For more than 60 years, the United States Armed Forces have made freedom in the western world possible. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard have patrolled, monitored, guarded, and fought and died so that the interests of the United States and the freedoms enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people in Europe and elsewhere are protected.

Anyone who believes any differently has the blessed luxury of never being vouchsafed the opportunity to be proved wrong.

I actually wish sometimes that people like this insufferable lout would have had such an opportunity. For contained in this piece by the Times Online’s Martin Samuel is all the snide, superior, self-important, simpering, self-indulgent CRAP that we’ve been hearing from the European left almost since the sound of Nazi jackboots stopped echoing down the cobblestone streets of Mitteleuropa.

Never recognizing an enemy in the Soviet Union, the European left and their American cousins (who were more than eager to copy their more fashionable relations in denouncing their own country) always had the safest perch on the planet from which to pontificate and lecture America regarding her wayward course. Shielded by both American arms and the tolerance of their own governments for dissent, the titanic irony inherent in the left’s critiques of American foreign policy completely escapes them. They are so full of themselves and their utter, self-congratulatory goodness not to mention being blinded by the light of personal moral truth, that the very thought of even needing protection from anything never enters their minds.

And so, we must shine the light of day on writings from Mr. Samuel and other leftist scum so that their hubris and willful self-delusions can be seen for what they are; birdcage lining.

Writing about the inspiring story of a new warship being built using the steel salvaged from the wreckage of the twin towers, Samuel reminds us why it is sometimes amusing to fantasize about a world with no America where people like this useless git of a man would be exposed to the cruelty and capriciousness of the various nation states who have sought to enslave him and his fellows for almost 100 years:

On August 28, 2002, Mr Pataki’s wish was granted with the result that 24 tons of steel from the stricken buildings was taken to New Orleans and put to use by Northrop Grumman Systems in the construction of an amphibious assault ship that should be ready next year. In this way, the 2,800 souls that perished as an indirect result of an interventionist foreign policy that achieved the exact opposite of its stated aims can be honoured by a vessel built to ensure that this flawed cycle of violence continues. The USS New York will carry 360 soldiers and 700 combat-ready Marines. It puts to sea with the motto: “Never forget.” Except they do. They always do.

No sooner had work begun on the New York when the Secretary of the Navy announced that sister ships were to be built called the USS Arlington, after the Pentagon site that was hit by terrorists, and the USS Somerset, the Pennsylvania county in which Flight 93 came down. The ships would commemorate the attacks, if that is the right word, which it is plainly not. Exactly what is being commemorated anyway? Not the memory of the victims, as nothing is known of how they want to be remembered, and certainly not whether they would wish a warship to be dedicated in their name. Who knows in which direction their anger would be channelled? It could be that some of the dead might have thought over-reliance on warships was their downfall in the first place.

First, as to the “memory of the victims” and what they would think of a ship constructed of pieces from the twin towers, let’s ask a few of the families:

For Patrick Cartier Sr., the ship is an honorable way to remember his son, James Marcel Cartier, who was killed when the South Tower collapsed.

“You’ve got the very soul of the event in that mangled steel, and all of that steel which housed all the people fell along with them and they were all consumed in that terrible fireball and that collapse,” the New York City man said.

Using the steel for the new ship would capture the spiritual essence of those who died in the World Trade Center, Cartier said.

“If you would you use that steel, it would almost be a resurrection,” he said.

New York City firefighter Bill Butler also praised turning the steel from the World Trade Center into a fighting vessel.

“It’s a great testament to the strong will of the people who died that day,” said Butler, who was in the North Tower when it collapsed.

A “resurrection” indeed. One would think that many of the survivors of that horrible day would wish that the remains of their loved ones, which due to the heat and pressure of the collapse have been fused and made one with that very same steel, would deeply appreciate the significance of constructing a ship made to fight a war to make sure that such an event doesn’t happen again.

Not surprisingly, this sentiment escapes the clueless Mr. Samuel and instead, we’re treated to a laughable recitation of leftist canards about American foreign policy:

The respected columnist Roger Cohen, writing in The New York Times, identified just 14 years since 1945 when America had not been at war, in some form or other, either metaphorical (the Cold War, the War on Terror) or literal (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq). Some might think the two states do not compare. Then again, some of us have never tried to form a left-wing government in Chile, appeared before the Senate Permanent Investigations Sub-Committee led by Senator Joe McCarthy or been instructed to form a naked pyramid by a gap-toothed cracker with a semi-automatic weapon and a weird girlfriend.

Some aspects of metaphorical wars turn out very real for certain people. They have a habit of becoming tangible for the rest of us, too. The Cold War became a very hot one in Asia. The War on Terror unleashed the invasion of Iraq. And while USS New York may currently be serving metaphorically as a symbol of American indefatigability and courage, it will one day be engaged in a genuine sense in the propagation of a foreign policy that continues to contribute to recycled violence, from continent to continent, with New York office workers the occasional collateral damage. To turn the rubble they left behind into the machinery for the next big mistake shows an ignorance of cause and effect that explains why some still believe George Bush and Tony Blair were right about the war, but wrong about the peace; as if the two can be separated. Our mistake was that we didn’t have an exit strategy, they say. Makes the entrance a pretty dumb-ass move, then, doesn’t it, Sparky?

