Our 1979
We have sowed and now we shall reap, and so soon we shall endure our first post-national, post-racial, Nobel Laureate president treated quite shabbily by those whom he was supposed to mesmerize. In places like Teheran or Damascus, Obama’s racial heritage, his Harvard Law Review billet, his membership in the Trinity Church, his brotherhood with Wright and Ayers, all that and more mean less than zero. To such thugs, Obama is the face of America, and he is to be tested rather than worshipped. Hugo Chavez is not a Harvard dean; Putin is not a senior Newsweek editor. Their legs do not tingle when they hear the president, except perhaps in giddy anticipation of what they might wrestle from him. They are not impressed with identity politics; they care little for degrees or titles; they have no elite white guilt. Again, Obama is just an American president who must be analyzed, tested, and if need be dared and humiliated.
Back to 1979
In 1979 fashion, we have seen Syria sell missiles to Hezbollah. Iran almost weekly boasts of getting nukes and ending Israel. The North Koreans torpedoed a South Korean ship, killed 46 South Koreans, and await a reply to see how this latest round of extortion works. China seems amused that its neighbors like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are learning from the incident that their vibrant economies don’t always translate into real power. Turkey is emerging as the new southeastern regional hegemon, as an Islamist rallying voice against Israel. U.S. nonproliferation policy has been outsourced to Brazil and Turkey. Our sanctions against Teheran are going nowhere.
At the current rate, expect within a year or two for Iran to go nuclear (it will make North Korea’s nuclear antics and extortion seem like child’s play). Worry about some sort of Mideast war, perhaps begun with a tripartite missile shower on Israel, from Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. China continues to expand its muscles and hopes that Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea drift away from a weakening U.S. protectorate. I think Turkey is de facto no longer a NATO member as we once knew it (will it evoke Article 5 if it gets into a shooting sea war with Israel?), in the manner Greece is really not a part of the EU (does anyone think it will pay back more than $150 billion at rates at or above 8%). Both stay in these organizations because their charters were obsessed with new memberships without any guide about how to expel existing members. Oddly they both seem to resent northern Europe and the U.S. almost as much as they hate each other. Expect the southern Mediterranean to be a very dangerous place, with Greece, Israel, and Turkey mixed up amid a backdrop of financial insolvency, estrangement from the U.S. and Europe, Iranian nukes, and Islamic adventurism.
In addition a Germany, quite understandably, will begin to look out for its own interests in a way that history warns against. (I half imagine in some vault in a German bank there are trillions of Deutsche marks already printed and waiting.)
All this will transpire, as in 1979, amid utopian rhetoric, bashing of a prior president, and angst, whining, and blame gaming that the world is not working out as it should, given that our own messianic laureate deigned to sacrifice his time and energy on their behalf.
From 1979 to 2010
About every 30-40 years, democratic citizenries begin to become complacent. They assume their defenses are unnecessary if not destabilizing, and take away from more needed social services and income redistribution. Deterrence and preparedness are assumed in turn the stone-age tools of unsophisticated mind. The peace that follows from past victories and postwar deterrence is considered artificial, and can instead grow far more organically from professed good intentions and signs of magnanimity, if not apology. Philosopher kings assure the world of a new age to come, one in which a new human nature replaces the old Neanderthal pessimism. Slogans that “we are the ones we have been waiting for,” “yes, we can,” “this is the moment,” and so on usher in the new golden age, free of nukes and war itself.
Carter’s Christian self-righteousness was simply a religious variant on Wilson’s academic haughtiness; Obama’s elite condescension—human nature can be uplifted and changed if it follows the exalted behavior of our president—is a mixture of Chicago activism and the hothouse of academia.
Again, remember 1979. I imagine that, like Carter, Obama will begin scrambling to restore deterrence, since the alternative would mean the end of his plans for amnesty, cap and trade and more expansion of the social welfare state. So expect a sudden tough line with Korea, more warnings to Iran, and in general some Carter-like posturing to make up for lost time.
We are in a very dangerous age indeed.
Doctor Hanson:
I know of no writer today who has the grasp of unrewritten history and who places it in proper context that you display so frequently.
Great problems in the world today cry out for positive “change” that only a citizen non-politician such as yourself could help to forge on behalf of the United States of America, the only remaining island of hope surrounded by a sea of madness.
Without a true patriot, a non-politician with a grasp of history and the greatness of the Constitution of the United States stepping up to the plate for the Presidency in 2012, there is in my humble opinion no hope for future generations of Americans.
I implore you sir, please make yourself available to run for President in 2012. YOU MIGHT LIGHT A BONFIRE.
I’m curious if we can have a vote on the following question: Will an all out Middle East war ( 2 or more Muslims countries engaged in full battle with Israel, cf 67, 73) happen during Obama’s administration. Yes or No?
Yes and no. There won’t be a conventional war like ’67 but there will be a simultaneous assault by Hamas and Hezbollah, maybe Syria and Iran, in an asymmetrical war against Israel. Actually that’s already going on but I’m talking about a much hotter conflict, missiles raining down and splodydopes blowing up, IED’s in the streets of Tel Aviv etc.
When Israel is attacked by moslem fanatics this time, the Jews will, for the 1st time in their history not have America’s backing. And indeed, Obama will be on the other side. They will loose their sense of last ditch security under the American umbrella and very well may use their considerable Atomic arsenal to insure their survival as a race. The Israelis realize the world wants their re-immersion in the Krupp and Mercedes Benz constructed gas chambers of the 1940′s. As a result, expect the Israeli response to be massive and widespread across the region. All the moslem capitols will be nuked simultaneously. Western Europe and Russia will condemn them but secretly be relieved they stopped the major threat to civilizations survival. Obama has made such a scenario very possible due to his Chamberlin like appeasement and surrender. Perhaps this culling of insane cultures and cult like pseudo-religion is needed for the survival of our species. But be assured, very nasty war is very near.
Signs point to yes. While a proxy war can be effective at weakening Israel, I still get the impression that most of the Arab states want to see every Israeli head on a pike, and still feel humiliated by the way Israel trounced them last time they tried it. On top of that, the addition of Turkey, the probability of a nuclear Iran, and the appearance that the US may sit this one out, make for a environment where the Arab states may well win a conventional war.
If they do succeed in getting an embargo imposed on Israel, expect an all out war soon after.
I also do not see the Arab states being deterred by Israels probable nuclear arsenal; I don’t see that any of them even understand what a nuke means. That’s the thing that scares me most about this; we’re looking at a potential war between nuclear powers, where one of them has no idea what they’re playing with!
Almost certainly yes. I expect the following, not in any particular order;
1. The “international community” forcing Israel to end its blockade of Gaza. Followed by a fully-rearmed Hamas using Gaza as they and Hisb’Allah formerly used southern Lebanon. Look for a repeat of 1982′s “Operation Peace in Galilee” as Israel’s response.
2. Turkey forming the nucleus of a new anti-Israel “Arab League”, this time using its NATO membership to intimidate the Obama administration into acquiescence.
3. I don’t see a direct Iranian nuclear attack on Israel. I do see a potential nuclear device detonation in an Israeli city, like Tel Aviv, by Hamas or another terrorist group, with Iran blandly claiming innocence. (“It must have been a surplus Russian bomb.”)
Whatever happens, I see the Obama administration trying to blame Israel, and in the event of a nuclear event, saying that it is a “time to heal” afterward.
And I’m sure the Arab would-be aggressors already know it. Just as surely as they knew what they could get away with when Carter was in charge.
clear ether
eon
I’m afraid that you will be right. I think that a terrorist act with a nuclear device is highly probably in Israel. I sounds unthinkable, but so was 9/11 and it fits perfectly in the asymmetrical warfare strategy of the Non West/Muslim world.
Even if a Obama is not in charge what can the US and Israel do? I think VDH is right with his latest NRO post. The West needs to win the public relationship battle first. Because even if a nuclear device gets detonated, it will be condemned by the left but still the left will blame the West. Doesn’t make it easy to win an existential battle with such a divided home front. That is another big difference with WO II. There is no clear picture of the enemy with large portions of our popultations.
There won’t be a war. Iran will nuke Israel to radioactive rubble as soon as it finishes building an H-bomb and delivery system. Israel will retaliate and nuke parts of Iran. Syrias and Jordans will die from the radioactive fallout from Iran’s bombs, but all the Arab countries and most Muslims worldwide will rejoice at Israel’s demise. Their joy will last for a few weeks, and then the middle east countries will start warring with each other, and the Arab nations will suffer internal strife between sects or tribes. The entire region will resemble Afghanistan.
The malaise of fighting long wars (see Vietnam and our current fights) preceded Americans turning to arrogant peacniks.
Seems that the “lefties” have their cake AND eat it. Many proudly display themselves as in “peacenik brigades”. Many others, and even some of the peaceniks, profess to be acolytes of the “Democratic Party”, the “Peace Party” of the USA and its programs. The paradox – wars in the 20th century in which America was embroiled, not least the Vietnam War, were, with the exception of the first Iraq War in 1988, ALL — ALL initiated engineered, developed and executed by and in Democratic Presidential Administrations.
As bad as Carter was, JFK was much, much worse. In spite of almost blundering into a nuclear war, our high school history books teach that he was one of our greatest presidents. I guess he who writes history controls the present.
1961
JFK’s first mistake was his refusal to support the legal government of Cuba. He chose to stand mutely by while Fidel Castro (with USSR support) overthrew the legal government and imposed a ruthless, totalitarian dictatorship on Cuba. Even though the lives of millions of Cubans were destroyed, and even though millions of unborn Cubans were condemned to live and die in starvation, misery and pain the main stream media praised JFK and still does today.
