I am so glad that he is not my Commander-in-Chief and if I were still serving my nation under this Ultimate Faux Warrior, I would have exited as soon as I realized he was serious about invading Iraq. Neither Nixon or Reagan who were my Commander-in-Chief, did anything near the harm UFW has done to our military and nation. Both Nixon and Reagan politicized our military but again they were neophytes compared to UFW.

Steyn's post took a statement of Glenn's, and instead of saying that it showed how laughably "hystrionic" they are, showed what "emotionally exhausted," clueless-about-the-true-strategic-challenge nellies those of us in the reality-based world are.

I did not see any sort of offer to "ease up on the war on terror" in the passage. If I missed it, kindly remedy my "deficient education" -- without links this time. The last effort didn't work out to well, I recall

what a great post.

Thanks.

Thank you for supplying the mot juste (whatever the hell that means.

Edification and efficacy go hand-in-glove (whatever in tarnation that means) with slancio103!

And where is "tarnation"?

I wish I could keep my mind on the impending clash of civilisations, but it's too many for me.

Did you see anywhere in Steyn's reply that approaches "pursuing" anything? I didn't.

Now why don't you reread Steyn's post and consider whether you are too busy with hystrionics to see a parley flag.

-- shooter242

Maybe it's the ridiculous bullshit he writes day in and day out. Like this:

America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It

If he's coming out of his bunker to talk, someone throw a net over him so we can bundle him off to an insane asylum before he hurts himsef or somebody else.

It's too bad some people would rather project their anger and fear onto enemies in other lands, when we've got real and lethal enemies right here in the USA. Poverty. Iliteracy. Child abuse. Animal abuse. There are PLENTY of enemies that need to be defeated here at home. But then, those enemies require more than just macho chest beating and gunfire. They require thinking and compassion and quiet action; not nearly as much fun for little boys as playing cowboys and Indians, but far more important.

3000 people were killed by Jihadist nuts on 9-11, but how many homeless people have died in our streets, how many children have been beaten to death in homes, how many cats and dogs have been euthanized in overcrowded shelters? So many individuals are suffering due to home grown crises -- crises which could be helped so much by the trillions of dollars and resources being poured into war -- that to claim we are fighting for good and freedom is almost obscene.

Greenwald wrote:

"That's why nothing can fill the bottomless spare time of bored, aimless adolescents like sitting in front of a computer commanding vast armies and destructive military weapons, deployed against cunning, scary and evil enemies. That's why the Mark Steyns of every generation create such Enemies, becasue they are purposeless and aimless without them."

Mmm..Two can play at this game:

"That's why nothing can fill the bottomless spare time of bored, aimless thirty-and-forty-somethings like sitting in front of a computer fretting about the evil intentions of Republican rightwingers, and the actions of the evil agents of BushVader. That's why the Glenn Greenwalds of every generation create such Enemies, becasue they are purposeless and aimless without them."

or let's try:

"There is nothing more psychologically invigorating than the belief that you are staring down the Most Evil President in History - a man who's reshaping the country as an authoratarian police state while the lame, craven opposition does nothing. And then there's you, courageously objecting for all that is Good and Just in the world. Nothing produces more pulsating feelings of excitement and nobility like convincing yourself that you are a Warrior defending America from the greatest internal threat and most evil bunch of oligarchic villians it has ever faced."

But the FISA clock is running! We've been 15 hours in the dark! The terrorists are plotting, plotting, plotting, and We're All Gonna Die! Save me, Mark Steyn! Grab one of Fred Kagan's Jowls of Doom, slap the shit out of some terrorists with it, and Saaaaaaaaave Meeeeeeeeee!

The Bogeyman Theme

It can't be a coincidence that the fall of the Soviet Union was followed almost immediately by the discovery that our way of life is threatened by "Islamofascism."

Except that's not historically accurate and therein lies one of the problems. Our national security apparatus was designed to counter a threat like the massive military and nuclear forces of the Soviet Union. Non-state actors were never seen as a serious enough threat. By comparison to an all out nuclear exchange, they just aren't, but we were not ready to deal with a threat like that. Three presidents have taken the threat of terrorism seriously enough to attempt to do something about it, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton but it really wasn't taken seriously enough until 9/11, and that's because the Bush admin's attitude was one of total disinterest. Read this:

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Spot-History-American-Counterterrorism/dp/0465092810

There is one real danger: that one of our many enemies may find a way to deploy a truly dangerous weapon in one of our population centers. If you were trying to minimize that danger, however, you could hardly have gone about it less effectively than the neocons have. Of course, that has never been their agenda. Indeed, the detonation of a suitcase nuke in San Francisco would make them happy on several levels.

At this time the chances of this are quite remote. On the other hand, a conventional attack can do plenty of damage. There is no such thing as a suitcae nuke.

We need to convince all those defense corporations to husband their energy and make the next boogeyman Mrs. Global Warming or Mr. Aids Poverty...

No, no, that won't do at all! Don't you know that a single penny spent on amwliorating those or any other social, economic and enviornmental does over a thousand dollars worth of damage to every citizen! "Why and how"?, you might ask, and I'm going to assume you did!

It's because of the inescapable, inexorable but oh, so effable unintended negative repercussions of Altruism! See the study on this from the Rand Corporation, or was it Ayn Rand, I forget. But man, it's worse than meth, are those U.N.R.o'A.! First they take your morals, than your mind and the next thing you know, you're trying to mail in your affirmative auction forms using food stamps as postage. It's a mess. You can't put food stamps on your family.

On the other hand, foreign interventions on borrowed money, to no gain and much loss, are never to be questioned, cause after all "War is Good For the Economy". You are not, by any chance, opposed to the economy, are you?