Now that the two parties have finally selected their presidential candidates, it is time for a sober-- if not grim-- assessment of where we are.
When the very first sentence of a column is a lie, it does not bode well for where the column is going. There are these things called "nominating conventions." In America, that is where the two national parties finally select their presidential candidates.
Not since 1972 have we been presented with two such painfully inadequate candidates. When election day came that year, I could not bring myself to vote for either George McGovern or Richard Nixon. I stayed home.
This year, none of us has that luxury. While all sorts of gushing is going on in the media, and posturing is going on in politics, the biggest national sponsor of terrorism in the world-- Iran-- is moving step by step toward building a nuclear bomb.
Hmm, in 1972, the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, already had the bomb—and was building more of them.
The point when they get that bomb will be the point of no return. Iran's nuclear bomb will be the terrorists' nuclear bomb-- and they can make 9/11 look like child's play.
Wait—this is a common enough refrain. Iran’s nuclear bomb will be the terrorists’ nuclear bomb? This presupposes one of two conditions. Either a) Iran is coterminus with the terrorists, or b) Iran, upon developing the bomb, will hand it over to the terrorists. (There may be a further option, but I can’t see it.) If Iran is coterminus with the terrorists, what’s up with all the jibber-jabber about Saddam Hussein (PBUH?) being Hitler, to which we were subjected a few years ago? Maybe there’s a difference between Hitler and terrorists. From my general understandings, Hitler liked a tightly run ship of state. As to the second presupposed condition, it is difficult for me to imagine that any state would, upon receiving or developing the nuclear bomb, promptly turn around and let others play with this really cool toy.
I think it’s safe to say that getting the bomb is an entre into the Big Boys’ Club, in terms of state prestige and seriousness. To the extent that states choose to share weapons technology with allies, my reading is that they prefer to share with state actors. When they arm less formally constituted groups, they tend to give them low-tech weapons. (Kalashnikovs and Katyushas, or in our case, M1 carbines and M60 tanks.)
Did, for example the USSR provide state of the art fighters to Warsaw Pact allies?
As to the possibility of a nuclear detonation making 9/11 look like child’s play, well, umm, yes. Of course. See, cf., Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Compared to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or for that matter, Dresden, or Doolittle’s firebombing of Tokyo, or the Blitz, the casualties suffered on 9/11 really weren’t that high.
In terms of inflicting casualties, 9/11 was a mere firecracker. While it did edge out the casualties suffered in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the 2400 dead on 7 December 1941 were sailors and Marines, and there was also the small matter of the sinking of two battleships, two destroyers and a minelayer–a big chunk of America’s ships of the line.
A nuclear attack on America would make 9/11 look like child’s play because (militarily speaking) 9/11 WAS child’s play.
All the options that are on the table right now will be swept off the table forever. Our choices will be to give in to whatever the terrorists demand-- however outrageous those demands might be-- or to risk seeing American cities start disappearing in radioactive mushroom clouds.
Asinine and ridiculous. The Soviet Union got the bomb. Hey, that turned out all right, and looking back now we don’t break down into shivers and bed-wetting. But that’s looking back now. At the time, we were terrified of a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union, or simply a flood of T72s coming through the Fulda Gap. Trust me—I lived through it. Red China got the bomb. Maoist China was an abattoir on a scale to make Nazi Germany’s killings look like a street gang on a rampage, and almost enough to make Stalin look like a piker. (Making Stalin look like a piker, or even almost so, takes some doing, when we’re talking about a willingness to break eggs in pursuit of an omelet.) Somehow we haven’t seen our cities going up in radioactive mushroom clouds under Chinese nukes.
Now pay attention here, because this is important. States that get nuclear weapons don’t get them to use, they get them for credibility and influence.
All the things we are preoccupied with today, from the price of gasoline to health care to global warming, will suddenly no longer matter.
Just as the Nazis did not find it enough to simply kill people in their concentration camps, but had to humiliate and dehumanize them first, so we can expect terrorists with nuclear weapons to both humiliate us and force us to humiliate ourselves, before they finally start killing us.
Because, you know, the terrorists are really just like the Nazis, and the calendar is always stuck in 1938. They’re going to humiliate us, and then they’re going to start killing us. (Or, since I bet Sowell agrees with the Ledeens of the world, they’re going to keep on killing us, since they’ve been doing it for the last thirty years.)
They have already telegraphed their punches with their sadistic beheadings of innocent civilians, and with the popularity of videotapes of those beheadings in the Middle East.
Those crazy Iranians! Wait. The beheadings have pretty much all been done, and claimed by, Al-Qaida. Haven’t they? And popularity of war porn among the populace isn’t necessarily a reflection of what a government is going to do.
Also, please to note, we are facing The Terrorists. Much like during my youth, when we face Monolithic Communism, we now face Monolithic Terror in the form of The Terrorists. They are The Borg. Resistance is futile! (Somehow the Borg always reminded me of the Daleks, only goofier.) Exterminate! Exterminate!
