I recently posted Andy Davison’s op-ed for the Poughkeepsie Journal, entitled ‘A Change in Iraq Means Reconsidering the Logic of Force’. In it he expressed skepticism about President Bush’s plan for a surge of troops, and suggested the alternative of political rather than military engagement. You can read his op-ed here, or view the version posted on this blog here.
His essay was placed in the ‘Face to Face’ section — a point/counterpoint format of commentators. The other op-ed was by
I read Lalor’s op-ed, and aside from his heartfelt insistence on victory in a war already lost, I was curious about what I might learn from his website, the Eternal Vigilance Society.
It turns out that Lalor is the founder and executive director of the society. He is a Marine Corp veteran passionately committed to the defense and freedom of the US. Nothing wrong with that, a?
Look a bit further, however, and you might start to worry. There is the proud display of a photo with Oliver North, an operative in former President Reagan’s not-so-secret war in Central America — a war whose American benefactors made liberal use of drug smuggling, illegal arms shipments and terrorists named ‘Contras’. Note too the prominent endorsement from the author Michelle Malkin, an apologist for putting Japanese-Americans into concentration camps during World War 2. Makes one wonder about similar concentrations camps for Arab-Americans, Muslims and anti-American agitators. There is also the less obvious but prolonged attempt to bash Congressional representative John Hall (D-NY) as a gay-funded wimp for the hate-America Left.
Such organizations sport a nationalist rhetoric, heated in a stew of apparent authoritarianism, militarism and true manliness. Do these groups realize the resonance their beliefs have with neo-fascism? I do not think so. I can only hope they develop a deeper understanding of the dynamics and pitfalls of their political ideas. An understanding that recognizes that in the right circumstances, their ideals and actions undermine the liberty they prize. And however well-intended their motives, they can unwittingly become agents of the terror they so decry.
cheers, Bill
PS. For more on ordinary citizens and the wages of terror, see Daniel Goldhagen (1997) Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. On the perils of authoritarianism in contemporary US politics, see John Dean (2006) Conservatives without Conscience.
Photo: Traitors Among Us, Propaganda Remix Project.