Like Colin Powell says, optimism is a force multiplier. There is always bad news in war. As they say in the Marines, “suck it up.” Obviously we should review strategy, but we should also defer to those who have spent their whole lives studying war and warfare. We’re just citizens with a highly diminished view of events. There has to be some concept of authority and loyalty. That is, we need to learn when to trust our leaders and not diminish the war effort by too frequent and unfair criticism. It seems that this notion of hyper-acute inspection of everything the government does has only become fashionable since the tragic Vietnam War. You would not find such harsh and sustained criticism of every setback in WWII for example.

Mr. Washington writes:
“Like Colin Powell says, optimism is a force multiplier. There is always bad news in war. As they say in the Marines, “suck it up.” “

“Shut up and row” is the consistent message from the Bush administration and its cheerleaders, to be sure.

I guess we’re not even supposed to try to understand what’s happening in Iraq. Even if what our leaders are telling us seems to make no sense, we should just accept it, not think, and shut up. I’m starting to get a glimmer of what it was like during World War I, when people could go to jail for criticizing the war.

If I may point out the obvious: We won WWI.

Yeah Mr. Auster, so shut up and row already!

There is a plan, a real plan, a great plan, the sort of plan that impresses the heck out of everyone who sees it; its just something Kerry can’t tell us and we are too simple to figure it out for our simple little selves. Ooops did I say Kerry? I meant Bush, sorry.

Matt

I think we need to stop talking and start doing. I don’t know what, but the time for action is now.

On the other hand, there’s nothing new under the sun. If you’ve ever wondered about the fall of the Roman Empire, perhaps we see a practical application of that long term event at this moment in time and there is really nothing we can do.

Where would we be without sunken-chest intellectual cynics. Oh, that’s right, in pre 1960s America.

Tyrone Washington is right. If we all just shut up and follow the plan, the outcome will be just like it was in World War I. One of the largest countreis on Earth goes Communist, and everything will be set up for the start of the next World War.
Or like it was in World War II, with half of Europe given to the Commies, America’s top brackets given confiscatory tax rates for the next 15 years (and still pretty confiscatory for another 20 years), and the seeds lain for the Communist takeover of China and of much of Southeast Asia.

In what way can the United States be said to have “wom” the Great War?

Yeah, we “won” World War I. And what did our victory get us? A Bolshevik government in Russia and an unstable democracy in Germany that eventually gave us Hitler.

God preserve us from such victories!

Here’s must-read post from Randall Parker on the war:http://www.parapundit.com/archives/002455.html#002455

Tyrone Washington wrote:

“Where would we be without sunken-chest intellectual cynics. Oh, that’s right, in pre 1960s America.”

Mr. Washington should make arguments, not deliver insults. That is not permitted here.

The item that Mr. Copold linked concerns generals who insist that we needed far more troops in Iraq to control and stabilize the country. This argument has of course been made from the start. What I don’t understand is, why has this debate not been more prominent? Why haven’t the administration been under more pressure to explain its commitment to these low troop levels? The only response I ever hear from the Bush people is: “We will provide the force levels requests by our commanders. They have not requested any more.” So, as a result, on this most crucial issue, there has been NO DEBATE. Just as on so many other issues related to the war, there has been no real debate.

I blame the Democrats for this at least as much as the administration, because, instead of making responsible, substantive criticisms that the administration would be forced to answer, the Democrats just engaged in their childish attacks. That’s why you need two parties. If all we have is Republicans on one side and insane Democrats on the other, if, in short, we only have one effective party, then the Republicans will behave like a one-party state, not bothering to explain their actions or be accountable.

Well I meant my point to be somewhat humorous, but let me make it clearer: The ridicule of the notion of loyalty to the administration in war time and giving it a substantial benefit of doubt has more in common with post-1960s radical individualism than any traditional concept of American patriotism. There is some idea of authority that conservatives do and should adhere too, and that concept is in greatest relief during wartime. The commanders in the field and the President ultimately have authority to make these tactical and strategic decisions and we, as citizens, have some duty of obedience and deference. Constant, sustained, and harping criticim is unhelpful (and highly untraditional). More importantly, such criticism has been absent from our successful wars in the past. (And while I agree that post WWI outcome was lousy, we did beat the Krauts, which was our main aim).

