over the forces of lawlessness and Fascism. The now fashionable and all too common tactic of using any and every possible pretext that can conceivably be construed or mis-construed to damage Mr. Bush and the Republican Party regardless of the damage it does the welfare of the United States and its allies must be strongly condemned. This is pure agitprop straight out of Comintern's old play books. That is has succeeded in undermining the United States in the past, due in large part to the unflagging efforts of the Fourth Estate, is no credit to either the purveyors of politicized disinformation nor of those who slavishly pander to their misguided and malicious political sleight of hand. A policy of defeat has in this manner been perpetrated on the American people once before, with disastrous results for all concerned. Those who propound such non-solutions to difficult but not intractable problems do not deserve the public trust and ought to recuse themselves from the semblance of public service.
The American people do not deserve to be led by short-sighted and cowardly opportunists. The American fighting man does not deserve to be once again grist for the mills of petty political advantage. The friends and allies of the United States do not deserve to be once again betrayed to suffering, persecution and death to serve the politcal aims of the far Left who see their greatest gain in America's greatest loss. This war was brought to us on September 11, 2001. During its course to date American diplomacy and American arms have achieved notable victories which will be studied with gratitude by generations to come. The fact the ultimate victory, nor the set path to ultimate victory, can be seen with clear and concise certainty does not by any means indicate that such a victory will ultimately elude our grasp. The fact that there have been and will continue to be errors, misjudgements, underestimations and mishandlings does not mean that we are inextricably sunk in a military and moral morass, still less does it detract from what we have so far accomplished and will accomplish.
Those who choose surrender, those who claim defeat, those who would lead Americans by half truths, bald-faced lies and pure fantasy fiction into a shallow and illusory safety must be named what they are: blind incompetents, shameful cowards and out-and-out traitors. Failure of courage, failure of nerve, failure of vision, failure plain and simple, is still unacceptable failure, no matter how gaudily it is gilded and loudly lauded with the accolades of "peace with honor." The only peace with honor worthy of the American people is the total, utter and abject defeat of our enemies, never of ourselves.
The American people do not deserve to be led by short-sighted and cowardly opportunists. The American fighting man does not deserve to be once again grist for the mills of petty political advantage. The friends and allies of the United States do not deserve to be once again betrayed to suffering, persecution and death to serve the politcal aims of the far Left who see their greatest gain in America's greatest loss. This war was brought to us on September 11, 2001. During its course to date American diplomacy and American arms have achieved notable victories which will be studied with gratitude by generations to come. The fact the ultimate victory, nor the set path to ultimate victory, can be seen with clear and concise certainty does not by any means indicate that such a victory will ultimately elude our grasp. The fact that there have been and will continue to be errors, misjudgements, underestimations and mishandlings does not mean that we are inextricably sunk in a military and moral morass, still less does it detract from what we have so far accomplished and will accomplish.
Those who choose surrender, those who claim defeat, those who would lead Americans by half truths, bald-faced lies and pure fantasy fiction into a shallow and illusory safety must be named what they are: blind incompetents, shameful cowards and out-and-out traitors. Failure of courage, failure of nerve, failure of vision, failure plain and simple, is still unacceptable failure, no matter how gaudily it is gilded and loudly lauded with the accolades of "peace with honor." The only peace with honor worthy of the American people is the total, utter and abject defeat of our enemies, never of ourselves.
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