1961
Seeing Fidel’s success in Cuba the USSR built the Berlin Wall and again JFK did nothing. He chose to stand by while Krushchev imposed a ruthless, totalitarian dictatorship on East Berlin and East Germany. Even though the lives of millions of East Germans were destroyed, and even though millions of unborn East Germans were condemned to live and die in starvation, misery and pain the main stream media praised JFK and still does today. JFK did say “Ich bin einer Berliner” which translate as “I feel your pain.” The MSM thought he was very daring, very brave and very “Camelot” to make that brave statement.
1962
Krushchev, seeing that JFK was unwilling to defend American Exceptionalism decided to open a major base in Cuba from which he could bomb the United States using intermediate range nuclear missiles. These missles could destroy our missles before they could be launched. Krushchev built a base for his troops in Cuba. And JFK watched U2 reports and never objected. Krushchev built bunkers and launching pads for long range nuclear missiles. And JFK stood silently by. Then suddenly as the Russian ships carrying Russian troops and Russian missiles approached Cuban waters JFK was forced to send the US Navy to stop the Russian ships and force them to return home. However JFK removed US missile bases from Europe and Turkey, canceling the American nuclear shield for Europe. Britain and France promptly developed nuclear weapons and their own missile programs.
The mainstream media has rewritten this history to make JFK look heroic and decisive. But he almost destroyed the world that day the US boarded Russia ships. If the press can hide and excuse JFKs blunders, they can excuse anything.
1962
Chairman Mao decided the time had come to rebuild the ancient Chinese empire of the Qin. He invaded South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. JFK sent a few Special Forces troops to stop the invasion not as fighters but as “advisors”.
The Comintern invented the term Domino theory. It said the US had nothing to worry about because Chinese love peace and merely wanted land the French had stolen from them. JFK refused to call the war in Vietnam a war. He simply wanted to postpone the Chinese victory until after the 1964 election. He did not want anyone to claim he lost Viet Nam just like Truman lost China. Again the Media praised JFK. JFK and Carter are Obama’s and Clinton’s models for how to conduct a successful foreign policy.
Sadly, JFK died before he could do more.
Your narrative is basically correct, and I agree that Kennedy was one of our worst presidents. However, there is plenty of blame to go around. The East Germany situation should have been nipped in the bud by Truman and Eisenhower. Eisenhower, who led the entire European Theater of Operations during WWII, certainly knew that you could not give the Soviets an inch. He gave them half a mile, and they took the other half of the mile during Kennedy’s term.
The initial Cuban situation was not as black-and-white as you described. Battista wasn’t a saintly leader, and we already had been burned by supporting nasty dictators in Central and South America. But, once Kennedy saw how bad Castro was, he should have provided more support for Castro’s opponents. But, Kennedy chickened-out at the last moment, and caused the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Kennedy’s error in Vietnam was not that he sent only “advisors,” it was getting involved at all. We had no strategic interests in southeast Asia, and it mattered little whether the nations were run by French colonialists, fascist dictators, or communist dictators. Eisenhower put a few troops into Vietnam after the French pulled out. Kennedy had the opportunity to back away entirely, but instead he increased our involvement. Johnson was afraid of “losing” South Vietnam to communism, so he threw our draftee troops into the fray to prop up two consecutive kleptocratic dictators. But, Johnson gave us our “Great Society,” and he became a left-wing liberal icon.
History repeats itself. With a proliferation of nuclear armed countries,it is going to be a rocky two and a half years with this jug-eared fool in the WH.Thousands of people may die because of this mans utopian dreams.
Obama as Heliogabalus at least has turned Washington into the world capital of drug-fuelled sleazy man love trysts. Kal Pen for example.
Superb summation — the parallels are eerie and deeply disturbing. The world turns, and goes progressively more insane with each turning until… What? I was 17 in 1979 …it is deeply imprinted on me – and it took a little over two decades and 9/11 to wipe the cobwebs from my eyes. I was indoctrinated (along with most in my generation) to think of the Reagan Restoration as a dangerous interlude with military interventionism. That restoration was built on the foundation of that remnant of Americans who still were connected to a better prouder past — is the Tea Party a wide enough base to rebuild that coalition? The world had better hope and pray it is – the future dangles by a thread, and ALL depends on whether or not we can turn back the sinister twins of communistic collectivism and Islam. They both auger the suicide of civilization, and both are lions rampant today.
Powerful comment, Morton.
This line: ” . . that remnant of Americans who still were connected to a better prouder past . .”
As you, I pray there are enough of us left . . .
DH is brilliant and to the point… President Obama seems bent on redeeming Carter’s name and reputation…
Excellent piece, doc. One wonders how the Lefties, who keep telling us (and each other) how brilliant they are, can keep making the same mistakes. Of course, you mention Mr. Wilson, of whom it was said, “He may not always be right, but he is never wrong”.
Doctor Hanson: I can only echo CGW @1 above. You have a vision and voice which are unique, and uniquely valuable. Thanks for this, and for all your work. Someday I’d love to get your autograph on my copy of “Carnage and Culture” or other works which I am slowly collecting.
The largest difference between 1979 and today is that there was a far greater margin of error in all conflicts other than the US-Soviet conflict – the financial and economic systems were not nearly so intertwined and complex as they are to day.
The situation now is significantly more dangerous than 1979. I fully expect a middle east war while Obama is still president.
Unlike Carter I doubt Obama will pivot back to a more conservative position once the fire gets hotter than he can handle. Carter was at least a Navy man, and a USNA graduate, and knew he could fall back on a pro-defense policy if he scrwed it up. The Carter of 1980, with increases in defense procurement and force structure, was far different than the Carter of 1977 (The “Carter Doctrine” was one of our justifications for the Persian Gulf war of 1991).
Obama on the other hand is a pure academic, having no experience with the military (and in fact some derision for it). If events conspire to boil the pot it’s unlikely thathe will swing back to increased defense apart from symbolic measures (and there will be lots of those), but rather there will be a double-down on his hyper-analytical pondering approach. While he tries to figure it all out the rest of the world burns. The likely result is that we will burn at home as well. But then, that’s not his fault, is it?
In 1979, there were still a good many pro-defense, Democrats.
There are no pro-defense Democrats today.
In 1979, there were still a good many pro-defense, Democrats.
There are no pro-defense Democrats today.
That’s because most of those Scoop Jackson Democrats became Reagan Republicans.
Alas, the last pro-defense Democrat, Joe Lieberman, became an Independent.
Joe Lieberman was one. He was abandoned by his party and now he’s an Independent. Jane Harman is another, but that’s only invited a left-wing challenger this year.
In 1979, we hadn’t run up the national debt to the point where people are wondering whether we will ever be able to pay it off.
Who’s wondering? We’ll never be able to pay it off.
You are so right sir about 1979
Being 21 yrs old at the time I look at BHO and the rest of the commies and say I’ve seen this before.
Thats what made Reagan so unflappable.He had seen WWI,WWII,Korea, Atomic weapons, The Great Depression and so on. The hippe administration will pass on and some grown ups from that same generation will restore us. Thats you and me.
You are so right sir about 1979
Being 21 yrs old at the time I look at BHO and the rest of the commies and say I’ve seen this before.
Thats what made Reagan so unflappable.He had seen WWI,WWII,Korea, Atomic weapons, The Great Depression and so on. The hippie administration will pass on and some grown ups from that same generation will restore us. Thats you and me.
You leave yourself open to the question of course: if Obama is our Carter, who is our Reagan? Maybe that’s the next column.
I’m not nearly as optimistic as you are.
There very-well might not be a knight in shinning armor this time around.
Carter was not out to “fundamentally change the world”
Not only do we have an irrational foreign enemy to fight; we have an irrational domestic enemy as well.
‘We don’t need another Hero’ and we _really_ do not need
a ‘Man on a White Horse’; We got ourselves into this mess,
and if we the People do not step up to get ourselves out…
Chris Christie?
He is ticking off all the right people!
How about a Christy/Cheney (liz) ticket?
Mike Huckabee, who even fit into Reagan’s role in the last election cycle.
Hucakbee uniquely has the wisdom and insight coupled with the common touch that we saw in Reagan. Last time he entered the national scene as an unknown – that has changed, as his is the most watched weekend cable show in the nation. His policies are clear – Israel is our ally (not our enemy), defense (not appeasement) is our security, low tax/small government (not socialism) is our style, business (not government) is our economic engine, and liberty (not authoritarianism) is our heritage. This is the exact inverse of the Obama administration. He has extensive executive and media experience – he knows how to balance a budget and how to avoid media gaffes. And he did not institute Romneycare in Arkansas. He connects easily with American. My only fear is that he is too wise to take the job, given the mess he would inherit form Obama.
Sarah Palin, as any normal and even most retarded people clearly see.
When trying to answer the question who will be the next Reagan, remember that in 1980, Ronald Reagan had been a national political figure for 16 years and had run for President twice before.
I suspect that only those of us who lived as adults through the Carter period can truly appreciate how dangerous Obama is. Carter faced an enemy, the USSR, that was rationale and with which deterrence could work. Now we will face an enemy that is irrational and which is led by a religious nut who thinks a world war will usher in the 12th Imam. Israel, at great cost to itself, may destroy this threat that we should be dealing with but it will be a disastrous war that will destroy the middle east, including now Turkey. The likelihood of this happening before the 2012 election is about 50%.
