We Tilt At Windmills As World War Looms

by Simon Jenkins - August 24th,m 2008 - The London Times

Is the world drifting towards a new global war? From this week the dominant super-power, America, will for three months pass through the valley of the shadow of democracy, a presidential election. This is always a moment of self-absorption and paranoia . . .

Meanwhile, along history’s fault line of conflict from Russia’s European border to the Caucasus and on to Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, diplomats are shifting uneasily in their seats, drums are sounding and harsh words are spoken. The world is now run by a generation of leaders who have never known global war. Has this dulled their senses?

This is an interesting look at the world from the liberal perspective. Simon Jenkins dismisses as irrelevant and harmful the concept that Islamo-fascism is, in this day of nuclear proliferation, anything more than a police issue. He also says that we have ignored the threat that states like Russia can cause in the world. Have we?

I don't agree with those assessments, but I do believe he has something when he says that the Presidential election will distract most Americans from the important issues we need to address. We have an economy that is not roaring ahead, but that is nevertheless strong. Unemployment is at classically low levels. We have suffered a horredous blow, due to an amazingly stupid energy policy over several decades, as gas prices have skyrocketed. Yet our economy has not collpased but merely struggled. And this is a problem we can fix by simply ending the idiocy of importing cheap energy and hoping to offset that by using expensive energy.

Yet the attitude of Americans is that our economy is in horrible shape and we are looking for "change". We do not seem to have a clue what that change will be. We have allowed illusions about global warming to become the basis of public policy that transfers nearly a trillion dollars out of our pockets into the pockets of nations that hate us.

Below are the three real threats to our nation. They are not illussions about weather.

We are being invaded by the Hispanic nations of the Americas, especially Mexico, for the transfer of wealth it provides them from $50 billion annually sent home by the alien invaders. We do nothing about it.

We are under attack around the world by the richest elements of Muslim nations who have become mesmerized by the idea of world domination of an Islamic Caliphate. Liberals who hate us as much as these Islamo-fascists invent excuses that we are bringing this on ourselves by not sharing our wealth with their poor. Trying to do "something" to deal with Islamo-fascists has created a partisan war over how to deal with this among our politicians.

Global socialism has not died as some have claimed. Today it is fostered by two separate forces. One force is the idealists who dream of utopia, both here and abroad. Idealists like Barack Obama and his naive quest for change. They are aided by the second force . . . the Totalitarian Nation States such as Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela who combine socialism with their national dreams to attack us. Weakness of military power . . . or weakness of vision combined with waffling commitment to freedom . . . will end our free enterprise based wealth. We are losing this war with even Republicans moving to support government programs and socialism such as Bush's "compassionate conservative" agenda. The major concern is that this threat, global socialism, has both an idealist component and a nation state component and both are real. We are losing the philosophical battle and the public erroneously believes the nation-state battle ended with the death of the soviet union.

These three wars against us, Hispanic economic invasion, Islamo-fascist terrorism and global socialist subversion (or war), must all be resisted. America cannot accept the delusion that we can focus on one war and survive. Resisting in all three wars is needed if we expect to keep freedom and prosperity for our kids.

What Jenkins is right about is that we are tilting at windmills while our nation is at risk.