Thoughts on American exceptionalism (though he doesn’t use that phrase) from Walter Russell Mead.
[Update a few minutes later]
Peripherally related: the new American revolution. This time, it’s against our self-appointed masters in the media. And the people are winning.
…is a relic of history. And a dangerous one.
…is about to slaughter a town in Syria. Isn’t this sort of thing what caused the president to decide to get involved with Libya? Strategically, getting rid of Assad is much more important than getting rid of Moammar whathisname, but strategy has never been this gang’s strong suit.
[Sunday morning update]
Israel seems to be all in favor of removing the chinless one:
Allied with Iran, Mr. Assad has helped supply 55,000 rockets to Hezbollah and 10,000 to Hamas, very likely established a clandestine nuclear arms program and profoundly destabilized the region. The violence he has unleashed on his own people demonstrating for freedoms confirms Israel’s fears that the devil we know in Syria is worse than the devil we don’t.
A regime change in favor on one not so favorable to the Mullahs would be a strategic body blow against both Iran and Hezbollah.
And it looks like the White House is finally getting a clue. But only a partial one. It’s a lot more than just a “humanitarian crisis.”
A call to arms from Paul Hsieh. These people don’t realize what totalitarians they’re becoming.
[Update a few minutes later]
A ranking of the fifty states for freedom. As expected, California is among the worst. I was a little surprised to see South Dakota come out so well. I’m also surprised to see that Alaska is so bad.
So much for the “special relationship“:
There seems to be no reason for the Obama administration to back a demand for negotiations over the Falklands, unless it’s just to curry favor with anti-American regimes by tossing our allies under the bus as appeasement. It’s an absurd stance and an insult to the British, as well as to the actual people on the islands themselves.
There must be some reason, but I doubt if it’s a good one.
Andrew Klavan has a one-state solution for the Middle East. Works for me.
A fascinating interview by Michael Totten with Claire Berlinski, on what she thinks is the most misunderstood country in the middle east.
Some Memorial Day thoughts:
That victory was much more than a dignified escape from a sticky predicament. The coalition victory in Iraq was a historical turning point that may well turn out to be comparable to the cannonade of Valmy. It changed the course of world history. We have not done justice to those who gave their lives in Iraq until we recognize the full dimensions of their achievement.
The story of Iraq has yet to be told. It is too politically sensitive for the intelligentsia to handle just yet; passions need to cool before the professors and the pundits who worked themselves into paroxysms of hatred and disdain for the Bush administration can come to grips with how wrongheaded they’ve been. It took decades for the intelligentsia to face the possibility that the cretinous Reagan-monster might have, um, helped win the Cold War, and even now they haven’t asked themselves any tough questions about the Left’s blind hatred of the man who did more than any other human being to save the world from nuclear war.
It may take that long for the truth about the war in Iraq to dawn, but dawn it will. America’s victory in Iraq broke the back of Al-Qaeda and left Osama bin Laden’s dream in ruins. He died a defeated fanatic in his Abbotabad hideaway; his dream was crushed in the Mesopotamian flatlands where he swore it would win.
Read the whole thing.
Canada is defending Israel against the US in the G8. Damn right-wing hosers.
Thoughts from Charles Krauthammer:
Obama didn’t just move the goal posts on borders. He also did so on the so-called right of return. Flooding Israel with millions of Arabs would destroy the world’s only Jewish state while creating a 23rd Arab state and a second Palestinian state — not exactly what we mean when we speak of a “two-state solution.” That’s why it has been the policy of the United States to adamantly oppose this “right.”
Yet in his State Department speech, Obama refused to simply restate this position — and refused again in a supposedly corrective speech three days later. Instead, he told Israel it must negotiate the right of return with the Palestinians after having given every inch of territory. Bargaining with what, pray tell?
The Kumbaya president.
[Update mid morning]
What Jeffrey Goldberg gets wrong:
Does Goldberg really believe that if there were no settlements, and if they were suddenly abandoned, that Mahmoud Abbas would suddenly recognize Israel and be ready to make peace? He knows well that since 1948 and Israel’s creation, the Arab nations and the Palestinian leadership — then commanded by the Nazi supporter the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem — have vowed never to accept any Jewish state anywhere in Palestine. To them, all of Israel was an illegal settlement by colonialist-imperialist occupiers.
Has Goldberg read any of the penetrating columns by Sol Stern, who regularly has shown how Israel has offered to make peace, only to find Palestinian rejection facing them? (Stern’s most recent one can be read here.) As Stern writes, it is not the settlers who are the impediment to peace, but the false “Nakba narrative” propounded by the PA leaders, especially Abbas. Stern points out: “No one living under Palestinian rule dares publicly question this lie. No historian dares offer his people a balanced account of the 1948 war, of who attacked whom, and of the reasons for the flight of the refugees. As long as this remains the case, the ‘right of return,’ far more than any question of borders, will remain the principal roadblock to successful peace negotiations.”
Some truths are too hard to face for some people.