In addition, in a war such as the one we’re fighting, patience is key as we know from even a cursory study of counter-insurgencies in other theaters, e.g., Algeria, Malaysia, Chile, etc. Public opinion, however, is important to ultiamtely seeing this through. By excessive, unwarranted, and in some cases merely speculative criticism, one hurts the war effort and aids the enemy. So, in that respect, conservative “intellectual” criticism of the war such as the likes of Messrs. Auster, Matt, and Andrew above has more in common with what we’ve seen from liberal critics of the Vietnam War and other U.S. military actions than any authentic conservative impulse.

In arguing against inordinate criticism of military campaigns during war time, Mr. Washington would be making a reasonable case, but for two factors:

1. His point that to make such criticisms is “liberal” is off-base. It is true that the anti-war right has made left-liberal arguments from the start, that is, reflexively anti-American arguments, insinutating the worst motives on the part of our leaders, even siding with our enemies, all the rest of it. That is not what I and other critics of Bush’s war policy have done in our discussions here .

2. I agree it would be wrong to criticize our war efforts if they were aimed at accomplishing the thing that our leaders claim they are aimed at accomplishing. But my whole point, stated repeatedly since the summer of 2003, is that our strategy and military actions in Iraq cannot achieve their stated goal, i.e..the defeat of the insurgency allowing the creation of a self-sustaining Iraqi government.

Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying, that in the instance of Fallujah for example, that our forces cannot conquer and subdue Fallujah. Of course they can. I’m saying that EVEN IF we subdue Fallujah and other insurgency strongholds, THAT WILL NOT DEFEAT THE INSURGENCY. The insurgency existed before Fallujah became such an enemy stronghold, it will exist after.

So my argument is not against this or that military action. My argument is against the administration which, all the evidence indicates to me, is falsely leading the American people to believe that we are seeking to accomplish something in Iraq THAT WE ARE NOT IN FACT SEEKING TO ACCOMPLISH. The American people can accept the deaths of their own soldiers and the killing of foreigners if it is for the purpose of achieving victory and an end to war. Would they accept those deaths if they realized that such victory is not the object of our military actions? As I see it (and I have explained why I see it), the real object of our miltitary actions is only to quiet down the insurgency for a long enough time so that the elections can proceed and will seem legitimate. Perhaps, at that point, as I think Mr. Copold has theorized, Bush will declare a “victory” in Iraq and we will pull out. In that case, people will feel the deaths were morally acceptable because they produced “victory.” But since, as all evidence suggests, the insurgency will not have been defeated, there will in fact not have been such a victory, and therefore any successor government will soon likely fall without our renewed intervention.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe a self-sustaining Iraqi government will result from our current military campaign and the election that follows. If I turn out to be wrong, I will admit it. But all the evidence, all the statements by our leaders, indicate to me that the opposite is the case.

If the President of the United States in the midst of war spoke straight to the American people and said, “We have to wage this military campaign for such and such purpose,” then citizens ought to back him and leave carping criticisms aside for the time being. But when the president sends troops into battle and is (as I see it) so plainly NOT telling us the truth of what this is all about, then I do not owe him my uncritical support.

Mr. Auster is correct about the failure of the Democrats to rationally engage in debate with the administration prior to the invasion of Iraq. The same is true of Buchanan and others on the anti-war right.

Mr. Washington’s characterization of the attempt by VFR regulars to introduce some rational debate about the war as being similar to the efforts of the anti-American left is unfair. For one thing, Mr. Auster (and others) actually supported the invasion. Even those who were against the invasion nevertheless fully see the need to fight the jihadists. The neo-Wilsonian idea that we can turn a medieval, tribalist country that was cobbled together from three major (and several minor) distinct ethnic groups into the Sweden of the middle-east is frankly insane.

