May 13, 2004
BUT THIS TIME IT'S DIFFERENT... (via John Resnick):
The saviour of democracy is run by a unilateral bully (Martin Wolf, May 12, 2004, Financial Times)
I am a huge admirer of the US. Freedom and democracy survived the 20th century only because of American actions and values. Without the US, Hitler or Stalin would have emerged as undisputed winners of the second world war. Thereafter, the US turned defeated enemies into allies and undertook the long - and ultimately successful - task of containing and defeating the Soviet empire.I am also neither hostile to Republican administrations nor opposed to the use of force. On the contrary, I was heartened by Ronald Reagan's efforts to liberalise the US economy and oppose the Soviet Union. I preferred Richard Nixon to George McGovern, in 1972, and George H.W. Bush to Michael Dukakis, in 1988. I supported the first Gulf war, though I opposed the one in Vietnam.
This personal history is of no intrinsic importance. But if I find the Bush administration's foreign policy disturbing, so must the vast majority of humanity. If I feel Tony Blair has allied the UK too closely, then sympathy for this alliance must be perilously low.
So, if it was musing enough to read Jean-Francois Revel's 1971 book, Without Marx or Jesus alongside his 2003 book, Anti-Americanism, and realize that they essentially treated the same topic, the other day I was rereading God's Country and Mine by Jacques Barzun, which was written in 1954 and likewise defends against European/Leftist anti-Americanism. Here's a simple rule of thumb: when someone first states their love of freedom and democracy and then says they oppose our getting rid of Saddam Hussein, they were lying to begin with. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 13, 2004 3:31 PM
His opening sentence reminds me of the "We are friends of America's" claims by France, Germany, et al., in the last few years. Friends and admirers don't have to claim they are such. Their deeds show it.
Posted by: brian at May 13, 2004 4:13 PMYes, fighting a conventional enemy makes it a lot easier to conduct a foreign policy that the debating classes can all agree on. Even then, many of those with whom Mr Wolf has now allied himself, opposed and obstructed our struggles against international communism; had to be dragged kicking and screaming to support the more "popular" recent wars (Afghanistan and the Guld War) after saturating the discussions with serious reservations (based on horribly wrong prognostications); and when they did join in provided hardly any material help (this is most certainly true about the so called multi-lateral Afghan campaign). What makes Mr Wolf think this crowd finally got it right, and right enough to atone for their earlier moral and intellectual bankrupcy.
Posted by: MG at May 13, 2004 4:40 PMLately I've been seeing a lot of criticism of Bush, Rumsfeld, et.al. of the type, "I don't like what they are doing." No specifics, nothing that they've actually done wrong, or should have done instead, just "feelings." I think it's a case of buyer's remorse because such critics are usually the left-of-center types who never would have supported Bush under any circumstances if the World Trade Center was still standing. As the election approaches I expect to see a lot of these Andrew Sullivan types writing how they used to support the "war on terror" but now have second thoughts and can't support Bush anymore.
These are the true "chickhawks".
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at May 13, 2004 5:01 PM954?! I knew Barzun was ancient, but...
Posted by: David Hill, The Bronx at May 13, 2004 6:13 PMThe last statement of O.J.s final comment.
Posted by: genecis at May 13, 2004 8:56 PMThe fine art of nuance:
"I hate those lying, thieving, torturing, murderous, tyrannical scumbags. They should all go to hell.
"But I must say, I simply can't support the US decision to remove them. The US can't seem to do anything the way it really ought to be done, you know, with the right amount of panache, grace, skill, or...je n' sais quoi. Utterly hopeless chaps. Simplistic cowboys. And why is Tony Blair supporting such gauche incompetence. It gives us a bad name. It's simply unbearable."
Posted by: Barry Meislin at May 14, 2004 3:14 AM