Cathy Young has an excellent article about when it's okay to attack gays. For those of you not following Europe's internal problems too closely, they have a large and growing Muslim immigrant popualtion whose views about women, homosexuals, pretty much everything, stand diametrically opposed to everything that European society does.

The latest episode that Ms. Young describes is a scene directly out of Bizarro world:

On April 30, American journalist Chris Crain became the victim of a hate crime in Amsterdam. While walking in the street holding hands with his partner, he was savagely beaten by seven men shouting antigay slurs. A few days later, Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Program at the Human Rights Watch, expressed some sympathy for the gay-bashers. Crain's attackers were reportedly Moroccan immigrants.

"There's still an extraordinary degree of racism in Dutch society," Long opined to the gay news service PlanetOut. "Gays often become the victims of this when immigrants retaliate for the inequities that they have to suffer."

Of course, had the assailants been white and male, there would have been justifiable outrage. However, if you're an immigrant, it is permissable for you committ acts of hate and violence. Welcome to multi-culti world, in which I inhabit a small corner, a classroom in a public school.

When I was attending Cal State Northridge pursuing a MA in Ed, I had a professor whose dissertation was on the need for liberal, classical eduation. Here's his PhD dissertaion. It's quite an amazing piece really. He details perfectly the need for a solid classical and traditional education and a common set of cultural ideas. I must also add that of the 60+ units of education classes, he was the only professor who had a clue about history.

CSUN being the ne plus ultra of PC multiculturalism, would have found this completely antithetical to their "mission". One look at the their academic calendar should illuminate this point. Caesar Chavez is a shool holiday while President's day is not. So, one day in class I asked him if he thought the people who hired him actually read his dissertation. He smiled, laughed and said that "of course they did."

The aforementioned episode in Europe is hardly the first. Openly gay Duth politician Pim Fortuyn was killed by a Muslim immigrant. Theo Van Gogh was killed by a Muslim immigrant who became outraged after Van Gogh's film highlighted the brutal treatment of women by Muslims. Cathy Young makes a great point that

The tension between two pillars of the modern left—multiculturalism and progressive views on gender—is not new. It has been particularly thorny in many European countries where, in lieu of an American-style "melting pot" approach, immigrants have been traditionally encouraged to maintain their distinct values and ways.

Sadly, we're not teaching the melting pot anymore. One needs to look no further than the Los Angeles schools to see a rise in interracial violence between the Mexican and African American students.

This is the sad but inevitable result of racial identity politics and multiculturalism. It is manifest in lawsuits against great principals and great schools as well.

Almost a month ago, I wrote We're all in trouble now:
All us right-wing bloggers are in trouble now, as there's a new sheriffette in town. Seems conservative turned liberal turned freakin nuts Arriana Huffington is going to start her own blog.

Now mind you, it's not going to be just any ordinary blog.
She has lined up more than 250 of what she calls "the most creative minds" in the country to write a group blog that will range over topics from politics and entertainment to sports and religion. It is essentially a nonstop virtual talk show that will be part of a Web site that will also serve up breaking news around the clock. It is to be introduced May 9.

Having prominent people join the blogosphere, Ms. Huffington said in an interview, "is an affirmation of its success and will only enrich and strengthen its impact on the national conversation." Among those signed up to contribute are Walter Cronkite, David Mamet, Nora Ephron, Warren Beatty, James Fallows, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Maggie Gyllenhaal, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Diane Keaton, Norman Mailer and Mortimer B. Zuckerman.

Let's see: retreads, has beens, and airheads. Yes. Originality. No.

Now it seems, her trafiic numbers are down. You know your're in trouble when you're not even out of the gates, and you're being parodied and ridiculed. To top it all off, the parody site is better than yours. When the left wing LA Weekly rips you, you know you really are toast.

Once again I am ahead of the curve. The attention given to Ms. Huffington shows that neither she nor the MSM really gras the blgooshpere. One, it is the alternative media, where the unheard have a voice, much like talk radio was 10-15 years ago. People simply do not care what some celebrity has to say, nor do we think they need another platform. And we certainly don't care what a group of old MSM retreads have to say either.

She was destined to fail. She waltzes into the blogoshpere as if she's offering something new, insightful, and unique when in fact she's none of those. But then again, if she'd have spent a little time here, she'd have known that.

