“I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire.”

–Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 1927

For the past 6 years, Chris Matthews has hosted a show in which guests gleefully reported the purported success of both indigenous insurgents and foreign al Qaeda fighters in Iraq.  On his network, MSNBC, that became the default setting.  They were the publicity arm of al Qaeda.  Car bombs led the news, successful American battles, infrastructure completion, or the like were not even news.  Bagdad Bob had nothing on them.

Chris would evoke the worst kind of moral equivalence by constantly posing some form of this the question, “Wouldn’t you be mad if someone invaded America and imposed a different form of government they thought was better?  Wouldn’t you fight back?”

Anyone who thought this was unpatriotic was the worst kind of scoundrel, an unquestioning lackey of the Bush Administration who was trying to quash dissent, the highest form of patriotism.

Losing a war was chump change compared to defeating evil Republicans.

Now, finally, Chris Matthews has spotted REAL anti-Americanism—people who were happy that President Obama was humiliated in his vanity-laden attempt to bring the Olympics to Chicago.

Oh, the horror.

Matthews’s Monday show intro was unintentionally revealing, though not part of the video on the MSNBC website:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Anti-American?  Let’s play HARDBALL.  Good evening. I’m Chris Matthews in Washington. Leading off tonight:

The right roots against America. Remember how Republicans questioned Democrats’ patriotism during the Bush years, how you were either with Bush or with the terrorists? So what do we make the of the glee some prominent Republicans felt when Chicago and President Obama lost its Olympics bid? It’s one thing to argue politics and policy, what’s good and what’s bad for America. That’s what we do right here on HARDBALL. It’s another thing to root for America to fail.

Yeah, whether America wins a war or keeps thousands of innocent Americans are massacred on a normal work day—or Chicago gets the Olympics.  Same thing.  We won’t mention that more than HALF OF CHICAGO didn’t want the Olympics.

But the comparison tells us more about Chris Matthews than he meant to reveal, or wants to admit about his side of the political divide. Is he finally admitting that liberals rooted against America winning the war in Iraq so they could use it against George Bush?

Guest Terry Jeffrey did a great job of trying to bring a perspective of reality to Chris’s newfound feverish patriotism—which is really Obamism:

JEFFREY: I don’t think the city of Chicago getting the Olympics is synonymous with a vital national interest of the United States. I mean, you could be from Chicago and not want the Olympics to come to Chicago.

Exactly right.  Later, Jeffery got to the main point of who roots for America, which caused Matthews to lose it and throw out a mangled version of Churchill’s great quote.

MATTHEWS: You don’t think-just to get back to our point here, you don’t sense that on the right-well, maybe I’m asking the wrong person to agree with this-that there is a goal here that anything where there’s a contest, a chance to prove its success, whether it’s ideological, whether it’s pro-American or political or partisan, any chance for Barack Obama to fail, your side is going to root for him to fail, whatever it is. He must fail at any moment. Whether it’s health care, whether it’s the Olympics, whatever it is, you will cheer if he fails. Are you denying that now?

JEFFREY: Not any place, most places. There’s one place, clearly, where conservatives ought not want him to fail, and that…

MATTHEWS: No, but don’t be selective. Isn’t it true…

JEFFREY: No, it’s not true.

MATTHEWS: … that the evidence of this past week is, wherever he attempts to do something, you guys want him to stumble.

JEFFREY: No, actually, that’s true because…

MATTHEWS: Give me an example where you’re rooting for him.

JEFFREY: Well, let me give you an example. I’m very much rooting that what President Obama chooses to do, which he hasn’t yet chosen to do, in Afghanistan works because all Americans share an interest in our country succeeding in Afghanistan. It’s important for our national security that it happens. I hope his policy in Iraq succeeds. I hope what he does with the Gitmo prisoners, Chris, succeeds. I think conservatives are very much worried that he will not succeed because they think his policies in those areas may be wrong-headed.

On the domestic front, I think conservatives are opposed to just about everything President Obama is trying to do because he’s trying to augment the power of government over our lives and diminish our individual freedom. So to the degree that his ability to leverage the Democrats in Congress to attain his agenda is diminished, that’s a good thing for the United States of America….