Except Monolithic Communism wasn’t really all that monolithic. There was that whole Sino-Soviet Split thing. Heck, didn’t China invade Vietnam? And didn’t, in fact, Vietnam even invade Cambodia? (Yes.)
Now, the idea isn’t as tangible now as it once was, but Communism was regarded as a messianic ideology of vast sweep and power. It was revolutionary, it fired the mind, it absolved all crimes, it united believers into a single, mindless, monolithic mass. (Sound familiar?) Now, remember: despite the common, professed, revolutionary ideology of the USSR, the People’s Republic of China, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea, these states all either quarreled and were on the brink of war, or carried out actual invasions of each other.
They have already telegraphed their intention to dictate to us with such things as Osama bin Laden's threats to target those places in America that did not vote the way he prescribed in the 2004 elections. He could not back up those threats then but he may be able to in a very few years.
Wait, just when I was getting comfortable with the idea of the Iranians—that would be the Shia Iranians—were the bad guys, we bring Osama bin Laden back into it? Which strain of Islam does bin Laden profess? Oh, right. He’s a Sunni. Remember when Al-Qaida in Iraq, under Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was trying to provoke a Sunni-Shia sectarian civil war in Iraq? Sowell is seriously asserting that Iran would give nuclear weapons to Osama bin Laden?
This beggars the imagination.
The terrorists have given us as clear a picture of what they are all about as Adolf Hitler and the Nazis did during the 1930s-- and our "leaders" and intelligentsia have ignored the warning signs as resolutely as the "leaders" and intelligentsia of the 1930s downplayed the dangers of Hitler.
Because—remember, kids, this is important—the terrorists are JUST LIKE THE NAZIS.
We are much like people drifting down the Niagara River, oblivious to the waterfalls up ahead. Once we go over those falls, we cannot come back up again.
I agree that America’s national interests are in danger of going over a waterfall, but I disagree, and vehemently, with Sowell about the cause and nature of that waterfall.
What does this have to do with today's presidential candidates? It has everything to do with them.
One of these candidates will determine what we are going to do to stop Iran from going nuclear-- or whether we are going to do anything other than talk, as Western leaders talked in the 1930s.
There you have it. Sowell says McCain WILL STOP Iran from going nuclear. The “how” of it, of course, is yet to be determined. Oh, and the other guy will talk to the Iranians—just like Chamberlain talked to Hitler!
There is one big difference between now and the 1930s. Although the West's lack of military preparedness and its political irresolution led to three solid years of devastating losses to Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, nevertheless when all the West's industrial and military forces were finally mobilized, the democracies were able to turn the tide and win decisively.
There are several big differences between now and the 1930s. You can’t really, seriously, with a straight face, assert that the West lacks military preparedness. Can you? If you can, it could only be in the area of boots on the ground. We have cool toys by the billion. Another difference is that the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe are on our side this time. Just you try and say “Arab Wehrmacht” with a straight face. I dare you.
But you cannot lose a nuclear war for three years and then come back. You cannot even sustain the will to resist for three years when you are first broken down morally by threats and then devastated by nuclear bombs.
When a column starts off with a lie . . . . OK, is Sowell really saying that, were we hit with a nuclear attack, we would wait three years to respond? While we continued to get hit with nuclear attacks? “Whoops, there goes New York. Dang, I sure hope we don’t lose any more cities. Hey, let’s talk about global warming!”
Our one window of opportunity to prevent this will occur within the term of whoever becomes President of the United States next January.
We must act now! To do otherwise would be, umm, appeasement. You don’t want to be Chamberlain, do you?
At a time like this, we do not have the luxury of waiting for our ideal candidate or of indulging our emotions by voting for some third party candidate to show our displeasure-- at the cost of putting someone in the White House who is not up to the job.
Umm, vote Republican. This time it’s really important. This time the Republicans will be, you know, real Republicans. They won’t negotiate with the enemy, like Nixon did. They won’t bumble on foreign policy like Ford did. They won’t talk with the enemy, like Reagan did, or turn tail and run, like Reagan also did. They won’t refrain from actions that “wouldn’t be prudent” like George H. W. Bush did. They won’t massively enhance government while talking about trusting American citizens, like George W. Bush did. This time, it’s for real.
Does anyone remember the Louisiana gubernatorial race between David Duke and Edwin Edwards? “Vote for the Crook—It’s Important!”
Senator John McCain has been criticized in this column many times. But, when all is said and done, Senator McCain has not spent decades aiding and abetting people who hate America.
Hey, aiding and abetting sounds like language from a police procedural, doesn’t it? And you know, Rev. Jeremiah Wright hates America. Just like the Nazis. Who are just like the Communists. Who are just like the Terrorists (who are Muslim).
On the contrary, he has paid a huge price for resisting our enemies, even when they held him prisoner and tortured him. The choice between him and Barack Obama should be a no-brainer.
Because the Communists were just like the Nazis! Who are just like the Terrorists!
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