I have written on numerous occasions about the problems in public education today, from low standards to the blatant rewriting of history. Yet that should never be taken to mean that there are not good schools and good teachers educating children well. In fact, there are many. I know, because I work at one that does.

The main problem today with education is that it has become far too politicized, where everything, even the names in mathematic word problems suffers scrutiny. I have focused on history, but the decline starts much earlier with nonsense such as whole language and new math. Therapeutic indoctrination has replaced empirical scholarship. Surely Jefferson is weeping.

My school has come under siege from a small group of people who have trotted out the usual bromides and accusations. For far too long we have responded in Pavlovian fashion. For far too long we have gone to great lengths to demonstrate everything we do to address every grievance. And so both sides have grown accustomed to the iterant ritual: the accusation, the apology, the contrition, the temporary calm before the tempest as soon the perennial play repeats.

Baseball has foul lines, football sidelines, hockey the unforgiving wall. For each it is the boundary within which the game is played. The rules, the written as well as the unwritten, define the game. You play, you play by the rules. We all know them.

So too in life, we all know the rules. When someone wants to rewrite the rules, change the game, seek to benefit at another's expense, then the game is no more. No, life isn't a simple game, but it's played as such, and everyone knows this.

We've played by the rules. Sure, they're not always fair, but we played by them. We have nothing to hide, nothing to fear. We held up our part of the bargain, we've done the apologies and offered the contritions. We've even gone much farther than necessary. Now we must remonstrate.

We've a great staff, a finer more dedicated assemblage you will not find. We've great leadership too, for which it is a privilege to serve. Not a soul will offer a view to the contrary, not of fear, but of loyatly, love, and respect. We need not bend, we shall not break.

It is time to stand and fight.

"Ils ne passeront pas!"

Should all this be unacceptable, should we be adjuducated wanting, then I fear not for the great staff nor the fine leadership, but the for hearts and minds of the precocious youth. They really do know so much more than they should. The poor souls. Their innocence lost.

So young they are, bestowed with opportunity for which they've little appreciation. What will they learn? What will they feel? What lesions, what pathologies, will they take as they venture forth? All resultant from the narcisism of another.

We can replicate the body's DNA but not the mind's experiences, from which the soul is forged. What an anvil this will be, a momentary lapse, a great disconnect where the illusory beomces the verisimilar until truth is created. And what impact will this have? No matter, the essential nature is simply its fianality, whatever that may be.

The school under siege will yield no winners.

The second City of Mandelinople Vichy-Quisling award is hereby conferred upon Congresswomanpersonwench Nancy Pelosi. For some reason (really?), her quote has been rather hard to find in the MSM but we found it on the The Stakeholder, the democratic congressional campaign committee weblog. Since it comes from the democrats, it must be true.

"The surge of violence following last week's Newsweek story on the desecration of the Quran at Guantanamo Bay is tragic. That the story was not accurate as printed is clear from the decision to retract it, and Newsweek has a responsibility to review the procedures that failed to prevent the story from running in the first place.

"The fact remains that the story was clearly plausible to Muslims around the world. That plausibility has its roots in the interrogation techniques employed at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. For months, photographs of tortured prisoners and inappropriate interrogation techniques have made headlines throughout the world. There is evidence that indicates that some of these practices were sanctioned at much higher levels in the Bush Administration than the punishments thus far imposed would suggest.

"Instead of calling for cancellation of subscriptions, as some Republicans have suggested, Congress should do its job and investigate the treatment of detainees, particularly the interrogation techniques employed against them. Democrats on the House Armed Services and Intelligence Committees have repeatedly requested such hearings; Republicans have refused.

"The failure of the House to fully investigate these matters only ensures that we will continue to pay the price for the outrages at Abu Ghraib for many years to come."

To Nancy Pelosi:

For offering courageous condemnation of our armed forces engaged in combat.

For courageously reminding Americans that we are to blame for all the world's scorn.

For believing the musings of terrorists over the testimony of servicemen.

For offering pronouncements of a dubious and unsubstantiated nature.

And for generally aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of war, you are hereby granted the full rights and privileges that are accorded with the Vichy-Quisling Award.

Jeff Jacoby nails it.

Robert Samuelson writes in the WaPo that we ought to raise the retirement age so that we start retirement at 70. He has a few other proposals:

Raise Social Security's normal retirement age to 70...

Cut Social Security benefits by 20 percent...

Raise Medicare's eligibility age slowly to age 70 by 2030...

