Victor Davis Hanson in Front Page Magazine
Excellent interview of Victor Davis Hanson in the current issue of
Front Page Magazine.
A few choice paragraphs regarding Spain:
bq. As for Spain-and I say this with real remorse given their suffering and national catastrophe-not since Theodosius and the late Romans paid their annual bribe money to Attila have we seen such success in bullying and terrifying a Western nation. It is right off the pages of Gibbon in his discussion of how weak, wealthy, and fearful Westerners paid Goths and Huns before Adrianople and Chalons. And this is the beginning not the end of it, as we shall soon see.
His reaction to the Spanish Socialists removal of troops from Iraq:
bq. I can understand a shocked public acting on emotion rather than reason. But to channel that grief so immediately toward a political end, and have the Socialists almost immediately employ invective against the United States, promising to take the troops out by June and rethink relations with the United States. It is an al Qaeda fantasy come true.
A 'suggestion' on a message to send to Europe:
bq. Perhaps a very quiet, very professional downsizing of all our troops from the Mediterranean would send a powerful message to our allies that our alliance is based on friendship and mutual sacrifice, and does not rest in perpetuity, but only as long as there is a group effort to combat a common threat. Those circumstances simply no longer exist.
And finally, a wonderful take-down of the left:
bq.
Front Page: Kerry’s behavior, of course, is part of a long leftist tradition of siding with our totalitarian enemies. Tell us a bit about why the Left is now so excited with siding with the bin Ladens and Husseins of this world. As always, it admires the tyrants that extinguish all supposed sacred leftist values themselves. Give us an insight into the psychology here.
bq.
Hanson: It's not so much that they prefer such monsters per se -- after all, Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore are not dying to move to Haiti, Syria, or the West Bank.
bq. Rather they start with the premise that what America does is probably wrong, and therefore its enemies de facto can claim the moral high ground. Lately this deductive anti-Americanism is becoming laughable. Look at the rogues' gallery of our dethroned opponents--the Grenada thugs, Noriega, Milosevic, the Taliban, and Saddam are hardly national liberationists.
bq. While there is genuine disagreement in America over foreign policy, this shrill near-hatred of the United States government is largely a different phenomenon of a very pampered elite in the media, universities, bureaucracies, and entertainment.
bq. Perhaps because they are divorced from the real world through their wealth, they demand instantaneously their own utopia for the rest of us 'victims'-- or else. They feel guilty about their privilege, of course. but rather than moving to more pedestrian digs or teaching at a JC or sending their kids to the local public school downtown, they sign petitions and go to up-scale rallies.
bq. They resent bitterly that our plutocratic society rewards CEO's far more than in-the-know actors and glib professors, who "really" fathom what this country is supposedly all about. Beneath all this hysteria of invective, there really is a sense of class privilege and intellectual disdain.
I excerpted about a third of this interview - check it out, there's lots more...
Posted by DaveH at March 18, 2004 2:33 PM