I love you, honey!! Yeah, lived through Jimmy Peanut and now this Jackass! Keep up the good work. Truth will always out.
Lady Di
The biggest difference between 1979 and now is that there is no longer a “mutually assured destruction” deterrence. The present is far more dangerous than 1979 was, and it’s not at all certain America could come out on top.
Another difference: The Soviets, whatever else they were, were not suicidal. The Russian people, by and large, were people who loved their children and wanted them to have a world to grow up in.
The same can not be said for jihadists.
I believe it was Golda Meir who said: “There won’t be peace in the Middle East until the Palestinians learn to love their children more than they hate us.”
To date, the only thing the muslims have demonstrated their love for, is death.
The question is if there is a shooting war between Turkey and Israel what will the US do? Will it side with Turkey (who is clearly no longer a friend to the US) or not? All of these problems stem from our unwillingness to use our power for our benefit.
We need oil, not Arabs. Failure to make the Arabs understand this is what created and drives the current Islamist terrorism and destabilization of previously friendly if not neutral regimes. 12 supper carriers are a power that cannot be matched or even come close to. The Saudi’s and the rest of the oil producers need to have a full blockade imposed on them. Let them face starvation and that will concentrate their minds to accept our terms. Neither Russia or China can do a damn thing about it. They have neither the military capability nor the economic ability to really push back. What is China going to do? Stop buying treasuries? They would be doing us a favor, just like stop giving heroin to addict is doing the addict a favor. China is going to quit selling to the US? Their economy would implode and they would have a revolution on their hands. Russia is going to do nothing because in the end they don’t have any real power left.
What this idiot-in-chief of ours is going to accomplish is to reawaken German and Japanese nationalism. And with that will come a real rearming by those countries as well as that of South Korea and Taiwan. And that ultimately is not a good thing. Thanks to this arrogant, incompetent idiot-in-chief.
I hear that question all the time: “Who is the next Reagan?”
I was only 15 or so in 1979, but I remember the times pretty well… and I don’t think ANYBODY was thinking in 1977 or 1978 as things went bad that Ronald Reagan was THE answer. I don’t think that we knew what a find we had in Reagan until after he was in office. The electorate just knew that more Carter was NOT the answer.
Identifying who the next Reagan is is a mug’s game (and a self-fulfilling prophesy of disaster). First thing’s first: stop the bleeding, start the breathing, protect the wound and treat for shock. Either the next President will rise to the occasion or they won’t, but fretting that “x” is or is not the next Reagan doesn’t help.
I remember that infamous time all too well.
Carter was recognized early on, as the incompetent he was, While our enemies seized upon his weakness, they did so too late in his term. Only Shear luck kept us from lasting harm.
Øbama on the other hand is a seditious traitor of a higher league. From his “Apology Tour 2009″ to his World-Wide Despot Ass-Kissing (and Ally bashing) Junket, he has set up America as the sacrificial lamb for slaughter on the alter of social justice. (code-speak for Communism). That’s only the foreign policy side, on the economic side, fundamental change means redistributing wealth: ending capitalism, bankruptcy and state control of industry. Social crimes include every possible divisive sh!t storm he can conjure-up including institutionalized thwarting of Federal Immigration Law.
Carter was a horrible president, but he didn’t approach becoming a domestic enemy of the Constitution who consorted with Domestic Terrorists.
History will come to realize Øbama really was a “Post Turtle”. He didn’t get to the top of the political world on his own (record of accomplishment and experience), someone put him there, and he certainly doesn’t belong there.
Carter was only a moron.
This administration is a cell of marxists, anarchists, black-supremacists, filo-jihadists: they REJOICE for the international chaos and for the weakening of America.
These are not dangerous days, these are doom’s days.
The only thing we don’t know is if this administration has an “October surprise” to choke the elections.
I believe that by now even the few gentlemen left in the Democratic party PRAY for a GOP victory in November.
I agree with your analysis of parallels, with one major caveat. James Earl Carter; while a bumbling incompetent on a good day, with a downhill run, and a blazing tailwind, did not seem to become an active hater of all things American until well after he left office.
Buraq Hussein Obama, culturally and politically, has always hated this country. His deliberate actions to weaken us politically, economically, strategically, and Constitutionally may be expressed through his meglomania; but that is merely the lens that he uses to focus his hatred. He and his supporters are not in their hearts, our countrymen.
In short, I am not nearly as optimistic as to hope that Obama will take the steps you outlined in your final paragraph. That would imply that he was both able to recognize and react to real world conditions that do not match his preconceptions, and that he intended that the United States survive and prosper. Neither assumption is backed by any evidence in hand, and the evidence of our own eyes since January 2009 is not such that either assumption can be taken as a “given”.
There are the cycles of forgetfulness, where as a nation we think that we can take a vacation from reality. Each such period culminates in crisis. I personally remember in 1980, looking back on 1979, deciding that another 4 years with Democrats in control would destroy the country. I switched from being a very active JFK Democrat to being an even more active Republican.
I admit to not being impressed at the time with that former movie actor, and I gladly and humbly admit that I was wrong. We were able to save ourselves as a country at the very last minute.
There are no guarantees from History that such a recovery will always be possible. Every empire falls, eventually. Every dynasty fails, eventually. Every civilization collapses, eventually. The Long Night is only held back by the constant exertions of those who will fight the entropy of human stupidity.
As a nation, and as a civilization; we are beset and besieged from within and without. As your fellow Pajamas Media blogger, Richard Fernandez, has written; the current political/social/economic structure can only be held up by deliberate denial of the truth.
Both cases demonstrate that nothing is more paramount either to the establishment nor to the politically correct sections of the media than the maintenance of a lie. For the lie is in the service of the greater good. High reasons of policy will be invoked to explain why the truth should not be so. But the extreme reliance on fantasy by parts of the Western establishment goes well beyond surrounding a kernel of the truth with a “bodyguard of lies.” Instead it is the lie itself which is guarded by even more falsehoods. Gradually and inexorably, an entire political class has staked its existence on continuation of falsehood. The greater good is the fiction. Deception has become a necessity in itself.
As a result, any moderately well informed individual knows that there is no Islamic extremism, nor even terrorism. There are only man made disasters. Everybody knows that we can borrow our way out of debt, that the welfare state is the sustainable wave of the future; that Egypt has no border with Gaza through which it can provide supplies if it wanted; that the UN has kept Hezbollah from importing hundreds of missiles into Lebanon; that the thought of a handful of Jews has kept hundreds of millions of oil-rich Muslims from attaining prosperity; and that Global Warming is the main danger facing the planet Earth. That these assertions are untrue hardly matters; that they are indisputable is what seems to count. For who shall dispute them?
Reality might. And therein lies the problem.
And when it does, denial of reality will bear no more weight than the superior culture of the Romanized Britains did with the barbarians AFTER the Roman legions returned home.
While I am but an amateur historian, and I am not probably worthy of even taking a class from you; I have had for some time been feeling historical parallels. Domestically, like in the early 1770′s or perhaps 1860. In foreign affairs it feels like late June 1914, or perhaps early April 1940. Forces are already in motion and must run their course. There is a lot of entropy to fight. The issue is in doubt.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai: well said. I especially agree with you that Obama and his crowd hate our country. I can’t back it up with any psychological analysis–just my gut feeling–the my visceral reaction as a species of animal tells me in a loud voice that this guy does NOT have my interests at heart, and seeks to re-create our country into something else.
“Obama and his crowd hate America”
You betchum. Obama, Ayers, “Rev.” Wright, Van Johes, et. al. hate America.
You can understand Obama very easily once you understand that he wants to bring America down.
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
Russia, 1915-1916
I’ve compiled a very nice list of similarities between Obama and Carter. Check it out on my blog – some things are amazing…
http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/2010/04/obama-versus-carter-very-entertaining.html
During the 2008 election and in its aftermath, I said on several occasions to myself and friends that I fully expected a nuclear war in the Middle East within two years. Israel, now knowing that the U.S. emphatically does not have its back, and in fact gives all appearances of rooting for the other side, has very little incentive left NOT to employ every weapon in its arsenal in what is for them a very literal life-or-death struggle. The one thought that has to be uppermost in the mind of every man and woman in Israel’s government is: Never Again and Especially Not on My Watch.
As to what we are supposed to do to halt or recover from this? In 1980 the U.S. was the world’s largest creditor. It had the economic resources to launch a 600-ship navy, to push the MX program and SDI (and to convince the USSR that we meant to pay whatever it took to do so), to deploy the Pershing II to Europe, and generally sober the rest of the world the jolly hell up. We were not in hock to our eyebrows to countries that wished us ill. The U.S. is now the world’s largest debtor, has a debt-to-GDP ratio that compares unfavorably with most of the First World, is being very intentionally driven even further in that direction, and for the next two-plus years will be headed by a man whom the rest of the level-headed world views as a joke. Whence will come the resources to recover from an Obama presidency? Gentlemen, we have ground our seed corn and the larder is just about bare. It’s going to be a very hungry few years.
Instead of Our 1979
Why not call it,
Deja Vu
History Repeats Itself
Hang On and Pray
Or As Candidate Ronald Reagan Said, “There You Go Again”
History seldom repeats itself but it often rhymes.
I’ve always thought that resonates is a better word, since the intensity seems to vary, while trending to the more destructive, until the whole structure collapses.
If America is revisiting 1979, might the Middle East be revisiting (ultimately) Europe’s 1939?