Require Medicare recipients to pay 20 percent of the program's costs through premiums...

Tax Social Security as ordinary income...

Of course he knows reality:

These proposals will be seen as harsh, even cruel. They aren't. People who reach 62 or 65 or 70 have no automatic claim on their juniors. Why should a couple in their thirties with two children, car payments and a mortgage subsidize the retirement of a couple in their mid-sixties with no mortgage, whose children are long gone, who could still work and who have had a lifetime to save for retirement? The only answer is that older couples expect to be subsidized (in part because they've spent their lives subsidizing their elders) and will be furious if they aren't. But that is a political explanation and not a moral or social justification.

The solution to social security is actually not a difficult one. We have a program that was established to address a situtation that no longer exists any more. Interestingly, that is where most of the debates are in Washington nowadays. Welfare, affirmative action, social security, etc., are all relics of a bygone era, whose usefulness or necesity has long since passed. Yet they persevere not because of need, but because of want. People want handouts, politicians want votes, one begets the other.

Social security is rather simple to solve. All that is needed is to slow down the payments and increase the revenues. Samuelson offers up a great idea. It works perfectly. It just doesn't work in Washington.

I have written many times previously that the democrats are acting like a bunch of petulant little children. They are horribly irresponsible with matters economic and incapable of credibly defending the nation. Which is terribly sad as the Republicans are getting a free pass and not governing responsibly. They need a lesson at the polls. Sadly that lesson would be good for them, disastrous for the nation.

Samuelson touches on a point that is the most problematic of the entire debate: the fact that a young couple is going to be forced to subsidize an elderly couiple's retirement. This violates the most fundamental principle of a democracy, fairness.

The notion of fairness has been distorted terribly by the left to mean equal. Nothing could be further from the truth as fairness is not an outcome but a condition. Burdening the future generations with an indebtedness to their elders is the most unfair act of all. This destroys any chance they have at achieving the same wealth and standard of living as their elders.

That one group can impose such burdens on another group is not only not fair, it's not democratic.

The Newsweek scandal has prompted me to create a City of Mandelinople offical Vichy-Quisling award for those who openly aid and abet the enemy. We all remember Marshall Petain, the "hero of Verdun" ordering his army in Africa to resist the American invasion. I'm sure he called on them to fight like Frenchmen. Fortunately for us, they did. And nobody can foget Vidkung Quisling, so helpful to the Nazis in Norawy, that little 'q' quisling is now synonomous with traitor.

So, to Michael Isikoff and the entire Newsweek magazine, I hereby confer the first V-Q award.

"In recognition of your dedicated service to undermining the security of America the City of Mandelinople hereby proclaims Newsweek the first recipient of the Vichy-Quisling Award.

You demonstrated undaunted determination to run the story despite the dubious nature of the claims, the reliance on a single anonymous witness, and inability to obtain verifiable confirmation.

You demonstrated unequalled integrity as you purposefully ran a story knowing full well the inflamatory nature of the claims and the danger it would cause to the US image in the Muslim world.

You have followed in the great tradition of jouranlism that began with Walter Cronkite and the Tet offensive and was most recently seen by AP photographers covering the Iraqi election.

In recognition of all that you do to help the war effort of the terrorists, jihadists, ba'athists, and insurgents everywhere, we officially congratulate you."

Newsweek's latest imborglio is further proof of something I said in December:

every future military operation we conduct in the war on terror had better have a political factor figured in. Based in the results of the Iraqi war, each future operation will have two enemies: one military, one political. And if we don't account for the latter, then we'll surely lose the former.

I am honestly not shocked. I do however think that charges should be levied against Newsweek. This is hardly a violation of the first amendment. Consider this for a moment: they knew such accusations would be extremely deleterious to our mission, they were relying on a single anonymous witness, and they had to know such actions would cause such violent reactions.

There must be some journalistic accountanility and responsibility. This isn't even a free speech issue, as the Abu Ghraib photos and story, which were injurious to our operaitons in Iraq, proved. They were very real and very contrary to our military culture. Wretchard has detailed many of the problems:

Their efforts at "confirmation" yielded a denial and a non-denial from Defense officials, but no confirmation. In predicate calculus, Newsweek asserted P. Their attempts at confirmation yielded ~P and Null. Hence they concluded P, which is wrong, wrong and wrong. It is wrong from the point of view of elementary logic. It would be wrong anywhere, even in the Andromeda Galaxy. But apparently it is right at Newsweek.

