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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (98939)	5/23/2003 1:26:17 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hanson's essay is interesting, but the "alternatives" that he alleges we have "tried" are mostly straw men. His critique of the complicity and/or impotence of the right and left of the past are surely right on, and that is why those alternatives weren't serious. He does a much better job of analyzing the problem than he does of giving a solution. But the fact is, we have done what we have done, and his title "Pressing ahead is our only choice" has indeed become our only choice. The problem now is, though, what will the substance of "pressing ahead" be? And will it be any more effective than the looney things we (and others) have done in the past?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (98939)	5/23/2003 5:50:22 PM
From: skinowski	Respond to of 281500

Wow!! What happened to the usually cool, analytic Victor! He is really angry! He is handing it out - to Left and Right. This is a great, unevenhanded article. Unacademic. Undiplomatic. Cathartic – and offers vision. Agree or disagree, he just goes ahead and calls them as he sees them. And he sees them pretty well. Judging magnanimity as decadence, the half-educated in al Qaeda embraced pseudo-Spenglerian theories of a soft and decadent West unable to tear itself away from thong-watching and Sunday football. Largess in the halls of power in New York and Washington played a contemptible role too — as ex-ambassadors, retired generals, and revolving-door lawyers created fancy names, titles, and institutes to conceal what was really Gulf money thrown on the table for American influence. On the left, multiculturalists and postcolonial theorists were even worse, promulgating the relativist argument that there was no real standard by which to assess third-world criminality. And by mixing a cocktail of colonial guilt and advocacy about the soi-disant "other," they helped to create a politically-correct climate that left us ill-prepared for the hatred of the madrassas. Arab monsters like Saddam Hussein sensed that there would always be useful idiots in the West to march on their behalf if it came to a choice between a third-world killer and a democratic United States. More fools in the universities alleged that oppression, exploitation, and inequality alone caused Arab anger — even as well-off, educated, and pampered momma's boys like Mohamed Atta pulled out their Korans, put on headbands, and then blew us and themselves to smithereens, still babbling about unclean women in the last hours before their rendezvous in Hell. ...Two years ago nuts in caves talked about Americans who were scared to fight; now the world is worried because we fight too quickly and too well

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (98939)	5/23/2003 6:31:28 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Two years ago the Cassandra-like trio of Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, and Fouad Ajami were considered outcasts by disingenuous but influential Middle Eastern Studies departments; now they, not the poseurs in university lounges and academic conferences, are heeded by presidents and prime ministers. No matter how often I bring this up, John still wants to talk about how wonderful Said is. :>) This was a great article for the weekend from Hanson. Not that John will ever know. Reading Hanson or Ledeen would be something the Devil would have to assign him in hell. Right after he gave me an eternity of Dowd and Krugman.