Neocons clamoring for a middle-eastern empire, and predicting a “cakewalk”, and roads strewn with flowers for our invading troops are insane as well. It would be most refreshing to hear the administration come up with a workable plan to stabilize the area instead of endlessly spouting sound-bites and boilerplate about how we need to “stay the course.” Again, if there were credible voices in the opposition party to question administration policy from the standpoint of the nation’s security interest, the administration would have to actually articulate its case for the course of action being taken.

I guess I don’t see how a massive attack on a major stronghold of the insurgency could have any other aim or any other outcome other than to weaken the insurgency by (1) undermining their prestige (2) seizing many of their supplies (3) weakening their command control and communications infrastructure (4) demonstrating US and Free Iraqi resolve (5) killing a bunch of them and (6) denying them what until now has been a major base of operations.

As for the escapes from the cordon, we don’t know how many did escape and such a long buildup and the option for escape is inevitable in a large operation. There is some evidence many are now trapped in the South, so I think we should at least reserve judgment until we see what happens.

It’s true, though, it would be nice if the administration could at least articulate these goals I laid out above which have been articulated by commanders in the field who have every interest in defeating the insurgency.

(Sorry, I posted before finishing)

Blind obedience to a leader, especially one whose loyalty to the people of the US is highly questionable in light of his refusal to enforce immigration laws and his continuance of the Clinton sale of military technology to a totalitarian regime whose leading generals have threatened nuclear attack, is irresponsible.

Mr. Washington is proving the truth of a comment from a couple of weeks ago: George W. Boilerplate - the opiate of the conservatives.

I agree, Mr. Washington, that the attack on Fallujah is a very good thing for all the reasons you mention. My only question would be: Why did we pull back from doing this in April?

Maybe this attack represents the implementation of a new, more practical strategy. We can only hope.

Is Tyrone Washington the poster’s real name? Pseudonyms are fine, of course, I was just wondering.

Mr. Washington wrote:

“(6) denying them what until now has been a major base of operations.”

New Iraqi army has not proved that they can hold ground without US forces backing them. US is streached thin, we cannot saturate even Sunny area, much less have forces in other districts.

Experience of Ramadi and Mosul, with repeated talking of them by US and jihadis retaking should be a warning.

There’s a good reason we aren’t having a debate about troop levels: We simply don’t have the troops. The Army and the Marines are already stretched way too thin. We’ve been dragging back guys from IRR. If we double our troop numbers in Iraq, we’re going to have to abandon some other commitments, like Korea or Bosnia.

“There’s a good reason we aren’t having a debate about troop levels: We simply don’t have the troops.”

That’s begging the question. Why is there no debate about increasing the size of the armed forces, if that’s what so many people believe is needed?

“than to weaken the insurgency by (1) undermining their prestige…”

The guerrillas prestige will do just fine. The reason for this is expectations. The U.S. is going to win, and everyone knows it. The question is, how easily. As the insurgents have taken out a company (over 200 men) in wounds or fatalities, while throwing other cities like Mosul into chaos, speaks pretty well of their prestige.

“(2) seizing many of their supplies”

Iraq is literally awash in weapons. Getting the supplies in Fallujah is like pulling a bucket of water out of the ocean.

“(3) weakening their command control and communications infrastructure”

That objective was missed when we announced our intentions four months in advance. The top leaders have long since evacuated to some other spot, and you can bet they’ve preserved their communications.

“(4) demonstrating US and Free Iraqi resolve”

Yeah, Free Iraqi Resolve. There’s a laugh. Only the Kurds are fighting. The rest have either dropped their guns, or have, in some cases, fired on our own troops.

“(5) killing a bunch of them”

Most escaped. We’ve killed a few hundred, but they’ve made up for that by effectively taking out a couple hundred of our guys. A counterinsurgency needs to attain a kill ratio of 20:1. We’re not even close.

