First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog

115 Responses

1. intellectual midget says:

   August 21, 2008 at 2:28 am

   this would be the same mr. luttwak who in 1992 said that the united states would be a third world country by 2020?

   http://books.google.com/books?id=0Yu36GDJrCIC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=posner+on+luttwak&source=web&ots=FgxUAnvdfl&sig=BYw2WsU0y6S9eZQNV8Tjkuafip4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
2. koala bear says:

   August 21, 2008 at 2:43 am

   its hilarious that even the publishers of the piece consider luttwak’s work

   “irritating”

   and

   “far out”

   what are the rest of us supposed to make of this parody then?
3. John Kelly says:

   August 21, 2008 at 10:44 am

   For an alternative view of the Bush achievement, see Noam Chomsky: http://www.artsandopinion.com/2008_v7_n4/chomsky-5.htm
4. Anthony St. John says:

   August 23, 2008 at 3:46 pm

   23 August 2008

   A Lament for Europe

   Land of the Setting Sun
   Caldron simmering in hungering desperation
   To regain the smacks of the Past.
   You seek to lunge ahead
   On the energy of Your logic
   And hopes not yet lionized.
   You call upon Your histories
   To lend strength to Your phantasies.
   You coil up hard on Your proud self
   Wrinkled and weather-beaten.
   You struggle to nurture new flowers
   On the dry rot of Your haunted memories.
   Your youth, sniffed upon by strapped canine squads,
   Rape-hate in Your stadiums
   Striped with electronic rejoinders
   To press softly-pliant, gaily-tinged plastic buttons.
   Your elderly curl their ways to bankrupt health ministries
   Where physicians fool with forms
   And fill in football pools.
   Your neighbors to the East—
   Brazen, sordid—
   Yank towards You
   Roughly extracting for exacting theirs craved for.
   You, Europe, sit pickled—
   Soused in the juices of Your scummy heretofore.
   Your dabblers in politics set flags unfurled
   And their powers shame—
   Shame!—
   This Our world.

   Anthony St. John
5. Dave Mathieson says:

   August 24, 2008 at 12:54 am

   The people who don’t like Luttwak’s article don’t like it because they don’t like the prospect of a simplistic world view actually succeeding.
   Instead of putting out convoluted arguments and using a protractor to look at a problem from a thousand different angles, Bush keeps it simple.
   He says things such as “you’re either with us or against us.”
   This simplicity irritates the intelligentsia to no end.
   Bush realizes some problems require easy answers.
   He realizes it doesn’t take a genius to know the difference between right and wrong.
   Ronald Reagan also knew the simplistic beauty of knowing the difference between right and wrong.
   Even in protest to his speech writers and others around him, Reagan repeatedly told the world “communism is evil.”
   He was right.
   The Soviet Union was barbaric and his determination not to make excuses for and make defenses of the Soviet system had a large impact in bringing down the Berlin Wall. (It also came at the huge cost of building up the U.S. military.)
   Bush does the same thing.
   Since 9/11 he has consistently told the world that there are elements in Islamic society who hate freedom and want to harm freedom wherever it exists and that these elements are evil.
   It doesn’t take a genius to understand this. It’s a simple truth.
   Bush’s show of force and determination, as Luttwak said, have forced the Muslim world to look in the mirror and ask themselves some serious questions about their thoughts and actions and to look at the U.S. with more respect.
   As he points out, there has been major rethinking and realignment by Islamic states throughout the world.
   As Reagan brought about huge change with his simplicity, so will Bush.
   He is bringing down the wall set up by Islamic extremism and fanaticism.
   What do both these men have in common?
   Reagan and Bush both have, and had, an unshakable belief in freedom.
   In opposition to tyranny, these men believe, and believed, democracy and freedom to be the best available political system.
   I live in Canada and I also have a love of democracy.
   As far as reading Noam Chomskey in concerned? Been there done that. He’s a very, sanctimonious, miserable, unhappy, little man. I’ll take Thomas Jefferson over him any day of the week.
6. tpx says:

   August 25, 2008 at 6:10 pm

   President W. Bush is the most sanctimonious, miserable, unhappy, little man in the history of the world’s leadership. W. Bush will be remembered as the Butcher of Fallujah or the Little Tamerlane.
7. Dave Mathieson says:

   August 25, 2008 at 8:02 pm

   I don’t know about that tpx.
   Every time I see George Bush he seems happy, even jovial.
   See him at the Beijing Olympics? He was having a good old time.
   Misty May, the American beach volleyball player, even asked him to smack her nearly naked bum.
   He likes to have fun, he likes his women free, strong and independent.
   He doesn’t seem like a butcher to me. He’s not into that hijab, burka, chadri stuff that Islamic fundamentalists force their women to wear with threats of retribution and even death.
   Once again, it’s people like Noam Chomskey who hate freedom and will always make excuses for tyranny.
   Have you ever seen a smile on Chomskey’s face?
   No you haven’t. He’s a grim and humorless man who’s never had one single day of fun in his entire life.
   Also, I know the Americans aren’t perfect but look what they’ve helped create in Kurdistan, which is one fifth of Iraq.
   They’ve built monuments to American soldiers in Kurdistan.
   They will one day build monuments to George W. Bush in Baghdad.
   Why? Because Americans love Freedom and one day Iraq will be free from tyranny.
   Of course people like you will never give him credit for it when it happens

   Hi Mickey Duck
   I’m keeping the faith brother.
   Keep up the good fight.
8. Mr Belgian says:

   August 26, 2008 at 6:56 pm

   Dave Mathieson

   He is happy because in his simple, billionaire world everything is going fine.
   Good for you, believing in simple solutions for complex problems, a bit shame that you also do believe in illusions, statues for Bush in Baghdad? Iraqis are protesting, they want Americans to leave! Please come back to reality.
   Chomsky is one of the greatest minds ever, with such intelligence comes a great burden.
   How many university professors do you see walking around with a stupid grim and smacking girl’s asses?

