Thursday, November 12, 2009

Matthew Yglesias on Veterans Day: Unbelievably Putrid Anti-Americanism

I couldn't write about this yesterday without soiling myself in putrescence. From Matthew Yglesias, "Veterans’ Day / Armistice Day":
I sort of wish we called our November 11 observance Armistice Day like they do in other countries.

Something that I think is missing from American political culture is the thing that in Europe is taken to be the lesson of World War One, namely that a war can be bad for reasons other than it being lost. France and Britain were ultimately victorious in the war, but it was ruinous nonetheless. What was needed from the political leadership of the time was a way to avoid the war, not a way to win it. In America, though, evaluation of military endeavors is ruthlessly governed by considerations of efficacy. To lose a war, like in Vietnam, is a bad thing. But there seems to be a growing conventional wisdom that the surge has somehow redeemed Iraq and that the only thing we’re allowed to talk about with regard to Afghanistan is whether we can or will “win.”
These sentiments are so freaking off the charts that event Yglesias' own commenters took issue - and that's saying a lot, since Think Progress is simply one of the most hateful hellholes on the web.

RELATED: "Matthew Yglesias: Nidal Hasan Terrorist Threat 'Not That Big a Deal'."

5 comments:

JBW said...

You certainly are quite the little drama queen, Don. Keep it up, sweetheart.

Dennis said...

Cupcake is right as far as it goes. Your strong points are in well reasoned analysis. The internecine warfare between blogs is of little value to most thinking individuals.
Challenge with facts and reason.
The reason I come here is for your ability to present cogent argumentation.

narciso said...

Yglesias, that solid product of Dalton and Harvard, really has no clue, what is wrong with Veteran's
day. In fact it was in part this sentiment that made WW 2 possible

AmPowerBlog said...

Dennis: I started blogging to attack nihilists like Yglesias. I'll hardly be stopping now!

But don't stop reading, in any case!

Neville Chamberlain said...

Seems to me that many of our European friends did take the lesson of World War I to be trying to avod war. I know that I certainly did!