Barack Obama’s National Security Working Group:

• Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
• Senator David Boren, former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
• Secretary of State Warren Christopher
• Greg Craig, former director of the State Department Office of Policy Planning
• Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig
• Representative Lee Hamilton, former Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee
• Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder
• Dr. Tony Lake, former National Security Advisor
• Senator Sam Nunn, former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
• Secretary of Defense William Perry
• Dr. Susan Rice, former Assistant Secretary of State
• Representative Tim Roemer, 9/11 Commissioner
• Jim Steinberg, former Deputy National Security Advisor

Digby’s response:

I’m not sure what to make of this list. I assume that most of it is to let the military and foreign policy establishment know that he isn’t going to be employing kids from his Facebook list to run American foreign policy. (Hey, don’t laugh. Bush hired interns from the Heritage Foundation to build a new nation in Iraq. It happens.)

Disingenuous confusion. Assumption that Obama’s warmongering actions must not reflect his secret true intentions, which are—what? Pacifism? Anti-imperialism? And the evidence of his true intentions is—what? When he showers Israel with his love, warmongers against Iran and goes to fucking Madeleine Albright for national security advice? The eternal idiot hope of U.S. progressives that the Democrats will bring fundamental change as soon as they get just a little more power.

And then, the distracting Bush joke: don’t think too much about Obama’s failings, always remember the real enemy. Because that gang of war criminals is so much better than Bush’s gang?

Perfect.

(via Arthur Silber)

Pat Buchanan:

There are things worth fighting for: God and country, family and freedom. Martyrs have ever inspired men. And to some evils pacifism is no answer. Resistance, even unto death, may be required of a man.

But when one declares a war that produced Hiroshima and the Holocaust a “Good War,” it raises a question: good for whom?

[…]

Cohen contends that the evil of the Holocaust makes it a “good war.” But the destruction of the Jews of Europe was a consequence of this war, not a cause. As for the Japanese atrocities like the Rape of Nanking, they were indeed horrific.

But America’s smashing of Japan led not to freedom for China, but four years of civil war followed by 30 years of Maoist madness in which 30 million Chinese perished.

Charlie’s speech from The Americanization of Emily:

War isn’t hell at all. It’s man at his best; the highest morality he’s capable of… it’s not war that’s insane, you see. It’s the morality of it. It’s not greed or ambition that makes war: it’s goodness. Wars are always fought for the best of reasons: for liberation or manifest destiny. Always against tyranny and always in the interest of humanity. So far this war, we’ve managed to butcher some ten million humans in the interest of humanity. Next war it seems we’ll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity. It’s not war that’s unnatural to us—it’s virtue. As long as valor remains a virtue, we shall have soldiers. So, I preach cowardice. Through cowardice, we shall all be saved.

So. Ted Nugent is against breast-cancer awareness.

Laila El-Haddad:

Is it only when Israeli deputy minister Matan Vilnai used “shoa” to describe what will come to Gaza that some media outlets took note. Here was an Israeli government official himself invoking the Holocaust, of his people’s most horrific massacre, in reference to the fate of Gaza. But it was not necessarily because Gazans may suffer the same fate that they were perturbed, but rather that this event, this phrase-genocide or Holocaust- could be used with such seeming levity; that using such a loaded term may somehow lessen the true horror of the original act.

It is as though what has been happening in Gaza-what continues to happen, whether by way of the deliberate and sustained siege and blockade, or the mounting civlian death toll, is acceptable, and even encouraged.

AVONDALE, La. - The USS New York, an amphibious assault ship built with scrap steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center, was christened Saturday as a source of strength and inspiration for the nation.

Thousands of people, including friends and families of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, gathered near the hulking gray ship, trimmed in red, white and blue banners.

The bow stem, which contains 7.5 tons of steel from the site, bore a shield with two gray bars to symbolize the twin towers and a banner over that declaring “Never Forget,” a slogan among New Yorkers.

[…]

That it could be used in war did not bother Lee Ielpi, president of the September 11th Families’ Association, whose son, Jonathan, a firefighter, died in the attacks. The ship won’t be used for war “unless you bother us,” he said in an interview.

“We’re sending a message that we’re standing strong,” he said, adding: “This ship, as it cuts through the water, is going to send a ripple. That ripple will say, ‘We cherish our freedom.’”

Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y., said Sept. 11 was a turning point in the nation, and will never be forgotten because remnants of the disaster are part of the ship.

“If the USS New York has to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, PCO Jones and his crew … have my full support,” he said to a standing ovation.

We cherish our freedom so much that we cheer when our government builds billion-dollar war machines and turns one into a memorial for the dead. Vengeance is not a worthy memorial. Here are the true American ideals in the 21st century: war, death and revenge.