While at sea I received an email copy of a
speech by one Professor John Gaddis, professor of history at Yale, given at
Middlebury College in Vermont last month.
It was a stunning read, delivered
from well inside the ivy-dappled academic parapets, from a man that had this to
say about President Bush's policy in the middle
east:
-
I said that he had “failed
miserably” in getting United Nations support for the invasion of Iraq. I
said that his solutions to complex problems tended to be “breathtakingly
simple.” I said that the phrase “axis of evil” originated
“in overzealous speechwriting rather than careful thought.” I said
that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had
“diminished, in advance, the credibility of whatever future intelligence
claims Bush and Blair might make.” I said that the so-called
“coalition of the willing” there had been “more of a joke than
a reality.” I said that, “within a little more than a year and a
half, the United States had exchanged its long-established reputation as the
principal stabilizer of the international system for one as its chief
destabilizer.”
-
And after having said all that, of course - he got
invited to come to the White House and brief the NSC staff. Which caught him by
surprise.
-
Between those opening thoughts, and his finishing
lines in which he quotes two of his former students, is an absolutely compelling
story written by a well-qualified observer, looking on in open admiration as the
Bush administration engages (for the most part successfully) in a game of grand
strategy that his critics can't even comprehend, burdened as they are by their
prejudices and preconceptions.
-
And I was really looking forward to sharing it
with you, and having you all applaud my sources, taste and
discernment...
Only to find that Chap, the great rogue of a
bubblehead, the mere rascal of a shore-duty staffer that he is (with too much
time on his hands, harumph-harumph), had already beaten me
to the punch . You see, I thought I'd emailed it to myself (memory is
the second thing to go - I forget what's first) but hadn't, so I went a-merry
googling, only to find that himself had it up on his site, days
ago.
-
Ah, well. It's still a good read. Go there, and
read it for yourself.
-
Do it, England.
Posted @
05:48 PM
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Posted in
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Sendit
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Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