There is no way possible that any reasonable and honest journalist could have run such a story given the complete absence of validation. Thus, the people who made the final decisions have to be held accountable. A simple retraction and apology is hardly sufficient. This is war. They aided and abetted the enemy. They undermined our war effort. Sorry isn't going to cut it.

Strategy page:

For most of the last week, the marines moved along the border, receiving a lot of useful tips from locals about where the terrorists were hiding themselves and their weapons and bomb workshops. Many of these terrorist operations had moved here after marines cleared out Fallujah last November. The border area had always been active with smuggling of weapons and foreign terrorists coming in from Syria.

While the government had not been able to get into this border area, local tribes had taken up arms against the terrorists, and each other. As the marines went after the terrorists, tribal factions fought each other, as well as the terrorists. The foreign terrorists are, to put it mildly, disliked even in this part of Iraq. Although the local smugglers have been making some money working for the terrorists, everyone knows that these wild eyed foreigners mean only death for Iraqis. Either from their suicide bombs, or the battles between them and American and Iraqi troops, the terrorists are considered bad news and best avoided. In fact, the marines received a friendly reception in many villages, the people relieved to see someone who could run off the terrorists and restore order. Iraqi police, troops and border guards have come in behind the marine operation, as the Iraqi government has not had any presence in this area since early 2003, and not much before that.

Or Steve Chapman:

Could it be that we've misclassified the insurgency in Iraq -- that it's an invertebrate, able to absorb bone-crushing blows because it has no bones to crush? It seems to be more like a dandelion, which, when smashed, only spreads more seeds. Seven months after U.S. forces leveled the enemy stronghold, the insurgents are causing as much trouble as ever.

The lull in violence that followed the January elections was taken to mean the rebels were in disarray. If so, they've regrouped, and Iraq has reverted to chaos. Nearly twice as many Iraqi security personnel died in attacks in March as in January. April was almost as bad as March. May looks worse still.
...
The insurgents, says New York University law professor Noah Feldman, a former official of the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, "are getting stronger every passing day." Contrary to assumptions in this country, he told Newsday, "there is no evidence whatsoever that they cannot win."

This rather balanced article from the NY Times describes an insurgency without historical precedent, divided along racial and ideological lines, without any clear goals other than chaos. The article does acknowledge that the most formidable obstacle the insurgents face is an elected goverment.

What critics fail to appreciate is that the insurgency is not strong from its numbers but from its lethality. In every city we find large weapons caches, weapons that cause damage far out of proportion to the actual numbers of insurgents. The insurgents are not operating on a large scale, have succesfully conducted coordinated attacks only a few times, and rely on the firepower of their stores rather than their numbers.

There have been no sizable attacks by insurgents in an orderly and disciplined manner. There are not, with the exception of Sadr's forces which were dealt with swiftly, any militia forces or bands of armed rebels, an oposition army if you will. They are not even comparable to the right and left wing death squads so prevalent in Central American jungles. They do not control any part of the country and they do not enjoy anything resembling widespread support.

They have mastered the art of using a decades old artillery shell to kill dozens of unarmed Iraqis. Thus, a single insurgent has at his disposal a force multiplier the effect of which is often more in the Western media than the Iraqi street.

When we do engage the insurgency in large operations, Najaf, Fallujah, Qaim, and elsewhere, the results are always the same. They are killed without remorse and in toto, a few taken prisoner as their information might be of some use. The villages destroyed are a message to the next: we will root out terrorists wherever they hide, and while we will not indiscriminately kill, we will not hesitate to bring all available resources to bear.

And thus, the insurgent survives far more by fear than by love. If, as the critics claim, we are seeding a larger insurgency, than why has it not spread. It has moved to be sure, but it has not spread. There is a precise difference. The fact that their base of operations had actaully moved closer to the source, i.e. Syria, indicates that interdiction has been more successful than reported.

There is actually one historical precedent for Iraq, and it is oddly enough found in US history. We faced similar conditions in the post Civil War South, the economy racked by war and a brutal class structure, the few ruling the many. They were in the midst of radical social change, not just structurally, but socially as well. Large bands of insurgents roamed the countryside, from Forrest's Klan to Quantrill's Raiders, while others unaffiliated but equally motivated were determined to cause havoc and make reconstruction fail.

