Defeat a la France

As touched on in my previous post, I very much dislike the mainstream media and left-wing in our country (and abroad). The latest revelations about the secret terror fund tracking program and the cheerleading from the left are yet more examples of why I have no regard for either of them. The damage to U.S. national security is obvious and covered at length elsewhere, such as at the National Review. In addition to this, I am also concerned about the parallels between the behavior of the modern left in the face of this enemy, and the behavior of another nation under threat. Prior to the Franco-Prussian War, the French almost went out of their way to ensure they were defeated by the Prussians. Granted, France stood little chance of victory against a united Germany, but their rapid and humiliating collapse was only made possible by their weakness of spirit. I read the following passage from J.F.C. Fuller’s excellent A Military History of the Western World: Volume III and it has always stuck with me as an example of how a good nation destroys itself. It is from the French military attache in Berlin in early 1870.

“What, on the contrary, do we see in France? A Chamber that boasts itself as representing the people and which is its reflection, so far as levity and inconsistency are concerned… whose patriotism consists of spiteful recrimination or premeditated malice; who hide their incapacity and impotence under flowers of rhetoric, who pretend that they alone are anxious for the well being of the country, and who, to gain a factious popularity, dispute with the Government over one soldier, one franc… they seek to weaken France, they betray her into the hands of her most formidable enemy… a Press always vain and empty, whose leading journals descant on the most important subjects without in the least comprehending them, seeking to serve parties, not France… France has laughed at everything; the most venerable things are no longer respected; virtue, family, love of country, honor, religion, are all offered as fit subjects of ridicule to a frivolous and skeptical generation… Are not there things palpable signs of real decay?”

The highlighted sections in particular could have been written today about the mainstream media and the left here. It is further noted by the Prussian Chief of the General Staff Count von Moltke that the Prussians had little difficulty planning operations against the French since the Paris press kept nothing secret. Many on the left argue that since the terrorists know we are looking at their finances, revealing the terror fund tracking program, does not damage national security. Guess what? Von Moltke knew the French armies were maneuvering in the Champagne region to relieve the fortress of Metz. What was so damaging to France was that the press reported where and how the French armies were planning to relieve Metz. What is so damaging to America is the press, enabled by liberal defeaticrats in the federal bureaucracy, is reporting where and how we are tracking terrorists.

After reading about France's self-defeat, I always thought that at least we in America would never see such behavior. Sure in peace-time the left may gripe, the press may be willfully incompetent, traditional values are challenged, but never in a time of war. I know how frustrating it is to see the media gleefully expose every anti-terror program they can, to listen to the lefties claim they "support the troops" while criticizing everything our soldiers do, and to watch as the two work together to see that Bush is destroyed whatever the cost to the country they tell us they love. We can take heart in our modern situation because the similar internal decay represented by the left and the media is not a majority phenomenon in our great country. We conservatives and patriots who are not filled with “spiteful recrimination or premeditated malice” must take it upon ourselves work twice as hard supporting our troops and anti-terror efforts. We must provide twice as much moral support for our nation. We must try twice as hard to make sure the Democrats who would see France’s mistakes repeated here today are not voted into power. As it was noted by a military theorist after the war, “victory remains with the nation which holds ascendancy in science and moral force.” In this struggle, we will always hold ascendancy in science; it is our duty to strive twice as hard to cover the rot of the left and guarantee that America always holds ascendancy in moral force.