Doves and hawks
Taki
LNew York
ast week in Gstaad was magical. The weather was perfect, the air fresh and clean, the mountains glistening in the background, the sounds of Mozart and Beethoven echoing in the valley below as the Yehudi Menuhin Festival went into its last week. You wouldn't know it watching the US Open — only rap would be appropriate in that hell-hole — but playing tennis with Beethoven is really inspiring. Not enough in my case, as I lost to a lesser player after running out of steam. Having gone to a fantastic party the night before might have had something to do with it. My friend John Sutine, Gstaad's resident wit and musical genius, gave the blast for his 50th birthday. A great Brazilian band had us hopping up and down until 6 a.m. (I was asked to make a speech by John's wife, but failed miserably in my duty as I had become speechless almost from the start.) Knowing that I was leaving Gstaad for the Big Bagel made the night bittersweet and nostalgic. It is a strange thing: the fewer years one has to look forward to, the better time one has. Remember how our summers lasted longer when we were young? When all men seemed to wear hats, and all women acted like ladies?
Oh well, there I go again, thinking about the unending summers of childhood, when I should be thinking of the launch of the American Conservative. We'll be in business in three weeks, with a press conference in DC announcing the Second Coming. I don't expect the hacks to be nice; after all, they're mostly trendy liberals and lefties, their mindset still mired in Watergate, and the glory days when two hacks and a ruthless editor brought down a president. (They
tried like hell to look the other way when the Draft Dodger bullshitted his way to the White House; but he, of course, overdid things.)
But back to a good thing like the American Conservative. Last week I wrote that all sorts of types who have never worn the uniform and have never heard a shot fired in anger were pressing for war. I don't know if it's true, but I heard that when one of the most gung-ho of the warmongers was asked if he had fought in Vietnam he answered, 'Of course not, I was exempt.' Exempt for what reason, he was asked. Because I was too scared to go, was his answer.
Mind you, present peaceniks such as the New York Times are heaping abuse on President Bush for political reasons. Any Republican is anathema to the gangrenous Times, so now it has changed its tune and is backing the Pentagon's rumoured opposition to a rush to war. The idea that generals should call the tune suits me fine. I don't trust politicians, never have and never will. Only Margaret Thatcher and Jesse Helms will do in my book. But it shows how hypocritical the Times and the DC liberal-feminist cabal are when they implicitly laud the military vs civilian control. Oy vett! Just think what Uncle Sam would have done in Vietnam had scum such as the Times encouraged a military solution. We would have been victorious and out of there after levelling Hanoi and Haiphong, millions of Cambodians would not have become statistics of genocide, and Jane Fonda would not have won an Oscar for playing a whore in 1971.
See what I mean about keeping my mind on the American Conservative rather than pussy? I suddenly find all sorts of satyromaniacal perverts as anti-war allies of mine. They're doing it for political reasons, while I'm against the war because it's been ordered by Arid l Sharon. Does having worn a uniform in battle prepare a man to make better decisions than one who has not? Obviously yes is the answer, although both Adolf Hitler and the French General Staff had front-line experience in the first world war, and blew it something awful in the second. Lord Liverpool was prime minister when Wellington finally subdued Napoleon, but Liverpool did not exactly micro-manage the war. LBJ was a crook and a terrible conman, and lost the war in Vietnam because he tried to con everyone, including the little men in black pyjamas. He was in the air force during the war but never was near combat.
Clinton, of course, set the stage for 11 September by refusing to consider intelligence reports that would have prevented the bombing of Khobar Towers (June 1996), the embassy blasts of August 1998, the attack on the Cole, October 2000, and so on. He was too busy covering his tracks for having put his you-know-what in a place I wouldn't stick the tip of my umbrella. I'm going to have to be awfully careful in DC. Wish me luck.
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