Mensheviks

Tristero is engaged in an interesting but ultimately fruitless discussion of "chickenhawks" over at Hullabaloo, occasioned by yet another "I'm so reasonable and moderate I'm ridiculous" post by the master of them, Kevin Drum. Tristero spells out the concern well and answers the clueless far better than I would spend my time on. Essentially, no one says you have to have been in the military to advocate war. We protest those who assert their "martial" nature only when the costs will be borne by others. That, frankly, leaves most of us, who don't value war or want it pushed on others but are willing to support the famous "just" ones, perfectly able to be for or against Iraq, Afghanistan, or whatever (Me--for A, against I), whether or not we ever fought or even trained. As usual, as he pretzels himself yet again into "seeing the other side," Drum sets up another straw man, which he even then doesn't convincingly dismantle. (No, I'm not linking to him. He gets far too much attention the way it is.) Every successful destruction of an existing system depends on "reasonable" people who give cover to the extremists, saying they're not really as bad as we think or, if we condemn them, why, we may be on a path to something extreme, until the "extreme" that really exists is our reality. Drum and his buddies at the once worth reading Washington Monthly and other places have been making the extremists threatening the American Legacy "acceptable" for years now, contributing far more to the results of 2000, Iraq, 2004, and the federal courts we'll all be living with for decades now than they have the capacity to imagine. But, gosh, they'd be good company at a wine tasting. The Lenins of the world knew these people for what they are. That we've only had Lenin wannabes to this point is no security, and no proof that Drum is right. Thanks to him, we can only hold our breaths.