The recent US midterm election results were a victory for the Media Class. The relentless campaign it had been conducting against George Bush and his Republican supporters since they came to power had finally borne fruit. The Media’s late onslaught of Republican ‘scandals’ and its daily negative reporting on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to have convinced a majority of the American voters that control over foreign policy should be handed to domestic politicians who resent US power and are offended by patriotism.
Bush and his team deserve strong criticism for their inability to halt the slide into civil war in Iraq accompanied by daily US casualties, but the gloomy situation has been brought about by a political strategy that has allowed the uncompromising Sunnis to dictate tactics. Bush, as Commander-in-Chief, must shoulder some of the blame. He has also done far too little to defend the war at home and to inspire and rally the American people. On this website we were critical that he has not visited the battle zones frequently to show that he is willing to share the risks of the troops in a war that is a just and crucial one. Unfortunately, few in the US have criticized him from this standpoint and the Media has chosen to orchestrate and amplify the negativity and defeatism of the Left. The Media Class, caring little about foreign policy but hating Bush and his supporters for their support of traditional morality at home, seems unconcerned about the worldwide consequences of its election ‘success’. This is the problem of having a new ruling class that is hedonistic and only concerned about the validity of ‘lifestyles’ and the thrill of the next drug-induced orgasm.
The Media’s ‘victory’ has certainly been a victory for Islamic Imperialism and for all the enemies of the US around the world, of whom there are many. Some of these, like the French, Germans, Belgians, Scandinavians and Indians will simply feel smug and reassured about their moral superiority and wisdom. Since these nations do nothing that counts in this world, we need not worry over much about what they think.
The message that the US electorate has sent to others however, does have a cost and there will be many unintended consequences. For it is generally perceived, and I think correctly, that a majority of US voters want to call it a day in Iraq and Afghanistan and have elected politicians who have no stomach for a fight anywhere. The defeatism embraced by the Leftists in Congress and now evident amongst the American people is bound to raise the morale of the Islamic Imperialists everywhere and to lead to an intensification of their efforts, not only in the two war torn countries of the Middle and Far East, but throughout the world. This surely has to be bad news even for the French and their ilk, for the Islamists have designs on Europe that won’t be deterred by any consideration of European moral superiority over the USA. The effect of the election result on US and allied troops now engaged in combat must surely also be negative and lead to a lowering of resolve. Why risk death for a nation that has lost its resolve?
The election result must also embolden non-Islamic enemies of the USA. Some of the Latin American enemies, like Chavez in Venezuela and the Castro regime in Cuba, are incapable of anything but shortsighted thinking and see no potential danger in Islamic Imperialism or in a world where the USA is no longer the superpower. Giving encouragement to ranting populist politicians in Third World South American countries may seem a small price to pay to a Media Class obsessed with bringing down Bush. But it is not good news for the people of those countries in the long run, for Chavez, Castro and their imitators can only lead their peoples into blind alleys and poverty. Worse still, they are likely to forge unprincipled alliances with nations who are really dangerous to the US and all democratic governments.
Russia and China will certainly take comfort from American defeatism and humiliation, and both are likely to be encouraged into foreign adventures. Russia’s Putin will almost certainly view America’s loss of confidence and disunity as a green light to crush the last vestiges of democracy within Russia and to play the gangster on his borders. Georgia, the Ukraine and other newly independent countries, squeezed between Russia and China, have everything to fear from the US election results and it is not difficult to see parallels between the looming fate of these nations and the fate of nations like Poland, Finland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, who found themselves squeezed between Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union in the 1930’s. Then, as now, the most powerful democratic states in the world lost their confidence and were wracked at home by pacifist and defeatist sentiments.
Taiwan in particular should be alarmed. If China believes it now has nothing to fear from a divided and demoralized America, why should it hesitate any longer over invading and occupying this young democracy? The North Koreans will surely become even more emboldened, in turn causing the Japanese to re-arm with nuclear weapons. And surely the Israelis will be tempted to take pre-emptive action against Iran and its nuclear pretensions.
Recently I was unwillingly embroiled in a political discussion with an Iranian/American friend who expressed great joy that the Democrat election victory signaled the end of the US role as superpower in the world. I shocked him when I said that we should thank God that the superpower is the USA and not some other power. His response was that the world is now ready for co-operation and that the USA under “Sheriff Bush” has been an obstacle to progress and world peace
Two weeks later, as if in response to my Iranian friend, a Russian dissident in London died a cruel death from poisoning and who can doubt that he was a victim of his former government and its sinister leader. I am constantly astonished by the ability of so many American citizens (and Westerners in general) to see good in our enemies and only evil in our own society and its historical values.
With a Media Class in power that cultivates Leftist self-loathing and defeatism, and cares only about same-sex marriage, abortion and AIDS, and so many citizens who disdain patriotism, will it any longer be possible for the US (and the West) to resist its deadly enemies?