Eye on the Watcher’s Council

As you may know the members of the Watcher’s Council each nominate one of his or her own posts and one non-Council post for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here. Here’s what the Council members nominated this week.

The Glittering Eye, “Persistent North Korea”

In my submission for this week I consider the reasons why the glee at the failure of the North Korean missile tests may have been misplaced.

Dr. Sanity, “Totalitarians, Left and Right”

Pat Santy takes a post of Victor Davis Hanson’s as a stepping-off point for a post on the reasons that the Western political left is so easy on Islamicist terrorism.

When I first started reading blogs I was quite of fan of Victor Davis Hanson’s work. I continue to think frequently that his work is affecting but as I became more familiar with it I was somewhat surprised at the odd gaps in Dr. Hanson’s knowledge. The cited article of Hanson’s has that problem.

In his analysis of the reasons that American foreign policy allied itself with oppressive regimes in the Middle East Dr. Hanson focuses on anti-Communism. In my view for the last 20 years of the Cold War mercantilist realism was at least equal as a reason and bid fair ot overwhelm Realpolitikal countermoves to the Soviet Union. Republicans, I think, saw this as a happy coincidence. A two-fer.

The fecklessness of the policy is fully apparent in the revelations from the Kremlin archives since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I think there are lots of other reasons that the Western left is easy on Islamicist terrorists. I’ll contribute one. In the United States first American workers and then African Americans have been terribly disappointing to the vanguard of the proletariat. For some reason or other the oppressed wanted the same things as their bourgeois oppressors. So the self-appointed vanguard has gone off in search of better subjects.

In my view while we may not have erred in forming alliances of convenience with regimes in the Middle East, we did err in associating ourselves too closely with them. “He who sups with the devil must use a long spoon.”

Gates of Vienna, “Sister Mary Benignus Has Zarqawi now”

Dymphna posts an amusing photograph and contemplates Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s prospects in the afterlife.

Done With Mirrors, “Rant Control”

Callimachus’s submission for this week is a fine takedown of a Grinchish Fourth of July article by Mark Kurlansky complaining about the Founding Fathers. I’m very glad that Callimachus picked this post as his submission. What’s the policy on Council members nominating the posts of other Council members?

Kurlansky is a journalist, a writer. His expertise is what? Presumably, writing. He is not a historian. He is at best an editorial writer and he’s using his notoriety after having produced a couple of popular histories for a podium as a polemicist.

Rhymes With Right, “DeLay Debacle”

Greg comments on the recent court decision that the only Republican candidate whose name can appear on the fall ballot in the Texas 22nd Congressional District is Tom DeLay and analyzes the alternatives for the district.

New World Man, “New American Revolution Upon Us, Says Senator”

Matt Barr isn’t happy with a Fourth of July message from John Kerry and latches onto a pitch for energy independence as a stalking horse for embracing Democratic policy on the subject.

I’ve favored a policy which would encourage at least the potential for energy self-sufficiency for the United States for foreign policy reasons for nearly 40 years. But there is no proposal or set of proposals currently on the table which would achieve either energy self-sufficiency or energy independence for the United States in the foreseeable future to any appreciable degree. What we’ve got now is posturing instead of policy. Both parties.

I’m not as critical as Matt of Kerry’s message. I see Democrats reclaiming patriotism as a good thing. But that patriotism must be rooted in a love for the country as it is—not as it was or for what it might be—and a conviction that it’s worth fighting for.

The word “patriotism” is derived from the Latin patria, the fatherland, and I think that the best analogy for love of one’s country is, indeed, love for one’s parents. We believe that our mother is beautiful because she is our mother even if she isn’t beautiful as the world sees beauty. We love our father for what he is not for what he was or for what he might become.

Love that sees only what the presumed object of love might potentially be isn’t really directed at the object of love. It is love of self.

ShrinkWrapped, “Terror and Perversion”

ShrinkWrapped discusses the torture and atrocity videos analogizing it to perversion in sexual practice. I think there’s another similarity. These videos aren’t only recruiting tools. The effect of continually putting out this kind of garbage and glorifying its perpetrators is to normalize the behavior.

