The Left--Standing Astride History and Yelling 'Stop!'
While the real-world consequences of the Bush-Condi-Rummy-Wolfy "neocon" foreign policy ripple through closed, authoritarian systems around the world, proving the wisdom of W's proactive militant interventionism on behalf of liberty, all the Leftist press can do is carp on America's latest "outrage," whatever that happens to be. This week, it's the "attempted assassination" of Italian "journalist" Giuliana Sgrena by US troops. Leftists everywhere are fawning over her like teenyboppers over an 80s hair band. After all, to the ethpresstho-sippers on the Upper West Side and in Le Monde's editorial offices, she's more intellectually sympatico than Bush. The fever swamp Left is all abuzz with talk! of!! conspiracy!!! (Do the evil schemes of the evil Rove know no evil bounds?)
[Never mind that the US troops who fired on her car say they shot it because it refused to stop when challenged at a checkpoint. Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini says that his version of what happened "differs" from the US account. My guess is that this is based on first-hand accounts from the dozens of Italian and other Euro-troops who were helping the US man the checkpoint. We need their perspective as a counterweight to imperialist US cowboy simplisme.
What's that you say? There weren't any Italian (or French, German, Belgian, Dutch, Luxembourger, Andorran, Monacan) troops there with their American brothers-in-arms? Well then, I guess you don't have a rat's ass of an idea what went on, do you Mr Fini? In fact, the only ones who probably did have SA are the troops who did the shooting. I, for one, am inclined to trust their judgment. After all, theirs were the lives that were on the line out where change was actually happening, while Euro-troops were back sipping Asti on Lake Como or complaining to their union bosses about the poor quality of the pate in the battalion mess.]
But all this is not finally the point. Leftists spin assassination conspiracies because they have nothing else to say. The policies they abominate are working and people they abominate brought those policies to life. The Left has nothing concrete or constructive to offer--just the tired bromides of failed theory, outmoded pseudo-science, and vauge feel-good internationalism. Bush's policies are putting decades of failed liberal foreign policy in stark contrast--accomodationist "realpolitik," pandering to a fatally corrupt UN, acting only through "alliances" as resiliant as tissue paper, holding US action hostage to effete, decadent European interests, and preaching outright defeatism. This is a record of policy failure unrivalled since the British parliament decided that merchantilist jingoism was the right way to handle the American colonies.
Many on the Left will never be able to accept the truth of what's happening. They will be silent for a time and then make vague noises that try to grab some of the credit, much as they did after Ronald Reagan's policies "tore down that wall." To most of them, Leftist politics is their religion--it fills the God Hole in their souls. They have too much of who they are invested in their political positions, regardless of what is happening in the real world. For them, it is more important to be anti-American than to be on the right side of history.
Fortunately, some within own MSM and Britain's are beginning to "get it." I hope the whole Liberal Establishment proves my last paragraph wrong.
Further, our old Iraqi media nemisis al-Jazeera and other usually anti-American outlets are performing a valuable service to the cause of liberty in the islamic world by honestly reporting what's happening and by not taking the road that so much of the Euroweenie press has.
Update: It appears that the Italians may have paid a hefty ransom to free Giuliana Sgrena. We also now have pictures of the car Sgrena was shot in--the one she claimed was hit by "300 to 400 bullets" from an "armored vehicle."
Update to the Update: Michelle Malkin has excellent commentary on the ransom issue and the lack of outrage attendant thereto.
Monk
[Never mind that the US troops who fired on her car say they shot it because it refused to stop when challenged at a checkpoint. Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini says that his version of what happened "differs" from the US account. My guess is that this is based on first-hand accounts from the dozens of Italian and other Euro-troops who were helping the US man the checkpoint. We need their perspective as a counterweight to imperialist US cowboy simplisme.
What's that you say? There weren't any Italian (or French, German, Belgian, Dutch, Luxembourger, Andorran, Monacan) troops there with their American brothers-in-arms? Well then, I guess you don't have a rat's ass of an idea what went on, do you Mr Fini? In fact, the only ones who probably did have SA are the troops who did the shooting. I, for one, am inclined to trust their judgment. After all, theirs were the lives that were on the line out where change was actually happening, while Euro-troops were back sipping Asti on Lake Como or complaining to their union bosses about the poor quality of the pate in the battalion mess.]
But all this is not finally the point. Leftists spin assassination conspiracies because they have nothing else to say. The policies they abominate are working and people they abominate brought those policies to life. The Left has nothing concrete or constructive to offer--just the tired bromides of failed theory, outmoded pseudo-science, and vauge feel-good internationalism. Bush's policies are putting decades of failed liberal foreign policy in stark contrast--accomodationist "realpolitik," pandering to a fatally corrupt UN, acting only through "alliances" as resiliant as tissue paper, holding US action hostage to effete, decadent European interests, and preaching outright defeatism. This is a record of policy failure unrivalled since the British parliament decided that merchantilist jingoism was the right way to handle the American colonies.
Many on the Left will never be able to accept the truth of what's happening. They will be silent for a time and then make vague noises that try to grab some of the credit, much as they did after Ronald Reagan's policies "tore down that wall." To most of them, Leftist politics is their religion--it fills the God Hole in their souls. They have too much of who they are invested in their political positions, regardless of what is happening in the real world. For them, it is more important to be anti-American than to be on the right side of history.
Fortunately, some within own MSM and Britain's are beginning to "get it." I hope the whole Liberal Establishment proves my last paragraph wrong.
Further, our old Iraqi media nemisis al-Jazeera and other usually anti-American outlets are performing a valuable service to the cause of liberty in the islamic world by honestly reporting what's happening and by not taking the road that so much of the Euroweenie press has.
Update: It appears that the Italians may have paid a hefty ransom to free Giuliana Sgrena. We also now have pictures of the car Sgrena was shot in--the one she claimed was hit by "300 to 400 bullets" from an "armored vehicle."
Update to the Update: Michelle Malkin has excellent commentary on the ransom issue and the lack of outrage attendant thereto.
Monk
posted by Monk | 14:03
