Our history lessons gloss over the war's aftermath precisely because Vietnam became the slaughterhouse that war supporters had predicted

One philosophy is that an American retreat from Iraq will actually have a stabilizing effect on the country. This tired old argument is usually some variation of the idea that U.S. troops are "driving the insurgency," that the only reason there is violence in Iraq is because there is a target: U.S. troops. Simply remove the troops and peace will fall on Iraq like rain.

Thus writes Benjamin Duffy.

I have never heard of a war being won by retreating, but let's analyze this. If going home now were all we had to do to pacify Iraq, I would support the policy. But are U.S. troops really the only target? Of course not. They aren't even the main target. Iraqis are killing Iraqis in far greater numbers than Iraqis are killing Americans. Removing the Americans will not make the terrorists lay down their arms.

Since Iraq is always being compared to Vietnam, Benjamin Duffy tackles that next.

Don't worry if you don't know much about the aftermath of American retreat from Vietnam. Our history lessons gloss over the subject precisely because Vietnam became the slaughterhouse that war supporters had predicted. Much to the embarrassment of John Kerry, nothing vaguely resembling peace materialized.

After our troops came home, North Vietnam attacked South Vietnam in direct violation of the Paris Peace Accords. One million dissidents were herded into "re-education" camps under deplorable conditions, and some were not released until 1986. The victorious communists executed 65,000 Vietnamese, and that does not include those who died slowly in the "re-education" camps, for which there are no reliable figures. A flood of 800,000 Vietnamese "boat people" fled onto the dangerous high seas, where many drowned. And above all, the power vacuum remaining after American retreat led like night into day to the rise of Pol Pot in Cambodia, and his massacre of 1.7 million people, or about a quarter of the population.

The war supporters' predictions were validated because they understood that such atrocities always follow communist victories. Unfortunately, we allowed ourselves to be worn down by a domestic "anti-war" movement that made victory impossible. The rest is history.

Benjamin Duffy ends with the following conclusion:

Don't be fooled by the Left's imagery of peace. They would have you believe that going home now will make violence in Iraq disappear, when in fact it is a recipe for disaster.

Information from Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First by Mona Charen was used in this article.

Benjamin Duffy Novella: I Know Where Kevin Is

Check out Benjamin Duffy's novella, I Know Where Kevin Is, on Straylight.

The antiwar movement didn't shorten the Vietnam War by a single day

[To the question,] "What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet Offensive?" [Colonel Bui Tin, the NVA officer who received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam in 1975,] replies, "To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year."

In "Dangers of the Fifth Column", Benjamin Duffy compares Iraq and Vietnam.

"What about [Tet's] results?" asked [reporter Stephen] Young. The colonel replied, "Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise; [Commanding General] Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election � If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely."

Tin simply confirms basic intuition. The antiwar movement didn't shorten the Vietnam War by a single day. It made the war longer and bloodier, and it eventually resulted in our nation's first unequivocal military defeat. The movement didn't prevent a single name from being etched onto that black wall. To the contrary, our boys could have been home years earlier, and South Vietnam could be a free country today if the antiwar movement hadn't acted as Hanoi's useful idiots.

Benjamin Duffy proceeds to wonder what questions some people should ask themselves.

"I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won't rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated": A Recap of No Pasarán's Che Guevara Posts

Reader, if perchance you don't understand some people's opposition to this most romantic of revolutionaries — if indeed you find it baffling — you might want to peruse through some of the following thoughts on Che Guevara:

• It is customary for followers of a cult not to know the real life story of their hero, the historical truth

• "I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won't rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated"

…The future T-shirt icon … proclaimed to the press that his ideal societal model was Kim Il-Sung's North Korea. … Guevara traveled there in 1965, saw the brutality and poverty with his own eyes, and then made it his goal to import that system to Latin America. As a champion of the poor, Che aspired to emulate a society that truly benefits its poorest inhabitants -anyone not named Kim Jong-il or Kim Il-Sung. … Leftists always have a problem with U.S.-backed dictatorships, but never with Stalinist and Maoist stooges like — well, like Che Guevara. (Benjamin Duffy)

• Stalin II

There is a misperception that [Ernesto "Che" Guevara] was a free spirit. He had cold Stalinist personality. He used to sign his early correspondence "Stalin II." He said early on that he saw the solution to all the world's problems behind (the) Iron Curtain. But this was not some hippie dippie Marxist, Guevara said in speech in 1962 that he regarded the very spirit of rebellion as anti-revolutionary. Figure that out, he said individualism must disappear in Cuba. If you tried to do your own thing under his regime you wound up in a prison camp. (Humberto Fontova)

