by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Across the globe we watch the terrible drama play out. Car and suicide bombings in Baghdad are aimed at American aid givers, U.S. peacekeepers, Iraqi civilians, and provisional government workers. Spanish civilians are indiscriminately murdered — as are Turks, Moroccans, Saudis, and Afghans. Continue reading “We Are Finishing the War”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Private Papers
When I was young, my parents in the early 1960s told me to ignore stories about the “Jews.” Of course, out here in rural California, I never met such distant persons, but only heard about them from disgruntled farmers (who, I wager, had never met any either). Continue reading “When I Was Young . . .”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
What exactly does democracy — “people power” — really mean? Even the Greeks who invented this peculiar institution were not quite sure. Was it just rule by a majority vote? Or did it include mechanisms and subsidies to ensure the participation of the poor? Or to protect the minority from mob rule? Continue reading “Demonocracy: Beware of Once-Elected Thugs”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Private Papers
Let me get this straight. Two-and-a-half years after September 11, on a similar eleventh day of the month, 911 days following 9-11, and on the eve of Spanish elections, Al Qaeda or its epigones blows up 200 and wounds 1,400 Spaniards. Continue reading “Blame Whom?”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
It has now been almost a year since the liberation of Iraq, the fury of the antiwar rallies, and the publicized hectoring of Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Sean Penn, and other assorted conspiracy freaks — and we have enough evidence to lay some of their myths to rest. Continue reading “Thicker Than Oil”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Private Papers
In a recent review of Donald Kagan’s The Peloponnesian War, and my Autumn of War, (“Theatres of War: Why the battles over ancient Athens still rage” New Yorker Magazine, [January 12, 2004]), the classicist Daniel Mendelsohn says that I believe that it is immoral to suggest defeat can be seen as victory: “The play asks the very question that Victor Davis Hanson considers “immoral”: whether abject defeat can yet somehow be a victory.” Continue reading “Grammatical Gymnastics at the New Yorker Magazine”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
The great accomplishment of the Truman administration was containment — especially the creation of a policy to ensure that Soviet Communism did not enter Western Europe. Critics on the right once argued over “Who lost China and Eastern Europe?” Continue reading “Do We Want to Go Back?”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Private Papers
There is a growing consensus that it is near suicide to face the United States in a conventional war. Both the long history of western warfare, and a variety of recent encounters—whether in the Falklands, the Gulf, or the Middle East—remind us that Western militaries are able to project lethal force (often at quite formidable distances from home) in ways that are not explicable by their often small populations and territories. Continue reading “How to Beat the American Military?”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
“Preemption” is supposed to be the new slur. Its use now conjures up all sorts of Dr. Strangelove images to denigrate the present “trigger-happy” Bush administration. Continue reading “Words That Don’t Matter”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Irony, paradox, hubris, and nemesis are all Greek words. They reflect an early Western fascination with natural, immutable laws of destiny, perhaps akin to something like the eastern idea of karma — that excess and haughtiness can set off a chain of events that are neither predicable nor welcome. Continue reading “The Coming of Nemesis”