“(6) denying them what until now has been a major base of operations.”

Once this operation is finished, we will need to do one of two things: a. turn it over to the “Free Iraqis,” which means turning it back over to the Insurgents, which we’ve seen in Sammara or b. Garrison the town ourselves, which makes the Marines constant targets for snipers and suicide bombers.

Given your objectives here, from start to finish this operation has been doomed to failure.

“If we double our troop numbers in Iraq, we’re going to have to abandon some other commitments, like Korea or Bosnia.”

And what a tragedy that would be.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

The only way we can increase the U.S. armed forces at this point is probably through a draft, and no one but no one wants to have that argument.

On the question of the insurgents’ prestige, be sure to read the Peters column I linked in the original entry. It’s unbelievable. He says that the insurgents’ boasts are now disproved, and so they’ve lost face or something, and this is our “victory.” Two days previously he said the this campaign meant the defeat of the insurgency. Now he’s saying it’s some kind of loss of face for the insurgency. He never sees the contradiction, of course.

Using Peters’ logic, we could say the Texicans lost face at the Alamo. (Disclaimer: this is not to say the Mohammedans are morally comparable to the Texicans.)

Such caveats are always needed nowadays, unfortunately. Too many people don’t understand that analogies are analogies.

Mr. Auster asks:
“Why is there no debate about increasing the size of the armed forces, if that’s what so many people believe is needed?”

Because politics has been abolished, so substantive issues cannot be debated. The possible is no longer defined by objective reality, it is defined by a pragmatism that sees the possible as those things we are transparently *willing* to do. We won’t even talk about things that we are not immediately and transparently willing to do.

We saw this in another thread where the poster “thordaddy” attempted to put the National Question beyond debate because it isn’t practical, and the reason it isn’t practical is because there isn’t the political will to do it, and the reason there isn’t the political will to do it is because it isn’t practical, and the reason it isn’t practical is because there isn’t the political will to do it, and the reason there isn’t the political will to do it is because it isn’t practical, and…

In other words, the triumph of the will has fully trumped the possibility of having a debate about objective reality in American politics.

I think we are unwilling to have the debate because any increase would be long-term, and perhaps Bush does not want to admit that our presence in Iraq will not be significantly reduced within the next year or so.
Or perhaps the administration is so busy with the current issue of Iraq that they have not yet developed any long-term strategy; the current problems in Iraq won’t be solved by increasing the size of the military, because that will take several months to a year to take effect, and the proximate problem is all that Bush can concentrate on.
Perhaps that was the point of the lack of post-war planning, too. One step at a time, don’t think too far ahead.

I think actually the real explanation is apparent: Rumsfeld is conducting an experiment. It’s called “transformation.” He wants the military to do less with more.

They’ve demonstrated they could in the first phases of the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. But, as we’ve seen in both cases, counter-insurgency and nation-building need lots of manpower, which the military now lacks. Rumsfeld is just as ideological as Cheney and Wolfowitz on this score; he somehow thought that if you removed the external impediment of a dictatorship things would quickly return to normal and the people in both countries would rise to the occasion and that such manpower would have been an expensive enablement of an unrealistic going-forward military posture. As events have proven him wrong, particularly in Iraq, the plan has not been adjusted. Perhaps the thinking is that even if more troops would have been handy at the get-go, bringing in more now will delay the Iraqi ability to self-govern and self-police. That’s my most charitable explanation. It’s still troubling.

“…[Rumsfeld] somehow thought that if you removed the external impediment of a dictatorship things would quickly return to normal and the people in both countries would rise to the occasion and that such manpower would have been an expensive enablement of an unrealistic going-forward military posture. As events have proven him wrong, particularly in Iraq, the plan has not been adjusted. “

This misunderestimation has been consistent throughout the reign of the Bush dynasty. Bush 41 thought the Iraqi people would depose Hussein themselves, because deep down they want “freedom”, a.k.a. liberalism. Bush 43 thinks the Iraqi people will get their own insurgents under control because deep down they want “freedom”, a.k.a. liberalism. The concept of someone not wanting liberalism is inconceivable (anyone who does not want liberalism, deep down under their superficial delusions, is not fully human), so the want-of-liberalism is an ocean of power that merely has to tapped, a pent-up dam that just has to be released.