• The jails of Castro are far worse than those of Batista

Who is the writer of that claim? A capitalist reactionary? An imperialist? A (neo-)fascist? A Batista ally? No. Gustavo Arcos Bergnes is Castro's fellow revolutionary, imprisoned with the future Líder Maximo in the mid-1950s. And he experienced Castro both as a fellow cell-mate and (twice) as a warden. Castro's violent revolutionaries of the 1950s were treated far more humanely by the dictator Batista than non-violent human rights activists are treated by Castro today, he says as he recalls getting special treatment (hospital rooms as cells, private cooking facilities, etc) and pardons after only 21 months. (Since Castro's coming to power, incidentally, there have been 20,000 summary executions, but — unlike Pinochet's 3,000 victims — these are not of any particular concern to "human rights activists")

• Che’s biographers consistently report that he sent thousands to the firing squad:

Che Guevara was one of the regime’s chief executioners during this period and is said to have acknowledged ordering "several thousand" executions. All took place without affording the victims fair trials and due process of law.

• The mass executioner's T-shirt adorns the very people who oppose capital punishment!

• Leftists: Don’t feed them after dark and don’t get them wet

In 1956, when Che linked up with the Cuban exiles in Mexico city, one of them recalls Che railing against the Hungarian freedom-fighters as "Fascists!" and cheering their extermination by Soviet tanks. (Humberto Fontava)

• Where Are the Mickey Mouse Ears?…

Nearly four decades after his death, the legend of Che Guevara has grown worldwide. In this new book, Alvaro Vargas Llosa separates the myth from the reality of Che's legacy, and shows that Che's ideals were a re-hash of notions about centralized power that have long been the major source of suffering and misery in the underdeveloped world. With testimonies from witnesses of Che's actions, Alvaro Vargas Llosa's detailed account of the "real Che" sets the record straight by exposing the delusion at the heart of the Che phenomenon. Vargas Llosa shows that Che's legacy—making the law subservient to the most powerful, crushing any and all dissent, and concentrating wealth under the guise of "social equality"—is not the solution to poverty and injustice but is the core of the problem.

• A la Cabaña, lorsque les familles rendaient visite à leurs proches, Che exigea qu'on les fasse passer devant le mur d'exécution maculé de sang frais

Oubliées, les purges, oubliées, les exécutions sommaires, le plaisir sadique des tortures: Che Guevara est un mythe, et un mythe ne peut être que parfait. … Fidel Castro sut exploiter les pulsions sacrificielles de son ancien compagnon en l'envoyant exporter la guérilla dans le vaste monde — et surtout, coupé de tout lien officiel avec le régime. Che Guevara finirait bien par mourir sur un champ de bataille ou un autre; resterait de lui son image inspirée et intemporelle, contrastant avec une dictature cubaine qui n'en finit pas de pourrir encore aujourd'hui. L'homme devint légende grâce à d'innombrables intellectuels de gauche cherchant à éviter l'erreur du soutien passé à Staline: mieux vaut rendre un culte à la personnalité d'un révolutionnaire mort qu'à celle d'un dictateur vivant. Son histoire fut soigneusement épurée et revue, les moments de gloire mis en avant et les périodes sombres gommées ou effacées. (Stéphane)

• C'était le moyen, pour Castro, de donner une image éternellement jeune à la révolution cubaine, alors que Castro et la révolution vieillissaient

Le statut d'icone de Che Guevara est une construction post-mortem, raconte Jacobo Machover dans son livre, La Face cachée du Che

• La victoire des barbudos a réveillé en l'intelligentsia française une vieille passion française pour la révolution

• Should we love Che Guevara?

• Che Was a Mainstay of the Hardline Pro-Soviet Faction

The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system …
In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on. (Paul Berman on The Cult of Che)

• Che Guevara in 10 Quotes

• Commemorating the Death of Che Guevara the Baf Way

• Che Guevara, Revolutionary and Icon

• Channeling the dead for affirmation

• ¿Quiénes son los revolucionarios verdaderos?

• And here I thought under Communism we were all supposed to dispose of our bourgeois pleasures and eat our spinach

• Gaddafi Is Starting to Be Compared to Che Guevara, Allende, and Other Leftist Icons

• Compare with Bin Laden's Death at the Hands of the U.S.: When a Cuban Dissident Is Killed by Havana, Only a Couple of French Readers Bother Reacting

• Ireland to erect monument to Che Guevara
One can imagine many places wanting to build a monument to El Che, but why would precisely Ireland step in to do that? Because Ernesto Guevara had an Irish ancestor, born in Galway in 1715 (and appropriately, perhaps, named Lynch).

Conservative Writer and Iraq War Veteran's Book: A Biting Satire on Liberal Causes

Benjamin Duffy, a reader of No Pasaréan from its earliest days as well as an Iraq veteran whose post writings have been frequently linked on this blog, is now an author in his own right. He was already the author of a novella, his first book is out, and its title sounds heroic enough: We Are Fat and We Are Legion!

