Anti-Americanism

You Really Want to Remind Us of That, John Kerry?

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In an Afghanistan policy speech, [h/t Instapundit] John Kerry evokes a famous phrase from his infamous testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on April 22, 1971.

David Sanger mentioned that in 1971 I asked the Foreign Relations Committee “how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

I think it relevant to the contemporary debate to recall what else he said in that testimony:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
 

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
 
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.[emp added]

Just to be clear, the Winter Soldier “investigation” was shortly proven to be wholly fraudulent.

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Stop Obama’s Wars of Imperialist Aggression!

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I don’t typically wade into politics with my posts, but I just can’t help myself. The other day I was driving around in a town to be unnamed and stumbled upon the building you see in the picture below.

sooper seekrit warehouse

It looks like a typical warehouse that you would find in any of a million industrial parks in the United States.

But upon further investigation I found something quite different. This is the warehouse that the left uses to store it’s papier mache heads, sign making materials and other props for protest marches. Upon sniffing around it for a bit, I noticed that is was packed to the brim. It looked to me as they had contracted with a local lumberyard to supply the wood for their signage.

All humor aside, does the left not think that we haven’t noticed a certain…well…silence over Obama’s policies? It is OK for Obama to not only not decrease troop levels, but increase them as he is doing in Afghanistan? Why isn’t Gitmo closed? What the hell, even Iraq even has troops there that represent the Great Satan ™ as of now. I know because I am still sending care packages to them (unlike ANY of the protesters who claim they support the troops).

So just exactly what am I to think of the left? That these wars are OK as long as the President and Congress have a D by their names? Puhleeeze.

Resist Retreat

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“There are things to be done. Resist retreat as a matter of strategy and principle. And provide the means to continue our dominant role in the world by keeping our economic house in order.” Krauthammer

I’ve long acknowledged the powerful pull of tribalism. And time has only increased my nostalgia for those great flat plains. Still, you know, I would pause before voting for Bob Kerrey: that he couldn’t see the reflexive anti-Americanism in Obama (one I doubt he feels) is a problem. Of course, it is easy to understand Winger’s attraction and he was much younger; still watching her description of Polanski as victim made me wonder again at his judgment in the personal. And, sure, Krauthammer is more cogent. Still, Kerrey can be and has been heroic; he remains a Nebraskan and remains more right (and more honest) than most Democrats:

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9/11 Plus Eight Years

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(This is basically a rerun of my posts from this day in 2006-2008. Some new links added this year are at the bottom of the post.)

I am increasingly worried about our prospects for success in the battle against those who would destroy our civilization. America and the other democracies possess great military, economic, and intellectual strengths–but severe internal divisions threaten our ability to use these resources effectively.

Within days of the collapse of the Towers, it started. “Progressive” demonstrators brought out the stilt-walkers, the Uncle Sam constumes, and the giant puppets of George Bush. They carried signs accusing America of planning “genocide” against the people of Afghanistan.

Professors and journalists preached about the sins of Western civilization, asserting that we had brought it all on ourselves. A well-known writer wrote of her unease when her daughter chose to buy and display an American flag. Some universities banned the display of American flags in dormitories, claiming that such display was “provocative.”

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Another aspect of Teddy Kennedy’s politics

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I am immensely grateful to Iain Murray (who is well known to Chicagoboyz, I am sure) for pointing out that it was a Spartan who first coined the phrase “De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est”. Indeed, it was Chilon of Sparta and that makes me feel a good deal better about the fact that I cannot think of single good thing to say of the recently deceased Senator Kennedy.

At first I was not going to post about him though like everyone else I felt nauseated by the paeans of praise, especially those coming from the BBC. Apparently one reporter even had the bad taste to say that the Senator never recovered from Chappaquiddick. Well, no, but then neither did Mary Jo Kopechne or her family.

Over on this side of the Pond many of us recall Kennedy’s support for the IRA, both politically and financially. We have not forgotten his visits here, his rudeness to our soldiers, his interference in British and Irish politics or the help he and his family gave NORAID.

As the day progressed I realized that there might be no mention of Kennedy’s rather curious relationship with President Gorbachev, whom he visited in 1986, allegedly to promote better understanding between the two countries. It would be nearer the truth to say that he went then and at other times and sent messages in before and after to promote his own and his party’s position.

Think of it: a United States senator apparently saw nothing wrong in negotiating with his country’s enemies in order to find the best way of defeating the President and undermine Congress because the government was formed by the other party.

I have more on this over on Your Freedom and Ours. I should dearly like to know how well this is known in the United States.