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From An Angry Reader:

To: Prof. Victor Davis Hanson

 

At the end of your interview with Scott Simon on 8 July 2017 I heard this: “And look how they took a good man like George Bush and turned him into a monster”. It caught my attention.

 

One of the few things I agree with Donald J Trump about is what he had to say on the campaign trail about George W Bush, his administration, 911, and the Iraq war. I don’t think I need to remind you but: The Bush Administration was informed repeatedly by the outgoing Clinton administration that Osama Bin Laden was determined to attack the US on its own soil. So the Bush Administration failed to act on the real intelligence it had. Donald J Trump said as much. Donald J Trump thought that the George W Bush and his Administration lied to congress and the American people about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He said so. Now I don’t believe this is true because Trump said so, I believe it because I used the same straight up news reporting to come to my conclusions Trump did. Reporting by people with years of credibility at major news organizations brought me the following:

 

  1. The ‘Yellowcake from Nigeria’ paper is a phony. With real yellowcake, billions of dollars, the right people, and a couple of years perhaps you have a deliverable weapon.
  2. Iraq had been under embargo since the first Gulf war. They didn’t even have GPS for their troops in the desert, much less centrifuges, aluminum tubes, or a way to get a nuclear weapon to the US.
  3. Hans Blixt and his team had found all but nothing that suggested a current WMD program. No program.
  4. Secretary of State Powell’s presentation at the United Nations was unconvincing. If the Bush Administration had something real to show let the public see it.
  5. All assertions of great danger to the public in the press were coming from the Bush and Blair administrations or parrots in Commons, Congress and the Right wing press.
  6. Real reporters have ways of getting information out of places like Iraq under Saddam Hussein There was silence. No intelligence is intelligence too.
  7. Finally an ‘intelligence estimate’ (which is all they had), is an estimate. Not a ‘slam dunk’.

 

On the basis of the above I believed there was little chance Iraq had wmd’s. There is no Bill Maher or Steven Colbert or any one like them leading to my conclusion that the Bush and Blair Administrations lied. If George W Bush’s reputation suffers from this so be it. I have in laws who still think of George W Bush as a “lovely Christian man” I don’t. I think “monster” is not as accurate as war criminal. He’s a war criminal along with Cheney and Rumsfeld et al. who supported this lie. My opinion of George W Bush is not based on Left wing comics and commentators and I don’t need to use foul or abusive language. I’m as angry as those who do. So no weapons of mass destruction. Plenty of lies and death. America should face up to this. I hoped to hear more when Trump brought it up. All I heard was the sound of pearls being clutched Left and Right. Let’s not let something so wrong happen again. We would be living in a different world if the SCOTUS cared about who won Florida in 2000.

 

Have a nice day.

 

Reuel Kenyon

______________

Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:

Dear Angry Reader Reuel Kenyon,

 

Bill Clinton is not a good source for bin Laden on any matter; his appeasement after terrorist attacks emboldened bin Laden, and he turned down an offer from Middle Eastern nations to arrest bin Laden and extradite him to the U.S.

 

All these issues have been adjudicated. Bush did not “lie” but relied on the intelligence of the era—from the CIA (“slam dunk”), NSA, and DIA, and from foreign intelligence services such as those in Jordan and Egypt that warned us that our troops would come under missile chemical attack while mustering in Kuwait (was that an international conspiracy, one that prompted tens of thousands of chemical mask protection kits to be issued to our troops?).

 

But more importantly, did you ever read the joint Congressional authorizations of October 2002 for the war—the official and legal basis for undertaking the war?

 

There were some 23 writs; only 3-4 concerned WMD. Most cited genocide, violation of UN accords, destruction of the Kurds and Marsh Arabs, the Clinton era liberation act, bounties for suicide bombers on the West Bank, harboring of terrorist killers from the first World Trade Center attack and other operations, attempts to kill George H.W. Bush, violations of no-fly-zones and 1991 accords, etc.

 

They were passed with sizable Democratic support—with stirring speeches from Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton. Biden later suggested a stable Iraq was perhaps the Obama administration’s “greatest achievement,” a characterization echoed by Obama when he prematurely pulled out peace-keepers from a stable Iraq in late 2011—ensuring the chaos that followed.

 

Your angry letter is a calcified relic of 2006-7 and the hysteria of the Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan era. In the words of progressives—time to Move On.

 

Have a nice day,

 

Victor Hanson

Why Does the Left Suddenly Hate Russia?

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by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review

After 70 years of accommodating and appeasing Russia, Democrats suddenly foment a red scare.

Russian Realism?

No one doubts that Vladimir Putin’s Russia is no ally of the U.S. But rivalry is quite a different notion than returning to the Cold War, when enemies faced each other down with arsenals of nuclear missiles. Quite strangely, the supposedly pacifist Left now seems to welcome that dangerous polarity.