When fat civil rights activist Gabby Medeiros's supersized boyfriend decides to lose weight, he unwittingly forms a fissure in their relationship. Can their relationship survive? As a fat acceptance warrior, Gabby necessarily rejects dieting as unhealthy and counterproductive. A telephone bill collector by day, she spends two evenings a week doing what she really loves: pontificating from her position at the local radio station about the evils of the diet industry and a society that shames those who don't fill out the proper dimensions. Though people sometimes snicker at the cause she holds so dear, fat acceptance is very serious business for Gabby. When her live-in beau Denny Emory tells her that he is going to lose weight in order to control his diabetes, Gabby advises against it. Slowly, his diet changes the very dynamic of their relationship, to the point that Gabby questions whether it will survive.

FYI, I can confirm that Ben seems to have changed little, physically speaking, since the first time I met him, he has not gained weight, and he is still a slender, well-built guy. As for his new title, the first person to write a book review on Amazon sounds enthusiastic:

Loved the story and I was amazed at the amount of medical research done by Ben. I almost thought it was really OK to be fat. 

Deeply held feelings: A mystery that the pro-choicers are curiously uncurious to solve and a question they squirmingly refuse to answer

Disagreements about abortion nearly always end at the same impasse

writes Benjamin Duffy at Patriot Update

—an endless debate about when life begins.

The pro-life position is usually that it begins at conception. The pro-choice position—and I hate calling them that—is more nuanced, which is a nice way of saying convoluted. They’re sure that a human being exists at the moment of birth and that none exists at the moment of conception, but everything in between is a mystery that they are curiously uncurious to solve. While the pro-lifers’ preferred point comes with some of its own problems, it’s at least precise and non-arbitrary. The same cannot be said of pro-choicers’ squirming refusal to answer the question.

 … For the rabidly pro-abortion, the question of when life begins is not a scientific one but a matter of deeply held feelings. If a woman thinks the two-celled organism in her fallopian tube is a child, then she’s right. But if she thinks that a child just minutes before birth is merely a problem, then she’s right too. And it doesn’t stop there! Even when the nurse places the bouncing baby boy in his mother’s arms, his humanity is still an unsettled question.

What’s the verdict, mom? Baby or problem?

If mommy gives the thumbs down, the clump of cells in swaddling clothes can be whisked away to the incinerator. Notice I didn’t say “killed” because killing implies that a life existed in the first place. In the sick mind of [an abortionist like] LeRoy Carhart, the child never existed if his mother never accepted him.

It isn’t possible to understand Carhart’s analysis without considering how the pro-choice crowd perceives the issue. They believe that a child is a burden that no one should have to bear without full consent, ergo he must do a disappearing act if his mother finds him inconvenient.

Yet everyone knows that the question of when life begins has an answer, and it isn’t “when mama says so.” Mama could decide that her four year old is a problem, or her rebellious teenager, but we all agree that she can’t kill them. (Don’t we? Paging Dr. Carhart…) At some point life is an unambiguous fact, not subject to interpretation. Pro-choicers are very, very squeamish about drawing that line because someone will always cross it and then they will be in the position of having to condemn it.

The emergence of quick and legal abortion has warped our thinking in regard to pregnancy. “Baby bumps” are developing children only in the wombs of mothers who want them, as if nature cares at all what mama thinks. Our ability to convince ourselves that unwanted children never really existed in the first place borders on schizophrenic delusion.

 … The reason we’re still having this debate forty years after Roe v. Wade is because ordinary pro-choicers honestly believe that lives are not at stake. People on the inside of the abortion industry know better, but they don’t admit it when they know the cameras are rolling. If they ever spilled the beans the debate would be over because it’s the premise—that a growing fetus is a life—that’s disputed. The conclusion—that lives shouldn’t be tossed into a medical waste container—is not.

Holder has decided that Eric Holder did nothing wrong; Eric Holder is free to go now

Eric Holder is routinely tasked with investigating his own shenanigans and routinely determines that everything is on the level 

writes Benjamin Duffy in a post entitled Eric Holder Invokes the Doofus Defense.

People accused of malfeasance aren’t usually tasked with investigating themselves for obvious reasons. The guy caught with his hand in the cookie jar has a tendency to conclude that the cookies are all present and accounted for.

Attorney General Eric Holder, on the other hand, is routinely tasked with investigating his own shenanigans and routinely determines that everything is on the level. Amidst the furor concerning the DOJ’s spying on Associated Press and FOX News journalists, President Obama ordered the formation of a panel to “review existing Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters.” Heading up the panel will be AG Holder, hardly a disinterested party.

Apparently the DOJ investigates reporters for violations of the Espionage Act whom it never intends to prosecute. Either prosecuting Rosen was on the table or the investigation was a time-consuming fishing expedition pursued at great cost to the taxpayer. I suspect the former.

This is not the first time that America’s top law enforcement official has been caught telling fibs under oath and for the same purpose—so that he can feign ignorance about what happens in his own DOJ. His defense seems to be that he isn’t responsible for the department’s transgressions because he’s irresponsible and unaccountable. We’ll call this “the doofus defense.”

