Mine Eyes Have Seen the Ingloriousness of a Terrible Swift Insanity
(posted by Mona)
With a h/t to Gavin M. at Sadly, No!, I simply pass along obscene scribblings from the devout Catholic, “pro-life” Mark Noonan — formerly of Blogs for Bush:
…but I dispute the notion - from whatever source - that war has been shorn forever of its glory. Churchill once opined that “war, which had been cruel and glorious, is now cruel and sordid”. And so it had become - but mostly because barbarians had entered the fray and the civilized had followed them right down into the barbaric gutter. The civilized have now recovered from that, and now we stand clearly differentiated from our barbaric enemies, and no matter what their outrages, we remember that we are civilized - and thus, glory has returned to war.”
Then Mr. Noonan quotes lyrics from The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and spews:
Written by a woman, there is a masculinity - and a joy - in these stanzas very much lacking in our discourse on war these days. Forthrightly, let us go into battle - the serpent still must be crushed, and we must abide the terrible, swift sword. Are we to forever go into battle haltingly? As if we fear it?
[...]
War is a terrible thing - but far more terrible is to cease being human; to become a sad, frightened caricature of men and women…people who seem like men and women, but who bear no relation to those genuine men and women of the past who swallowed their fears and went into battle transformed by knowledge of glory and steeled by the joyful knowledge that if they fell, it was for a noble cause, which would not be forsaken, or forgotten.
Seldom am I left with nothing to add, but about about Noonan’s cerebrations: Res ipsa loquitur.
March 28th, 2008 at 1:53 am
…”we stand differentiated from our barbaric enemies…”
Because they do torture, and use white phosphorus, and, you know, barbaric shit like that.
March 28th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Refresh my memory: in which active conflict did Mark Noonan’s own military service include combat duty?
March 30th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Obscene? Wow…didn’t know I’d done that…
March 30th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Mark Noonan: That is because your (very limited) notion of obscenity concerns only pelvic matters. War porn — hymns to its magnificence — is a species you are ideologically disposed to produce and drool over.