Meanwhile back in reality-land the only “Iraqi” people with any motivation are the Kurds; and their motivation has nothing whatsoever to do with what Bush calls “freedom” and I call liberalism.

I don’t think that’s totally true. There is a minority of civilized, educated, and reasonable Iraqis that want a government of laws and that can impose order. But they are just a minority. You only need to read some Iraqi blogs to see that this is true and that they represent a significant portion of the population (but likely less than a majority).

“…but likely less than a majority.”

Right. So scratch liberal democracy. And scratch the notion of a pent-up energetic liberalism willing to sacrifice itself for “freedom” as a long-term strategic consideration. Because if it comes to it they will be sacrificed, just like the ones we encouraged to depose Saddam in ‘91.

And, though it has been pointed out before I’ll point it out again: when reality hits, many of those progressive Iraqis are going to need to emigrate to somewhere just to stay out of the mass graves. Guess who is coming to dinner?

Matt writes:

“when reality hits, many of those progressive Iraqis are going to need to emigrate to somewhere just to stay out of the mass graves. Guess who is coming to dinner?”

Before the war, various people warned against the likelihood that once we took over Iraq, that would inevitably produce lots of Iraqi immigrants to the U.S. David here at VFR made that point several times. The logical answer, from a pro-war yet immigration restrictionist perspective, was that there was nothing inevitable about such immigration, and that such a demand could be dealt with when it came up.

But the specific scenario that Matt raises now was not raised before the war. To have envisioned it would have required thinking more steps into the future than anyone did at the time. The argument would have gone like this:

“If we invade Iraq and topple its regime, we will become responsible for running the country and establishing an orderly envirnment in which a new regime can survive and function. But anti-U.S. elements in Iraq will regard any regime that we help set up as a U.S. puppet, and they will fight a terror war as in Algeria to destroy such a government. We will not have the means to defeat these terrorists, and we will not have the will to stay in Iraq permanently to help prop up the new regime. Sooner or later we will inevitably withdraw from Iraq and our enemies will then take over and start killing all the Iraqis who supported us or worked with us. That could be hundreds of thousands of people. We will then have to admit all our Iraqi allies into the U.S. in order to save their lives, a vast flood of Moslem Arab refugees.”

This argument contains two key conclusions: that America would not have the long-term ability to assure a successor regime in Iraq, and that America would end up taking in a huge Iraqi refugee stream.

If this argument had been made in a persuasive way before the war, I wonder how I would have responded to it. I think I would have said that this shows that we must topple Hussein, set up some strong man in his place as quickly as possible, and leave. The war would be purely to get rid of the Hussein regime and clear out the WMDs, without any larger expectation of transforming Iraq.

Mr. Auster wrote:
“The logical answer, from a pro-war yet immigration restrictionist perspective, was that there was nothing inevitable about such immigration, and that such a demand could be dealt with when it came up.”

Exactly. The key problem here is that we are creating and isolating that future group of refugees right now, and we will have a moral obligation to them specifically because of that. If our strategy had been to set up a pro-US strongman and leave then we would not have attracted, isolated, and identified this future group of purge victims. Having done so though I don’t see how the moral duty to provide them with asylum can be denied. By the time this is all said and done we might as well have tatooed them and rounded them up.

I remember Steve Sailer making this argument, although I don’t remember if he made it before the war started (he was making it after the end of major combat operations, but I don’t remember if he made it before or not. My instinct says yes, but I’m not certain if I can find the reference offhand).

Mr. Auster’s expansion of this concept (our having to boatload in thousands of pro-U.S. Iraqi refugees once we begin to pull out and making them U.S. citizens) is wonderful. I really hadn’t thought of it before (Mr. Auster must be referring to “David” without the last name).

