After the attack on the World Trade Center, the United States successfully fought two battles: one to overturn the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and another to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq. United States military operations were successful in both instances. Two terror-supporting regimes have been swept away. But the overall strategic problem faced by the United States remains. Terrorists are still at large, they are still plotting against the United States, and the main enemies of the United States continue to position themselves to advantage. Russia and China are building their military machines while waiting to see how America will weather its financial difficulties.
The approach of a global economic crisis is apparent, even now. The great experiment in fiat currency, which has encouraged unprecedented excesses, may be in its final stages. The enemies of the United States, quite logically, are also the enemies of the dollar. Certain countries would like to pull the rug out from under the world's dominant currency. Saddam's Iraq made a switch away from the dollar shortly before the U.S. invaded. The emerging communist dictator in Venezuela has dumped the dollar in favor of the euro. The Russians have shown, again and again, an eagerness to dump dollar transactions within their economy - but moves of this kind have been premature, and backtracking has been the chief result.
The economy is said to worsen, then brighten, then worsen, then brighten. We are exhausted by contrary reports. President Bush's popularity is beginning to suffer. The unsettled situation in Iraq, which has claimed several dozen American lives since the "official" fighting stopped, is being used to advantage by left-wing defeatists and liberals eager to build political capital at the president's expense. Meanwhile, the president's credibility is daily assailed for using bad intelligence information in a speech. A steady drumbeat of negativism about the economy and the war effort has gained momentum. Those who stand to gain if Bush should lose are at the forefront. The political season has begun. There is blood in the water and the sharks are circling.
Overseas, foreign sharks are also circling. Last week Russia and France engaged in joint military maneuvers off the coast of Norway. At the same time, senior French officials visited the Kremlin. We are told that relations between France and Russia are "warming." There is even talk of a "Paris-Moscow axis." The corrupt center-right rulers of France do not realize the danger they are putting themselves in. Foolishly, they are unconcerned about the Kremlin's censorship of the Russian media, the closing of the last independent television station, the war in Chechnya, the suspicious assassinations against business leaders and members of parliament. They have failed to realize that the Russian head of state is a career KGB official, not a pro-Western democrat. What could the French be thinking? It has also been reported that France and Russia will jointly develop a new jet fighter, the MiG-AT.
Has President Bush the good sense to warn the French that Russia is not their true friend? Does he dare point out that closet communists and "former" KGB officers run the Russian government? Has he pointed out that Russia is helping communist China to develop its nuclear arsenal and a first-class blue-water navy? Does the president even know, amidst all the lousy intelligence he receives from bogus sources, that "former" Russian military officials (like Victor Bout) and Latin American communists (like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez) have lent support to Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and to Saddam Hussein? (See "Russia funding a Resurgent Taliban," and also Victor Bout's file. On Chavez's support for the Taliban and al Qaeda see, The Crisis in Venezuela - Special Report.)
It seems the president is much too distracted at home to worry about the disintegrating situation abroad. Surrounded by bad advice, worse intelligence and opportunistic critics, President Bush is pushed by economic interests, pulled by electoral considerations, enveloped by false optimism, deceived by the KGB-man in the Kremlin, poked by a resentful China and left as a kind of pseudo-corporate rag-baby hoisted to the presidency in the final days of the Republic. Whenever this president turns his attention to domestic affairs he is like Samson shorn of his locks. He compromises and turns sentimental with his domestic enemies. These enemies will embrace him for the moment only to stab him in the back at the first opportunity. And this pattern serves to strengthen the country's foreign enemies.
Consider the super-storm that is building out there. The advance of a disguised communism in South America, the final catastrophe of "quiet" communism in southern Africa, the growing threat from China, the unprotected border to the south, the subversion of NATO and the reemergence of Russia as a major player in Europe, cannot be set aside out of fear that a sensible foreign policy will alienate minority voters and liberals at home. If the country is a makeshift that cannot function without appeasing the empire of the perpetually resentful, then the country is finished. The president might as well resign in favor of the inevitable anarchy.
In response to last week's column, in which I mentioned Ann Coulter's analysis of the weakness of America's ruling class, of its instinct toward appeasement, I received a letter from an editor of a conservative Internet forum. She was disturbed by David Horowitz's criticism of Coulter's book, "Treason." My reply to her is worth repeating because it touches on the real problem at hand. The problem of America, in the first instance, is a problem of rising permissiveness (of which permissiveness toward traitors is merely one aspect). Behind this we find spiritual rottenness, dishonesty, a collapse of honor and the disintegration of traditional values. Whenever we act dishonorably we are acting in the spirit of treason. It is the sum of small betrayals that makes up our cultural slide toward nihilism. I am impressed by Ann Coulter's work not because she is historically accurate on all points. I am impressed because she has penetrated into the spirit of the times. To be sure, Horowitz's criticism of Coulter is correct in its details. But he misses the forest for the trees. Finding fault with Coulter's overall message is like correcting someone's grammar when they are yelling at you to "duck and cover!"
If you reduce large aggregations (like political parties) to the sum total of their actions, then there must be a general tendency. In the case of the Democratic Party that tendency has been to consciously or unconsciously help America's enemies (especially the communists during the Cold War). This is one of Coulter's insights. It is an insight that many Democrats will find outrageous. But as Coulter points out, the Republicans are also guilty if one wants to blur the distinction between decadent stupidity and conscious adherence to the enemy. Republican administrations opened China, championed detente with the USSR and offered a bogus peace treaty to the North Vietnamese murderers. Bush is also making mistakes. For example, he is reducing our nuclear arsenal in the face of Russian untrustworthiness and China's relentless military buildup. So you see, the problem of "treason" extends far beyond the Democratic Party. It is a problem of American culture in general.
In its broadest sense, the thing Ann Coulter refers to is not treason so much as it is decadence leading to permissiveness and a collapse of standards, and a collapse of loyalty. The traitors and communists are real, of course; but the reaction to them is the disturbing part. What Ann touches upon is the selfishness, careerism and partisanship that thwarts patriotic action - and the permissiveness that sees nothing amiss!
Let us be honest. We're part of a society that is gradually sinking -- spiritually and intellectually. The elite's faulty reaction to communism was a symptom. The attack on McCarthy was a symptom. Rallying behind Alger Hiss was a symptom. Abandoning Indochina was a symptom. Unilateral nuclear disarmament under Bush is a symptom!
The denial of reality leads the denier to revile the bearer of bad news. The sociology of decline works in this way. In periods of health and growth there is a strong pessimism; especially moralistic pessimism. In periods of decline one finds a false optimism.
It seems to me that Ann Coulter's book is an intermediate step between today's complacent shopping mall regime and a violent crisis that waits on all decadent republics. I recommend Coulter's book for the insight it offers into the psychology of the American ruling class. Whatever her literary strengths or weaknesses (and I do not pretend to know what they are), Ann's anger has merit. For anger communicates alarm to all the warring parts. And America is at war whether we want to acknowledge it or not.
If only the country would wake up and realize the danger we are in.
