The American left has long deplored Bush's rhetorical reliance on such vulgar conceits as "good" and "evil." But it seems even "victory" is a problematic concept, and right now the momentum is all for defeat of one kind or another. America is talking itself into willing a defeat that has not (yet) occurred on the ground, and would be fatally damaging to this nation's credibility if it did. Last year Arthur M. Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, gave a commencement address of almost parodic boomer narcissism, hailing his own generation for their anti-war idealism. Advocating defeat first time round, John Kerry estimated America might have to relocate a few thousand local allies. As it happens, millions died in Vietnam and Cambodia. And the least the self-absorbed poseurs like Sulzberger could do is occasionally remember that the world is about more than their moral vanity.
The open defeatists on the Democrat side and the nuanced defeatists among "moderate" Republicans seem to think that big countries can choose to lose small wars. After all, say the "realists," Iraq isn't any more important to Americans than Vietnam was. But a realpolitik cynic knows the tactical price of everything and the strategic value of nothing. This is something on an entirely different scale from the 1930s: Seventy years ago, Britain and Europe could not rouse themselves to focus on a looming war; today, we can't rouse ourselves even to focus on a war that's happening right now. Read 100 percent of the Democratic presidential candidates' platforms and a sizeable chunk of the Republicans': We're full of pseudo-energy for phantom crises and ersatz enemies, like "global warming.''
If indeed the United States is about to enter another period of inward-looking defeatism and doubt, this will of course be bad news for the world, but particularly for America’s supporters and allies. For if America-on-the-march can be a little short-fused about criticism from so-called friends, America battening down the hatches is often prepared to sell them out altogether in a desperate attempt to find short term accommodations with her enemies. Not only were the 1970's marked by a steep decline in America’s relative military might, they were also a decade where totalitarianism spread and no one was liberated except in isolated cases of residual colonialism like Rhodesia–and we all know how well that turned out. And it was a decade where the naive lurching of leaders like Carter from one shortsighted “outreach” after another caused much of the free world, and many of America’s natural supporters, to lose confidence in her as a predictable beacon of world liberty, stability and prosperity. Exactly how the left prefers it.
1 comment:
Yes on all counts.
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