-Caveat Lector-
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/valor.html
The Valor of the Columnists
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
The
war appears to enjoy wide support, which gives the warmongers an
opportunity to appear populist in their writing. National Review,
for example, seems to have suddenly discovered that wisdom of the
common man in contrast to the "cultural elites" who are
said to have the most doubts about the war. Completely out of
character,
Ramesh Ponnuru, Rich Lowry, and the gang have risen to the defense
of the workers and peasants.
What
National Review doesn�t mention is the absence of support among the
working class for the foreign policies that got us into
this mess in the first place. I�d venture a guess that there�s less
than 1 percent backing among full-time workers who earn less than
$30,000 per year for permanent stationing of American troops in
Saudi Arabia, for example.
War
populism is one thing. Far more bizarre is a related phenomena: the
rise of blood-soaked rhetoric among the non-enlisted punditry
class as a substitute for the display of classical virtues. This
style is called various names, like Jacksonian or Churchillian.
In this model of writing, nothing you say is too outrageous. The
stronger your rhetoric, the more elevated the language ("we
must vanquish the forces of evil"), the more courage, valor,
and moral conviction it is said to represent, even when what you
are advocating is immoral.
The
idea is to appear, as you type into your word processor, to be
unflinching
in the face of the enemy, to contemplate and mentally conquer the
possibility of horror. The ultimate objective is to break down the
normal sense of morality that readers have ("Isn�t it wrong
to punish or kill innocent people?") and replace it with a
new wartime ethic and language ("No robust defense of national
interests can rule the possibility, however regrettable, of
civilian
casualties").
Another
trope is the use of the first person plural. "We must send
in ground troops." "Our resolve must not lag." Never
mind that the writer is neither a decision maker nor a fighter.
This by itself is strange. If I said, "We must increase the
production of Cadillacs," the normal response would be to ask
what executive position at GM I hold. The listener would be
confused
to discover that I hold no position at all. Writers who use the
first person plural to discuss US foreign policy do this all this
time, but hardly anyone raises a question.
Let
go on to an example. Rich Lowry has issued a call "to send
U.S. troops in on the ground to capture key cities and hold that
which we consider strategically essential.... there is no avoiding
these hard decisions�because there are no free lunches, including
in Afghanistan." Thus do we see how the courageous Rich, as
a mere web journalist, has conquered the national reluctance ("hard
decision") to send young men and women into a poor land, where
there are hardly any paid lunches, to conquer and occupy civilian
areas.
Rich
is himself impressed by an even more vivid example of this style of
thinking: Senator John McCain in an article for the Wall Street
Journal:
"War
is a miserable business. The lives of a nation's finest patriots
are sacrificed. Innocent people suffer and die. Commerce is
disrupted, economies are damaged. Strategic interests shielded by
years of patient statecraft are endangered as the exigencies of war
and diplomacy
conflict. However heady the appeal of a call to arms, however just
the cause, we should still shed a tear for all that will be lost
when war claims its wages from us."
Very
chilling indeed. But McCain would have us believe that his
frankness
and courage have permitted him to deal with the awful realities
to a greater extent than mere mortals.
"We
must expect and prepare for our enemies to strike us again.... We
cannot fight this war from the air alone. We cannot fight it without
casualties. And we cannot fight it without risking unintended damage
to humanitarian and political interests.... We must destroy them,
wherever they hide. That will surely increase the terrible danger
facing noncombatants, a regrettable but necessary fact of war....
We shouldn't fight this war in increments.... War is a miserable
business. Let's get on with it."
Bracing
stuff. We are supposed to respond with awe at his supposed
toughness
of mind. And yet even McCain couches matters just a bit more than
is necessary in these times. He is still too guarded and not fully
embracing the grim reality. For example, there�s no need to talk
of "unintended damage" to "humanitarian...interests"
when he really means imposing massive suffering and death on wholly
innocent people.
And
what�s with this "unintended" qualifier? Let�s say I wave
a gun around the room and shout: "When I shoot this, I may
unintentionally kill you." In court, will I be convicted of
involuntary manslaughter or murder? McCain is talking here about
doing exactly what he intends. Let�s not pussyfoot around.
McCain
has stepped up the rhetoric, but not enough. If he and his
editorial
cohorts are really serious about this war, and truly committed to
appearing brash and brawny to the readers of the world, they must
move beyond euphemism altogether. Thus do I offer my own contribution
to the escalation of courage notable among the writers of our time:
"Now
is the time for us to stand up for honor and decency against vile
foreign elements that threaten our way of life. Let us murder every
foreign Muslim man, women, and child, and starve those we can�t
find with cruel blockades, allowing anyone who remains to die
miserable deaths from disease, even if it means hurting our economy
and sending thousands of American men and women to their own violent
deaths, leaving their own children and spouses abandoned. Let us
flatten
every mud hut, kill every goat and goatherd, blow the arms off
little
children with our bright yellow cluster bomblets. Do it with
strength
and honor, and do it now.
"This
may incite more terrorism at home. We will endure it. Our cities
may be bombed, our water poisoned, our highways wrecked, our
hospitals
turned into morgues. No price is too high.
"And,
friends, we may never get Bin Laden. May we never stop trying. The
Taliban may actually grow in strength, as governments attacked by
foreigners tend to do. We will not flinch. We may cause every decent
person in the entire world to despise America. But we will show
the world that no insult can break our will. Our government may
never again allow a foreign visitor or product to pass our borders.
We will adjust and prevail.
"Yes,
we will have to give up our liberty, property, and even family
members.
The money we earn from our jobs will be taken by the government
and spent to create more weapons of mass destruction to be dropped
on foreign people�s homes, hospitals, and water-treatment plants.
They will thirst but have no drink, because we paid to destroy
their
clean water. They will hunger but find no food, because we made it
possible to destroy their crops and any means of transport.
"Your
son, whom you have nursed from sickness to health many dozen times
from infancy through his teen years, may be slaughtered on some
godforsaken mountain between China and the Caspian sea, because
that�s where your government sent him to kill or be killed. Your
daughter, whom you comforted through adolescence and later dressed so
beautifully for the prom, may be ripped to shreds. So great is
your courage and determination that this is the price you will pay.
"This
war may never end. Every bomb we drop will create more enemies,
and thus more people who must be killed. We will go anywhere to
do this. If we discover that the Czech Republic or Costa Rica or
even Berkeley, California, harbors these enemies, they too will
become targets of our wrath. There is no place safe from the sword
of justice!
"Your
fellow citizens who have lent aid and comfort to the enemy, in
thought,
word, or deed, will be humiliated, robbed, jailed without trial. As
for war supporters, we are safe so long as we never disagree
with our government�s official line, which is the very definition
of truth. "To
eliminate freedom and replace it with a police state is what our
high ideals require of us. For we know that no matter what happens,
it is the fault of our enemies, for they dare to believe of
themselves what we believe of ourselves. Let us get on with the war!"
October
30, 2001 Llewellyn
H. Rockwell, Jr. [send
him mail], is editor of LewRockwell.com.
Copyright
� 2001 LewRockwell.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
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"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
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"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
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