MATTHEWS: … most of this began last fall under George Bush. The bringing in of Hank Paulson from Goldman Sachs, the whole works, the whole downfall of Wall Street, the attempt to bail out Wall Street, the banking industry, the failure of General Motors and those industries began long before Barack Obama came into office. He came in to clean up the mess, and I refuse not to take sides between the fire brigade and the fire. He’s the fire brigade. Your side was the fire.

During his softball interview with Alan “Republicans want you to die in the health care holocaust” Grayson, Matthews ludicrously exclaimed “I don’t always take sides, but you are right!”  Now we get it, Republicans are the fire, Barack Obama is the fire brigade.

However, when it comes to the American military versus America’s real enemies, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran—or in the case of civilization versus barbarians in, say Gaza, Chris Matthews has a lot harder time discerning who is the fire brigade.

To use Chris’s mangled analogy, he and his colleagues spent 5 years reporting on deaths and injuries to the fire brigade, but never mentioned any of the fires they put out.  But don’t you DARE call that anti-American.

Turn on any cable news channel discussion of Afghanistan right now and you will hear three words from the liberal spokesman, whether it’s a politician, Democratic party strategist or consultant, or pundit.

“Afghanistan isn’t Iraq.”

Well, yeah…  But these words aren’t just a statement of the geographically obvious.  This is the retort when the discussion turns to the idea of a “surge” in Afghanistan and the idea of pursuing a counter-insurgency strategy similar to the one that was successful in Iraq.

This is actually an argument that has merit—if made in good faith.  Iraq has had some semblance of a civil society in its history.  It has been governed—however brutally, at times—by a central government.  Despite deep divisions, there is also some nascent national identity.  None of this is true of Afghanistan, much of which has not changed since the invention of gunpowder.

However, for most of the people making the argument, there is good reason to believe they speak with a forked tongue.

By the light of their current argument, a year ago they were in effect saying “IRAQ isn’t Iraq.”

In fact, not only did most of them say the “surge” would not work, they refused to admit it was working long after the proof was all but undeniable to even the most thick-headed.

Like the guy who is now taking his time deciding on a strategy, even after he has accelerated the pace of the war and the increased casualties that go with it:

And I guess we are supposed to suspend our disbelief, and accept that this woman’s statements are now about the national interest, when a year ago they were so nakedly political.  Our troops should never suspect that you might be about to “Betray-us”:

On Fox News Sunday, Juan Williams hit us with the other ubiquitous liberal talking point.  This one isn’t just a straw man, it’s a slander:

WILLIAMS: “Look at the history of other countries who have gone into Afghanistan and tried to do what we’re talking about”.

Really?  The SOVIETS tried to set up a civil society, free the women, provide for honest elections, professionalize the Afghan Army and police to protect the people, and build infrastructure for a market economy?  They did?  I must have missed that, Juan!

All I remember from the Red Army’s tenure in Afghanistan is mines in the shape of toys to sucker children into blowing themselves up, the burning of entire villages, rape and pillage, and the setting up a KGB network of torture (real torture, not the threat of rough treatment, or pretend torture).

Of course, liberals aren’t great at making those distinctions:

Look, I’m not so sure that nation building in Afghanistan is a great—or even possible—idea.  I’m not positive that it’s what General McChrystal is advocating, or if he is saying to his Commander-in-Chief, “I need more troops in order to do the nation-building you are requiring me to do, sir.”

This is the result of two liberal myths—one that has been accepted as fact by too many Republicans, including John McCain, and was used by George W. Bush: that the anarchy in Afghanistan that led to the Taliban was our fault because we didn’t stay and build something after the Soviets pulled out.

Ballderdash.  There was nothing to build on, we had little on the ground—and other global commitments at the time.  Also, this Afghan nation would have had to have been built while being almost completely surrounded by hostile countries.

The other problem, is that liberals have spent the last 5 years saying that the war in Afghanistan is the “real central front in the war on terror” and that “George W. Bush took his eye off the ball by going to Iraq.”

For liberals, the ideal war is always the one we are not currently fighting.  Now Afghanistan is the war we are fighting, so it’s no longer so attractive and abstract and easy to idealize.  It’s messy and violent.

It’s also possible that General McChrystal is proposing a nation-building strategy because he knows the best alternative is something this Administration and Congress will never agree to: get rid of the NATO “help” and all the incredible silly Rules of Engagement (i.e. NON-engagement) that come with them, turn our Special Forces loose, and kill as many al Qaeda bastards as possible.