Joshuapundit, “The WAPO Prints Pro-Terrorist, Anti-Semitic Propaganda…No Joke”

Freedom Fighter does a good job of fisking the op-ed by Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas government, that appeared in the Washington Post recently. I think that printing the op-ed is a serious lapse of judgment on the part of the Post editorial staff. Giving the man a podium especially one as high as The Washington Post is yet another illustration that there’s something seriously wrong with the legitimate presses moral grounding.

Fairness does not consist of treating every viewpoint as equivalent. Fairness requires that the actual merits be placed in contrast. We don’t regard criminals and victims as equivalent.

IMO a realistic evaluation of the situation between Israel and the Palestinians requires that you ask yourself two questions. What would happen if the Palestinians stopped attacking Israel? What would happen if the Israelis stopped responding?

The Strata-Sphere, “Democrats Overboard”

AJ Strata dissects an article by Jonathan Chait from The Los Angeles Times on the fight within the Democratic Party over Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman. My own view is that ousting Lieberman will do little to enhance the Democrats’ credibility in matters of foreign policy. There must be a way other than internecine warfare to resolve issues of deviations from the party line.

A lack of ideological coherence is no new thing for the Democratic Party. More than 70 years ago Will Rogers, when asked if he were a member of an organized political party responded, “Nossir. I’m a Democrat”.

And, as me auld mither says, “Everyone’s crazy but me and thee. And I’m not too sure o’ thee.” Is there an end to a search for political orthodoxy?

The Sundries Shack, “Are Iraqi Lives Only Valuable to the Left When We Take Them?”

Jimmie Bise puts his finger on a critical problem in how we’re discussing our options with respect to Iraq: you can’t escape moral culpability by inaction. Failure to act can be just as bad as acting wrongly.

Much is being made of comparisons between Iraq and World War II, Iraq and the Cold War, Iraq and Viet Nam these days. No analogy is perfect; every analogy is flawed; each casts some light on the situation. I think that the clearest similarity between Iraq and Viet Nam is that both LBJ and GWB have attempted to wage war without engaging the American people.

But in my view there’s at least one enormous difference between Iraq and Viet Nam: in Iraq U. S. defeat or even the perception of a U. S. defeat will have significantly more serious and immediate implications.

The Education Wonks, “Woman Obeys ‘Unwanted Baby Law’, Is Arrested Anyway”

The one missing point in EdWonk’s post about how a woman who left a newborn at a hospital (as allowed by law) was arrested anyway when drugs were discovered in the infant’s system is that somebody arrested the woman. Our laws are sufficently numerous and complex that at any given time some pretext can be found to arrest practically anyone. Consequently, to effect the desired result (inducing women to leave unwanted newborns safely at a hospital rather than dumping them in the garbage), education must begin with the police.

Right Wing Nut House, “Bleeding Iraq”

Rick Moran wonders if the violence in Iraq hasn’t crossed the line into actual civil war. I honestly don’t think so but I think we need to recognize that, if the Iraqi government actually cracks down on militias, people who were fairly happy with the way things were going will be become very unhappy and there’s bound to be a reaction. This is what “staying the course” means. Things will get worse before and if they are ever to get better.

Well, I’ve decided which posts I’ll vote for. Which would get your vote?

2 comments… add one
  • Hey, I’m with you. But saying that for the second time in our nation’s history we should rise up and declare our independence… from foreign oil is idiotic on its face. How about for the second time in our history we rise up and declare independence… from eminent domain abuse? No, that severely downplays the actual American Revolution, too. May as well say we should be like Jesus and sacrifice ourselves on the cross… of a fat-free diet.

    As for “reclaiming patriotism,” I don’t know if any of the Democrats ever lost it, but really, if dissent = patriotism, how can you three paragraphs later say our leaders should make us stop denying global warming?

    The man is a train wreck.

  • Kerry has perhaps the worst case of senatitis of any living politician. Unfortunately, it has never been known to be terminal.

    I’m no Bush fan but when the Democrats nominated a man who’s been running for president since he was 16 years old (and made fun of by his classmates back then for his pompousness) I had to vote Bush.

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