Santayana was Right: “Those Who Forget History are Destined to Repeat It.”

Unbelieveable. I’ve had a couple of short email exchanges with Michael D. Bryan, author of the (formerly pro-Dean, now Pro-Kerry) Blog for Arizona.

Let me put it this way: In the new dictionary under “Barking Moonbat” it will have an excerpt from this blog. His most recent piece is Voting for the Middle East. Let me give you some excerpts:

Despite criticism of the approach of all out assault of urban areas by former Marine command officers, such as Lt. Gen. James Conway, former commander of the Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq which assaulted Falujah, the Administration appears to have issued orders to prepare for renewed assaults on ‘no go’ urban areas immediately following the Presidential election. The likely result will be extremely high casualities among American troops and civilians in target areas which would be unacceptable to voters prior to an election.

Major policy shifts in Iraq, like this one, are in the cards if Bush is re-elected. We will continue to kill innocents and battle insurgents without any clear rationale beyond compete military, political, and economic dominance of Iraq. Richard Clark posed a very salient question tonight on the Daily Show. Why are we killing these people? For 9/11? No. Because they have WMD? No. Because they support Saddam? No. Because they oppose democracy? No, they want democratic governance, too. So why? Because the terms under which they want democracy would not leave us in control. Simple as that – we are killing these people because they do not wish us to control them. Is that who we are as a nation? November 2nd will answer that question.

Like that? Try this:

Meanwhile an Iran ‘regime change’ resolution makes its way through Congress, we are selling bunker busters to Israel for use on Iran, and the Pentagon and Israel are wargaming first strike options. Sanctions are also fraught with danger of misstep and miscalculation, they are as likely to cause Iran to accelerate any weapons program as to abandon it, but unlike military action, nobody gets vaporized. The future of our relationship with Iran will also be determined by our Presidential elections. Bush seems firmly on a course of purposefully escalating the crisis with Iran in hopes of a decisive step by Iran giving the NeoCons the pretext they need to gain UNSC approval, or to be able to claim an eminent threat exists for a pre-emptive strike. Kerry will attempt to rachet down the crisis and gain oversight of nuclear fuels in Iran while engaging the Iranian regime constructively and then pressing for democratic reform. The Iranians have legitimate security and commericial interests in the region, if we deny them the ability to pursue those interests legally, they will do so illicitly.

Now, the conclusion:

This election will largely determine these very important questions of war and peace in the Middle East. The equation is really very simple:

Bush = war, death, isolation, catastrophic failure

Kerry = peace, life, alliances, planning for success

I believe we’ve been in a similar position before. Let me see if I can illustrate his error, at the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law:

Bush = grasp on reality, plan to deal with it, difficult and dangerous but necessary course of action, “blood, toil, tears, and sweat:” Winston Churchill



Kerry = “Peace in our Time:” Neville Chamberlain

We cannot allow the Left to regain their grasp on the levers of power. We dare not. They see Iranian acquisition of nukes as an exercise in their “legitimate security interests.” But the Mad Mullahs aren’t interested in invading a Sudetenland for lebensraum they want nukes so that they can obliterate Israel and spread Islam by conquest, as that religion specifically requires.

Mr. Bryan is just one more example of the mindset of the Left, and a textbook example at that.