Our main interest in Afghanistan is In ridding it of people who want to kill Americans, and denying them a base to do it from.  Another strategic base in that part of the world would be nice, but Iraq will do—unless the President fulfills his promise of bringing “every” soldier home.

But regardless of the strategic reality, the problem is this:  We are possibly in the middle of a bait and switch that could have deadly consequences for Americans.

“Afghanistan isn’t Iraq?”  Perhaps, but that’s not really an argument anyone who is currently using it has the credibility to make.

What, me worry about Ahmadinejad?

Last night’s MSNBC lineup provided a trifecta of reasons why people dismiss that network’s “news analysis”: the intellect of the show’s host, the insight of his guest, and the reputation of a “scholar” whom the guest referenced. In this case, Ed Schultz interviewed a man who encouraged us to think the best of a Holocaust Denier and cited a “scholar” who turned in an intellectually bankrupt review of a book I co-wrote with David Horowitz, Party of Defeat.

On “The Ed Show” last night, Schultz discussed the Iranian nuclear program with Matthew Duss, a senior policy researcher for the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP). Duss opened with the illuminating opinion that the Iranians launched their recent missile tests because they “were put on their back foot by President Obama’s roll-out of the intelligence about their secret nuclear facility near Qom, and they clearly felt that they needed some demonstration of strength to put them in a better position going into negotiations.” This is the same Iranian leader who, earlier this month, told the international press for the millionth time, “the nuclear question is finished. We will not negotiate over Iran’s undeniable rights.” Can any mature person believe Ahmadinejad or the ruling mullahs care about negotiations, beyond extending them long enough to acquire a doomsday device? To the extent they have any impact on “negotiations,” it would be to make Russian opposition to increased sanctions untenable (although Russia is holding to its position).

Schultz then rolled footage of Sen. Lindsay Graham’s assessment of the Iranian leadership:

Lindsay Graham: I’ve got one rule of thumb: if the president of a country denies the Holocaust, you should believe the worst, not the best, about what they’re doing. Clearly they’re hiding nuclear programs for a purpose. They’re trying to develop a nuclear weapon, and if they are successful the Sunni Arab states in the region will want a nuclear weapon, Israel becomes much at risk, and we’re walking down the road to Armageddon.

Duss: (Deep, Al Gore-like sigh).

Schultz: I never heard this nine months ago when Bush was around. A lot of things have changed. What’s your thoughts on that?

Duss: As my friend, the international relations scholar Robert Farley says, “Every country has its neo-cons,” and Iranian neo-cons and American neo-cons can always be counted on to kind of always talk about the worst case scenarios and expect and assume the worst about their adversaries.

Holocaust Denial does not so much assume as confirm the worst about a person. However, I would go a step further than Senator Graham: If the president of a country believes “Israel must be wiped off the map,” dreams it is “possible for us to witness a world without America,” supported terrorists killing Americans in Iraq, may be interfering in Afghanistan, is a client of North Korea’s nuclear program, is being begged to export his nuclear technology to Venezuela, has forged ties with extremist Shi’ites to radicalize democratic and pluralistic Lebanon, is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and is headed by a religious fanatic who believes he is ushering in the end-times, the logical conclusion is not rosy.

I suppose that qualifies me as a “neo-con,” in the same way Iran’s mullahs are “neo-cons.” (Did he say that? Out loud?)  These thoughts landed Duss a job at CAP and as a blogger at The American Prospect (TAP).

Over at TAP, Duss has written that it was “shameful” John McCain did not treat Hamas and Hezbollah more “charitably” when describing them as unfit to govern, insisted the Surge is “not even close” to “victory,” and thought Obama was oh-so-cagy to offer only the most tepid condemnation of the Iranian police beating pro-democracy protesters.

What perked my ears up was his mention of “international relations expert Robert Farley,” both the strangely incongruent words and the way he seemed pained to pronounce them, as though aware he doth protest too much. The name woke me up, because David Horowitz and I had an exchange — I can’t call it a debate or conversation — with Robert Farley (also of TAP) just under a year ago when he “reviewed” our book Party of Defeat. You can read Robert Farley’s lazy effort and our demolition of it here.