They too were in a position where they couldn't win and had varying reason for continuing the fight. The South never did rise again, though they did wear out the North. A century later, we were still paying the price.

We never had a legitimate government in the South, we never created Southern forces to control the populaiton, and worst of all, the majority of the the benficiaries of reconstruction were carpetbaggers.

I gather that the dire pessimism of the critics is overstated, likewise the waxing optimism is excessive too. The critics wish still to derail Iraqi success as final vindication of their prescience, even though all indications are they'll be proven wrong. The "pie in the sky" crowd wish for Iraq to be a model for future plans, and want for nothing to intervene.

I take the middle ground, that Iraq is quite succesful with a great deal more work ahead. I take the opinion that it was well worth the effort, that if Iraq has become the terrorist training grounds, they are training to die. I don't believe we have created one new terrorist, that for some reason, thousands of young Arab males were suddenly struck on the road to Damascus. This ignores the decades of indoctrination in the Madrassas, the kleptocract and petrocrat bribery, and a liberal west openly contradicting a Wahabi fundamentalism. It was as if there had not been decades of state sponsored terrrorism, that the Middle East was a land of progress, tolerance, and openness, suddenly being rent by the invaders.

In many ways we are stuck not with a choice between good and bad, but between bad and awful. Fighting a global war on terror with Saddam in power was impossible. The most glaring error of the critics is their complete inabiltiy or refusal to comprehend the link between Saddam and 9/11 was not direct, but that he represented one of the two ends in the conflict. On one end is the jihadist, the other, the state. Going after the former without addressing the latter would be analogous to stationing a million and a half troops in Europe but giving the Soviets full trade access to western markets.

During the Cold War, the economic was as vital as the military. A few years ago, secualr Arab dictators and fundamental Islamicist made strange bedfellows, one supported the other in a mutual anti-Western feast. Support for one was de facto support for the other, a condition our "allies" in Europe are finding was the untenable. Thus Iraq was not only necessary, but inevitable.

So we're fighting an evolving war in Iraq, adjusting to the situation on the ground. The truth is that for the most part, the insurgent has few places he can roam, as his presence is sure to bring grave consequences. Unlike Algeria, Vietnam, and Afghanistan (in the 1980's), we have lost no battles, are not facing a coordiated and unified enemy, and do not face large scale offensive operations. Most importantly, we are not even an occupation force, but rather are still their only with the consent of the Iraqi government. If comparison to any of the above insurgencies is any indication, than those in Iraq are failing miserably.

However, we face a fluid enemy who measures victory far differently than we do. But as James Bennet wrote in his times piece:

What is curious about the Iraqi tactic is that it appears aimed at creating active opposition. The insurgency is powered by Sunnis; the civilians they have killed have been overwhelmingly Shiites and Kurds. The goal appears to be to split apart the fragile governing coalition and foment sectarian strife.

Yet if the insurgents achieve all-out civil conflict, the likely losers are the Sunnis themselves, since they are a minority. Having governed for decades in Iraq, Sunnis are accustomed to the whip hand and may simply assume they will be able to regain control. Or perhaps they are betting that chaos will lead to partition, allowing Sunnis to govern themselves.

Thus, any insurgency "success", a full blown sectarian civil war might be disaster for the US, but it is catastrophic for the Sunni. They know it.

I wrote as much in January.

Should they provoke a civil war, a remote possibility, the odds are decidely against them. They know they can't win. The Kurds are armed, the peshmerga a fierce fighting force. The Shia will certainly field a force more than willing to exact revenge. That Sunni would start a war they cannot hope to win, and worse, one they know will crush them, is highly unlikely. The few jihadis who harbor their own jihadist gotterdammerung are going to find few happy warriors among the mostly educated populous. They know that all options go from bad to worse. And go that way in a hurry.

So which is it? We can't be beaten militarily, we can conduct successful operations wherever, whenever we choose, and we have an elected government that wants us to stay. Most of Iraq is functioning well, the insurgents are reduced to operations in a few areas, the population predominantly wants them gone, and they have no goals other than chaos with no chance at victory. The insurgents still can kill scores of Iraqis, but they can't alter the final outcome, unless there is a fundamental change in either the Iraqi or American policy. And right now that seems highly unlikely.

David Brooks, the NY Times token conservative, offers this analysis of poor Republicans.

