Freedom Esoterica Friday

Victor Davis Hanson today on the critics:
"But too often we discuss the present risky policy without thought of what preceded it or what might have substituted for it. Have we forgotten that the messy business of democracy was the successor, not the precursor, to a litany of other failed prescriptions? Or that there were never perfect solutions for a place like the Middle East — awash as it is in oil, autocracy, fundamentalism, poverty, and tribalism — only choices between awful and even more awful? Or that September 11 was not a sudden impulse on the part of Mohammed Atta, but the logical culmination of a long simmering pathology? Or that the present loudest critics had plenty of chances to leave something better than the mess that confronted the United States on September 12? Or that at a time of war, it is not very ethical to be sorta for, sorta against, kinda supportive, kinda critical of the mission — all depending on the latest sound bite from Iraq?"

Rich Lowry on the dubious value of grief counseling:
"A 2000 study by University of Memphis researchers found that nearly 40 percent of those 'receiving grief therapy actually faired worse than a matched group not receiving treatment.'"



Churchill Quote of the Week (from the archives of the Churchill Centre):
"When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone, whatever they did, their Generals told their Prime Minister and his divided cabinet that in three weeks, England would have her neck wrung like a chicken - Some chicken! Some neck!" -- Speech made to the Canadian Parliament on December 30, 1941. Following this speech the famous Karsh photograph was taken.