Our readers commented on the poor quality of Farley’s essay (and mind). Donald Douglas of American Power blog had an outstanding critique of Farley’s “review” and a subsequent take down of Farley’s snarky cover story.

Unfortunately, these are examples of what pass for “international relations scholars” on the Left now, and it explains a lot.

Did this guy have the same ideas about anti-American terrorists as Michael Moore?

From Dino Crawley, as posted on NewsReal’s Facebook page in response to Michael van der Galien’s post yesterday about Morning Joe’s promotion of leftist Michael Moore’s newest neo-communist effort:

To the Editor: Mr. Van Der Galien, the propaganda you speak of in this article seems to come DIRECTLY from THIS article. For one thing, you seem to side-step a couple of facts. Namely: You mentioned in the article about Michael Moore calling “the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan `Freedom Fighters`”. If I am not mistaken, that is the same term used by then U.S. President Reagan back in the 1980`s when the Mujahideen (then fighting the U.S.S.R.) was being backed by the C.I.A. The C.I.A. went on to form (AND NAME) the group we now know today as Al-qaeda (using those same members of the Mujahideen, including Osama Bin Laden). Therefore, Michael Moore IS NOT the originator of that term. Lastly, I`d like to point you to a Bible quote from the book of 1st Timothy, chapter 6, verse 10. Where The author (Apostle Paul) writes: “The LOVE OF MONEY is the root of all evil”. Michael Moore is doing nothing more than exposing where the evil(s) of the world are coming from in this film.

I stumbled into a debate with Mr. Crawley before on Facebook. He’s not a leftist, he’s a Ron Paul True Believer or a “Paulastinian.” Engaging with him the other week regarding his hero “Dr. Paul” I was delighted to see him prove one of the points of my Paul post: the crackpot congressman’s supporters frequently hold views ripped from the pages of the Anti-American Left.  This new comment is further evidence.

Kudos to French President Nicolas Sarkozy for trying to ground the Obama-led United Nations Security Council disarmament session last Thursday in some foundation of reality.   I expect Jimmy Carter and his like-minded leftists to play the race card any day now against Sarkozy for daring to criticize our President, much less for daring to mock the naive approach of the Annointed One (as Sean Hannity calls Obama) to the world.  Too bad that Hannity or Bill O’Reilly did not put all of Sarkozy’s words on the air.

After Obama outlined his Pollyanish vision of a nuclear-free world enforced by the UN Security Council, Sarkozy had this to say:

“We live in the real world, not the virtual world. And the real world expects us to take decisions.”

“President Obama dreams of a world without weapons … but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite.”

“Iran since 2005 has flouted five security council resolutions. North Korea has been defying council resolutions since 1993.”

“I support the extended hand of the Americans, but what good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community? More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe a UN member state off the map.”

Obama’s virtual world should have been disrupted by the rock solid intelligence — of which he has been aware for  months but only now has made public — concerning a secret Iranian nuclear enrichment plant deep inside a mountain base of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards near the religious center of Qum. Yet valuable time was lost as he persisted in his quixotic quest for unconditional talks with Iranian officials, which are still about to go forward on October 1st.

Global nuclear disarmament treaties do not work when rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea pay lip service to their principles but flout the obligations imposed by the treaties that they sign.   Iran may say that it is complying, and that it will continue to comply, with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  However, outside of the Iranian regime itself and its most ardent supporters, only the most naïve would give the Islamic Republic of Iran the benefit of the doubt in this regard.    As French President Sarkozy pointed out, Obama seems to belong in that camp.

Jimmy Carter may think that any such criticism against a black president is inherently racist, but the truth is that Carter had been as much, if not more, naive himself when he allowed the Shah of Iran to be deposed and replaced by the Islamic mullah maniacs in the first place.

President Obama has spent three days at the United Nations, basking in the glow of world leaders’ adulation. He gave three speeches — one to a Climate Summit on combating global warming and climate change, a second to the opening session of the General Assembly outlining his plans to re-engage the UN, and a third to the Security Council on nuclear non-proliferation and the goal of total nuclear disarmament.