That is, given the world’s abandonment of Iraq,
might the “relationship” between
Germany – Poland – USSR
serve as a template for
Turkey – Iraq – Iran?
Germany and the Soviet Union were enemies, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact notwithstanding. Turkey is best buds with Iran.
President Obama and his supporters are NOT philosopher-kings, nor should they be thought even to think of themselves as such. The term “philosopher-king” comes from Plato’s Republic, see Bk.s 8-9, for the scale of individuals and constitutions from the Ideal Rule of the Wise (the gods) down to the Tyranny. The Philosopher-King is the closest to the Ideal, since he knows he is ignorant and loves, and seeks, wisdom.
So far as I can tell, President Obama is a would-be tyrant, lover of tyrants, constrained by the U.S. Constitution.
> “I imagine that, like Carter, Obama will begin scrambling to restore deterrence, since the alternative would mean the end of his plans for amnesty, cap-and-trade and more expansion of the social welfare state. So expect a sudden tough line with Korea, more warnings to Iran, and in general some Carter-like posturing to make up for lost time.
We are in a very dangerous age indeed.”<
I doubt very much that Obama will change his course. His leftist ideology is more important to him to follow. He cares more for the world opinion than the opinion of his own countrymen. Then again this is expected as he identifies more with the citizens of the world than the US citizens. Does he care that US population is against most of his policies, health care, illegal alien amnesty, cap and trade, all the bailouts, union favors, etc, etc,. Yet he plows on!!!
Those who elected him must decide in the coming elections if they want Carter-2 to continue with his policies or elect a new congress that would thwart his reckless policies.
Humorous cartoon on the “Titanic Failure” of the Obama Presidency at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/category/obama/
> “I imagine that, like Carter, Obama will begin scrambling to restore deterrence, since the alternative would mean the end of his plans for amnesty, cap-and-trade and more expansion of the social welfare state. So expect a sudden tough line with Korea, more warnings to Iran, and in general some Carter-like posturing to make up for lost time.
We are in a very dangerous age indeed.”<
I doubt very much that Obama will change his course. His leftist ideology is more important to him to follow. He cares more for the world opinion than the opinion of his own countrymen. Then again this is expected as he identifies more with the citizens of the world than the US citizens. Does he care that US population is against most of his policies, health care, illegal alien amnesty, cap and trade, all the bailouts, union favors, etc, etc,. Yet he plows on!!!
Those who elected him must decide in the coming elections if they want Carter-2 to continue with his policies or elect a new congress that would thwart his reckless policies.
Better Carter 2 than Reagan 2. That guy was a complete disaster. And a liar. He did more to push America down the road to being a fascist theocracy than a thousand Glenn Becks could do in a thousand years.
Not only are you delusional, but you have no concept of real world history.
Skeeziks: you’re not only deranged, you’re an ass.
Why Mr. Scuzneck, you don’t even know what a fascist theocracy looks like. This is what a mob of savages looks like to a brave young Israeli. The savages are among us:
http://www.therightscoop.com/balls
Reagan put us on that path, and though we’ve successfully held off the most ravenous aspect of it, a fascist theocracy may still be the downfall of this great nation.
Did you ever have a relationship with reality?
Well the would-be fascist theocrat has just announced that he and Tipper are getting divorced, so we can kick than can down the road to 2016.
It’s an interesting take on reality, to accuse someone who fought to reduce the power of govt of being a fascist. It shows that the speaker either has no idea what words mean, or he’s lying. In skeezik’s case, both is probably the right answer.
“fought to reduce the power of govt” . . . but he didn’t, did he? Just like the deficit, didn’t reduce that Just like intrusions into civil rights and privacy . . .didn’t reduce that. I was there, I remember what he did.
I was a babe of 17 in 1979, but even I could see plainly that Carter was all but inviting our enemies to darken our doorstep. It was damn scary then…and twice as scary now.
I’ve always believed that we get second chances–however, the second chances are always exponentially more difficult than the first. We’ll need a leader twice as tough as Reagan to undo what Obama has done.
In 1979, I literally counted each day that the hostages were in Iran. After dinner my mom would turn on ABC news with Frank Reynolds and we would watch the daily drama unfold for 444 days. I was a young teenager then, but I knew enough to know evil when I saw it and I knew that Carter was a weak and dangerous president. Now 31 years later, America has another Jimmy Carter in the White House.
Excellent analysis, save . . . “They [Chavez & Putin] are not impressed with identity politics; they care little for degrees or titles; they have no elite white guilt.” Not impressed? Care little? Those are quite the understatements – I would go so far as to say they care none – considering they wish to destroy our culture & civilization, along with us in the process, that is, if they can’t control us first.
Obama is just as, if not more, lily-livered as Carter – no spine to stand up to threats to our national security. Appeasement of tin-pot dictators; constant apologizing for America’s greatness; absolutely zero understanding of economics; providing (unconstitutionally, btw) tax dollars for mis/mal/non feasance in banks, insurance companies & car companies; and an abhorrence for all things military are all the normal mindset of this administration. 2012 cannot arrive soon enough for me.
I think you’ve got it nailed. Only one thing missing. Where is the Reagan to Obama’s Carter? I don’t see him waiting in the wings this time.
I agree with all the previous posters who disagreed sharply with VDH’s conclusion about Obama changing course as he sees the disaster approaching. No, he thinks he’s doing quite well; if anyone in the Admin – Biden or perhaps Gates – challenges him, it will be a tug-of-war, and he may try to freeze them out. Only if Emanuel and Clinton (unlikely) join the dissidents, may they corral Obama and slow the rush to madness.
Yet he never will be as sane as Carter was, and that’s not saying much.
For all the time he spent in Muslim schools, Obama missed a key trait of Muslims, particularly Arab Muslims – they despise weakness. Weakness is viewed as opportunity – strength is avoided.
The quiet contempt was treated with I arrived in Saudi Arabia in 1990 was completely reversed when my unit return from Kuwait after thrashing Saddam’s army. The Saudis all wanted to be our friends AFTER we showed our strength.
Sweet talk of negotiation and peace is pure encouragement to them. Too bad Obama missed that lesson – or maybe he likes the direction we are headed.
All true! Now just imagine Jimmeh … er … Barreh thirty years on, raging against all the things that unfairly brought him down and we will have come full circle. I wonder if Billy Ayers will still be around to write it up for him.
“Thats what made Reagan so unflappable.He had seen WWI,WWII,Korea, Atomic weapons, The Great Depression and so on…”
Oh no, here we go again. Voodoo “trickle down” Economics, Arthur Laffer, Milton Friedman, deregulation (ahem, anybody else thinking of the Gulf of Mexico?) the start of massive budget deficits (no balanced budgets as Reagan promised) a repudiation of Carter energy policy coupled with a return to cheap free flowing feel good Reagan foreign oil.
We scorn Carter but the mess we are in was largely created on the slippery slope Reagan started us on. President Obama can hardly be blamed for it. Sure Bill Clinton had a hand in it but at least the tide had turned before he left office. The tragedy of it all is that President Obama went with the Bush economic team rather than heeding the advice of President Carter’s Paul Volcker.
I see we have another liberal who prefers lies to reality.
Reagan’s tax cuts led to the greatest burst of growth seen in the post war era. A burst of growth that lasted until the Bush and Clinton tax cuts killed it off.
The Reagan tax cuts more then payed for themselves. The problem was that there were enough Democrats and RINO’s in congress who spent all of that new money, and more.
Carter’s “energy policy” led to the shutting down of US wells and the increased purchase of foreign oil. It also led to gas lines as far as the eye could see. Reagan’s elimination of Carter’s screw up led to an explosion in oil development here in the US.
That would be Bush and Clinton tax hikes.
oops
Have you been taking the brown acid? Your reality sure looks different than mine. Did you pay for yours, or is it a gift from someone?
Remember that we still have 6.5 years of Obama. Obama will have had 4 years in which to make sure he can create 5 million extra votes in 2012, and steal the election.
Also, blacks will vote 96% for Obama no matter what. Nothing Obama can do (short of switching parties) will cost him the black vote.
Obama & Co. will wait until after the November elections
to start raising interest rates. The resulting economic
crunch will be felt first and worst by Blacks; They will
not wait for 2012 to let the Won know that he has lost
their support.
Au contraire, triple T. More and more blacks are waking up and realizing he’s stealing their (and their children’s) chance at the American dream: a good education, a good job, & home ownership. It’ll probably be solidly in the 80s, but it’s darn near impossible to get 96% of any voting bloc to agree on anything. I didn’t think we could, much less would, ever see a worse President than Carter, but this nincompoop is setting new lows every day. It’s too close to call at this point who is the winner, but Obama has plenty of time left to reach new depths.
I agree with Mr. Hanson, but disagree on the severity of Carter v Obama. If ever there were an example of the “first time as tragedy, second time as farce” trope, this is it.
Our enemies today are infinitely less threatening than the erstwhile USSR, especially in 1979. Who exactly are our enemies now, as in willing to attack us physically, not economic or opportunistic? 1) The government of Iran, hated by its own people, the leadership of which could be eliminated in an hour. 2) What’s left of AQ and associated groups, which genuinely could inflict terrorist attacks on the US, but nothing resembling remotely an nuclear exchange with the USSR 3) ?