On May 3, 2011, he testified before Congress that he had only learned of Operation Fast and Furious, the ill-fated gunwalking scandal that placed American guns into the hands of Mexican mobsters, “for the first time in the past few weeks.” His testimony was contradicted by a July 2010 internal DOJ memo directed to Holder that outlined the program by name. Holder invoked the doofus defense, claiming that he doesn’t read many of his briefing memos.

But the memos kept coming.

 … Eric Holder has thus perjured himself on multiple occasions and never faced legal consequences. Obama’s AG is entirely above the law.

Not only is he entitled to lie but also to blow off congressional subpoenas. During the aforementioned Fast and Furious investigation, Holder was ordered to turn over documents relevant to the case. He initially refused, then backtracked. In hopes of staving off a contempt resolution, the AG promised to deliver them personally to Congressman Darrell Issa at a private meeting. When the day arrived, Holder delivered a briefing on the contents of the documents rather than the documents themselves. Congress then voted to find Holder in contempt, which he undoubtedly was.

   … Eric Holder has decided that Eric Holder did nothing wrong. Eric Holder is free to go now.

The man appointed to enforce the nation’s laws can’t be bothered to follow them himself. He spies on reporters and furnishes underworld figures with boatloads of guns, then lies under oath and stonewalls congressional investigators to cover his tracks. America’s top cop is a law unto himself, both untouchable and unashamed

The left's unmistakable trend toward weaponizing the tax code

What the IRS was doing behind closed doors may soon be official policy in California

writes Benjamin Duffy in his post on conservatives Staring Down the Barrel of Weaponized Tax Code.

Last week, the State Senate voted to revoke the nonprofit status of any group within the state that does not allow full participation of homosexuals, a move aimed directly at the Boy Scouts of America. According to the Associated Press, the bill “would require those organizations to pay corporate taxes on donations, membership dues, camp fees and other sources of income, and to obtain sellers permits and pay sales taxes on food, beverages and homemade items sold at fundraisers.”   Groups that sponsor troops would also have their tax returns and membership policies scrutinized by the Franchise Tax Board, California’s version of the IRS.

If further proof was needed that the BSA’s partial surrender on the homosexual issue only emboldened their opponents, here it is. Compromise is not in the left’s vocabulary. Not until Dan Savage is taking your son camping will they be happy, and probably not even then.

The thread that connects California’s proposed tax policy with the IRS scandal of recent weeks is the unmistakable trend toward weaponizing the tax code. What was once a neutral instrument used for the purpose of collecting revenue for legitimate governmental functions is now employed to punish behavior that powerful people don’t like. Lois Lerner of IRS infamy had a concealed carry permit but the State of California is carrying theirs right out in the open.

The government can indeed punish citizens monetarily. Until recently, monetary punishments were called “fines” and they were extracted for offenses such as parking in front of a fire hydrant.

California cannot however, fine the Boy Scouts for their membership policy. Thirteen years ago the Boy Scouts fought and won a legal case called Boy Scouts v. Dale, which affirmed the organization’s right to freely associate. Private organizations are private and, as such, have the right to set their own membership requirements. Membership in a private club is not an equal rights issue.

Yet the totalitarian impulse of Left Coast liberals knows no bounds. What was once called a “fine” is now called a “tax” and is specifically targeted at ostracized groups such as the Boy Scouts, even if what they are doing has been upheld as constitutionally protected behavior by the Supreme Court. If the tax code were an “assault rifle,” the Boy Scouts would be looking down the barrel of it.

A fine by any other name is still a fine. Fines disguised as taxes that are used to punish constitutionally protected behavior are unconstitutional. It would be no different than having a free speech tax or a free exercise of religion tax, both of which the left would love, I’m sure.
 
 … The precedent is chilling. The tax code could be used to punish churches that don’t recognize same-sex marriages or prefer only male clergy. Religious organizations could be required to include atheists. Liberals should worry too. If California can point the muzzle of their tax code at the Boy Scouts for refusing to allow homosexual adult leaders, Arkansas can do the same thing because the BSA now permits homosexual youth. It would be just as wrong for socially conservative states to use their tax code to punish groups it doesn’t like. This one trend that’s bad for goose and gander alike.

Update: thanks to Instapundit for the link

At the dawn of the 21st century, the military’s primary concern seems to be “diversity”, not winning wars

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the military’s primary concern seems to be “diversity” with all of its hideous hydra heads, not winning wars

writes Iraq War veteran Benjamin Duffy in his post on Barack Obama's Recipe For A Weaker Military.

 The Pentagon continues to charge full speed ahead toward integration of women into combat roles by 2016. If you harbored any doubts that standards will be lowered in order to achieve the goal, rest assured that they will be.

