The Workday Liberal

So I'm bopping about the internets as usual looking for interesting stuff in the tubes on which to comment about. Lo and behold, somehow I found myself on the NRO's website looking at possibly the stupidest piece of analysis ever written in the history of the universe. 10,000 monkeys sitting at 10,000 keyboards for 10 years straight could not possibly have written a more vapid article than this! The writer (Victor Davis Hanson) has taken various liberties with basic historical events, and wrapped those events with circular logic to make his specious argument. Without further ado, here is the link to his article titled Why Rush To Talk?

Mr. Hanson's argument attempts to show the historic futility of talking with those who are dealing with the threats of a given time. However whilst demonstrating the futility of talking to those affiliated with the Nazi's just prior to WWII, Hanson makes the following colossal historical error:

(And of course, later British feelers in 1940 to the Soviet Union in hopes they would stop supplying Hitler ores and oil while the Luftwaffe was hammering London were futile.)

Fast forward to spring 1945, suddenly all these neutrals had systematically cut ties with Nazi Germany, and were scrambling to find ways, informally or officially, to tie themselves with the Allies. Only the perception of the course of the war had changed and the leverage that comes with winning.

The absolute absurdity of this is apparent, so I won't regale my readers with a basic rundown of the true role played by the Soviet Union in WWII. Suffice to say they did not wait until the spring of 1945 to finally come around.

Hanson's overall point in all this can basically be summarized by the adage that seems to have guided the Bush administration for the past six years. Talking with your enemy shows weakness and equates to appeasement. Unfortunately, we see the sad results of this line of thinking stuck fast in the Iraqi quagmire and in the tattered remains of international support which immediately following 9/11 was near monolithic. We can only hope that a resurgence of realism by the adults being brought in to guide the administration through it's final two years leads to a ringing repudiation of the Hanson doctrine.

Of course, having already written the most inane piece of logic imaginable, Hanson delivers the coup de grace by urging the President onto victory in Iraq while preparing to cronfront Syria and Iran:

In general, we should neither seek to negotiate nor threaten either regime, but instead very quietly press ahead with winning in Iraq, and galvanizing allies to prepare sanctions against both—while preparing for the worst.

"Press ahead with winning in Iraq"!?! What planet... nay what galaxy is Hanson coming from? Who slipped him what drugs? Seriously, quietly winning in Iraq is going to happen like the New York Yankees are quietly going to win the Superbowl. Quietly winning? If we manage to win at all I say we do it very loudly... thumping our chests and pointing to the miracle of our achievment as final proof that God is on our side.

I don't make my way through the internet tubes to NRO's The Corner very often, but if they provide material like this on a regular basis I might have to bookmark them.