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| The Xenophile Historian |
THE HOLY BOOK OF UNIVERSAL TRUTHS,
K. U. P.
(Kimball's Unauthorized Perversion)
Despite all that I said in my other essays about Islamism/Islamofascism in general and Saudi Arabia in particular, there is one greater enemy in the War on Terror. It is our own liberals, or as Michael Savage calls them, "The Enemy Within." These folks have such a pathological hatred of George W. Bush that they would rather see us quit the War on Terror, or even lose, than let a Republican administration win it. I wouldn't be surprised if an organization like Moveon.org or Democratic Underground has a modern-day version of the "Two Minutes Hate" sessions that George Orwell described in 1984, with Bush as the new Emmanuel Goldstein.
The reason why I call liberals the real enemy is because Islamofascists cannot defeat us by themselves. They don't have the technology, they don't have the resources (except for oil), and they don't have the advantage of numbers (Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman recently said the current campaign in Iraq pitted 27 million Iraqis against approximately ten thousand terrorists). Since they don't look like our movie stars, they don't have much appeal in the West, either, except among Moslems. In fact, some of their leaders (e.g., Muqtada al-Sadr) are downright butt-ugly. Have you seen an American college student sporting an Osama bin Laden T-shirt? The last time I checked, they still preferred to wear Che Guevara. Nor can Islamofascism become popular here, because it is anti-"choice," anti-gay, sexist, and based on a religion that pre-dates Karl Marx.
But we can lose if opponents of the war wear us down to the point that we no longer think winning is worth it. They did that once before, in the defining conflict for every liberal over the age of 40--Vietnam. It has been said that while American soldiers won every battle in Indochina, they lost the war in America. I don't think we could have won that war, in view of the unfamiliar circumstances and the purely defensive strategy that our leaders followed, but by constantly reminding us of the casualties, and never saying anything positive about what we were doing there, the Western media made sure we would lose it.
I used to give the benefit of the doubt to liberals who were against the war, believing they were merely clueless. They acted like they were unaware of the atrocities committed by the other side. If they knew about the Taliban's oppression of women or the mass killings in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, they didn't care. What's more, they seemed to know nothing about military history, desiring a war that was brief, "politically correct" and as bloodless as possible (see The Liberal Rules of War).
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor--he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation--he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city--he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared."
Nowadays it seems that most of our enemies belong to one or the other of two deranged loser death cults, Islamofascism and liberalism. One has members willing to blow themselves up if they can take us with them; the other is determined to abort, sterilize and sodomize itself out of existence.
I can hear you saying at this point that in a free country people have a right to dissent; some of you may even accuse me of McCarthyism. Well, there is a loyal opposition, and a disloyal opposition. A loyal opposition dissents, but it also puts the country first, ahead of its own quest for power. It will support a war effort once the conflict has begun, the way Republicans did after Pearl Harbor. If they disagree with the current strategy for winning the war, they will offer an alternative one, like saying we should have dealt with North Korea before going into Iraq. Examples of loyal opposition in the current war are Senator Lieberman, former Georgia Senator Zell Miller, and former New York Mayor Ed Koch. Most of the war opponents, however, offer only one strategy--cut and run. We tried that in Vietnam; the result was a period of self-doubting "malaise" in America that lasted for the rest of the 1970s, and even worse things for the Cambodian and Vietnamese people.
Some war opponents will try to have it both ways, by saying, "I support the troops but I don't support the mission." That's an indefensible position, and I never believed it myself. If you are really for the well-being of the troops, then the best way to guarantee it is to let them complete their mission. Leaving a country only partially pacified is likely to create a nasty situation that will force the troops to go back in a few years, thereby putting them in harm's way again. In fact, it has happened in Iraq already; we should have continued up the road to Baghdad and taken out Saddam Hussein in 1991, after liberating Kuwait. Instead, George Bush the Elder listened to talk from the United Nations and the US State Department about keeping the status quo, Saddam recovered and viciously went after those Iraqis who had risen up in revolt, and it became neccessary for our troops to return to Iraq and finish the job in 2003.
To use a sports analogy, let's say you lived in Chicago, and during football season you said, "I support the Chicago Bears but I don't support the game." And then you went and did whatever you could to keep "da Bears" from winning. Wouldn't most observers comclude you were really rooting for the other team? Those who don't support the troops are more consistent, like the anti-war demonstrators who carried a sign at Berkeley reading "We support the troops when they shoot their officers," or the zombies at Democratic Underground who cheer every time a news story reports that Americans were killed overseas. Perhaps a more accurate slogan for the antiwar crowd would be, "I don't support the terrorists but I support their mission."