These working-class folk like the G.O.P.'s social and foreign policies, but the big difference between poor Republicans and poor Democrats is that the former believe that individuals can make it on their own with hard work and good character.

According to the Pew study, 76 percent of poor Republicans believe most people can get ahead with hard work. Only 14 percent of poor Democrats believe that. Poor Republicans haven't made it yet, but they embrace what they take to be the Republican economic vision - that it is in their power to do so. Poor Democrats are more likely to believe they are in the grip of forces beyond their control.

The G.O.P. succeeds because it is seen as the party of optimistic individualism.

That's quite an interesting obseravtion, one which I saw just a week ago.

It is debatable that the democrats represent more closely the majority of people's interests. Certainly, not everyone in Kansas is wealthy, but then again neither will most Kansans find themselves at home in the halls of universities or democratic party rallies, as if there were a difference.

The democrat's problem is that they might represent people in their current state, but they don't represent people's future goals. Forty to fifty years ago, it was entirely differnt story. But today, democratic policies are far more likely to keep you exactly where you're at. Concurrently, Republican policies, which might not directly benefit you today, will help you get to where you want to be in the future.

You might not beneift today from repealing the estate tax, but in 30 years, your children will. You might not benefit today from lower capital gains taxes, but in 20 years your 401k's will. You might not benefit from social security privatization today, but in 20 years you will.

In fact, you don't want to be living the same 20 years from now. And you know one thing about the democrats, they will penalize prosperity. Republicans might be "for the rich" but that's exactly where you want to be in the future.

Thanks.

The HBO series special Band of Brothers has an episode titled "Why we fight". It's content dealt with the end of the war and the 101st discovering a concentration camp. In Andy Rooney's book "My War", he recounts his youth as a college student opposed to the war. He was reluctant to enter the service as a war correspondent, and was not the best of soldiers. He did fly along on some bomber missions, and spent time at or near the front, and he never wrote ill of the soldier. It was not until he went to the concentration camps did he realize that the war was worth fighting.

But that is not "why we fight". And I believe it is that very distortion that imperils our mission in Iraq, and the larger war on terror.

My students ask me if we're going to study the Holocaust. I answer of course, but I want to focus how we got there, not create some grand epiphany of the war. Rest assured, high school students will be inundated with two things: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Holocaust. Seriously, what more could I add? Have them create a map of the camps.

What is more far important for them to learn is that the Holocaust didn't begin after the 1942 Wanssee conference nor did it begin after the November '38 Kristallnacht. It started in 1934, the moment Hitler was forced to back down from invading Austria.

For those of you unaware, Austrian Chancellor Dolfuss was leaning hard on the Austrian Nazis and Hitler threatened to invade unless Dolfuss relented. He didn't, and Hitler put troops on the Austrian border. Il Duce, a friend of Dolfuss, put troops along the Brenner pass and told Hitler not to invade. Hitler backed down.

So, Hitler is humbled and this leads to the Holocaust? Because France and Britain failed to act in concert and because they failed to see the significance of Mussolini's show of force, Hitler the next year gets away with forcing a plebiscite in the Saar which bordered France. In an election which his SS engaged in tremendous subterfuge and intimidation, Hitler receives an overwhelming majority. From there it was on to the Rhineland, Anschluss, Munich, Memel, Danzig, and finally Fall Gelb.

The western democracies failed to act, and thus, the Holocaust was a fait accompli. So, I wish to stress how we got there, and that "Never again" should mean Munich and not Bergen-Belsen, for one most surely led the other.

The other lesson they must learn is that we do not fight wars to stop genocide. Though I would certainly agree that stopping them is a just and noble cause, we are not the 21st century Knights Templars. We fought WW2 for one reason, and one reason only:

for the defense of our civilization and for the building of a better civilization in the future.

We didn't go to war in Europe because Hitler was gassing thousands of Jews daily. That the revisionsts today justify the war for that reason is deplorable, for it is many of the same who are apologizing for Stalin and Yalta. We went to war for the same reason we went a generation earlier:

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

World War 2 was the time in history when it was determined if the next millenium would be free or totalitarian. Would the freedom loving peoples of the world succumb to the new man of Marxism, the Superman of Nietszche, or the Chrysanthemum's spirit warriors? Would 1941 be 479BC and 451AD, or would it be 1458?

