Dealing with the Facts of History

The debate about terrorism is highly emotional and while the anti-war left is dominated by pessimism, the anti-terrorist right is more defined by frustration. The right is not so much filled by optimism but rather a belief that facts are what they are, and in time the truth of history will win out and validate the hard decisions and harsh consequences.

The Path to 9/11: what this film also does is set the record straight on a number of events that the Clinton administration has previously tried to whitewash or ignore. That is the real reason why the left is going nuts over this. It wants to blame everything on Bush. Thus in its twisted logic, it cannot stand to see any criticism of Clinton whatsoever.

Furthermore, they will go nuts when confronted with the truth that the Patriot Act was necessary in order to get various government agencies to share vital information with each other. They will go nuts when the depiction of historical events end up making the case for airport profiling. In other words, this film will force them to specifically articulate what tools they wish to employ in order to keep this country safe. That seems to make them uncomfortable for some reason.

Where the left is at a disadvantage is that this information age has preserved in unprecedented detail, accessible records of the activities of our immediate past and, for the moment, we are still free enough to keep the accounts from being suppressed. In that regard it is interesting to see how even the archetypal progressive paper the Capital Times is being forced to deal with reality.

Diplomacy, not threats: The interesting news from the Middle East is that Israel, concerned about the prospect that Iran might eventually use its nuclear project to develop a rudimentary weapon of mass destruction, has established a top-level unit that has allegedly been charged with ensuring that the Iranians never develop operational nuclear weapons. That's reasonable. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has suggested that Israel is a "blot" on the planet that ought to be wiped away.

The editorial staff of Wisconsin’s most partisan newspaper acknowledges there is a real threat from Iran and there are “reasonable” steps that should be taken to counteract and prevent the danger. Admitting a problem exists is always the necessary first step. The paper goes even farther in conceding: "Ultimately, the Iranians may refuse to negotiate in good faith". This epiphany is something the progressives are still resisting and the conclusion they draw is that the threat is to Israel, so Israel should solve it. The United States should restrict our “meddling” to opening embassies in Damascus and Tehran for meetings over tea and crumpets.