Perhaps you’ve heard otherwise. In January, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told reporters,

”If members of our military can meet the qualifications for a job — and let me be clear, I’m not talking about reducing the qualifications for the job — if they can meet the qualifications for the job, then they should have the right to serve, regardless of creed or color or gender or sexual orientation.”

Panetta summed up the classic argument in favor of allowing women to serve in combat roles: If standards remain the same, why shouldn’t a woman be allowed the opportunity to meet them? Good question, though I’d suggest that anyone who asks it doesn’t know the state of today’s military. This isn’t your daddy’s army, or even your older brother’s.

 … We now know that efforts to lower standards are already underway. The US Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) is currently conducting a scientific review to determine gender-neutral physical standards for the co-ed combat units of the future. Why is a fancy study even necessary? Won’t women be expected to meet the same old standards that men always had to? Well, no. If that were the case no study would be needed to formulate new standards because they would simply apply the old ones.

The newly minted gender-neutral standards will likely fall somewhere between the current “gender-normed” separate standards of today’s military. … Combat effectiveness will thus suffer on two fronts—units will be forced to include both males and females who otherwise wouldn’t be qualified. The standards will be the same for both genders, only lower. If a woman is too weak to throw a grenade sufficiently far to avoid blowing herself up, that’s fine because a man who does the same will also pass. Equality is a wonderful thing.

How difficult it can be to explain this to people who think that the current policy is just petty sexism. Proponents of women in combat roles like to tug at our heart strings with emotional appeals to fairness, insisting that gobs of women who are both qualified and patriotic are simply not permitted to do the most for their country because male chauvinists won’t let them “try out for the team.”

The number of women who are truly qualified is probably paltry, hence the lower physical standards already in place across all services. Yes, a few exceptional superwomen may be able to make their male counterparts look like chumps. I met a handful of these women during my army years. The military will not however, formulate policy with only the top one tenth of one percent of womankind in mind.

The new policy of women in combat arms is not about allowing women the opportunity to meet the same standards; at least not the current standards. It’s about lowering the bar for both sexes, a recipe for a weaker fighting force.

Ireland to erect monument to Che Guevara

"No worse insult to Che Guevara’s forgotten victims" fumes Fausta:

The Galway Advertiser reports that “A major and innovative monument to the Irish-Argentinean revolutionary, guerilla, doctor, writer, and politician Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, has taken a step closer to becoming a reality this week.“

One can imagine many places wanting to build a monument to El Che, but why would precisely Ireland step in to do that? Because Ernesto Guevara had an Irish ancestor, born in Galway in 1715 (and appropriately, perhaps, named Lynch). Fausta notes that

it’s still time to stop [the building of a monument honoring "a mass murdering sociopathic racist Communist"].
Here is the Galway City website. You can contact Billy Cameron at bcameron@eircom.net. Please make sure to be polite and civil when you contact them.

Public Secrets, Sister Toldjah, and Babalu have also reacted to Fausta's announcement, as have Parkway Rest Stop, Blood Thirsty Liberal, and Marathon Pundit, who opines that

it might be a good idea to ask Cameron how he would feel if Buenos Aires built a monument to Oliver Cromwell—the man who utilized what is now called ethnic-cleansing in Ireland.

Reader, if perchance you don't understand some people's opposition to this most romantic of revolutionaries — if indeed you find it baffling — or if you are Irish in this particular case (and proud that in his "veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels"), you might want to peruse through some of the following thoughts on Che Guevara:

• It is customary for followers of a cult not to know the real life story of their hero, the historical truth

• "I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won't rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated"

…The future T-shirt icon … proclaimed to the press that his ideal societal model was Kim Il-Sung's North Korea. … Guevara traveled there in 1965, saw the brutality and poverty with his own eyes, and then made it his goal to import that system to Latin America. As a champion of the poor, Che aspired to emulate a society that truly benefits its poorest inhabitants -anyone not named Kim Jong-il or Kim Il-Sung. … Leftists always have a problem with U.S.-backed dictatorships, but never with Stalinist and Maoist stooges like — well, like Che Guevara. (Benjamin Duffy)

• Stalin II

There is a misperception that [Ernesto "Che" Guevara] was a free spirit. He had cold Stalinist personality. He used to sign his early correspondence "Stalin II." He said early on that he saw the solution to all the world's problems behind (the) Iron Curtain. But this was not some hippie dippie Marxist, Guevara said in speech in 1962 that he regarded the very spirit of rebellion as anti-revolutionary. Figure that out, he said individualism must disappear in Cuba. If you tried to do your own thing under his regime you wound up in a prison camp. (Humberto Fontova)

