Monday Reads: Links Worth a Look—No. 3

Over the last year, I have become a very big fan of Victor Davis Hanson. Hanson is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, a Professor Emeritus at California University, Fresno, and a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services.

Hanson is a master at explaining history. He is the penultimate contextualizer, placing current events in the context of history. His insights are informed.

There are numerous other accomplishments on his resume, too many to list here. And he is also a farmer in central California, managing a vineyard that has been in his family for over one hundred years.

At last count, Hanson has written sixteen books. I have read two of them:

• Ripples of Battle
• The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer

Hanson also owns a website which I visit often. Below are links to six of his articles. I encourage everyone who is concerned about current world events to read them.

The Brink of Madness August 4th, 2006
"... There is no need to mention Europe, an entire continent now returning to the cowardice of the 1930s. Its cartoonists are terrified of offending Muslim sensibilities, so they now portray the Jews as Nazis, secure that no offended Israeli terrorist might chop off their heads. The French foreign minister meets with the Iranians to show solidarity with the terrorists who promise to wipe Israel off the map (“In the region there is of course a country such as Iran — a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region”) — and manages to outdo Chamberlain at Munich ... In short, if we wish to learn what was going on in Europe in 1938, just look around."

A Strange War July 21st, 2006
"... neither Syria can overturn the Lebanese government nor can Iran the Iraqi democracy. Instead, both are afraid that their rhetoric may soon earn some hard bombing, since their “air defenses” are hardly defenses at all. So they tell Hamas and Hezbollah to tap their missile caches, kidnap a few soldiers, and generally try to turn the world’s attention to the collateral damage inflicted on “refugees” by a stirred-up Zionist enemy."

National Clarity July 17th, 2006
"Ultimately, the Bush administration needs to do a better job of presenting this current war in a far larger context. Jihadists of the Arab world for decades have been at war not with George Bush alone, but with modernity itself. The radical Middle East street may be fascinated by the Internet, satellite television, ATMs and cell phones — but not by the foreign anathema of democracies, religious tolerance, free markets and gender equality that ultimately accounts for such goodies."

Has Bush or the World Changed? July 14th, 2006
"... There is as much relief from realists as there is disappointment ... over a perceived change in U.S. foreign policy — what Time magazine clumsily dubbed “The End of Cowboy Diplomacy”... Has George Bush, or the world itself, changed in the last five years? ... the global village gets back to normal only after a Shane or Marshall Will Cane is willing to take on the outlaws alone and save those who can’t or won’t save themselves. So, remember, when, to everyone’s relief, such mavericks put down their six-shooters and ride off into the sunset, the killers often creep back into town."

The Israel Enigma July 10th, 2006
"... as we know from our own southern border, anytime a successful Westernized nation is adjacent to a poorer Third World country, primordial emotions like honor and envy cloud reason. Rather than concede that Western-style democracy, capitalism, personal freedom and the rule of law explain why a prosperous, stable Israel arose from scrub and rock, Palestinians fixate on "Zionism," "colonialism" and "racism.""

The Subtexts of War July 7th, 2006
"... the time will come when there is once again a Democratic administration. In that climate, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, and Howard Dean, or their epigones, will still have to persuade the American people that radical Islam means to destroy us. They can’t say their war is cooked up in Texas, but will instead have to deal with the Sheehanites and the loose-cannon bloggers they either appeased or encouraged."