Good Morning

Happy Mother's Day from Mexico (it is Mexico's Mother's Day today).

La Voz de Aztlan vs. JDL and The SWC.

I have yet to receive any replies to my queries to The Jewish Defense League or The Simon Weisenthal Center concerning the "threats" that Ernie 100Flickers at La Voz claims to have received. I will keep you posted.

Hand Wringing

Take a look at Andrew Sullivan and WSJ Opinion Journal, The Wages of Appeasement by Victor Davis Hanson. You will get an excellent example of 20/20 hindsight applied to the long-term (Mr. Hanson) and to the short-term (Mr. Sullivan). Both of them have very valid points.

Relative to Mr. Hanson, I really don't see how, having lived through that time myself, anything could have been done differently. Our overwhelming priority at that time was the USSR. Our military was a disasterous mess in the wake of Viet Nam, inflation was running rampant, we had had a president resign in disgrace, we knew we were complicit in the Shah's dirty war against the mullahs and we were dreaming of a multicultural-peace-in-our-time-lets-all-get-together utopia which would not, does not and never will exist. So, Mr. Hanson's views of the occurrences, in my opinion, while factually correct in view of history over the past 25 or so years, are helpful only insofar as showing us a path or paths that we should avoid. Does his treatise show us the correct path? I think not. Only history over the long-term has ever proven that a strategy was correct. Only history over the short-term has ever proven that the tactics employed to achieve a strategy were correct.

Which brings us to Mr. Sullivan and the short-term hand-wringing. I would ask this. What narrative? Have the events at Abu Ghraib caused a change in the actions, attitudes, policies and statements of the thugs, terrorists, Muslim "press", the Arab "street" or the politicians (I include the mullahs, imams and clerics in this group because they belong here)? Not that I can see. Were they trying to kill as many of us as possible BEFORE Abu Ghraib? Yes, of course. Were we vilified daily on the airways, in the press, in mosques and on street corners? Yes, of course. Do the events at Abu Ghraib give them more ammunition to use against us? Yes, unfortunately. Do the events at Abu Grhraib cause us the loss of the moral high ground and should we now cut and run? No, of course not. Nothing has occurred to derail our strategy that a heavy dose of military justice will not correct. In other words, a tactical failure must be addressed so as not to cause a strategic failure.

I would hate to think, in the case of Mr. Sullivan, that the "fair weather fans" syndrome has begun to set in.

Did we fail to plan adequately for the occupation? No, but President Bush did not think we had five years to prepare.

Did we overestimate the reception of the Iraqis and the resistence of the Baathists/terrorists/ criminals/thugs? Yes, we did; a TACTICAL error. Is it correctable? Yes, it is.