BERNARD LEWIS ON SCOWCROFT

A few weeks ago, THE NEW YORKER did a pice on uber "realist" and ultimate "status quoist" Brent Scowcroft. It was an exercise in hagiography about Scowcroft. Scowcroft was in the past a foe of the liberals, but now - because he opposes Bush - he's the new liberal foreign policy icon. Regardless, he is totlally UNWORTHY of even minor respect let alone hagiography. In fact, Scowcroft is and always has been a worthless piece of crap, wrong on just about EVERYTHING and responsible for some of the WORST foreign policy decisions in our nation's history. Scowcroft is surpassed in this regard only by his new buddy Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski - that piece of crap who was Carter's foreign policy advisor!

Scowcroft gave us the unfinished Gulf War, and allowed the atrocities of Tienamen Square to go completely unanswered, and he allowed Saddam to commit genocide against the Shias and the Kurds. I'd go on, but KRAUTHAMMER DEMOLISHED HIM and the idiotic piece about him in the NEW YORKER already. I can add ONLY THIS: what the esteemed Arabic scholar Bernard Lewis (Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University) wrote to THE NEW YORKER - in response to a slur which Scowcroft directed at him:

In Jeffrey Goldberg's article... Scowcroft quotes me as saying," I believe that one of the things you've got to do to Arabs is hit them between the eyes with a big stick. They respect power." Scowcroft is entitled to disagree with me - I would be surprised if he did not. But he should disagree with what I really think and say. Yes, I do think that Arabs respect power, as most people do, and that they despise meek acquiescence in tyranny and aggression. But the pseudo-quotation he used is a grotesque caricature, equally alien to me in language and content. In its place, let me offer a quotation from the great Arabic thinker and writer Ibn Hazm, who died in 1064: "He who treats friend and foe alike will only arouse distaste for his friendship and contempt for his emnity."

The Dem/Left should listen to these words carefully: they advise against moral relativism and false equivalencies - which are the hallmak of post-modern Leftism. Moral clarity is an important part of the arsenal of democracy. It strengthens out resolve and sends the correct signal to our enemies.

Meanwhile, the Dem/Left sends the opposite signal, one of vacillation and self-doubt, of nuances which become recipes for inaction and self-flagellation. And we know where that leads: to withdrawal and abandonment of our principles and our allies - as in the case of Souht Vietnam and the Contras.

If we adhere to our principles - and help our allies and attack our enemies, as Ibn Hazm proffered - WW4 will be won with fewer casualties and at lower cost.