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Thursday, October 03, 2002
I've got spurs that jingo, jingo, jingo
Overly belligerent and bitter Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer exhibits his jingoistic tendencies in his latest:
Ted Kennedy is not alone. Much of the leadership of the Democratic Party is in the thrall of the United Nations. War and peace hang in the balance. The world waits to see what the American people, in Congress assembled, will say. These Democrats say: Wait, we must find out what the United Nations says first.
The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, would enshrine such lunacy in legislation, no less. He would not even authorize the use of force without prior U.N. approval. Why? What exactly does U.N. approval mean?
Much of what Krauthammer says is debatable, some of it laughable. We'll save the laughable for later.
Chuck starts off comparing the Cuban Missle Crisis with the current Bush manhood crisis. I'm sure he remembers President John Kennedy presenting to the people of the United States, satellite photos of Russian-built missle sites in Cuba (it was in all the papers). With these dramatic pictures, Kennedy proved to the country that there was an actual physical threat. Today we get bluster that changes on a daily basis from Rummy, Condi, and Cheney, and our weekly dose of tortured babbling from President Hooked on Phonics...but no proof, only "trust us". I would feel better about that if they hadn't already been caught lying, and if they hadn't done such a bang-up job with the information they ignored in August 2001 when they were too busy with the Great Crawford Golfcart Roundup.
Krauthammer intones:
Certainly Kennedy and Levin cannot be saying that we must not decide whether to go to war until we have heard the considered opinion of countries that none of their colleagues can find on a map.
Okay. So we are not talking about these dots on the map. We must be talking about the five permanent members. The United States is one. Another is Britain, which supports us. That leaves three. So when you hear senators grandly demand the support of the "international community," this is what they mean: France, Russia and China.
Recent polls indicate that 57% of Americans are willing to go to war against Iraq if the UN is involved. That number drops to 37% if we go it alone. Rule #1 from Viet Nam: Don't go to war without the will of the people. Of course the Bushies will say that they don't look at polls...unless of course it's that poll that shows that 65% of the public approves of the job President Can't Fool Me is doing, which is the only thing that keeps Ari Fleischer from immolating himself in the National Press Gallery. For the US, war is easy, but we suffer from morning after hangovers (the one thing Bush does have experience in). We need the support of the world, both morally and financially, to clean up the mess we are bound to make. Last I looked, I didn't see an extra nine billion dollars a month it will take to maintain Iraq, sitting in the US checkbook. Hell, we're stealing money from old people just to give tax breaks to rich people, as it is.
Krauthammer concludes:
So insist leading Democrats. Why? It has no moral logic. It has no strategic logic. Forty years ago, we had a Democratic president who declared that he would not allow the United Nations or any others to tell the United States how it would defend itself. Would that JFK's party had an ounce of his confidence in the wisdom and judgment of America, deciding its own fate by its own lights, regardless of the wishes of France
Here is a lesson for Krauthammer. Bush is not America. Al Gore may not have won his own state, but Bush didn't even win his own country. To criticize Bush or his mal-administration is not un-American, it is anti-belligerence, it is anti-arrogance, it is anti-stupidity. Given my choice, I'm going to have to go with France and Germany on this one. Their goverments aren't chosen by the courts but by the people, and I have a lot of faith in the people.
Oh yes...the laughable:
France and Russia will decide the Iraq question based on the coldest calculation of their own national interest, meaning money and oil.
Krauthammer actually wrote that. Really. And probably with a straight face. Too bad this humorless man couldn't laugh at the unintended irony of his own statement. I know I did.
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