Assorted Rantings from Victor Davis Hanson

Dear Editor,

On a dreary night, Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010, the University of South Alabama department of foreign languages and literatures and the department of philosophy presented the Hellenic Endowment Distinguished Lecture with Dr. Victor Davis Hanson on “Society and Warfare in Ancient Greece”.

However, the lecture deviated drastically from the topic at hand and delved into grotesque attempts at justifying modern neoconservative ideology. This is one students view of the experience.

The man of the hour is bloodthirsty savage, neoconservative but “distinguished lecturer,” Dr. Victor Davis Hanson. The lies espoused numerous, the ethnocentric statements bounteous.

The lying sycophant discusses how: little Achmed is inconsequential, Rumsfeld was great, the Western way is the superior way, anti-war activists are unfortunate and parasitic, civil libertarians are ethically unbalanced and Islam is intolerant.

Little Achmed is Inconsequential; By far the most disgusting moment of the night was the awful assertion that “little Achmed” (a stereotypical name, Hanson, uses for Middle Eastern children) is inconsequential.

This was part of his larger rant on the lack of military recruiting due to creature comforts in modern society. I mean, who would want to get their balls blown off in Iraq when they could be in their $250,000 house watching MTV?

It couldn’t be that the emotional strain placed on military families may be too much to bear, or the terrible pay, or the fact that most Americans have no idea what the hell we are doing over there; we are just a bunch of spoiled bastards.

However, within this rant was a disgusting bit of logic. In the west, we have superior medical technology which enables longer life spans and lower childhood mortality rates. Hanson then essentially goes on to state that when “little Achmed” looks up at a helicopter in Iraq, and say that helicopter crashes on top of him, it’s a tragedy that the soldiers have died.

Yet, since the childhood mortality rates in the middle east are so high, there was a good chance “little Achmed” was going to die anyway, so no big loss, no tragedy. This is the logic of the neocon, killing children in third world countries is acceptable because they were probably going to die anyway.

Rumsfeld the Great; I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Victor Davis Hanson says Donald Rumsfeld was a great man. According to Hanson, when Rumsfeld heard that our troops were underequipped to fight in the ignoble cause in Iraq, by golly, he did everything he could to better equip them.

Never mind that clip that circled the world wide web in which Rumsfeld stated, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

Never mind the numerous articles published post-2005 which dispute Hanson’s assertion: “For lack of body armor, troops die. Why the delay?,” USA Today on January 12th, 2006, “US troops in Iraq, Afghan wars lack equipment,” Reuters on January 31st, 2007, “Two-year delay of armored vehicles inexcusable,” San Diego Union-Tribune on February 20th, 2008, and “Army Ends Delay on Lightweight Armor,” New York Times on April 25th, 2009.

No, according to Hanson’s willful misrepresentation of history, Rumsfeld was a great and honorable man that did everything he could for the troops.

Sincerely,

Will Coston

Continued Online at usavanguard.com

The Western Way is the Superior Way; Hanson has a rather infantile perspective on Western culture, which can be summarized thusly: we are superior. The rest of the world, if they want to survive, must adopt western ideals, freedom, science, Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite! The fact that intellectualism exists outside the western world seems completely foreign to Hanson. Ibn Khaldun, the father of social sciences, must never have existed! Forget the fact that the first alphabet was “probably invented in Syria or Palestine 3,600 years ago,” we are superior! Kurt Vonnegut once stated on the Iraq War that, “we are playing around in the cradle of civilization.” That’s right, Hanson, while your people were running around in loin cloths, the Babylonians/Iraqis were civilized.

It’s Bill Maher’s fault; Checked the polls lately? If so, you have no doubt noticed that the war effort isn’t popular. Now, by God, somebody is to blame for that! Hanson asserts that it is the anti-war malcontents, who are largely an unfortunate side effect of free speech, that are to blame for America’s discontentment with the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Fighting battles which weren’t ours to fight, no, that couldn’t be the reason for dwindling war support amongst the American people. Poor military strategy, no. Thousands of soldiers killed and wounded, no. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and wounded and left homeless, no. Tyrannical wartime legislation, ie The Patriot Act, no. Massive debts accrued during war, no. It’s those radical leftists like Bill Maher and Michael Moore who ruin war for everyone!

Turning a blind eye; During the Q&A session, one professor stood to ask something along the lines of: “Don’t anti-war activists embrace western ideals, anti-torture, etc.?” This is where Hanson almost seemed schizophrenic, condemning torture, then condemning civil liberties activists, then explaining that in the timeline of interrogations, the exact point at which we use water boarding is justifiable. His assault on civil liberties activists, civil libertarians and liberals in general seemed completely ignorant of any facts: “civil liberties activists hate torture, but not drone bombings.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Just days after the inauguration of Barack Obama, the Huffington Post headlined, “Drone Bombings in Pakistan Continue.” Many who oppose torture have also made many criticisms of drone bombings: Salon Magazine columnist Glenn Greenwald, Senator Bernie Sanders, Representatives Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, Historian Howard Zinn (may he rest in peace), Author Gore Vidal, Libertarian Commentator Lew Rockwell, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, Journalist for The New Yorker Seymour Hersh, Antiwar Radio host Scott Horton and perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Just tune into Countdown with Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow occasionally and you’ll probably see civil libertarian Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington University Law School, arguing against torture and drone attacks.

Barbarians; Towards the end of the night, Hanson, decided to let loose a small tirade on Islam. He made the tired, “You can make fun of Jesus, but not Mohammed,” argument. Hanson talked of the uproar over the Danish cartoon depicting Mohammed with a bomb in his turban and the assassination of Theo van Gogh for producing the film “Submission”. He asserts that this is yet another place where Westerners are superior and Islam is inferior and intolerant. To this assertion I respond with the wise words of Bill O’Reilly, “Tiller, Tiller the baby killer.” Who murdered George Tiller? Evangelical extremist Scott Roeder, a member of a group of violent clowns that justify violence on abortion doctors via the Word of God. My point isn’t that Scott Roeder is representative of all Christians, nor Mohammed Bouyeri (the man who assassinated Theo van Gogh) representative of all Muslims, but that making gross generalizations about any group based on the actions of a handful of extremist elements is at best, disingenuous, and at worst, downright bigotry.

Other assorted points and something resembling a conclusion; thanks to Victor Davis Hanson’s lecture at the University of South Alabama’s distinguished lecture series on “Society and Warfare in Ancient Greece” I learned a lot … about the mindset of neoconservatives. I found it extremely unfortunate that he did not lecture on “Society and Warfare in Ancient Greece” choosing instead to lecture on “Using Society and Warfare in Ancient Greece to Justify Neoconservatism.” I felt genuinely saddened when I noticed a fellow student, proudly wearing her burqa, leaving the event early. How must it have felt to be told your culture is inferior? Your beliefs rooted in intolerance?