• The jails of Castro are far worse than those of Batista

Who is the writer of that claim? A capitalist reactionary? An imperialist? A (neo-)fascist? A Batista ally? No. Gustavo Arcos Bergnes is Castro's fellow revolutionary, imprisoned with the future Líder Maximo in the mid-1950s. And he experienced Castro both as a fellow cell-mate and (twice) as a warden. Castro's violent revolutionaries of the 1950s were treated far more humanely by the dictator Batista than non-violent human rights activists are treated by Castro today, he says as he recalls getting special treatment (hospital rooms as cells, private cooking facilities, etc) and pardons after only 21 months. (Since Castro's coming to power, incidentally, there have been 20,000 summary executions, but — unlike Pinochet's 3,000 victims — these are not of any particular concern to "human rights activists")

• Che’s biographers consistently report that he sent thousands to the firing squad:

Che Guevara was one of the regime’s chief executioners during this period and is said to have acknowledged ordering "several thousand" executions. All took place without affording the victims fair trials and due process of law.

• The mass executioner's T-shirt adorns the very people who oppose capital punishment!

• Leftists: Don’t feed them after dark and don’t get them wet

In 1956, when Che linked up with the Cuban exiles in Mexico city, one of them recalls Che railing against the Hungarian freedom-fighters as "Fascists!" and cheering their extermination by Soviet tanks. (Humberto Fontava)

• Where Are the Mickey Mouse Ears?…

Nearly four decades after his death, the legend of Che Guevara has grown worldwide. In this new book, Alvaro Vargas Llosa separates the myth from the reality of Che's legacy, and shows that Che's ideals were a re-hash of notions about centralized power that have long been the major source of suffering and misery in the underdeveloped world. With testimonies from witnesses of Che's actions, Alvaro Vargas Llosa's detailed account of the "real Che" sets the record straight by exposing the delusion at the heart of the Che phenomenon. Vargas Llosa shows that Che's legacy—making the law subservient to the most powerful, crushing any and all dissent, and concentrating wealth under the guise of "social equality"—is not the solution to poverty and injustice but is the core of the problem.

• A la Cabaña, lorsque les familles rendaient visite à leurs proches, Che exigea qu'on les fasse passer devant le mur d'exécution maculé de sang frais

Oubliées, les purges, oubliées, les exécutions sommaires, le plaisir sadique des tortures: Che Guevara est un mythe, et un mythe ne peut être que parfait. … Fidel Castro sut exploiter les pulsions sacrificielles de son ancien compagnon en l'envoyant exporter la guérilla dans le vaste monde — et surtout, coupé de tout lien officiel avec le régime. Che Guevara finirait bien par mourir sur un champ de bataille ou un autre; resterait de lui son image inspirée et intemporelle, contrastant avec une dictature cubaine qui n'en finit pas de pourrir encore aujourd'hui. L'homme devint légende grâce à d'innombrables intellectuels de gauche cherchant à éviter l'erreur du soutien passé à Staline: mieux vaut rendre un culte à la personnalité d'un révolutionnaire mort qu'à celle d'un dictateur vivant. Son histoire fut soigneusement épurée et revue, les moments de gloire mis en avant et les périodes sombres gommées ou effacées. (Stéphane)

• C'était le moyen, pour Castro, de donner une image éternellement jeune à la révolution cubaine, alors que Castro et la révolution vieillissaient

Le statut d'icone de Che Guevara est une construction post-mortem, raconte Jacobo Machover dans son livre, La Face cachée du Che

• La victoire des barbudos a réveillé en l'intelligentsia française une vieille passion française pour la révolution

• Che Was a Mainstay of the Hardline Pro-Soviet Faction

The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system …
In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on. (Paul Berman on The Cult of Che)

• Che Guevara in 10 Quotes

• Commemorating the Death of Che Guevara the Baf Way

• Che Guevara, Revolutionary and Icon

• Channeling the dead for affirmation

• ¿Quiénes son los revolucionarios verdaderos?

• And here I thought under Communism we were all supposed to dispose of our bourgeois pleasures and eat our spinach

• Gaddafi Is Starting to Be Compared to Che Guevara, Allende, and Other Leftist Icons

• Compare with Bin Laden's Death at the Hands of the U.S.: When a Cuban Dissident Is Killed by Havana, Only a Couple of French Readers Bother Reacting

"Our government is for homosexuals, by homosexuals; and if you don't like it, you have no rights, no recourse, and no voice"

For those of you who need more convincing that homosexuals are aggressive perverts who do NOT "just want to be left alone"

Benjamin Duffy refers an internet page in which a mother testifies about 11-year-old children given a homework assignment to draw an erect penis ejaculating.

Our government does not work for us. Our government is for homosexuals, by homosexuals. And if you don't like it, you have no rights, no recourse and no voice.

