The state of things

Looking back over my recent posts, I see I haven't written anything substantive in a while. Several reasons for that, but I think it boils down mostly to a general disgust with the state of affairs.

The weird thing is that the state of affairs isn't all that bad. Take Iraq off the table, and we'd be partying like it was September 10th. Stock prices hitting a new record every day, reasonable inflation and unemployment, sustained economic growth, American innovation continuing its steady march, the Supreme Court deactivating. Things are rolling along nicely.

But Iraq is on the table. It's poisoned politics and the news media too. The escalation of forces was completed about a month ago and our military is on the offensive. But the progress being made isn't being well reported, to the extent that the Associated Press refuses to report a real al Qaeda massacre our troops discovered and instead stands by one hoax it's reported after another. The New York Times yesterday ran an editorial urging withdrawal, even while acknowledging that the aftermath will likely include genocide.

And it looks like Congress no longer cares whether we win or lose but will just pull the plug soon. The ramifications of such action aren't limited to genocide or the mere fact that any American enemy will have a pretty good benchmark for what it takes to defeat the United States. They also include the possibility that Americans, who constitute the only remaining Western culture with a military actually capable of waging war, will start to wonder, Why spend $500 billion a year for an institution we don't intend to use?

And they'll have a point. The Democrats will retain both houses of Congress in the next election; if a Democrat wins the White House, I wouldn't be suprised to see a fairly dramatic cut in the defense budget. We'll adopt the talk-talk-talk model of the Europeans, and the next time we're attacked, we'll round up the usual suspects and ignore the fact that there's plenty more where they came from.

And also ignore that the region that supplies them also supplies a lot of oil. And also that the people we're fighting in Iraq are one precarious Pakistani dictator away from nuclear weapons.

Well, maybe it's all for the best. If we can't make the world safe for democracy, at least we can make it safe for the iPhone.


This roundup includes a good piece at Best Destiny regarding Iraq. More at Ankle Biting Pundits. And here's some media poison from Jules Crittenden.