I wouldn’t have accepted the idea before the war because I was against our government’s bringing into the U.S. thousands upon thousands of Vietnamese and other asiatics as Vietnam fell. I’m certain someone out there can make a very good argument for why we as a country should bring in those from other countries who side with us in ANY conflict. Frankly, I feel we let too many people in to become Americans through legal immigration—what is it now, 230,000 per year? Obviously, there is “a political element” to doing this which cannot be denied (The thinking being that those we give asylum/citizenship to will vote for the American political party that “freed” them at that time).

David Levin wrote:

“I feel we let too many people in to become Americans through legal immigration—what is it now, 230,000 per year?”

You better seat down and try to be calm.
US accept about 1 million (1 000 000) legal immigrants per year.

Mik

Can you provide a link to support that jaw dropping figure?

From State Dept site:

In 2002 1,063,732 people legally immigrated to US:
usinfo.state.gov/usa/diversity/pr071503.htm.

Data for 1999 and 2000 are:
646,568 and 849,807 from www.rapidimmigration.com/www/latest_ins/January_18_2002.html.

Notice the trend. Not good.

MLK

Thank you for the link. I’ll admit it, I was a bit skeptical about that figure. Most of it is legal Mexican immigration.

Grab your digitalis:

“Muslims all over the world are looking with high expectations toward the ummah community in the United States and Canada. Its dynamism, fresh approach, enlightened scholarship and sheer growth is their hope for an Islamic renaissance worldwide.”
-Murad Wilfried Hofmann, Muslim jurist

It came from the website you linked below.

http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/diversity/pr071503.htm

How could the US Dept. of State trumpet such a comment. Don’t they realize they are warmly welcoming our own demise?

MLK

Here are the direct links to the US Dept. of State website regarding the quote above.

It paints a rosy picture for Muslims in America.

Even the million plus legal Mexicans moving here (That figure doesn’t seem to take into account illegal Mexicans for example, so the figure is higher), can expect a bright future.

But what about the rest of us who don’t wish to be part of an “Islamic Renaissance” or world wide ummah, or adopt Mexican cultural characteristics?

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/muslimlife/living.htm

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/muslimlife/

Andrew wrote:

“I was a bit skeptical about that figure. Most of it is legal Mexican immigration.”

I’m always careful with figures from Internet, in this case State Dept numbers are as reliable as gov number standards (could be politically manipulated). I use data from secondary sites only when there is independent confirmation.

It is not true that most of legals are Mexicans, in fact they are barely 20%.
5 largest contributors to our demise (usinfo.state.gov/usa/diversity/pr071503.htm):
Mexico (219,380), India (71,105), The People’s Republic of China (61,282), Philippines (51,308), and Vietnam (33,627).

Of course with 2-3 million new illegals per year, Mexicans easily dominate immigration populace.

MIK

Thanks for the depressing facts. A million immigrants per year (sorry for the typo above, I wrote “Mexicans”, but I meant to write “immigrants”.), is likely to be a continuing trend. How long can we sustain such an influx?

Also, did you see the section on Muslims in America? What does that tell you about the State Department’s atmosphere of blind multicultural promotion?

I was watching West Side Story (on German TV) last night. I always loved this movie and the music. It occurred to me that Leonard Bernstein was a person who not only was an American musical treasure, but also a man who invited Black Panthers to his parties among other things. He was a Liberal.

The plot of West Side Story, conceived in 1955 by Jerome Robbins, addresses issues of multiculturism. The principles as they relate to liberalism are however portrayed as misunderstood misfits. Just think of the social confusion conveyed in the lyrics of “Officer Krupke” (linked below).

The Puerto Rican “Sharks” battling for turf against the white American “Jets” amid the wasteland of American urban decay is ironic for the time. The scenes were filmed on location, at what was then an Upper West Side slum. It was later demolished paving the way for the Lincoln Center complex.