"Don't ever let homosexuals tell you that they 'just want to be left alone'"

For some strange reason, Benjamin Duffy has a problem with "gay people" and doesn't really believe it when "homosexuals tell you that they 'just want to be left alone'." (Very strange that he should think that, I know…) He adds: "They are the aggressors in this culture war, no two ways about it…" Tony Perkins:

Few Obama administration appointments have been as startling as Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s appointment of Kevin Jennings, the homosexual founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), to head the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

…Jennings does not limit his promotion of homosexuality in schools only to high schools or middle schools. He wrote the foreword for a book titled Queering Elementary Education, which includes an essay declaring that “‘queerly raised’ children are agents” using “strategies of adaptation, negotiation, resistance, and subversion.”

Clueless America, Time to Take Some Lessons from Ultra-Brilliant Europeans

A Dutch TV jury has found Osama bin Laden not guilty of the Sept. 11 attacks

states The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Roxborough (dank u wel to our goed ould vrijnd Benjamin Duffy).

In the conclusion Wednesday night to the show "Devil's Advocate" on Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2, the jury of two men and three women, along with the studio audience, ruled there was no proof bin Laden was the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

…star defense attorney Gerard Spong standing up for some of the world's worst criminals … was able to convince the jury that bin Laden's connection to Sept. 11 was a product of "Western propaganda." The jury also ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove bin Laden was the real head of terrorist network al-Qaida. However, the jury did rule that bin Laden is a "terrorist who has misused Islam."

And who is this ultra-brilliant Spong fellow? Isn't somebody who is willing to stand up for some of the worst criminals — even if he is misguided — at least on the right track? No, because — in typical liberal invert-the-victims-and-the-criminals logic — (italics mine)

Spong has been … supporting legal action against anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders.

Would it be unfair to say that Osservatore's observation about one typical European would apply equally well to the self-important pieces of… I mean to the likes of Mijnheer Spong?

…he only rages against Americans … as he knows they are unlikely to strike physically!!! He'll go home and meditate as to why the Moslem "racaille" act the way they do and will find forgiveness……for they know not what they do.

"Because only Spartan women give birth to real men"

The comments filled with suspicion, skepticism, insults, and mockery, and others similar to them, in their reply to Christopher Cook's (belated but brilliant) review of 300, would be more inviting and more interesting (be sure to join the fray! — as Cook points out, "The lefties have found it [the review/article], and it's driven them mad! Thousands of visits and over 100 comments—a large number of which question [Cook's] sexual orientation, [his] lifestyle, or [his] intellectual credibility....and that of all conservatives") if their authors had left the same comments on the pages of such movies as Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, Redacted, and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911. Somehow, I don't really have reason to believe that many of them have. Indeed, I feel that if anything, many of the commentators probably felt elated by those movies. (In other words: double standards.)

As for the chickenhawk charge, it is dissected here and described exactly for what it is: an attempt to curtail free speech —

notice how this position can be turned against the so-called peace camp. If only a soldier can speak for the war, then how can somebody who is not a soldier speak against the war? If it so happened that (a majority of) the soldiers in Iraq were/are against the war, then yes, the anti-war position might make sense... In other words, my point is, shouldn't we be asking ourselves (and shouldn't the "pacifists" be asking themselves) what the soldiers themselves are saying about the war?

As Benjamin Duffy (a serviceman who, yes, did serve in Iraq) points out:

Military service is a prerequisite for supporting the war effort, whereas absolutely anyone can oppose it. If you have no military service, you can either agree with them or you can shut up. Forcing the other side to shut up is, in fact, the goal of the movement.

To quote one of No Pasarán's readers:

If you accept the "chickenhawk" premise that you can't support the war and ask the troops to put themselves into harm's way unles you yourself enlist, there are a couple of corollaries that I think apply:
1. if your house is being broken into, and you are not a police officer, you may not call the police; you have no right to ask them to risk their lives when you yourself are not willing to to do so.
2. if your house is on fire, and you yourself are not a fireperson, you may not call the fire department. You have no right to ask them to risk their lives when you yourself are not willing to do so.

(Be sure to read Penny's comment underneath…)

And here we can get a look at the gist behind all the comments here. They snicker, they snort, they bully, they insult, they ridicule, and it is quite obvious that they don't think that the opinions and comments by conservatives are worth much ink, space, thought, or debate. Unless I am mistaken, the gist of the comments betrays the attitude that conservatives should keep quiet and not be heard unless (or until the time) they agree with the liberals. Something like this, needless to say, is exactly what — on a much larger scale — we see in the mainstream media.

As the above list of liberal anti-war movies suggests — it is obviously far, far longer — the fact that there is one — one (!) — single movie that can be called conservative and/or pro-war is unbearable to them. That movie, too (and any like it), must be snorted about, pulled apart, maligned, and ridiculed.

And this brings us full circle to the other major topic of the Christopher Cook 300 post thread — the book Liberal Fascism — when Jonah Goldberg explains

how the liberal Gleichschaltung works; contrary voices are regulated, barred, banned when possible, mocked and marginalized when not, Progressive voices are encouraged, lionized, amplified — in the name of "diversity,'' or "liberation," or "unity," and, most of all, "progress."