If, as is purported and distorted today, the war was justified ex post facto, then the critics of Iraq must also acknowledge thusly that Saddam's genocides alone justified the war. But they don't. If genocide was really a reason for war, why didn't we invade the Soviet Union, China, or Cambodia. Why did we sit idly and watch the Congo become another killing fields? Why have we not invaded Mexico to stop the cleansing of the Maya? Why did we not invade Angola, East Timor, Pakistan, North Korea, and a dozen or more nations which have become graveyards to hundreds of thousands post WW2?

Why? The answer is simple. We don't fight wars to stop genocide. We fight wars to protect and defend this nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic, then fight wars to protect and defend free and democratic nations against aggression.

That the army is experiencing difficulty in recruiting should not come as a shock to anyone. Why, one would wonder, when our troops are almost unanimously honored, would there be trouble finding willing applicants? Is it fear of war? I think that is a small part. The larger issues are one which goes to the original topic of the essay, and one which I have long written about.

First, the distortion about why we fought WW2 has redounded to the fact that we simply aren't going to die fighting to stop one Arab madman from killing hundreds of thousands Arabs, many of whom probably don't much like us in the first place. Asking young Americans to die so somebody will be "free" to hate us is not only unrealistic, it is disingenuous. Add to the fact that many people still don't know how murderous a regime Saddam's was.

No doubt the vast majority of Iraqis are grateful for the US and the vast majority of Iraqis live far better lives today. Would that this were not the case, it would be physically impossible for 150,000 soldiers to maintain control of 25,000,000 Iraqis. No, hatred for America is directly related to the distance from Baghdad. However, many Americans still have not seen the smiling faces and heartfelt thanks of millions.

Secondly, and I think the larger of the two issues, is that quite simply, school kids today are not taught the exceptionality of America. Most of their history texts, as I have detailed previously, portray America far more neagtively, as a nation of slavery, bigotry, hatred, misogeny, income disparity, and xenophobia. Other cultures are given equivalent status, sometimes exalted over ours. We must be the only society in history whose schools purposefully work against the national interest.

(A side note: On my conference period, I cover classes for teachers in IEP's, etc. It is also Pledge of Allegiance and morning announcement time. I have seen a fairly decent cross-section of classrooms and students. The Pledge of Allegiance is a joke. The television displays a flag, pop music precedes the pledge and nobody knows when it starts, and worst of all, the kids treat it as some sort of joke. They will wear their hats, talk, and in general just be disrespectful. I wish this was a few, but it's the majority. Now, if they are behaving this way, it means that nobody ever corrected them or is demanding proper concuct.)

Too many children today grow up and never hear anything positive about this nation. There is no focus on patriotism in the publc school curriculum, and at best the textbooks will portray America as no better, no worse, than any other nation. There is far more concern that somebody or some group might be offended. There is no attempt to inculcate the belief that this is the greatest nation in history, that without us, the world would be a sad and dark place. In fact, much the opposite is taught.

So, if not at schools, then the only place students would receive patriotic instruction is at home. Funny thing, the schools have usurped the parents' authority regarding sex education, and a host of other issues, yet they "leave for home" patriotism. Tells you something, doesn't it.

We have led our students to believe that we fought a war to end slavery and another to end the Holocaust, and that those are the only reasons to fight a war. We have led our students to believe that America is not worth fighting for, that she possesses nothing worthy of sacrifice.

Our students have been led to believe that they are entitled to whatever they want. If they're unable, it's unfair, it's bias, it's time for a lawsuit. A college degree is a guarantee of a high paying, low effort job, even if the degree is in recreational studies. (It's not a joke) A cell phone and an iPod are endowments from the Creator, which the student has an unalienable right to in a classroom. No longer do students have to work a little harder. Just call for an IEP and get a specially tailored instructional program.

So, it's little wonder that so many young Americans have little interest in protecting and defending this nation. They don't know why we fight wars, don't know that we need to fight and win this war, and have no intention of sacrificing the materialism and largesse they've been inculcated with. We can't expect the children to experience want, it'll damage their self-esteem.

"Ask not what you're country can do for you" has become "Ask what you're country must do for you." It's not so much that the lessons of the past are taught incorrectly, it's that so often the ones that are "taught" are incorrect. We are still doing something right if we can produce the force in Iraq today. History has never seen such a force, one so lethal yet so cautious, one so capable yet not desirous of conquest. We still produce them, just not enough. And that's why we're having recruitment problems, because so many Americans simply do not know why we fought.