But all the areas of interest to us are present in this film which is ultimately tied together by the hopeful, romantic liberal mythology of the promise of multiculturalism triumphing over the chaos it causes by an appeal to the common humanity we all presumably share.

Think about the problem magnified by not just Puerto Ricans, who were among the original boogey men of revived immigration, but by a staggering variety of people who now, unlike the Sharks, are not even making the slightest superficial attempt to assimilate. It appears that Americans have had a guilty conscience since at least after the Second World War.

Officer Krupke Lyrics:

http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/w/westsidestory7630/geeofficerkrupke273788.html

Andrew, I wouldn’t use the word “multiculturalism” to describe 1950s multiethnic New York. Multiculturalism is a word that only came into use in this country in the late 1980s. It is not an objective, descriptive word, it is an ideological word. It means that society consists of a bunch of cultures which are all of equal importance, and with no dominant or common culture. If we use “multiculturalism” to describe any situation in which there is more than one ethnic group, then all of history becomes “multicultural” and the word loses any meaning except for saying that multiculturalism is the human condition and we simply have to surrender to it—which in fact is the way the multicultural left uses the term.

Mr. Auster,

Thank you very much for the correction. Issues of “ethnic tension” would have been accurate, I sensed a misapplication of the word.

I think societal conflict as dramatized in West Side Story obviously grew in relation to the absorption of ever more varied immigrant groups over time.

Eventually, multiethnic American society required an ideology to deal with the issues of social harmony and an aspirin to alleviate some of the psychological trauma of Americans who saw their heritage stolen from them.

Multiculturism had a genesis. You say the word (ideology) did not appear before the 1980’s, consider that the essence was present for quite some time before than.

Was multiculturism the natural evolution, a desperate response to the necessity of safely integrating (not assimilating-why?) varied ethnicities as harmoniously as possible into the dominate but dying society?

In multiculturism, no culture, (in theory, but affirmative action proves that some groups actually do have greater rights than others) is any better than the other, so the social engineers figured correctly that our Judeo-Christian guilt would make this apparent notion of fairness palatable to us.

How else can one account for the universal acceptance of an ideology everywhere in the Western world which is so detrimental to itself?

Thank you.

The promotion of multiculturalism in America fist appeared sometime in the 1980’s. I did a quick Google search and found that something called “biculturalism” evolved into “multiculturalism” from Canada and first appeared as official Canadian policy in 1971.

I wonder if we were influenced/infected by the Canadian example.

“…As should be evident from this description, multiculturalism in Canada has evolved considerably since it first became policy in 1971…”

http://www.cpa.ca/cjbsnew/1996/ful_edito.html

Andrew asks:

“Was multiculturalism the natural evolution, a desperate response to the necessity of safely integrating … varied ethnicities as harmoniously as possible into the dominant but dying society?”

Something like that. My view is that multiculturalism is a direct response to the arrival in American society (whether through the civil rights revolution in the case of native-born American blacks, or through immigration in the case of Third-Worlders) of peoples who are, and are perceived to be, largely unassimilable to American society. How could this increasing number of non-assimilating people be here, and we still maintain a viable idea of America? The answer was to redefine America as a collection of “equal” cultures.” Look up my Path to National Suicide for more on this. Also, I had two articles at NR in the early ’90s where I first spelled out the idea that multiculturalism, though it is certainly a leftist idea, is not being imposed on society by leftist ideologues against its will (which was the standard neocon view of the matter), but rather was being voluntarily adopted by mainstream society as a response to the unassimilable immigration. The articles are not available online, but in the near future I will create electronic versions of them and post them here.

Mr. Auster.

Eventually, a viable idea of America will finally cease to be supportable by the available evidence.
I don’t think anyone will care anymore at that point.

