Flatulent anti-Americanism

Victor Davis Hanson calls the self-aggrandizement of the fashionably anti-American what it is:

A depressing array of transitory personalities parades before our screen, entering stage left to grab 15 minutes of notoriety for their scripted invective, only to exit on the right into oblivion. Who can remember all these one-tell-all-book, one-weekend-on-the-Sunday-news-programs personalities ? a Hans Blix, Scott Ritter, Howard Dean, Paul O’Neil, Joe Wilson, Richard Clark, or Richard ben Veniste? In between their appearances on Sunday morning television or 60 Minutes, a few D.C. functionaries are carted out for periodic shouting ? an unhinged Al Gore, a puffed-up Ted Kennedy, a faux-serious Bob Kerry, and occasionally a Senator Byrd or Hollings. And since the very day after 9/11 we’ve gotten the Vietnam-era retreads ? a Peter Arnett, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Robert Scheer, John Dean, or Seymour Hersh ? tottering out with the latest conspiracies about the old bogeymen and “higher-ups.”

How many people think that such venal fools as Michael Moore, who opposed the invasion of Afghanistan (that’s right, not just Iraq but even Afghanistan) are offering serious military strategy when they claim that hundreds of thousands of US troops could have captured Osama in Tora Bora and immediately put an end to Al Qaeda in one swift stroke? Certainly, the capture of Osama, when it comes, will be even more important than the capture of Saddam and the killing of Uday and Qusay. But it won’t put an end to Al Qaeda as we know it, because the terror network is intertwined with half a dozen governments in the Middle East and South Asia, not the least of which is Pakistan. But the methods that were appropriate for dealing with Saddam are not the same as those for dealing with Qaddafi, Assad, the Saudi Royals, or the Pakistani ISI. Unfortunately, this war has such a large scope that we have to fight on many fronts and with many tactics at once. What’s called for is multi-tasking, not a simple-minded obsession with one nation at a time.

But as difficult as it is, we’re winning:

Two-thirds of al Qaeda’s leadership are either dead or in jail. Their sanctuaries, sponsors, and kindred spirits in Afghanistan and Iraq are long gone. Detention is increasingly common for Islamicists in Europe and America. The Hamas intifada has failed. Its implosion serves as a warning for al Qaeda that Western democracies can still fight back. There is also a lesson for America that even in our postmodern world most people still admire principled success: No one is lamenting the recent targeted killings of Hamas bullies or the preemptive assassination of suicide bombers.

But we still have obstacles to overcome:

Europe, led by France and Germany, saw a chance for both profit and psychological satisfaction by opposing the United States. But recently it has realized the short-sightedness of such a policy, and belatedly grasped that al Qaeda terrorists despise Euros as much if not more than they do Americans. European ingratitude has just about ensured an end to American subsidized defense of the continent. All this does not mean the world’s other powers will aid us ? far from it ? only that they will continue opportunistically and in public to chide us while privately praying for our success.

Changing administrative horses in Washington in the midst of this conflict will only set us back, however, so an important element of America’s success in the War on Terror is the re-election of the President and the continuation of a team that’s proved an ability to learn by its mistakes.