   Applause for Bush! Americans are now owned by the Chinese, yes Americans will have to pay interest for the next hundred years to pay off their debt, made thanks to the war in Iraq. No WMD, no AL Qaeda, no Bin Laden, only dead Americans, a big dept, and a happy few who got rich in Iraq.

   Hoera for Bush!
9. Dave Mathieson says:

   August 27, 2008 at 4:15 am

   Hi Mr. Belgium
   It’s nice to see you’re not as grim as Mr. Chomskey.
   That part about the ‘stupid grin and smacking girls asses,” cracked me up.
   All I’m saying is the anti-bush hysteria is way out of line.
   Luttwak isn’t the only writer tamping down this hysteria.
   If you look at this weeks Newsweek magazine you will see Fareed Zakaria talking about “What Bush Got Right.”
   This is the same Fareed Zakaria who can usually be found on Jon Stewart or Bill Maher making fun of Bush and now even he is calming the anti-Bush waters.
   In my country, Canada, our mainstream news magazine is called Maclean’s.
   This week the cover story said, “The Surprisingly Liberal Legacy of George W. Bush,” by Luiza CH. Savage.
   George Bushes legacy is being rewritten for the positive before he even leaves office.
   He’s not this monster most people make him out to be.
   If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard people say George Bush is stupid or George Bush is psycho, I’d be a millionaire.
   Just the other day I was in Starbucks drinking a coffee and the server said to a couple of university students sitting at another table, “You guys look pretty serious, what are you guys trying to do, save the world?”
   The guys said, “Yep.”
   She said, “I know how you can do it. You can get rid of George Bush.”
   A guy can’t even enjoy a cup of coffee without hearing this hysteria. It permeates every part of our lives.
   Contrary to popular belief, George Bush isn’t the cause of the world’s problems.
   As far as not finding WMD?
   It wasn’t just George W. Bush who thought Saddam had them.
   Bill Clinton thought he had them, Al Gore thought he had them and every Western intelligence agency thought he had them. Tony Blair thought he had them. Everyone thought he had them.
   What was Bush suppose to say? “No, Saddam’s a great guy, he can’t possibly have them.”
   And it won’t take the next hundred years for the Americans to pay off their debt.
   They are the most free, industrious, creative and inventive people in the world. They always have and always will pull through.
   And I hope all university professors aren’t as grim as Mr. Chomskey. Imagine what a horrific, horrible and hostile place university would be if all the professors were as weighted down with the worlds problems as he is. It’s sort of what I imagine hell to be like.
   Personally, I prefer a professor who can crack a smile or maybe, god forbid, even laugh.
   It’s not just stupid people who laugh you know. They say even Einstein enjoyed a good laugh.
   Hooray For Bush! Applause for Bush!
   And, no, I’m not being sarcastic.
10. Franck says:

    August 27, 2008 at 8:28 pm

    Let’s stop turning Bush into the Scapegoat for all the US ills. I agree with Luttwak - let’s see what happens in five years.
11. tpx says:

    August 28, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    Let’s try President W. Bush for war crimes. W. Bush should not be condemned to capital punishment like he deserves, though. A life sentence in solitary confinement would be much more punitive and will drive the imp crazy.

    Mr. Mathieson, like the president, does not have much respect for academics and scientific research. He misunderstands the searth for truth as a frown.
12. Tacitus says:

    September 3, 2008 at 8:31 pm

    To the extent the United States ‘won’ the Cold War, not least of the reasons why was because America by-and-large stayed true to its democratic principles. From the beginning of the conflict with the Soviet Union, fear-peddlers argued for everything from preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviets (something espoused at one point by Bertrand Russell, of all people) to the abrogation of civil liberties at home. The situation was unprecedented, it was claimed, and the normal rules didn’t apply. Civil liberties, common sense and simple decency were all luxuries that had to be tossed aside in order to contest the ruthless men of the Kremlin and their fanatical followers throughout the globe (including their fifth columnists in the U.S.).

    Fortunately, leaders such as President Harry Truman angrily dismissed such outrageous suggestions. Leaders such as President Dwight Eisenhower not only understood the deadly futility of war between the U.S and the Soviet Union; he also understood that the total militarization of the American economy and society would ultimately cripple the United States as surely as it did the Soviet Union.

    One need only set the record of these men alongside that of George W. Bush to be left in a state of stupefied amazement that Edward Luttwak would find them to be at all comparable. For the first time in American history, torture and murder of prisoners have been explicitly ordered and justified by the Executive. As bad as everything else is–the proscription of American citizens and others not charged with any crime, the warrentless wiretapping, to grotesque levels of public indebtedness to countries not necessarily friendly to U.S. interests, the crude jingoism–it all pales alongside torture and murder.

    To a sophisticated European-born intellectual such as Mr. Luttwak, this may seem a peccadillo to be glossed over, but I fear the breaking of such a barrier will have evil and indelible consequences that will persist long after Mr. Bush has retired to his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
13. Dave Mathieson says:

    September 7, 2008 at 11:40 pm

    tpx, you really need to take some chill pills!!!
    You sound like your brains about to explode with hate.
    If academics are anything like you say, walking around with frowns and whatnot, then your right, I have no respect for them.
    And what’s all this have to do with scientific research?
    Try to stay on topic.
14. Anthony St. John says:

    September 18, 2008 at 8:10 pm

    18 September 2008

    Does Edward Luttwak have hemorrhoids?

    ASJ
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    October 31, 2008 at 9:34 am

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