Everyone who “still believe[s] George Bush and Tony Blair were right about the war, but wrong about the peace” please raise your hands. Anyone? Buehler? Buehler? And of course, the next canard being “Our mistake was that we didn’t have an exit strategy, they say,” evokes more cricket chirping if one were to ask for a vote on who in their right mind ever said or even contemplated saying such a thing.

That’s not even a strawman that anyone can knock down, it’s an invisible man. And the confidence shown by Samuel that that the “next big mistake” will happen as a result of these other mistakes that were never made because they exist only in his fevered imagination makes for some real cramping of the Cerebral Cortex when trying to ascertain just what the heck he’s trying to say. I guess it gave him a chance to use the phrase “dumb-ass” (hyphented, of course) in the staid and august Times, perhaps even a first.

As for the rest of Samuel’s morally relativistic rant, it is the exact same foofooraw Americans have been listening to from our intellectual superiors in Europe for more than 50 years. There’s a recording somewhere, I’m sure, that these lickspittles listen to several times a week that sings the same tune about America and the “cycle of violence” and Allende (a thug who admired that other leading light of illiberality Fidel Castro), and Joe McCarthy’s mean spirited yet frighteningly spot on anti-Communist crusade that was sung by their older brothers, fathers, and grandfathers. I see that Samuel has added something new to the old song by throwing Abu Ghraib up in our faces. Good thing we don’t delve too deeply into the colonial history of his country. They had some torture parties in India and Africa that made Abu Ghraib look like fraternity hazing.

Samuel belittles the way workers at the shipyard handled the steel from the towers while positing the outlandish notion that a vessel built to replace other, more obsolete vessels, somehow is an indication that our force posture is, by definition, aggressive and hostile:

Since the September 11 attacks, the familiar argument is that the West did not start this war, but is determined to finish it. Yet the USS New York with its 700 combat-ready Marines was already on the drawing board before the World Trade Centre was hit, in all but name. Had the towers not fallen, there would still be a deadly billion-dollar vessel under construction in Louisiana. It would just be called the Saucy Sue and might not be built from the habitats of dead people and imbued with such heavy symbolism that workers in the shipyard are said to have treated its components with religious reverence.

This is why the left in America voted against every major weapons system during the 1980’s. Their reasoning was “We already have a tank. What do we need another one for?” and “Who cares if our bombers were built in the 1950’s?” fails to take into account the obsolescence of systems and hardware. The USS New York is a new kind of ship that is being built to replace an older class of assault craft that will be retired by 2015. The USS New York will be part of a Navy that has seen its surface ships reduced from 489 to 267 since 1991. The Army has been reduced by almost a third. Only the Air Force has maintained its strength, being reduced less than 10% during the same period.

But don’t tell Samuel any of this. It will explode his thesis of American “aggression.”

And what of the yard workers who “imbued” that steel from the twin towers with such significance?

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, La., to cast the ship’s bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, “those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,” recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. “It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.”

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the “hair on my neck stood up.”

“It had a big meaning to it for all of us,” he said. “They knocked us down. They can’t keep us down. We’re going to be back.”

Yes, we silly, stupid Americans, getting all choked up about the fruits of our aggression. Kind of makes one wonder how Samuel would enjoy a ride in the New York with those 700 Marines. Who knows, they might even go to somewhere that he would approve; say, Darfur? Of course, Mr. Samuel doesn’t mention that anytime, anywhere in the world such missions are needed, there is only one nation that can undertake the rescue of the threatened. And it ain’t France.

The idea of turning the twisted, melted steel from the twin towers into a ship of war was one of the most scathingly brilliant ideas our military has had since 9/11. And the tired, familiar complaints from lefties like Samuel notwithstanding, I have no doubt the vast majority of Americans agree.

UPDATE

In Training weighs in with some pithy comments directed toward Mr. Samuel:

Mr. Samuel, go jump in a lake. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be upset over this, he’s just another one of those peace-loving-everybody-hug-and-the-bad-will-all-go-away guys. I know this. Really I do.

And then this – an interesting trade, no?

OK, Martin, let’s make a deal. We won’t use steel from the WTC to construct warships. We’ll use them for cages at secret prisons.

Hee!

And Perry de Havilland makes several excellent points in his brilliantly understated way:

I love it when ‘sophisticated’ and ‘nuanced’ Brits and Europeans lecture Americans about history, given the millions and millions of corpses littered across Europe within living memory. Attacks by people from abroad are caused by interventionist foreign policies, clever Mr. Samuel tells us, with his wise Old World perspectives, which of course explains how places like Poland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Czechoslovakia etc. managed to sit out World War II in peace by minding their own business.

Moreover whilst nothing is guaranteed in this life, as close to certainty as you may ever come is when someone says “While not excusing wicked acts committed by terrorists…” they are about to do exactly that.