The purpose of this piece is not to question the patriotism of characters like George Soros, Ted Rall, Michael "Harkonnen" Moore, Noam Chomsky, Cindy Sheehan, or groups like Moveon.org and Code Pink. Most of them never had any patriotism to start with, so they're too easy a target. Nor am I going to question the patriotism of the news media, for similar reasons. Some of them (i.e, CNN reporters) don't even see themselves as citizens of the country they live in. And I'm not going to challenge the silly remarks made by famous actors, musicians, athletes, etc. There are already several bloggers pointing out the errors made by entertainers who think they have perfect minds to match their perfect bodies. I'm here to question the patriotism of those in positions of power who are undermining the war effort; you can bet your last dollar they would not do it if a Democrat was in the White House. Most of the Republicans in office are too timid to question the patriotism of Democrat politicians, so the job is left to outsiders like myself. Here are the worst offenders:
1. Senator John Kerry. Woody Allen once said that attendance is 80 percent of the job. If you accept that line of thinking, you have to wonder why Massachusetts voters keep electing John Kerry, who seldom shows up for meetings of the Senate. When US troops went into Iraq, Kerry slipped back into his old habits; in the early 1970s he accused American soldiers of committing atrocities against civilians in Vietnam. The fact that he was never indicted for the crimes he claims to have participated in shows that nobody believes he really did them. Now he is claiming that American troops are breaking into houses in the dead of night, terrorizing Iraqi citizens and violating their customs. I don't believe they are doing such a thing, but if they are, they have one good reason--somebody told them there are terrorists in those houses! This won't be the first time that guerrillas/terrorists hid behind civilians; Palestinian terrorists do it all the time, and Kerry ought to remember the Viet Cong doing it. This, and his tendency to routinely put his foot in his mouth, make me thankful that Kerry didn't win the 2004 presidential election.
2. Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean. I hardly know where to begin with Dean. For a few months in 2003 and early 2004, Dean became the frontrunner among Democratic candidates for president by being the angriest, the most liberal, and the most anti-war of them all--until he scared away most of his potential support with a primal scream. But because he was such a good voice for the moonbat wing of the Democratic Party, he returned to become its chairman in 2005; his presence shows that the extremists are no longer afraid to say in public what they used to say when only Democrats were listening.
For conservatives Dean is the gift that keeps on giving; every time he opens his mouth, something stupid comes out. We've heard him say that:
You'd think a former doctor would be more careful about putting his foot in his mouth. With enemies like these, who needs friends?
3. Senator Dick "Turban" Durbin. Whereas the others got on this list by making several asinine remarks, Durbin got here by making only one, when he compared our guards at Guantanamo Bay to the Nazis, the guards of the Soviet Gulag, and the Khmer Rouge. Well, I saw the menu for the "Club Gitmo" prisoners, and on days when my wife doesn't cook, they eat better than I do! And because nobody has died there yet, except for three prisoners that committed suicide, we're doing a bad job of keeping up with the totalitarians. We're not even trying to convert captured enemies to Christianity, so I guess we're poor Crusaders, too. All things considered, Cuba must seem like a tropical paradise compared to Afghanistan, even when viewed from a prison. I suspect Durbin is suffering from a vitamin D deficiency; he spent four years standing in the shadow of another Illinois senator, Barack Obama.
4. Former Vice President Al Gore, Jr. Every time Gore is in the news, he makes me glad he never became president. If he had, he would have been the first mad president. Have you seen how he has acted since 2000? The screaming and the arm-waving told me that he is no longer sane. All that's missing is the drool.
Al Gore is here because in February 2006 he went to an economic conference in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia and trashed his country, claiming that since September 11 the US government had committed "terrible abuses" against Arabs. To a mostly Arab audience, he declared that Arabs in the United States had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable." Then he denounced how the government gives special attention to visas carried by Arabs, and warned that these actions would "cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States." Finally he topped it off by saying, "I do want you to know that it does not represent the desires or wishes or feelings of the majority of citizens of my country."
You don't speak for me, Al, and because I live in a so-called "red state," you don't speak for a lot of people I know. Not only is everything you said absurd, but the Saudis can't be trusted, for reasons I mentioned in another essay, and you're playing into the enemy's hands by going to a conference partially funded by the Bin Laden family. Consider this analogy: what if in 1943 or 1944, a prominent Republican like Wendell Wilkie traveled to a country that was neutral or pro-Axis in its sympathies, like Francisco Franco's Spain, to speak out against America's involvement in World War II? Wouldn't FDR consider that an act of treason? Al, you'd better get your insanity defense ready; someday you may need it.