Our economy is far stronger than it was in 1979, especially its potential for rapid growth,and is far more diversified and resilient. In 1979, the old manufacturing industries were wilting, and high-tech was little more than esoteric and obscure, or toys for hobbyists. When I graduated from college in 1980–and from a very good college–the options were: 1) Med school, 2) Law school, 3) being someone’s assitant (male) or secretary (female), 4) military or 5) menial work. Not only was that it, there was no idea that there would be anything else. My children and their friends are just starting to graduate, and while jobs are scarce, their career prospects are excellent, and they know it and are preparing accordingly. And there are so many more things to do these days!
Viewing the future through rose-colored spectacles
will not hide the blood. The current socio-economic
structure of the US is as beautiful, and as fragile,
as a glass sculpture. One sharp blow will shatter it,
and the mosaic assembled from the shards will be hard
and sharp-edged indeed.
9/11, 12/25/2009, Ft Hood…
Nedd I go on? It needs no state to attack us – just explosives, or guns, or…in fact, as you say, no state is that suicidal – yet.
And yet we are attacked. Despite your reassurances.
Surely the litany of disasters wrought by a supine, appeasement oriented Washington makes the world infinitely more dangerous.
The one point I would add, to this otherwise cogent analysis, is the Israeli wild card.The article seems to suggest that Israel’s leaders are sitting idly by while the Israeli house is on existential fire.To be sure, Israel’s fractured leadership usually appears like the gang that can’t shoot straight.
HOWEVER, it would be naive in the extreme to assume,when it comes to the Iranian issue, that Israel is not of one mind-they are.While they disagree on how much time an Israeli pre-emption would buy them,in terms of setting back the nuclear project, this is just a matter of shades of gray-a distinction without a difference.
ALL signs within Israel are pointing to a pre-emption, and those who refuse to see it-even in Israel-are too scared to face reality.
Now, no one should be foolish enough to think that the blowback, from such a manifestly legal and moral strike, will not be severe, however, considering the alternative of NOT striking, the decision to do so for Jerusalem is a no brainer.
Mushroom clouds hovering over the Israeli landscape have a way of convincing the otherwise disagreeable to agree, rendering our core leadership of ONE mind.
So as American’s we should worry more about who actually *has* nuclear weapons not those who we guess might want to develop them and what we do with our foreign aid.
Sorry, but my eye caught Ramsay Clark’s name and I involuntarily cross-referenced it with an abstruse connection to the Gaza-bound “aid” ship.
Early in 2003, Clark, funded in part by the Tides Foundation, travelled to Ireland to defend – or attempt to defend – activist Mary Kelly. Kelly had taken a hatchet to the nose of a US Navy C-40A which was refueling at Shannon airport, causing $500,000 worth of damage. Later on, former UN Assistant General Secretary Denis Halliday was on hand at her trial to vouch for her character.
But wait, on the same day Kelly was attacking US aircraft, she was also being honored at New York’s Waldorf Astoria, at a fund raiser organized by supporters of the anti-peace process Republican Sinn Fein (the political arm of the Continuity IRA). Also being honored was a convicted gun-runner. But all that is another story.
Among Kelly’s comrades at the “Shannon [Airport] Peace Camp” was Caoimhe Butterly, a former correspondent for the IRA organ An Phoblacht. It was Butterly who covered the Zapatista prisoners’ hunger strike in Chiapas, Mexico for the Sinn Fein organ.
Predictably, these two women are also mixed up with Hamas. Kelly had a central role in the Church of the Nativity stand-off in May, 2002, when “peace activists” joined armed Palestinians in the besieged Bethlehem basilica. Butterly was Yasser Arafat’s constant companion during the Ramallah siege.
Butterly was named by the Europe Edition of Time Magazine as one of their “Heroes,” of 2003, under the title, “She Took a Bullet for Peace.” Today, both women are celebrated in the Irish media, with interviews and documentaries devoted to these living legends.
It just goes on and on and on …
Since posting (#41), I now learn that Caoimhe Butterly is aboard the Freedom Flotilla, pictured on the cargo ship “MV Rachel Corrie,” third from the right.
http://warincontext.org/2010/06/04/mv-rachel-corrie-due-to-reach-gaza-within-hours-the-world-is-watching-mustafa-barghouthi/
Wait for it. First the set up . . .
1. CGW
Doctor Hanson: I know of no writer today who has the grasp of unrewritten history and who places it in proper context that you display so frequently.
5. Morton Doodslag
Superb summation
6. setnaffa
DH is brilliant and to the point
8. oMan
Doctor Hanson: I can only echo CGW @1 above. You have a vision and voice which are unique, and uniquely valuable
11. Dave
You are so right sir
15. Lady Di
I love you, honey!!
And now the punch line . . .
7. formwiz
Excellent piece, doc. One wonders how the Lefties, who keep telling us (and each other) how brilliant they are, can keep making the same mistakes.
Indeed. Drill, baby, drill. Hail Rush. Go Sarah! (If she’s still going by that name today.)
The really sad thing is, skeeziks actually believes that he is making sense.
Opines the genius who apparently can’t see the difference between being hailed as highly intelligent and actually doing something that proves it.
Wow. Even people who love this blog don’t follow it that closely. You are the hardest working troll in troll business.
You probably stand by the french fry machine all day, day dreaming of your next post.
How is that Associate’s Degree coming, anyway?
Boys, boys, boys, being unmasked as obsequious hypocrites can’t feel good. I don’t expect you to admit it . . . to me . . . in public. But there is always the dark hour when you don’t have the soothing balm of similar transgressors. Then you will know. Change? Never. But know? Yes.
I try not to feed the rolls but come on! If you have anything substantive to add then please do so. If your goal is to simply pose as a smarmy twit then you are succeeding beyond all expectations. I used to know people like you when I was an undergraduate. They were bullying blowhards who were sure of everything but actually knew nothing. Most of them are now working on their third or fourth marriages and are twenty to thirty grand behind on their child support. Nice to see some things never change.
I used to know people like you when I was a deacon . . . conservative god-fearing moralists who insisted that only they, through divine inspiration and fact-based faith, knew the true nature of the universe. Most of them now are in homo rehab or hiking the Appalachian Trail or hanging out in the bathroom at the Minneapolis airport or begging their parents for money to pay off the husband of their mistress. I guess some things never change.
And I thank you.
And now, for you entertainment and awareness, a glimpse at the unavoidable and undeniable . . .
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/stewart-slams-glenn-beck_n_600486.html
Hail Rush. Go Sarah.
skeeziks has kindly agreed to put on a demonstration of emotional projection.
When you were a deacon? In a conservative church? Islamic deacons are news to me, moho, you big liar. Your complete cluelessness is funny though. Next week, you’ll be using another nic and telling us about the synagogue you used to attend.
Well – Those of us who have actually been on the Appalachian Trail at least get regular exercise and fresh air. It also means we aren’t trapped in a basement obsessing over Victor Davis Haonson. You should really get back on your meds.
Acknowledgement of insight and truth = obsequious!? Oh…
Fork tongued and hiding behind your keyboard with the proclamation that only you have the cajones to take a stand in opposition. You’re the courageous maverick. The dark horse unexpected hero.
You are a modest person Skeezik, with a lot to be modest about.
No, no, no, you got me all wrong . . . I’ve never considered myself a maverick. (Where have I heard that before?)
Have you ever considered yourself human?
Hey, Sleazeiks, Better get off Mom’s computer and go peddle your copies of the “Daily Worker”.
Donald Fagan summed up your life in “Kid Charlemagne”
Now your patrons have all left you in the red
Your low rent friends are dead
This life can be very strange
All those day-glo freaks who used to paint their face
They’ve joined the human race, some things will never change
Son you were mistaken
You are obsolete, look at all the white men on the street.
Get along, Get along Kid Charlemagne.
Get along Kid Charlemagne.
Go away you ignorant little troll.
Here’s the really fun part . . . none of you can ever refute anything I say. All you can muster is “nuh-uh’ and “troll’ and the most faded of all blog cliches about being fat and basements and meds and mom (you forgot Cheetos). The former shows a stunning lack of knowledge and the latter proves an even broader paucity of imagination.
Geez, guys, ante up. Get in the game. Offer some unique and curious observations. That’s what I do . . . and that’s why you react. It’s fun and all, but I need more of a challenge. This is like playing T-ball.
Come, on, who’s got a pair? Donna V?
My favorite argument stopper. John Stewart from the Comedy channel. And imagine that he’s berating Glen Beck of all people. There’s my reply about your facts Skeezer. Bwaaahahahahahahahah!
No references to historical perspective, no enlightened discussion or spirited debate, just John Stewart, Comedy Central and HuffPo. Go back to school and learn something from history before you’re destined to resonate with it (see, I read the posts too…)
Next thing you know Sleaziks be posting links to Colbert. I will admit, they are funny…
Oh, BTW, I’d LIKE to refute something you’ve said Sleazix, but you haven’t said anything. Sigh…
See?
It is ironic that we are still reaping the whirlwind of the Carter legacy. Iran, since the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, has been the center of gravity for most of the terror in the world. All the while, he continues to hate America that has blessed him immeasurably and delivers us to our enemies.
Thanks to VDH for helping us find some truth and perspective.
My hours with an irrigation hoe in my hand were golden; at least looking back.
Above all recognize that the mainstream news media no longer seeks the truth.
They live in the closed NPR politically correct bubble world where the party line is more important than the truth. Obama excels in that dream world.
But our Country will not survive there.
“Then followed the apology tour, the bowing, the Cairo myth-making speech, the reach out to Ahmadinejad, Assad, Castro, Chavez, and Putin. . .”
