When a person ties their sense of self to their government's might, it is surely a sign that they are trying to cover up their own inner emptiness. How horrible it is for such a person to face the fact that, however mighty their nation may be at one time, it's day in the sun will pass, and some other nation will rise to dominance! The result can be a mental breakdown – for a gruesome example of the process, let's look at this recent post by the once mighty Achilles of the armchair, Victor Davis Hanson. I'll quote Hanson in italics below, interspersed with my commentary in plain type.
Much of the debate over Iraq is framed over “perceptions” of power. That is, if we fail, others will immediately capitalize on the newfound sense that the United States is weakened and a window of opportunity has opened up. Lose in Iraq, the conventional wisdom goes, then Iran will accelerate its nuclear acquisition,
Because you need nuclear weapons a lot more when there isn't a huge, hostile army right next door than you do when there is!
Syria and Iran will be even more emboldened, Latin America will go even harder left,
Yes, voters in Latin America certainly have been waiting to vote for the left-wing parties they really want in power until they see if the US withdraws from Iraq.
China will carve out a wider swath
What "swaths" has China been carving out lately? Hanson must be referring to how, just recently, the country invaded Tibet. Almost six decades ago. And that's it. What a swath!
But, in fact, I fear it could be worse than that the perception of impotence that galvanizes enemies. If we lost in Iraq
That happened a while back, VDH. Like the day that nitwits such as you recommended invading.
and fled
What are you supposed to do when you lose, stick around and get pounded?
it would not be the perception at all, but the reality of power that would be gone, in the sense the United States would never in our lifetime intervene successfully again on the ground abroad-convinced it would inevitably lose.
Do you mean we're going to have to pass up on the endless series of Iraq-like debacles your dim-witted warmongering promises us? Drat!
I think we are also close to seeing the permanent end of any Anglo-American military collaboration. And there would be legitimate questions raised also whether the U.S. military could win any future war – given the knowledge that, barring some instantaneous victory, the American public would not allow it the time or the latitude to destroy its enemies.
But who was it that promised the American public "instantaneous victory"? Who guaranteed "that U.S. Marines will find more deadly weapons in the first hours of war than the U.N. did in three months"? Who promised we would see, in Iraq, "reconstruction instead of destruction"? Who was telling us, in April 2003, that the hard part was over and Iraq would be all smooth ice from there forward?
It was you, Professor Hanson. And now you are hoist on your own petard.
Instead, the blueprint for any further American involvement is the current investigations of Marines in Haditha, the hysteria over an Abu Ghrai…
All of you liberal sissies get so hysterical when our military engages in brutal murder and torture!
flushed Korans, Bible-quoting generals, and all the other media headline stories that drowned out what we were doing in Iraq.
Weren't those things "we were doing in Iraq"? So Hanson is saying that Americans let what Americans were doing in Iraq drown out what Americans were doing in Iraq. If only he can figure out how to drown himself out!
When Mr. Bush contemplates what to do about Iran, he knows – and he knows Iran knows – that we are on the verge right now of a tired American public
What does this mean, "we are on the verge right now of a tired American public" – we are driving on the grassy shoulder of the road that is the American public? How can one be "on the verge" of a public?
that winces at the very thought of the media storm, political fury, and wild partisan charges that would accompany any more military reactions.
"Military reactions"? I hear a brain blowing fuses left and right.
But the next step would be the complete loss of public confidence, in the fashion of the French,
And the French are just so good at fashion!
that we even could win a war if we had to.
Because, after all, the war in Iraq was completely pointless, so there was no reason we had to win that one.
And then watch out. Great powers, like the largest animals, have a small central nervous system…
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
that directs their enormous limbs and sinews. And when it goes – call it public confidence in one’s civilization
So a country's "central nervous system" is "public confidence"? A nation's foreign policy is directed by public confidence? Sure, a foreign policy might rely on public confidence, but how can confidence direct anything?
– then armies tremor, enervate, and, Europe-like, wither away.
Who knew that Europe had withered away? Last time I was there, it still looked fairly substantial. But it's pretty obvious that somebody's marbles are "withering away." And no wonder. Hanson recommended a course of conduct that resulted in a terrible disaster and has ended the US hegemony that has been like a lover to him. Do the names "Alcibiades" and "Sicilian expedition" ring any bells, Professor Hanson?
November 18, 2006
