....Yet no one would believe these lessons of the past if they watched the current television commercials or listened to Nelson Mandela or the doomsday warnings of our actors, novelists, professors, and political activists — all of whom assure us that we are immoral or promise that we will fail miserably should we invade Iraq.

Yet remember, this is also an age of untruth and boutique piety. "Internationalism" and "multilateralism" can mean that Libya, which butchered the people of Chad, adjudicates human rights; that Syria, which practiced genocide, sits on the "Security" Council, and that the two gassers, Iran and Iraq, discuss protocols of illegal weaponry — even as the Nobel Peace prize goes to the terrorist Yasser Arafat, to a Korean statesman who bribed a mass murderer for the chance at a summit, and to an ex-president who was praised by his benefactors precisely for criticizing his own government at a time of crisis and war.

Strange and depressing times.

So let us trust in reason and history, rather in hysteria and self-righteous bluster. [National Review]

Rather stark differences - why does Fantham believe as she does? The answer is quite easy, really:

Later, at Oxford, she focused on the period of the Roman Republic from 264 B.C., the First Punic War, to 44 B.C., the death of Julius Caesar. Rome was under attack and part of the time fighting the Punic wars against Carthage. "Hannibal brought his army right up to the gates of Rome," she said. "Rome was a war city. We used to compare it with Hitler crossing the British Channel. Rome almost didn't survive. When I was a little kid, the whole of Europe was occupied by Germany. Britain stood alone. I remember it all. I've always been sympathetic with the underdogs."

This goes a long way to explaining the views of many on the left: it's just not fair that we are so much stronger than our enemies, they are the underdog and many people favor the underdog no matter how vile or dangerous they may be. Perhpas many in Europe were so traumatized by WWll that they instinctively mistrust the "overdog," no matter how morally superior it may be.