There is one very substantial difference between Carter and Obama . . . there perhaps was some respect from the foreign powers that Carter would at least try. Meaning that Carter being a military educated man did in fact have the knowledge to use some form of military action. Obama does not, will not, and can never create that level of fear or respect by the same foreign leaders.
Why? Actual quite simple . . . as Obama “bowed and appoligized” . . . he revealed one very clear facit of himself . . . the man has “no face” . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)
Obama is from a caste alien to the leaders of the world, simple put . . . he is NOTHING.
I lived overseas at the time.
Carter was considered a fool, but they were uneasy about him because he was someone you never could figure out what he’d do, and if he’d change his mind the next day.
But Reagan was demonized as someone who would blow up the world. But at least they knew where he stood.
Since then, I figured ridicule or hatred was going to be directed toward the US no matter what.
The guy is clueless. A no nothing. Empty suit. Hollow vessel. No anchor or reliable basis in experience. A creature of elite institutions, bankrolled by who knows who……? What do you expect? I feel sorry for him. He is flailing and floundering , drowning, and is clearly in over his head. I despise the ‘elites’ that engineered his ascension to power. Perhaps there will be a just retribution. The question is, will we survive??
Carter’s election was the first presidential election in which I was able to vote. As an idealistic college student, I had no problem choosing Carter. Now I have a deep appreciation for Carter, because he was successful in turning me into a full-blown conservative. Let’s hope Obama has the same effect on our current crop of college students. Although I won’t hold my breath.
Until the 1980 (I was 32 at that time) elections I had voted exclusively dem – in 1980 I (reluctantly) cast my vote for Reagan having sensed that Carter wasn’t cut out for the job. Certainly the Iranian hostage crisis played a large part in that.
Looking back on the problems of our times the focal point comes back to the Carter presidency. His failure to extend a hand to the Shah of Iran at a dark time in his rule in that country – and his meddling in Afghanistan have come full circle. We are embroiled in a war in Afghanistan – and seemingly on the downhill side of one in Iraq after deposing a dictator partly of our own making due to policies in Iran and Iraq.
One can only wonder where we’d be had Carter backed the Shah when he needed our help – and not mettled in Afghanistan causing the USSR to get suspicious enough to invade.
Those are the watershed moments that bring clarity to the whys of our troubled times.
Comparing Obama to Carter will have to wait for the historians – but this much can be said – One was simply a bumbling fool (a personality trait that continues unabated to this day). The other seems to have designs on this country that only he and some very close advisors fully know about. Only time will tell us how comparable they are – and only if we come out the other side of these monumental problems intact as a nation.
Where was the world wide outrage from the left when the North Koreans torpedoed a ship, killing 46 people?????
Professor Hanson:
Any news on the Mt. Kaiser hike?
Dr. Hanson:
As always, well stated. I am old enough to have lived through the Carter era, and like you, I see very disquieting parallels between that time and now. Here’s what I recall, and what I see.
I remember gasoline prices shooting up dramatically, followed by gas lines. It’s hard for contemporary Americans to imagine having to wait in line for hours to buy just a few gallons of gas at inflated prices, never knowing with certainty if there would be any gas for sale–gas needed to drive to work, get the kids to school, travel to buy groceries–when their turn, at last came. I remember when gas stations weren’t also Quick Shops, and during those dark days, were open only a few hours a day. Travelers planned their fuel consumption very carefully indeed–or just didn’t travel–lest they find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere waiting for a service station to open in 12 hours. The elite know they’ll always have whatever they need, and don’t know, or don’t care, that most Americans rely on reasonably priced fuel for day to day economic and actual survival. There are no subways or taxpayer subsidized commuter trains in most of America. Jimmah Carter’s solution was to wear a cardigan sweater and to accuse the American people of “malaise.” The American people were not amused.
Fast forward to Barack Obama campaigning for president, actually saying on camera that if he got his way, energy prices would “necessarily skyrocket.” Fast forward to yesterday (06-02-10) when Obama used the Gulf oil spill as an excuse to argue for a massive carbon tax ( wonder what took him so long?). This is one of the very few promises Obama has made that we can count on his doing everything possible to keep. He would love to see gasoline at $6.00 and more a gallon as he and his environmentalist supporters, simpletons all, think this would cause less gas consumption and that this would be an unqualified good. In 1979, fuel costs and shortages caused the prices of everything to rise and the economy to nosedive. Few sane economists see the bright light of a dawning recovery, and if energy prices dramatically increase as Obama would prefer, we’ll be longing for the good old days of 1979. Barack Obama’s solution to everything is to accept complete responsibility, then blame George W. Bush (why not? After all, now he’s breaking up marriages, albeit on a ten year delay.), dither, spout a bit of lofty rhetoric, promise transparency, and then stonewall like mad. Of course, he’s always amazed and upset that the American people are so bumpkinish that they don’t appreciate his brilliance and his olympian and tireless efforts on their behalf. I suspect the American people will continue to be unamused.
Remember too the 1979 glories of skyrocketing inflation, and the eventual morass of stagflation. Ah yes, the good old days of 20% car loans–if you could get a loan at all. Boy, if only we could get that malaise under control, why, that would fix everything! The American people remained unamused.
Do I really have to outline the probable effects of levels of debt unimaginable only a year ago? Of the burden of massive and unprecedented entitlements we can’t possibly afford? Of the Obamite’s desire to pile ever more taxes, bureaucracies, regulations and taxpayer funded union pensions on every American man, woman and child? Yes, 1979 will likely look pretty darned good by comparison.
Carter’s term in office was also a time of horrific damage to our military and intelligence capabilities. lunatic rhetorical dithering and feckless diplomacy toward enemies who took full advantage of having a self-righteous, moralizing weakling in the White House. Our enemies must have been amazed and delighted to find an American president who didn’t seem to know who his friends and enemies were, and who seemed fundamentally incapable of capably using American power. The Iranian hostage situation was merely the most obvious revelation of Carter’s weakness.
Iran is, once again, no doubt delighted to find an American president who has no idea what is in America’s interest, who is as likely to attack America’s allies as he is to praise her enemies, and who delivers repeated, half-hearted threats and tissue paper deadlines, but does nothing whatever to back them up. Unfortunately, this time, the stakes are substantially higher and include not only the certainty of an attempt at a second Holocaust, but an attack or attacks on American soil that will cost hundred of thousands of lives. Tragically, the Iranians can be reasonably certain that even attacks of those kinds would be unlikely to provoke an effective or substantial counter strike from America. Israel is another matter, but Iran cannot be deterred by the conventional threat of annihilation, a fact about which Obama seems blissfully, dangerously unaware in his moronic attempts to dismantle America’s nuclear arsenal.
Finally, character matters. Jimmah Carter was not an obvious hater of America. He did try to represent America as her president. Yes, he was naive and incompetent. Yes, he was timid and foolish. He did indeed place too much faith in the spoken word, and had difficultly understanding that the people and leaders of other nations did not think like Americans and did not have the same perspectives and goals. To his credit, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, he admitted that the scales, to at least some degree, fell from his eyes and he realized, to at least a limited degree, that the Soviets really were bad guys. It was only after his thankfully brief presidential tenure that he began overtly praising America’s enemies, committing treason, and making anti-American and pro-terrorist statements so bizarre that even he was forced to walk a few of them back.
But in Barack Obama, we have the first post American president. We have a man who does not represent America, who is beyond America, above America, a man who, as with every other position he has ever held, may well see his current position as a temporary platform from which to launch his campaign for bigger and better things. He is so grand, so brilliant, so like a god (just ask the lamestream media) that he has transcended the presidency and very nearly, humanity itself. Imagine his occasional frustration when his word is not sufficient to transmute matter and reality.
Unfortunately, Dr. Hanson, I’m a bit more pessimistic than you. I suspect that Obama will indeed give the appearance of becoming stronger on defense, intelligence, and other initiatives that would actually be good for America, but let’s never forget that what Obama says is seldom what he intends or does, unless of course he is promising to enact some socialist/communist/SEIU wish list. Rational politicians adapt their positions to the realities of American public opinion. Statist true believers do not. They are entirely content to drive the nation into the ground while simultaneously peeing on our collective heads while trying to convince us it’s raining hope and change.
Barack Obama is indeed extraordinary in several ways: He has made France appear to be a powerhouse of democratic, military resolve, and he may very well make Jimmah Carter look Reaganesque–if we are very, very unlucky. Let’s pray that we don’t soon look on 1979 as the good old days. I lived through it. It wasn’t.
“We scorn Carter but the mess we are in was largely created on the slippery slope Reagan started us on. President Obama can hardly be blamed for it.”
He took the job, he took responsibility for everything he signed for. That’s how actual, responsible MEN deal with these things. Not point the finger at every bad turn, and whimper, “but HE started it,” like some nasty-mouthed, ill-disciplined 14 year old.
In point of fact, that he continually blames things on his predecessors, or the media, or midwesterners, or rednecks, etc., should speak volumes to you about what kind of incompetent he actually is.
’nuff said….
Went to a mosque, gonna throw some rocks/ Saw the Ayatollah, gonna put you in a box/ Bomb Iran, Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran! (Ah the good old days are here again… same idiots to deal with! I prefered the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” to Vince Vance and the Valiants’ best, though.)
VDH: Excellent work as always.
