What history can teach us about the left

The left often charges indignantly that the White House changed course in its rationale behind the Iraq War. In a recent interrogation questioning of Secretary of State Condi Rice by Barbara Boxer, the senator asked about this. David Gelernter writes about this in the LA Times:

The administration, Boxer noted (correctly), has changed focus on Iraq. We went to war mainly on account of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism, she said. But WMD turned out to be a hoax on the whole world, and nowadays we are told that our Iraq mission is gigantic. We plan for a freed Iraq to inspire and stabilize the entire Middle East and to promote democracy everywhere. What kind of bait-and-switch is the administration playing with the American people?

Secretary Rice started to explain that this is nothing new in history, beginning to explain that we didn't go to war with Germany to democratize it, but Boxer interrupted with an "obnoxious and frightening" claim that she lost relatives in the Holocaust--which has nothing to do with Iraq.

Huh? As Gelernter writes, "having lost relatives in the Holocaust does not, in any case, confer expertise in U.S. history." He goes on:

Democracies rarely declare war to improve the world, as Rice could have explained had she had the chance. They fight to protect themselves, sometimes to fulfill treaty obligations. But once a war is underway, free peoples tend to think things over deeply. Casualties concentrate the mind. We refuse to let our soldiers die for too little. America at war has lifted its sights again and again from danger, self-interest and self-defense to a larger, nobler goal. Same story, war after war. Iraq fits perfectly.Gelernter

Gelernter cites not only Germany in WWII, but the American Revolution (what was initially an economic resistance towards Britain turned into an all out, philosophical fight for independence), WWI and the American Civil War. All of these conflicts had some change in motive, rationale, etc. Gelernter concludes:

What do we conclude when the secretary of State makes a plain statement of historical fact and a senator won't listen? That it is only natural for demagogues to attack thoughtful, polite officials who are trying hard to tell straight truths about a complicated war. The Boxers of this world ought to be met with single-minded slogans, but no doubt Rice can't see why she should stoop that low.

To someone who supports the Iraq War, this seems easy to understand. Since I believe the administration did not lie about the intelligence it used to initially justify the war, I also lack the point of view that the left uses agains the war, and which it can't extricate itself from: Bush lied about his intentions, he just wanted oil, bla bla bla. The far left is not simply against the war, they're pro- our enemies. This can do incredible damage to America.

Jonathan Last of The Weekly Standard writes that the decline of Britain's empire has valuable lessons for modern day America. There are some fascinating parallels with our time. After WWI, Britain was exhausted from the fighting; they'd lost an entire generation of young men. But even worse than that, writes Last, was "the waning of confidence on the part of liberal British elites, whose pacifism evolved into anti-patriotism."

In 1933, the Oxford Union - a debating society and one of the strongholds of liberal elite opinion - held a debate on the resolution "this House will in no circumstances fight for king and country." The resolution passed. Margot Asquith, one of England's leading liberal lights, wrote that same year, quite sincerely: "There is only one way of preserving peace in the world, and getting rid of your enemy, and that is to come to some sort of agreement with him. . . . The greatest enemy of mankind today is hate."

Sound familiar? The left would rather "come to terms" with our radical Islamic enemies, yet they don't understand that that just leads to more terrorism. Here's another description that could've been taken right out of the left's talking points:

These elites could see evil only at home. The French intellectual Simone de Beauvoir did not believe that Germany was a "threat to peace," but instead worried that the "panic that the Right was spreading" would drag France, Britain, and the rest of Europe into war. Stafford Cripps, a liberal Labor member of Parliament, feared not Hitler, but Churchill. Cripps wrote that after Churchill became prime minister he would "then introduce fascist measures and there will be no more general elections." In an important sense, the British Empire's strength failed because its elite liberal citizens stopped believing in it.

The erosion of the belief in America is a direct result of the relativist view that all cultures are equally valid and good. Multiculturalism encourages the "let's just understand them" mantra towards our violent enemies.

The American left, too, eerily echoes its British counterparts. Consider the "Peace is Patriotic" bumper stickers; the howls of protest against the nomination of John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations, for fear that he might be too assertive of American values; the comparison - by Sen.Durbinrd Durbin (D., Ill.) - of American soldiers at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis and GuBDurbintheDurbinthe Soviet gulag; the protest cries of "No blood for oil" and the left-wing fringe speculation that the endgame of George W. Bush's 9/11 fear-mongering would be to cancel elections and establish a fascisstate.Thestate.

The left fears its political opponents more than the enemy who vows their destruction. Let's just hope their weaknesses don't penetrate our culture any more.