Feb 21 2008
1979 and 2008
Some observers have likened our current state of affairs to 1938 before the world erupted into a conflagration unrivaled in modern times. America during the run up period to World War II was so delusional about war and peace that we came within a few votes of unilaterally disarming our military.
Hearing Obama, Hillary and the Left speak their anti-war platitudes, it was as though someone had hit the rewind button a few times.
However, there are echoes of another turbulent period in our more recent history, one not many people would like to remember: 1979.
America was under constant, forceful threat from the Soviets worldwide; we were still reeling from the oil shocks; and the economy was slowing down to stagnation. Our embassies burned throughout the world and we were told that as our best days lay far behind us, malaise and defeat lay before us.
Today, as we’re reeling from the rising price of oil, the unease of a slowing economy and our continuing war in the Mideast, a spark was set in Belgrade and for half an hour our embassy burned.
(AP Photo)
About 1,000 protesters attacked the building, throwing flares through the window while others scaled walls to rip down the US flag.
At the time there appeared to be no police protecting the embassy, but riot police later intervened firing tear gas.
The fires raged for half an hour, and when firemen finally managed to get inside the building they found a charred body.
The body has not been identified, though US officials said all embassy staff had been accounted for.
Several other embassies were also attacked by crowds. There are reports of various businesses and restaurants being attacked and flames billowing from some of the premises.
Correspondents say ambulances have been travelling across Belgrade and there are reports of up to 100 people having been injured.
From receiving overt hostility from our “allies” these past few years, this doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, but the lingering question that hovers before us is is this going to be the beginning of a trend of violence or a regional incident.
As I posted earlier this week, people forget that World War I burst out onto the globe from the Balkans, and from the genocide of the 1990’s following the fall of the Soviet Union and the break up of Yugoslavia, racial and ethnic tensions are still high there.
Serbia, supported by Russia and China, says Kosovo’s Sunday declaration violates international law.
Mr Kostunica addressed the crowds from a large stage, saying: “As long as we live, Kosovo is Serbia. Kosovo belongs to the Serbian people.”
“We’ll never give up Kosovo, never!” the crowd responded.
Kosovo map
“Is there any other nation on Earth from whom [the great powers] are demanding that they give up their identity, to give up our brothers in Kosovo?” he added.Ultra-nationalist leader Tomislav Nikolic accused the US and EU of trying to steal Kosovo.
“We will not rest until Kosovo is again under Serbia’s control,” he said.
“Hitler could not take it away from us, and neither will today’s [Western powers].”
The fact that our current circumstances resemble 1938 and 1979 is cause enough for feeling queasy. But our troubles will not vanish if we wish hard enough, and collective hoping on hope isn’t a substitute for making hard decisions.
Show me a garden where the serpent doesn’t enter, I say to the isolationist and the Leftist. Trouble has already found its way to our shores and no amount of hope will make is disappear. And the notion that “if you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone” has never been grounded in reality.
I think audacity is what we need. Not the audacity that moves men and women into sloth and wishful thinking, the kind that leads us to spiritual slumber and listlessness, but the audacity to act and act boldly.
… so much so that would it would make our allies gasp.