“Carter’s Christian self-righteousness was simply a religious variant on Wilson’s academic haughtiness; Obama’s elite condescension—human nature can be uplifted and changed if it follows the exalted behavior of our president—is a mixture of Chicago activism and the hothouse of academia.” You have correctly identified the symbiosis of these three men and I would also point out that they have all tried on each others clothes in order to deceive, which in the case of Obama; he can hardly tolerate looking like a Christian let alone feeling like one. So he has the Pelosi’s and Kerry’s put on fake robes of righteousness for him. The one thing they all have in common is a deep hatred for the free thinking self determining Christian or Jew and that is why they become strange bedfellows with our sworn enemies. A free thinking independent man cannot be controlled so they try to enslave him or kill him and that’s what the coming confrontation is all about. This is the liberal version of Sharia law.
Re # 13. Brian
“You leave yourself open to the question of course: if Obama is our Carter, who is our Reagan? Maybe that’s the next column.”
There is NONE.
I remember Carter and his “turn down the thermostat”, you can wear a sweater. all just fine and dandy when the thermometer is well above freezing.
the lines for gas (summer 2008, obummer didn’t think +$3 gas prices were HIGH enough.) never let a crises go to waste, get those crude oil prices up there. means to push a permanent stop to drilling in the gulf – you can’t drill anywhere else. People won’t drive – not that as many are now seeing they have no job to DRIVE to. food prices will go up because truckers will just pass the higher costs onto the consumers. but hey, the little people don’t need fresh produce, must less waygu beef.
Carter’s “save electricity, . . don’t put up outdoor christmas lights” etc. of course, we aren’t a christian nation, so why would we need christmas lights?
Just based on things the won has said, I don’t think carter’s “measures” went far enough for the current future former president.
for those not old enough to remember, well, now’s your chance to learn what your elders are talking about.
Another good one. Thank you professor.
The comparisons to Carter are all to apt. You could throw in loose money/inflationary policies at the fed, and foolish, anti free market economic policies too. What worries me though is after Carter, we had a Ronald Reagan to set things right. But I see no equavalent to Ronald Reagan in the repub party now.
Ronaldus Magnum achieved what he did in spite of Carter’s Congress working energetically to foil anything/everything designed to fix US. Rare “American exceptionalism.”
Don’t be so hasty about needing RR. Very different problem set. Check out Congressman Paul Ryan’s remarkable ROADMAP.
You will see a whole lot of kick all the ba*tards out, starting in Nov and continuing to 2012. Don’t dismiss it, rally round. It really makes a lot of sense. Installing instead all newbies dedicated to the principals outlined by Ryan starts to destroy the spoils system granted by seniority, and we can vote them out before they gain enough time-in-grade to retire on our dime.
Get allied. Swarm. Get involved. Contribute ideas, time and money. The time to stand up fast approaches. Like that young jewish boy with the flag. Leaders emerge.
Decide now how you will handle organized intimidation at your polling places. It’s bound to be present; so plan for it. Perhaps US vets will volunteer to be present in uniform. (Mine is VN era and worn thin, but it will deliver the message.) Hopefully we won’t need be armed in 2012, cause cameras didn’t suffice in 2010.
Next you’re going to tell us that leisure suits are making a come back. If that’s the case, the West’s days are indeed numbered. Tonight I plan to attend the wake of a family friend who served in Carlson’s Raiders and while doing so received the Navy Cross and two purple hearts. I wiil definitely say a prayer for him and your your Uncle Victor.
I remember 1979 well. I was about 12 years old. Jimmy Carter had issued his silly rule that a business couldn’t turn their thermostat above 69 degrees. Problem was my parents owned a funeral home which was also our family home (think of the movie My Girl and you have the basic set-up). This was also the harsh winter of 78/79 and I remember being able to see my breath in my bedroom. My dad asked the county council for a waver since the business was also a family dwelling, which they denied. Rules are rules. The city would turn off the street lights in order to meet it’s electric requirements forcing my parents to rent generators to run the street lights for funeral visitation. I know my parents hated Carter with a passion. As mostly a child you would think I was insulated from all of that, but my parents being news junkies discussed politics around the dinner and we watched the news as we ate.
Things seemed bad than, but one thing about Carter, with his sweaters and cheshire cat smile, you never thought he disliked America. Not really.
With Obama I’m not so sure. Wait, I AM sure, and I have been from the beginning. I really don’t think the man has a clue as to what America really is and even if he does, he dislikes it and us.
I don’t know if Carter hated America back then. But he sure does now.
It’s not just that the rest of the world took a look at this empty suit and began to realize what a cipher he is. What is worse is WHAT THEY MUST THINK AMERICANS ARE LIKE FOR PUTTING HIM THERE. Can you blame them?????
There’ll be war by 2012. No? OK, somebody tell me when. Will we be ready? That’s a big NO.
Hey Doc, don’tcha mean Our 1978? We still have two more years with our current pathetic POTUS, as we did in ’78. Disco Inferno.
Dr. Hanson, et. al., taught me that it is not history that repeats itself, rather for good or ill, it is human nature. These “times that try men’s souls” will reveal American character in precious faith and courage…
Does anyone remember The June 3, 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico by Permex the Mexican government-owned oil company? It was the worst oil spill in North America and ten thousand to thirty thousand barrels of oil per day leaked into the Gulf of Mexico for nine months. Permex paid no compensation for the oil spill by asserting sovereign immunity because it was owned by the Mexican government. 1979 was not a good year.
Yes. The odds of a nuclear return of fire on Iran are frighteningly probable, in my opinion.
Another possibility is that one or more Arab states oppose Iran’s build up of weapons grade plutonium in the form of a duel or multiple assault on Iran.
The existance of Iran as a country, with the current track it’s on, are being placed at risk by its theocratic dictatorship.
Iran’s been a theocratic dictatorship since the 1979 revolution.
Indeed, at the crest of cyclic dishonorable appeasement we are amidst.
“The phrase ‘peace for our time’ was spoken on 30 September 1938 by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in his speech concerning the Munich Agreement.”
Not even a memorable quote, four decades later, will ever epitomize the pusillanimity of Carter in 1979, so intangible were his governing principles.
In the fourth decade since, our historic first Islamic apostate president already has his trophy: “In five days we are going to fundamentally transform America.”
With both the mongers of domestic grievances antithetical to our founding ideals of individual freedom and property, and the Leviathan of federal agencies regulating its entitlement to limitless powers, surpassed only by its profligacy in the spending of our money, the “we” comprises foreign powers hostile to American interests.
As did America the superpower emerge from the collapse of Munich, and the ersatz New Soviet Man implode after Carter, so will the unholy alliance of redistributionist debt, idolatry for a political thug, and collusion with Mohammedan skirmishing fall at the feats of our American way of life, always standing strong.
A few predictions, and I would be glad to be wrong
1) Japan, The ROK, Tiawan will obtain nukes of their own simply because the US can no longer be trusted to provide protection. (THAT would tick of the chicoms to no end btw)
2) The first nuke clouds will NOT rise over Tel Aviv, but over Tehran and/or Damascus as the Israeli’s will have been pushed into so tight a corner that it is either that or perish.
By the end of the decade, possibly no later than 2016 (if PREZBO wins a second term), both the Russkies and the chicoms WILL have the capability of having a missle shield and will implement it in a hot second.
As I said I will be more than happy if I’m wrong on any of these….
We have but few chances to make chances in our existence. The relationship between the Palesinien people and Our Good Friends, the Isralies are two.
Who Cares is we do?… I dont at times, neither do our arm chair friends…… but the stakes are too high,,,,, its important my dear friends. Lets make a difference. After all, its not about the simple things, its about Peace ….dammit.
Peace can’t be impossed from the outside. It will only come when the Palestinians decide that living with the Israeli’s is preferable to dying.
The American public chose a child as President, and guess what, most foreign leaders see him as a child, not to be taken seriously. But given his inconsistent and weak approach to foreign affairs, the rogue states especially simply laugh at him and do what they want. And Obama still has another couple of years to screw things up even worse!
Mr. Hanson: You are one of the finest observers on the scene today, and your commentary here is rich with wisdom and insight.
However, I think you are misreading Barack Obama. You write from the premise that Obama wants to “save” the country. Your analogy doesn’t quite match. The parallels are invalid beyond a certain point. You conclude: “I imagine that, like Carter, Obama will begin scrambling to restore deterrence, since the alternative would mean the end of his plans for amnesty, cap and trade and more expansion of the social welfare state.”
The chief difference between Obama and Jimmy Carter, is that Carter actually believed self-immolation would work and stay the knives and tire irons and bombs of this country’s enemies and all would be well. He was a fool. Obama, to judge by his actions to date, knows they won’t work. He is not a fool. He and his allies in and out of office wish to bring this country to its knees by destroying its economy, rendering it helpless against the carnivores (Islamists, Mexicans, environmentalists, welfare statists, ambitious censors, wealth distributors, and the lot), and reducing it to the status of, say, Greece, or Zimbabwe. Americans must grasp that the concerted efforts of Obama and the Democrats over the last year and a half have as the end complete control of this country, and the demotion of Americans as obedient serfs. Obama doesn’t want to save this country. He wants to transform it into a maximum security prison.
This has been the dream of the “radical” generation that put Obama in power, the generation of hippies and Weathermen and SDS. Obama is amenable to that dream. If he “scrambles” at all, it will be to seize more power and surrender the rest of the world to those who would destroy Western civilization. I would like to think there is a redeeming ounce of care for this country in Obama’s moral make-up, but I’m not counting on there being a milligram.
It kind of reminds me of the line in the godfather
” every ten years or so there is a war amongst the families it clears out the bad blood” I paraphrase.
maybe that is what is necessary . A war to blow away all the lies as we really are living in the “Age of Lies”. The press is almost Orwellian in nature and nothing is what it seems – 1984 for sure – only its far more dangerous and subtle.
