Victor Davis Hanson - Soothscribe

I've held VDH in high regard for a long time, ever since reading The Western Way of War back in 1989. His elevation to the ranks of the Soothscribes Emeritus Causa owes more to the lucidity of his reasoning and the clarity of his exposition than to my agreement with his neo-con POV.

For those not acquainted with his work, "Obama's Amazing Achievements" on NRO is a good introduction. It is also a biting review of the amoral hypocrisy of American leftists, all of whose allegedly lofty principles, as enunciated in their frenzied attacks on the Bush administration, have been abandoned in the face of exactly the same acts or worse when committed by The One.

It IS cricket, old chap

Maybe it's just me, but a lot of news today is making me laugh out loud. Here's an unconsciously hilarious report from po-faced KCOC-S Oborne about what it's like to play for countries that take their sport seriously.

If history is anything to go by, today’s losers will face professional disgrace and social ostracism. They will not be able to return to their homes for fear of physical attack. Some may receive obscene phone calls in the night, as Pakistani skipper Wasim Akram did after his country’s quarter-final defeat to India in 1996. His home was stoned, his effigy burnt in the street, and he required a police escort to go outside.

The winners, by contrast, will bask in national adulation. Indeed, a flavour of the kind of rewards that lie ahead came yesterday with the announcement from Shahbaz Sharif, chief minister of the Punjab, that each member of the Pakistani national side will receive some 25 acres of fertile land [and a cow?] as a prize for beating India.

But then he has to get sententious - it's what shows he's not a mere (sniff) sports journopuke:

Behind all this passion lurks a long, tragic and far too often brutal history. Scholars estimate that between one and three million people died in massacres when Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India were split at the time of independence from the British Empire in 1947.

Since then, there have been four bloody wars between these two proud and magnificent countries, as well as a number of smaller conflicts. To make this hostility yet more menacing, both countries are now armed with nuclear weapons, each aimed at the other. And Indian and Pakistani soldiers face one another uneasily across the lonely line of control in mountainous Kashmir, just a few hundred miles from where today’s massive sporting contest takes place.

The German military philosopher Clausewitz famously noted that war is a continuation of politics by other means.* The Indians and Pakistanis have taken the dictum one stage further: for them, cricket is another form of war.

* No he didn't, you pretentious, indolent twit. Check Google (extract edited for brevity):

"War is a mere continuation of politics by other means" was not intended as a statement of fact. It is the antithesis in a dialectical argument whose thesis is the point made earlier in the analysis that "war is nothing but a wrestling match on a larger scale". Clausewitz's synthesis says that war is neither one nor the other, but lies in his "fascinating trinity", a dynamic, inherently unstable interaction of the forces of violent emotion, chance, and rational calculation.

Itch about oil

As the old clown Anthony Wedgewood Benn would no doubt be intoning from a platform in Trafalgar Square if someone could have summoned up the energy to organize a protest against the Libyan intervention.

And, this time and for once, he'd be right. The insurgents are now (one hopes) well disposed towards the Franco-Brits who The One is permitting to grab the limelight while the Americans fly most of the sorties.

And gosh, what a surprise; thanks to the generous interpretation of "no-fly" to include destroying decidedly earth-bound armoured vehicles, the insurgents are recovering all the oil refinery and exporting facilities along the eastern coast.

So, itch indeed about oil. But itch also, if only incidentally, about knocking over a crazy as a shithouse rat Arab dictator who is long overdue in hell - so who gives a damn?

On the perils of making lofty moral judgments in international affairs

US bloggers have been linking to The One's forthright views on presidents' war-making powers in an interview with the Boston Globe in December 2007.

Question: In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites -- a situation that does not involve stopping an imminent threat?)

Answer: The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.

Then there's this TV interview with Vice-President Joe Biden, also in 2007.

I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee for seventeen years or its ranking member. I teach separation of powers in Constitutional Law. This is something I know. So I got together and brought a group of Constitutional scholars together to write a piece that I’m going to deliver to the whole Unites States Senate pointing out the President has no Constitutional authority to take this nation to war [against Iran] unless we’re attacked or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. And if he does, I would move to impeach him. The House obviously has to do that, but I would lead an effort to impeach him. I don’t say it lightly.

Ooops.