That is why traditionalists need to affirm the core values and identity of America, our historic American and Western culture, and keep that alive, and resist what is happening to America. We don’t know where that act of affirmation and resistance will go or what effect it will ultimately have. Maybe it can help save the actual America. But if it can’t, if the actual United States does cease to be viable at some point, then the cultural core I’m speaking of, as a result of keeping itself alive, will continue existing, perhaps in some new form that we cannot now imagine, though still rooted in the past.

The key thing is not to give in, internally, to what is happening. I’m not saying that such resistance is the totality of what is needed. But it is the indispensable basis of everything else we might do. It is the essential act of life against the forces that seek our collective death.

Mr. Auster,

A friend tells me to quit worrying about Islam e.g., the Turks, taking over Germany. He said I should worry about the Mexicans in America instead and states at least most Mexicans are Christian so Americans should see the bright side.

I don’t really see a great difference. The well documented problems in America already speak volumes.

In the case of Mexicans, they are sometimes referred to by some I speak with as a sort of counterweight to Islamic immigration. But again the elements of Third Worldism they transport here is also as much a danger as the direct violence Islam is likely to effect in America once Muslims are sufficiently established.

A Mexican was once quoted as saying in an interview in response to the question, “What would Mexicans do if America collapsed?” His rapid fire answer, “We’ll just go up to Canada.”

Mr. Auster,

Your mention above of the cultural core of America and its survival, reminded me of a week I spent a Mohawk reservation in Canada.

I was among a defeated but defiant and proud civilization. All that seemed to remain was their culture which they valued above all else.

My presence was welcomed by many, but some understandably vocalized their genuine displeasure at the idea that a “white man” was on their land.

I now have an appreciation about how they must feel given my sudden awareness after September 11, 2001 what we are facing in America and in Europe.

Well if it came down to whites being on the level of Indians on a reservation, that’s not something I’m visualizing when I speak of maintaining our identity and culture.

Andrew raises an argument used by Evangelical cultists of Presidente Arbrusto all the time: These invading Mexicans are all pro-life othodox Catholics whose presence will guarantee a great Republican sweep of political power. An idea so stupid that it might have originated in the recesses of the Rovian brain.

This notion is simply a lie. The Mexican invaders come from a militantly secularist state and do not embrace orthodox Catholicism any more than John Kerry or Ted Kennedy do. Indeed, we are importing Mexico’s underclass, whose only embrace of anything American consists of assuming the mannerisms and morals of the Black ‘gangsta’ culture (documented brilliantly by Heather MacDonald in a recent City Journal article). Alan Wall, the American resident of Mexico mentioned on another thread, has completely debunked this myth. According to Wall, the faithful Mexican Catholics (15-20 percent of the population) are much less likely to immigrate than others, partially due to the fact the USA has such a completly corrupting popular culture that is easier to resist in Mexico.

Mr. Auster,

I know this type of comparison is used to support multicultural arguments. I do NOT however subscribe to the idea that there is equivalence between our identity and culture, and that of the once feared Mohawk tribe at all or any other culture for that matter. I recognize that America as it once was represented the epitome of human achievement and the standard for civilized society period.

But given the fact that gated communities are a reality in America today and the fact that the wildcard Islam, seeks to replace the Constitution with Shari’a plus other Third World colonists swamping us by their sheer numbers, it is certainly possible that a distant future America could be a very dangerous place for the hated white man and non-Muslim alike.

I wish I could predict what form a possible conflict is likely to take between Americans, Third World Non-Muslims and Arab/Muslim fascists who will, as they do everywhere they appear, try to force their culture and religion upon America.

You’ve seen the map Samuel P. Huntington provides in his book showing the emaciation of Western civilization within just the last century, it is easy to imagine that we are fast becoming extinct and could well wind up in a menagerie. Even Bernard Lewis states Europe is likely to be Islamic by the end of the century.

Resistance, preserving our culture for posterity? I don’t think that if the universally despised “Jews” have become extinct despite the best efforts of many, we will anytime soon. The question I have is what will the world look like once Western civilization finally fizzles under the ferocious, relentless attacks of her many envious enemies. I take this as a forgone conclusion but why get my hopes up?