Democracy, legitimacy, and taking the philosophical offensive.

Gaddis marvels that during the last half of the 20th century the number of democracies quintupled, hastened by the information revolution and the increasingly obvious superiority of free societies in feeding their own people. Thus "the world came closer than ever before to reaching a consensus . . . that only democracy confers legitimacy.^[1]This is from a review of The Cold War: A New History,' by John Lewis Gaddis.

Mr. Gaddis sees Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul, and Lech Walesa as being able to grasp the “historical possibility” in the confrontation between the Soviet Union and the West. They saw the outward appearances of power but grasped the essential weakness of the Soviets. The Soviet Union was an “Evil Empire” and calling it that was a master stroke.

It was obvious to anyone who might read trouble himself to read a primer on Soviet History, but this forthright statement of the obvious exercised the commie lovers liberals no end. Even Mr. Reagan toned it down rhetorically afterwards. Even so, he never had much company among world leaders (with the exceptions noted above, to which should be added the name of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn).

The point being that before anyone could come right out and call a spade a bloody shovel with respect to the bestial Soviet regime, he had to anticipate an immediate hailstorm of criticism from socialist peckerwoods the MSM and academia. Plus, diplomatic “realities” “required” that Western nations not accuse Soviet leaders of disgracing primates everywhere.

President Bush deserves great credit for recognizing that the application of a little military force can encourager les autres. Unfortunately, he does not appear to be a man with much insight into the possibility of taking the offensive philosophically.

The Colonel thinks the real assault the Islamicists cannot withstand is the one that points out how completely undemocratic Islam is, how arbitrary the Islamic legal system is, how Islam teaches Muslims to despise others, how Islam holds back its people from acquiring education and from advancing economically, and how it celebrates war and the subversion of non-Islamic societies.

It would be a tragedy for the U.S. to sail around in its usual Sargasso Sea of self doubt and fixation on “stereotypes,” “offending others,” and “insensitivity” when the time has long since passed for there to be head-to-head ideological warfare between Islam and the us infidels.

The one-time Grand Mufti of all of Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa proclaiming that the earth is flat. How hard can it be to ridicule Tinker Toy nations and religious fools like this? The president of Iran refers to Iran as a "civilised nation" but organizes suicide bomber training for "martyrdom operations."

Why worry about causing offense to the delicate sensibilities of ignorant, backward people who hate us already?

Notes
^[1] “Look Back in Relief.” By Michael Beschloss, New York Times, 1/15/06.