Another History Lesson
Andrew Roberts writes in the Telegraph a brief account of the English-speaking peoples since 1900. He has written a book that is meant to update the four volume history of the same subject written by Winston Churchill. Roberts points out some important historical facts to remember.
Just as on 9/11, the English-speaking peoples have regularly been worsted in the opening stages of a conflict, often through surprise attack. As Paul Wolfowitz put it at a commencement ceremony in June 2001: "Surprise happens so often that it's surprising that we're surprised by it." The sinking of the USS Maine; the Boer invasion of Cape Colony; the Kaiser's swing through neutral Belgium; the Nazi-Soviet Pact; North Korea's invasion of its southern neighbour; Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal; the attack on the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, which triggered the Vietnam War; the attack on the Falklands; Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. Almost all were sudden, unexpected, not predicted by the intelligence services, and left the English-speaking peoples at a disadvantage in the first moment of the struggle.
The next common factor was how badly the English-speaking peoples were faring even up to three or four years into the first three great assaults on their primacy. The most dangerous moment of the First World War – at least after Paris had been saved by the battle of the Marne in 1914 – came as late as March 1918, when Hindenburg and Ludendorff flung everything into their massive Spring Offensive. By early September 1942 – only weeks before Stalingrad and El Alamein – Hitler seemed to be winning the war both in Russia and the Middle East, while, had it not been for the battle of Midway, the Japanese might well have rolled up the entire Pacific theatre. Three years into the Cold War, 1948 saw Jan Masaryk's suicide during a Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, Mao's victory in China, and the Berlin Blockade.
Simply because a victorious exit strategy is not immediately evident in Iraq or Afghanistan today does not invalidate either conflict, as so many defeatists and Left-liberal political commentators argue so vociferously. Tony Blair's leadership in the war against al-Qa'eda, the Ba'athists and the Taliban has been nothing short of Churchillian. Far from being George W. Bush's poodle, Blair was advocating the overthrow of Saddam in his Chicago speech of April 1999, 21 months before Bush came to power.
Read the whole thing, it is very well done.
The left has lately limited history to begin only in the year 2000 with the election of George W. Bush. The only references to any earlier history is if there is some event that can be blamed on America or Americans. Other than that, history simply does not exist in the narrative being force fed to the world. But we must remember history. We must recall that times have been dark indeed before this war, often even darker and more grim than they are today, in fact. The English-speaking part of the world did, indeed, rise to meet the first three great challenges of the 20th century. This is a historical fact. Many other non-English speaking peoples also joined the great causes to defeat genuine evil. That is also fact.
We must rise and meet this latest challenge as well.
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The Real Ugly American.com » Blog Archive » Another History Lesson — Saturday, 23 September , 2006 @ 4:57 pm
By Black Jack, Saturday, 23 September , 2006 @ 5:14 pm
“We must rise and meet this latest challenge as well.”
We could, if we were united against our enemies, but a house divided against itself cannot stand. So long as the American Left puts the selfish concerns of its special interest constituencies above the common good, so long as they stand with foreign dictators against democratically elected governments, and so long as they keep faith with delusional adherents of ridiculous conspiracies, we will remain divided and vulnerable.
Heck, the Left still shouts that “Bush Lied” but can’t bring itself to acknowledge that Bill Clinton was the one who put his left hand on the bible, raised his right hand and swore to God to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, then outright lied or claimed he had no recollection again and again.
If America is going to prevail against the Islamofascists, the Left must stop opposing commonsense efforts to fight terrorism and join the fight on our side, or they will indelibly mark themselves as enemies of the people.