Let it be pointed out that Jonah Goldberg's book is not (and correct me if I am mistaken) a one-sentence screed of …sneering, name-calling, and ridicule, but over 400 pages filled with evidence for his thesis. Here are some more outtakes that illustrate this evidence:

Fascism, at its core, is the view that every nook and cranny of society should work together in spiritual union toward the same goals overseen by the state. "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State," is how Mussolini defined it. Mussolini coined the word "totalitarian" to describe not a tyrannical society but a humane one in which everyone is taken care of and contributes equally. It was an organic concept in which every class, every individual, was part of the larger whole. The militarization of society and politics was considered simply the best available means toward this end.

…In the liberal telling of America's story, there are only two perpetrators of official misdeeds: conservatives and "America" writ large. Progressives, or modern liberals, are never bigots or tyrants, but conservatives often are. For example, one will virtually never hear that the Palmer Raids, Prohibition, or American eugenics were thoroughly progressive phenomena. These are sins America itself must atone for.

Meanwhile, real or alleged "conservative" misdeeds — say, McCarthyism — are always the exclusive fault of conservatives and a sign of the policies they would repeat if given power. The only culpable mistake that liberals make is failing to fight "hard enough" for their principles. Liberals are never responsible for their historic misdeeds, because they feel no compulsion to defend the inherent goodness of America. Conservatives, meanwhile, not only take the blame for events not of their own making that they often worked the most assiduously against, but find themselves defending liberal misdeeds in order to defend America herself.

One of the most maddening things that you will ever attempt to do

Trying to debate with a liberal is probably one of the most maddening things that you will ever attempt to do

says Benjamin Duffy.

Their modus operandi is to cut off the conversation as quickly as possible, usually by declaring your argument "out of bounds," according to their debate rule book.

What we didn't learn because our teachers were too busy presenting "Heather has Two Mommies" and various other liberal pet causes

When liberals talk about "informed democracy," it's usually a ruse to browbeat the already liberal media into moving further to the left

writes Benjamin Duffy.

They claim that the press is doing a poor job of informing the citizenry - which it is - but then complain that the press isn't doing a good enough job of disseminating the liberal talking points.

Being skeptical means having a "show me" attitude; It does not mean refusing to believe facts that are as plain as day

When casualties are up, that's news

writes Benjamin Duffy.

When casualties plummet precipitously, reporters stand around waiting for a "trend" to develop.

…Yes, it must have been excruciating listening to a retired general testify about positive trends in Iraq. … Yes, and we wouldn't want good news leaked to the media.

It's never enough for the homosexual lobby to do what they do "behind closed doors," as they like to put it

It's never enough for the homosexual lobby to do what they do "behind closed doors," as they like to put it

fumes Benjamin Duffy in the Daily Collegian.

No, the whole world has to approve of it, too. Everyone from the mayor to the parish priest has to celebrate their deviant sexuality.

…When homosexuals object to something, everyone else's rights go flying out the window. The gay rights movement, in their quest for "rights," have become one of the greatest threats to civil liberties.

"I have sworn before a picture of the old and mourned comrade Stalin that I won't rest until I see these capitalist octopuses annihilated"

Did [Che Guevara] keep a picture of Josef Stalin at home?

asks Benjamin Duffy.

Che's idolatry is bad enough, but it's even worse that Stalin was its object. Che once signed a letter to his aunt as "Stalin II," and even placed flowers on Stalin's tomb when visiting the USSR in 1960. If Che wanted to follow in the footsteps of his hero, he succeeded brilliantly.

…The future T-shirt icon … proclaimed to the press that his ideal societal model was Kim Il-Sung's North Korea. North Korea has been arguably the most unlivable spot on earth since the end of World War II. Guevara traveled there in 1965, saw the brutality and poverty with his own eyes, and then made it his goal to import that system to Latin America. As a champion of the poor, Che aspired to emulate a society that truly benefits its poorest inhabitants -anyone not named Kim Jong-il or Kim Il-Sung.

Most of the whining about Che's death seems to revolve around the fact that he was executed without trial, and that it was carried out by another one of those "U.S.-backed dictatorships" that they talk so much about. Well, that's true. Che was executed without a trial, and our country's relationship with Bolivia was one of many deals with the devil consecrated during the Cold War. Leftists always have a problem with U.S.-backed dictatorships, but never with Stalinist and Maoist stooges like — well, like Che Guevara.

…Actually, Che was a big fan of execution without a fair trial. As he once remarked, "To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary...These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate."

…So Che executed hundreds of people, and he's the hero. Felix Rodriguez executed Che, and he's the villain. Whose face belongs on a T-shirt?

Music to the ears of the left and their preconceived notions about poverty, crime, and military service in America

Jesse MacBeth's answer was music to the ears of the left and their preconceived notions about poverty, crime and military service in America, writes Benjamin Duffy.