Victor Hanson once wondered how the West could ignore the Nazis, Fascists, and Japanese militarists as they plunged toward war. We in the West ignored them, hoping they'd go away.
After witnessing today's Left which fears Bush more than Islamofascists just as some Americans feared FDR more than Hitler in 1938, Hanson no longer wonders:
Yes, perhaps Israel should have hit more quickly, harder, and on the ground; yes, it has run an inept public relations campaign; yes, to these criticisms and more. But what is lost sight of is the central moral issue of our times: a humane democracy mired in an asymmetrical war is trying to protect itself against terrorists from the 7th century, while under the scrutiny of a corrupt world that needs oil, is largely anti-Semitic and deathly afraid of Islamic terrorists, and finds psychic enjoyment in seeing successful Western societies under duress.
In short, if we wish to learn what was going on in Europe in 1938, just look around.
And while the West perhaps had the excuse of memories of World War I carnage and poverty to excuse failure to confront their enemies, what excuse do we have?
As Orson Scott Card notes, we have fought our major campaigns quite well so far. Even in Iraq, which is bizarrely called a fiasco by some, we have fought quite well, and are on the verge of victory if we keep our heads:
George W. Bush is called dumb, but he's smarter than any of his immediate predecessors, because he understands that when your enemy has no scruples, has no vital interests to protect, and desires war, it is absurd to wait for them to get stronger and more dangerous.
The trouble is, he lives in a country where, when he wages the most successful, cleanest war, with the soundest military doctrine, in the history of the United States, he is vilified in the press and lied about so incessantly that the people now largely believe that the war has been badly handled. Compared to what war?
We are luckier than England was before World War II. In those days, England's sharpest foreign policy mind, Winston Churchill, was in political exile, and the appeasers ruled, bringing devastation to all of Europe.
We are at war right now and are doing well, yet our America Firsters can't even see that we are fighting and winning. They would surrender to the bloodied fascists who are amazed that we would retreat, now, after achieving so much.
Yet our enemies continue to fight us and we continue to hold back our might (again, Card):
The sad thing is that our government and media both agree on the policy of denying what is demonstrably true: that we are already at war with Iran and Syria. Iranian bombs and bullets are already killing Americans in Iraq, and they are transported through Syria as well as across the Iranian border.
Missiles and money transported through Syria are also killing innocent civilians in Israel, a nation that is our ally. Iran and Syria are acting as our deadly enemies, the safe haven and supply source for the terrorists that threaten American lives.
We fight and win in battle. Our enemies seek our destruction. Yet many can't see this. And not only can't we recognize that our Western civilization is worth defending, too many here admire thugs who can only destroy and who don't even have the benefit of being able to make trains run on time.
Our enemies won't let us live in a fool's paradise forever. Eventually, they will attack and hurt us enough for even the most nuanced among us to realize we are at war and we must destroy Islamic fascists who want nothing more than to kill us all.
I have long retained hope that we could help Islam control and defeat the thugs among them who try to kill us. The alternaitve to protecting our people by helping Islam reject the jihadis who fight in Islam's name is to use our full power to destroy the jihadis and all who even passively support them.
If we are experiencing 1938 right now, then we are on the verge of being attacked in such a way that we can no longer fail to understand we are at war. And it just seems so odd to be looking for another 1939 when so many once viewed September 11th as our own generation's Pearl Harbor.
If time is so convoluted, we might reach August 1945 soon after.
Lovely decade we're having, eh?