The one good thing about Al Gore's antics is that he has a terrible sense of timing. Ann Coulter pointed this out in her June 3, 2004 column: "Gore always comes out swinging just as an issue is about to go south. He's the stereotypical white guy always clapping on the wrong beat. Gore switched from being a pro-defense Democrat to a lefty peacenik - just before the 9-11 attack. He grew a beard - just in time for an attack on the nation by fundamentalist Muslims. He endorsed Howard Dean - just as the orange-capped Deaniacs were punching themselves out. Gore even went out and got really fat - just before America officially gave up carbs. This guy is always leaping into the mosh pit at the precise moment the crowd parts."
Since that column, I have also noticed that Al Gore gives a speech about global warming on the coldest day of each year, and he chooses to do it in a balmy location like upstate New York. In fact, he has done it often enough to give the phenomenon a name--the "Gore Effect." Then in May 2007 he declared himself in favor of the Fairness Doctrine, a law aimed at silencing conservative radio talk shows, less than a week after Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan strongman, showed his true colors by shutting down the most popular radio station in Caracas, because it criticized his rule. Therefore I'll take Gore's Saudi Arabian speech as a sign that the anti-war movement has passed its peak. At any rate, it should eliminate whatever chance he has of making a political comeback. If he runs for president again, expect one of his Democratic opponents to show part of the speech in an anti-Gore commercial, and if he gets the nomination, expect the Republicans to do likewise.
(2013 update) I have just learned that Al Gore sold his cable TV network, Current TV, to Al Jazeera, the propaganda ministry of the terrorists. Not only is this more evidence that Gore does not want the United States to win the War on Terror, it reinforces what I said in another essay, about terrorists not being too bright. Al Jazeera expects this purchase will give them access to millions of new American homes, but how much influence will they really gain, by buying a network that failed because nobody watched it?
5. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Who appointed her Secretary of State? That seemed to be who she thought she was, when she flew to Syria to negotiate with Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile at home, the House of Representatives has become a do-nothing organization since she took charge; even leftists are mad at her for that. There's a reason why the Constitution doesn't assign foreign policy jobs to Congress, except for the ratification of treaties. As for the meeting, I don't think Pelosi and Assad reached any meaningful agreement. What the Syrians did get was a loud message that Americans are weak and not united behind their president, if some of them trust a dimwitted dictator more than they trust George W. Bush. We already know that Assad is responsible for much of the terrorism (and resulting deaths of US soldiers) in Iraq since 2003, and I wouldn't be surprised if someday Saddam Hussein's missing weapons turn up in Syria, too. And the fact that Pelosi met Assad with her head covered tells me that she isn't interested in helping Arab women secure the rights that she considers so important for American women.
Enough already, Madame Speaker! Or maybe I should use a "safe word" that she is sure to understand:
6. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. If anyone needs a definition of what a scoundrel is, Reid fits it perfectly. He makes money in questionable ways, talks bad and does nothing. Since replacing Tom Daschle as the Senate's leading Democrat, Reid has given us all the obstructionism of Daschle, twice the hatred, and half the intelligence. Reid's favorite tactic is name calling; so far he has called President Bush a "loser," Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas an "embarrassment," and said that UN Ambassador John Bolton is "abominable, mean, unreasonable and bizarre." It won't surprise me if he calls the next person he doesn't like a "poo-poo head."
Regarding the war, Harry Reid crossed the line between loyal and disloyal opposition in early 2007, when he declared that "the war is lost." In addition, like Pelosi, he tried to undermine the war effort through a "slow bleed" strategy, looking for a way to deny or delaying funding for the troops without appearing responsible for it. We also saw him approve without hesitation the appointment of a new general for Iraq, David Petraeus, but since then has declared him incompetent, even before Petraeus had time to show what he can do. I heard treason defined as "aiding and giving comfort to the enemy," and it certainly looks like we have a case of that here.
Altogether, I think the only reason why the Democrats picked him to lead is because he wouldn’t be up for re-election again until 2010, giving him six years to make mischief before he had to answer to the voters of Nevada. It certainly wasn't for his charm; he's a real-life version of Eeyore, the mopey donkey in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. When not bad-mouthing the Republicans or talking us into losing the war, we’ve seen him stumble from one scandal to another, like when he confessed that he is glad the Capitol has a new visitors' center because he thinks the tourists stink.
Finally, one more way to tell if the opposition is loyal or not is by whether they are invested in a US defeat. If they feel they can only get elected if the economy tanks, or if the president suffers a failure in foreign policy or a military venture--in other words, when bad news for America is good news for them--then they cannot be trusted with power. It's a terrible place for a political party to be, when it roots for its own country's failure, and it's a lousy strategy. Compare it with the Republican strategy in the mid-twentieth century. The Republicans had to wait for two decades after the Great Depression to return to the presidency, but when they finally did, the good jobs went to those who kept their mouths shut on the foreign policies of Roosevelt and Truman; isolationists like Robert Taft remained out of the game.
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