So bring it on – get it out in the open and if war is what is needed so be it, lets clear the air, the bad blood and settle it for another 50 years.
Skeezek reminds me of that old saying. The left always claims that the dark night of facism is falling on America, but somehow it always lands in Europe.
Left is always telling us that the dark night of fascism is descending on America. Then they do everything they can to make it happen.
Fascism fell on America the day Reagan got elected. Liberals have been fighting it off ever since.
your a coward !! you know who I mean
Why can’t we read the rest of the reader comments? There’s no “next page” button. There are 107 comments but it stops at 67.
The rest are replies to the top level posts.
Yeah, 1979 was a bad year, although I had a very good son born that year.
Every President seems to have his time and place, relating to the cycles of American and World politics. People were ripe for Reagan after four years of Carter, but not ripe for him before that, and Reagan could not have been Reagan without Carter before him. Doctrinaire philosopher/activist/observers believe that people should think the way they do, ALL the time, but our system only works when we move between the cycles of left and right. An alternate view would be that American citizen/humans, SHOULD be better and smarter than they are, a view quite popular with BOTH the left and the right whenever the last election does not go their way.
The oil spill is going to leave a huge stain and not the kind of stain that a Reagan can respond to, but rather someone who says, “Drill baby drill,” but accompanied by why we should drill here, but not there.
It sure ain’t Palin; it could be Romney…or there certainly is enough time for events to turn back to Obama. Hell, the guy may be lacking in sounding sympatico, but I think that he is a lot more of a pragmatic centrist than he is ever given credit for here. Was Carter killing extremists with drones at ANY time is his four years? Obama is a lot more ready for war than Carter was, if only because of the accident of having a military already out there, killing and being killed. The reaction against Vietnam and Nixon was a lot more deeply engrained than the reaction against GWB and Iraq, and it took us a while to live through that.
VDH putters with contemporary history, but he is so partisan, that objective analysis is not high on his list, nor is it for most here at PJM.
Beleeeving, is such a high, eh?
We didn’t have drones when Carter was president.
That’s another thing you can thank the Reagan build up for.
It took 9/11 for the majority of Americans to accept the widespread use of drones.
RmoneyCare, and his continued defense of that disaster permanently disqualifies Romney from any further political offices.
the money line:”To such thugs, “Obama is the face of America, and he is to be tested rather than worshipped. Hugo Chavez is not a Harvard dean; Putin is not a senior Newsweek editor. Their legs do not tingle when they hear……Again, Obama is just an American president who must be analyzed, tested, and if need be dared and humiliated”
skeeziks:you voted for Reagan….twice.
Look at the up-side.
Ten years after 1979 the Berlin Wall fell. What will fall in 2020?
Odd that we consider, that once the ability to do so is attained, that Nuclear missiles with the intended capability to kill all or most of the jews in Israel is accepted by us, i.e. those of us with the component ability to recognize that any muslim nation with nukes will set their belligerent sights on Israel, and then on any western country their missiles can reach.
So overriding is the contempt for Israel by muslim states, that no one even talks about the number of muslims that will die in a nuclear assault of The State of Israel: nukes can kill and maim a lot of people, but nukes do so indiscriminately. And nukes lay waste to areas for at least a little while, but in the name of annihilating the jews, any amount of collateral muslim death(s) is considered justified by muslim ambitions.
So just how holy IS the city of Jerusalem to muslims if it will be a possible casualty of a nuclear assault on Israel? Or else instead, is the plan to nuke Tel Aviv, and cause enough de-stability and chaos there, that there will be an ‘old fashioned’ offensive of the Jews in East Jerusalem? To spare the muslims in Jerusalem the death that would visit them there if Jerusalem was nuked, or as, per that plan, with nukes instead going off elsewhere?
If/when Iran gets nukes, it thinks it will attain the prestige of “liberating” muslims of a different denomination than Persian Shia, (c.f. Sunni moslems in israel, Gaza, and West Bank) from Jews, (where Arab states have failed at least three times in the past).
Ambition of differing moslem denominations all seem to configure this way, with basic mediaevil conquest as its objective, and subsequent and with component feudal and/or autocratic glory as the prize for obliterating Israel and annihilating jews from their homeland.
Suppose this comes to pass.
What then?
With no Israel to focus the locus of muslim ambition, what will then be the table on which muslim competitive ambitions play out? The 10 people killed on the flotilla on Gaza shores were Turkish. Turkey is very conscious of its dominant role in muslim history. Iran is already making their ambitions most conspicuous. Autocrats in arab gulf states have been able to buy what they could not conquer, in influence, propaganda, and “land for peace”.
Those who have far more sympathy for the broad generality of “Islam” do not, and have not, thought this through, at all. According to the ambitions of Ahmadinijad’s Hojjatieh Shia sect, annihilating Jews is but a step towards the apocalyptic vision they plan to lead against an infidel world, which includes those of Sunni or Salafi sects as much as non-muslim faiths, and vice versa regarding Sunni Islam’s perception of Shias as Polytheists and therefore apostates and idolaters.
To support any democratically elected nation’s government in this world as a means to regional stability has placed Israel, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, (and now, since 1990) Poland, Czechoslovakia in the sights of frequent and persistent saber rattling and incursion in the sixty years of post WW2 guarding of two oceans, Atlantic and Pacific by The United States.
Europe, having to spend a paltry, in fact, negligible sum of its domestic product on not only its, but wold wide regional stability and defense, has bankrupted itself on its quazi-feudal socialist system of government patronage that it cannot sustain, and invites, by its projection of weakness, the ambitions of all historically ambitious nations, that add, as well, the historical ambitions of Russia, and perhaps even China into the mix of potentialities once the non-feudal world leadership of the United States abandons it’s Role as the Republican government it once was, and defaults to the feudal role played by all other nations in the world. That’s what made us Exceptional. And any nation abandoning defense as its primary priority is not progressing, but is digressing to a state that won’t (ironically) provide the standard of living we know today, and (also ironically) leads to the inability to slide into the complacency provided by that very standard of living (from where it originates), which will be the first thing to go in any “new order” that so many dream of.
Oh, if only Carter had been black the press would have given him a second term. Yes, things could have been worse.
“Finally a panicked Carter was attempting everything from boycotting the Olympics and arming Islamists in Afghanistan to threatening to use nuclear weapons in the Middle East and restoring draft registration to reclaim lost U.S. deterrence.”
That was last minute overcompensation. Clinton would do the same things–in spirit–with his own “Mission Accomplished” but feckless bombing run of Iraq, and the spectacular, Juvenalan circus of the air war against the grounded Milosevic (after ignoring pleas to take some kind of action against them both for years), all providing great photo-ops of the intrepid Commander-In-Chief staring determinedly out from beneath the brim of a braided cap while wearing a bomber’s jacket and on the deck of the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy.
He had stage-rehearsed for such post-Impeachment, military staginess in medias res of Impeachment itself, having shot off cruise missiles in bin Laden’s general direction (but after having declined opportunities to have him delivered in person and his assured elimination by Predators earlier), desperate to make up for the Carteresque military fiascos of the first term (Somalia, Haiti), and shake off the stubbornly-sticking stigma of definitively draft-dodging Vietnam as his second term was quickly winding down with the added stigma of Impeachment making it difficult for him to rise to the deeply-coveted, mythic level of his hero JFK (having only managed to ape and appropriate the shortcomings of the man John F. Kennedy in the endeavor).
However, Clinton had a couple of things going for him that Carter did not, namely, a ballooning economy (in the second term), celebrity status, Kennedyesque sex appeal, and, finally, late in the second term, loud, proud, and “successful” military sis-boom-bah at the proverbial last minute that created a fork and the present Carter/Clinton dichotomy that Obama seems to waiver between, fain to avoid being the former, but not having the sheer circumstantial luck or political talent of the latter.
Clinton also had Bob Dole to contend with for a second term. Carter had Reagan.
So there are still unknown variables out there which could factor in favorably for a Clintonian Obama second term.
But it’s getting late, and a panicking Obama, desperate to “reclaim lost U.S. deterrence,” if only for the sake of his personal legacy and the reputation of his ideology, is looking at the world stage right now in much the same way that both Carter and Clinton did when they awoke from their respective pipe dreams. It is how he is looking at the oil spill, i.e. how can this crisis or that threat be used as opportunities–staging grounds–for personal, political redemption?
But the multifarious dramas abroad which can serve as targets for the Machiavellian show of strength and the Juvenalian production of a military circus that Carter failed to manage but that Clinton exploited with some success are not Olympic games to punish with boycotts, or Saddam’s isolated, heavily-sanctioned and no-fly Iraq, or a country that produced the Yugo (with neither Clintonian campaign utilizing a single boot on the ground), or even the Taliban in Afghanistan that Bush already toppled, but significantly more dangerous due to our diminished stature and the consequential, chain-reacting backlashes that just another bootcamping Commander-in-Chief better be very careful about using as crash-test dummies for an orchestrated spectacle of war.
Dear Dr. Hanson,
A few months ago, quite by chance, I bought your book “A war like no other” from Amazon. I am not a historian, I am MD and my interests in history not on a professional level. I found the book was not easy to read for someone like myself who’s English is not his first language (for me it is the forth).
Although, struggling through the pages, I could not put the book down. It was one of the most enjoyable reading I have had in resent time.
I have ordered two more of your books from Amazon and am looking forward to reading them.
Thank you for a good book.