Col. Muanmmar al-Qaddafi (looking something like a D-movie version of Dracula) was so impressed with Obama that he said in his rambling 90 minute speech to the General Assembly immediately following Obama’s speech, that Obama (a “son of Africa”) should remain the president of the United States “forever.”  Maybe that kind of flattery is why the U.S. delegation did not walk out. The whole thing should have been moved down a few blocks on First Avenue to the Bellevue psychiatric ward. 

Obama’s UN speeches were big on inspirational rhetoric of the kind that Americans were over-exposed to during the campaign, and short on specifics.   As is becoming his trademark in speeches addressed to international audiences, Obama also apologized for past U.S. actions, particularly those of the Bush Administration including Guantanamo Bay and alleged ‘torture.’   He portrayed his view that the United States is just one of 192 member states that needed the cooperation of everyone else to solve major problems.   If that is the case, then why shouldn’t we pay only 1/192 of the UN budget rather than 22-25%?

President Obama boasted about how his administration had made sure that all our arrears to the UN were paid up — sliding over the fact that we obtained no assurances of meaningful UN reforms in return.   He said that we would be spending a lot more on foreign aid and on support for developing countries to mitigate their carbon emissions and adapt to climate change, without laying down any clear and specific expectations of what those countries should commit to in return.  He talked about a nuclear-free world without really confronting in concrete and specific terms the two elephants in the room — North Korea and Iran.

As Sean Hannity said on his program last night, Obama’s General Assembly speech was an embarrassment for the United States. He was groveling to get back in the good graces of world opinion.  The other two speeches were not much better.  Now it is on to Pittsburgh, where more pandering on the global economic crisis awaits.

Contrary to your assertions, the left is in fact more vibrant and more powerful than it has ever been. How else did it manage to put a million activists in the streets to prevent the United States from taking down a monstrous regime and liberating millions of Third World people, and did so (unlike Vietnam) in the absence of a draft?

One of the great triumphs of the left by the way is the ability to make people like yourself think that when it comes to attacking America in the middle of a war anything goes, and that any attempt to identify “critics” who actually hate us is an attempt to stifle dissent itself. Thus it’s okay in time of war when Americans are in harm’s way to lie by denouncing the President for deceiving the American people into fighting an unjust war of “occupation,” even though John Kerry and other leaders of the opposition had access to the same intelligence reports as did George Bush and voted to authorize the use of force. It’s okay to demoralize America’s troops in the field with such lies, and encourage America’s enemies on the field of battle. I don’t buy it Jacob. I don’t know of any nation in the history of nations that has.

– How Significant Is the Left?

If you have a favorite Horowitz quote you want to highlight for others then please email it to DavidSwindle {@} Gmail.com. Please include:

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President Obama told the UN General Assembly this morning that “we will permit no safe-haven for al Qaeda to launch attacks from Afghanistan or any other nation.” 

Nice words.  Yet his actions — or, more precisely, his inaction — are beginning to undercut his rhetoric.   President Obama appears to be retreating from Afghanistan. As Bill O’Reilly pointed out on the Factor last night, this would represent a stunning victory for al Qaeda.

Instead of accepting the recommendation of his field commander on the ground, General Stanley McChrystal, for the deployment of an additional 30,000-40,000 troops to prevent a probable military failure in Afghanistan, the Obama administration is dragging its feet. The Taliban (al Qaeda’s surrogate and former protector) are making a comeback, not because they are beloved by the people but because they are preying on fear and filling a vacuum.  To prevent al Qaeda from regaining safe havens in Afghanistan, the Taliban must be stopped.  This requires smart counter-insurgency strategies and a surge of the type that worked so successfully in Iraq.

Instead, the Obama administration wants to first undertake yet another strategic review of the area.  It is even barring General McChrystal from airing his views to Congress until the administration sorts out what it wants to do.   You would think that nine months should have been enough time to formulate a policy that meets the stated objective of preventing al Qaeda from reestablishing safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  And whatever happened to the partnerhip between the executive and legislative branches in wartime that we were promised?

Joe Biden – who opposed the successful surge in Iraq as did Obama — wants to scale down our military commitment.   This is the precise opposite of what the field commander is recommending.  And this is the same Joe Biden who had previously suggested dividing Iraq into three parts — the split-the-baby solution.  He was wrong in Iraq and he is wrong in Afghanistan. 

Time is of the essence, Mr. President.   Listen to your general, not Joe Biden or the left-wing, anti-war contingent of your party.