Did warmonger Max Boot recently say something mildly true? — a caveat

22 February 2019

Even deadly fools can occasionally say something true

"Neocon" Max Boot is a bellowing example of someone, who can say something narrowly accurate — and then ignore its core implication.

For example, in asserting that Americans are historically ignorant, Boot wrote that:

Is the study of history becoming, well, history?

A survey by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that [:]

“more Americans could identify Michael Jackson as the composer of ‘Beat It’ and ‘Billie Jean’ than could identify the Bill of Rights as a body of amendments to the U.S. Constitution,”

“more than a third did not know the century in which the American Revolution took place,”

and

“half of the respondents believed the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation or the War of 1812 were before the American Revolution.”

Oh, and

“more than 50 percent of respondents attributed the quote, ‘From each according to his ability to each according to his needs’ to either Thomas Paine, George Washington or Barack Obama [rather than to Karl Marx]."

You simply can’t understand the present if you don’t understand the past.

There is no more alarming case study of the consequences of historical ignorance than President Trump.

He has adopted a foreign policy mantra of “America First” seemingly without realizing (or so I hope!) that the original America First Committee of 1940-1941 was sympathetic to the Nazis.

And he has embraced tariffs seemingly without being aware of the disastrous consequences of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

Uh huh, Max — and what of your own record?

You seem to have forgotten that you thought that the disastrous American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were good ideas. Despite all the historical and long-standing cultural evidence against them.

Simply knowing History is not (in itself) enough to encourage intelligent strategizing.

Of Max Boot . . .

Tucker Carlson observed — in regard to a broader question regarding the prevalence of incompetence among American leaders:

The talentless prosper, rising inexorably toward positions of greater power, and breaking things along the way.

Max Boot is living proof that it’s happening in America.

“The September 11 attack was a result of insufficient American involvement and ambition,” Boot wrote.

Boot called for a series of U.S.-led revolutions around the world, beginning in Afghanistan and moving swiftly to Iraq.

Iraq remains a smoldering mess. The Afghan war is still in progress close to 20 years in.

Boot has remained utterly convinced of the virtue of his original predictions.

In the spring of 2003, with the war in Iraq under way, Boot began to consider new countries to invade.

He quickly identified Syria and Iran as plausible targets, the latter because it was “less than two years” from building a nuclear bomb.

North Korea made Boot’s list as well. Then Boot became more ambitious. Saudi Arabia could use a democracy, he decided.

Five years later, in a piece for The Wall Street Journal, Boot advocated for the military occupation of Pakistan and Somalia.

The moral? — History education needs an intellectually (and morally) more worthy promoter than Max Boot

Boot has only succeeded in demonstrating that — if an idiot-equivalent babbles long enough — he will eventually say something that sounds reasonable.

Boot's record unfortunately demonstrates that, even if one knows History, one still has to have the analytical capacity to interpret and implement its purported lessons.

No gold stars for you, Maxi.

I am with Tucker Carlson in questioning what it is about the American "experience" that populates our leadership with such an astonishing proportion of clearly demonstrated, malevolent dreck.

PeteFree.com

Did warmonger Max Boot recently say something mildly true? — a caveat