In theory, the United States, in realpolitik fashion, could be playing Russia off against other rivals and enemies to our advantage — now seeking temporary shared agendas, now in keen rivalry over irreconcilable differences. Continue reading “Why Does the Left Suddenly Hate Russia?” →

McMaster and Mattis Are Rare Assets—Not Deep State Liabilities

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By Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness

There is a larger context concerning the recent controversies among the architects of Trump’s national security team and agenda, and the criticism of National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster. Recall first that the foreign policy of Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice, and Hillary Clinton could be best termed “provocative appeasement,” and it logically led to the present tensions around the world.

The approach combined the most unfortunate traits of carrying a twig while speaking loudly: vociferous remonstrations about human rights, occasional bombings, and drone-targeted assassinations, lots of sermonizing and faux red lines, deadlines, and step-over lines—all without either real consequences or accountability. Continue reading “McMaster and Mattis Are Rare Assets—Not Deep State Liabilities” →

Is Kim Jong-un an Evil Buffoon or an Evil Genius?

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The Corner

The one and only.

by Victor Davis Hanson// National Review

 

Kim Jong-un has accomplished something that neither his grandfather nor father pulled off during the last 70 years: bringing an existential threat to the shores of the United States. North Korea’s handful of missiles that are soon to be pointed our way will be seen as posing a greater existential threat than do the far more numerous nuclear-tipped missiles of Russia and China — on the premise that by feigning (?) madness Kim is far more likely to use them. How weird that the really dangerous adversaries are seen as posing a far lesser danger than the far weaker one. Iran is looking at all this as a tutorial.

 

That fact alone has changed completely the strategic calculus of the Korean peninsula. Almost every decision that the U.S. will now make, as opposed to those of the last seven decades, will hinge on the premise that a nuclear nut can now threaten the lives of millions on the U.S. West Coast. Even in the age of North Korean technological incompetence and American high-tech excellence, a sophisticated society assumes it cannot live with the idea that there is a 1-2 percent chance that a lone North Korean nuclear missile — due to a supposedly insane finger on the button that claims it is indifferent to threats of U.S. massive retaliation — could at any moment actually get through U.S. defenses to reach Pacific Heights or South Central LA.

 

The result is that inevitably there will be a growing disconnect between South Korean and American strategic concerns, as our own policy will focus on the ramifications not just in terms of the sanctity of Seoul, but of the U.S. mainland. Such a shift in emphasis will be manipulated not just by North Korea but China as well as they insidiously remind South Korea that the U.S. is predicating its Korean strategy now solely in terms of its own self-interests. We should expect in the future lots of trial-balloon diplomacy from China suggesting U.S. troops vacate South Korea or a demilitarization of the peninsula, all predicated on the idea that Kim’s new gambit can be used to gain lots of concessions in the interest of “peace.”

 

How we came to this juncture is a tale of 30 years of bipartisan failure, or, to paraphrase Machiavelli, it is easier to cure a disease in its adolescence when its symptoms are harder to detect, but nearly impossible once there is no doubt about it pernicious presence.

 

victorhanson

From An Angry Reader:

Often, as in debates with flat Earth proponents, global warming denier, the mentally ill, or the Vatican persecution of Galileo, it is quite simply ludicrous to champion “fair and balanced” coverage, validating both sides’ integrity. What one needs is a fire alarm. When the Mooch’s head rolls, you will make an excellent apologist replacement. Enjoy the Emperor’s new clothes.

Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:

Dear Angry Reader Matt Dross,

The key to letter-writing is coherence. Yours, sadly, is abjectly incoherent. So you equate skepticism over whether carbon releases have radically heated the planet in a way unknown during past radical fluctuations in climate, and are now reaching lethal levels demanding that governments radically curb the use of heat-releasing appliances and machines—with mental illness?

If you knew a tiny bit of history, you would find yourself in creepy company with those who rejected fair and balanced debate, given the certainty of their theories, and of course, with those whose sanctimoniousness demanded any means necessary (in your case the end of disinterested coverage) to achieve supposedly noble ends.

How the demise of the “Mooch” has anything to do with this question, only you apparently know.

Sincerely,

VDH

The Problem of Competitive Victimhood

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by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review

Divisive identity politics are fading in favor of a shared American identity.

The startling 2016 presidential election weakened the notion of tribal identity rather than a shared American identity. And it may have begun a return to the old idea of unhyphenated Americans.

Many working-class voters left the Democratic party and voted for a billionaire reality-TV star in 2016 because he promised jobs and economic growth first, a new sense of united Americanism second, and an end to politically correct ethnic tribalism third. Continue reading “The Problem of Competitive Victimhood” →

Miracle At Dunkirk

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by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas
Wednesday, August 2, 2017

A quarter-million troops of the British Expeditionary Force, together with about 140,000 French and Belgian soldiers, were safely evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk, France between May 26 and June 4, 1940, in one of the largest successful maritime evacuations of trapped armies in military history. Most other marooned armies would likely have surrendered or been slaughtered on the beach by the seasoned German Panzers.

The amazingly successful withdrawal allowed Britain to remain actively in the war, and gave inspiration for another quarter-million trapped British and French soldiers to escape across the channel in the next three weeks. Churchill, in the Periclean fashion of mixing encouragement with realist caution, reminded the beleaguered British people that such defiance presaged successful British resistance to Hitler—while also reminding them that victory is never won through retreats.

There is much to be said for the current blockbuster movie Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan. The cinematography of battle is excellent. The themes of confusion, paradox, irony, and unintended consequences in war are well captured through the mostly visual daylong odyssey of “Tommy” (Fionn Whitehead). In near continual silence (dialogue is scant in Dunkirk), Tommy seems to escape one disaster only to fall into another, in his Odysseus-like effort to get across the water to home.

To read more: http://www.hoover.org/research/miracle-dunkirk?utm_source=hdr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2017-08-03

Trump — And the Use and Abuse of Madness

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By Victor Davis Hanson
National Review

Fiery and unpredictable rhetoric can be a powerful strategic tool, but only if it’s not habitual.

Occasionally insanity, real or feigned, has its political advantages —largely because of its ancillary traits of unpredictability and an aura of immunity from appeals to reason, sobriety, and moderation.

Rogues often try to appear as crazy as mad hatters — sometimes defined by issuing threats, throwing temper tantrums, saying outrageous things, dressing weirdly, or acting peculiarly. Continue reading “Trump — And the Use and Abuse of Madness” →

victorhanson

Why is Everyone Suddenly Quoting Thucydides?

By | American Greatness

Currently, the historian Thucydides is the object of debate among those within the Trump Administration and its critics, who, like scholars of the last three millennia, focus on lots of differing Thucydidean personas.

Did Thucydides warn in deterministic fashion about ascendant powers like Athens that disrupt the existing order of Sparta and its Peloponnesian League—and thus prompt preventive attacks from established nations (“the Thucydides trap”)?

Is the historian thus a guide to how to handle a rising China? Or did he remind us how wrong-headed (but nonetheless free and correctable) choices can turn a tense situation into a catastrophe?

Was Thucydides, an admiral and man of action, a voice of the aristocratic elite, or sympathetic toward small landowners who were neither oligarchic nor radically democratic?

Translated into modern terms, was he like-minded with the contemporary elite Washington establishment or a likely supporter of what are now the forgotten Red-State middle classes between the coasts?

Did he despise the reckless democracy that exiled him, or develop a grudging respect for its dynamism and powers of recovery from its own self-inflicted wounds—and become especially complimentary of Periclean leaders who can act forcefully within democratic checks and balances?

Some 2,400 years after Thucydides wrote the Peloponnesian War, scholars still argue over why and how he crafted his history. Continue reading →

Republicans and the Lost Art of Deterrence

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By | American Greatness

In a perfect and disinterested world, when Washington, D.C. is deluged in scandal, a nonpartisan investigator or prosecutor should survey the contemporary rotten landscape. He would then distinguish the likely guilty from the probably falsely accused—regardless of the political consequences at stake.

In the real cosmos of Washington, however, the majority party—the group that controls the House, Senate, presidency, and U.S. Supreme Court—if it were necessary, would de facto appoint the government’s own special investigatory team, and then allow it to follow where leads dictate. Its majority status would assure that there were no political opponents in control of the investigations, keen on turning an inquiry into a political circus. That cynical reality is known as normal D.C. politics.

But in contemporary Republican La-La Land, the party in power with control over all three branches of government allows its minority-status opponents to dictate the rules of special investigations and inquiry—a Jeff Sessions recused, a Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) excused from his investigations of unmasking and leaking, a Robert Mueller appointed as special counsel, friend of to-be-investigated James Comey, and employer of partisan attorneys.

Is naiveté the cause of such laxity? Do Republicans unilaterally follow Munich rules because they hope such protocols will create a new “civility” and “bipartisan cooperation” in Washington?

Demonizing Resistance 
Or is the culprit civil dissension among the ranks, as the congressional leadership secretly has no real incentive to help the despised outsider Trump? When Republicans get re-elected on repealing and replacing Obamacare during the assured Obama veto-presidency, and then flip in the age of surety that Trump would reify their campaign boasts, should we laugh or cry? Is the Republican establishment’s aim to see Trump’s agenda rendered null and void—or does intent even matter when the result is the same anyway?

Or is the empowerment of progressive conspiracy-mongering due to fear of the mainstream media, which demonizes principled resistance to progressivism and lauds unprincipled surrender to it? Continue reading “Republicans and the Lost Art of Deterrence” →

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