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America no longer gets away with murder
In an interview last week with the BBC, George Bush laid claim to something very similar to Charles I's Divine Right of Kings. For in answering a question about torture, Bush said that the President of the United States was justified in its use because in defence of God's own country no holds are barred.
In other words, the leader of a nation of such righteousness just had to be allowed to get away with murder. The smile that accompanied this declaration was so insufferable that the interviewer was dumbfounded.
In the old days, when America really did occupy the moral high ground, at least in the West, American presidents could get away with such statements. Indeed, except on the far Left, they struck a chord. If Barack Obama wins the next election, the US might once again begin to recover that degree of trust. But that will not happen quickly, and will not even begin to happen if the Cold War warrior Senator McCain wins. So for the foreseeable future, while the US may plausibly still remain the free world's shield, its strength as the West's conscience is fatally weakened.
Under such circumstances all talk of enforced regime change, let alone with nuclear weapons, has to be out of the question: something certain to do more harm than good. In today's world, therefore, it isn't pacifism which has to be dismissed as absurdly unrealistic - only for the birds - but rather bellicosity. An American-led war would not be so much bad as mad.
Politicians seem to think that to admit this truth would give aid and comfort to Islamist terrorists. Quite the opposite is true. Gandhi should be their mentor, not Churchill. ·
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Anyone with a bit of maturity, would know and understand that the USA does not act out of moral purpose, but out of self interest like any other super power has done, and will continue to do so.
Nations act to preserve themselves and further their interests. Most First Post readers are of course grown up enough, to know this. Unfortunately, this basic underlying fact of knowledge, seems to escape the simple minded or the simply American minded (like Troy Doby), whose naive stupidity dangerously threatens world peace.
However what Troy Doby advocates in his comment above (about withdrawing the United States from world affairs) is actually quite welcome. In addition he should mention, that they (USA) should also get their greedy claws of middle eastern oil. Stop propping up despicable dictators who suppress democracy. And stop paying for killings and murders of genuine grass roots democratic movements as they love to do in so many countries. This would certainly help the cause of freedom and democracy.
In his last line, Troy mentions Pakistan, as a taunt to the British. In case he forgot, this is the country that the USA outsourced the job of fighting the Soviet Union to. Billions of dollars were paid for this contract. American cash, for arms and training, that ultimately created the force we are currently fighting in Afghanistan. So frankly, Troy, it is more of an American (created) problem, than ours.
The First Post does good, by providing us the views of wise old hands like Peregrine Worsthorne. He speaks from the viewpoint of pragmatic realism, free of bullshit spin. We could do with more dosages of this realism, rather than the fanatic patriotic jingoism, that is leading us into oblivion.
John McCain may have had a crass outburst, but would he really bomb Iran? Hardened old veterans like the decorated Jacques Chirac know better than to go around shooting up the world. That's done by draft dodgers like Clinton and Bush.
The critique of the United States as the "free world's shield" yet also the West's "fatally weakened" conscience seems contradictory. How could the US remain the "free world's shield" while being a moral corpse? If it were a moral deadman, wouldn't it also cease to guard freedom?
Also, Mr. Worsthorne earlier suggests that a nation (America in the old days) that occupies the moral high ground can get away with the might-makes-right standard. Yet if a nation is on the moral high ground, why would might-makes-right apply? Wouldn't the moral high ground be the source of the right? Or is the writer here recognizing a sort of international affairs indulgences system for nation states?
Poor Troy - so typical an amerikan that he thinks a name with more than two syllables "shrieks pomposity".
Like many in that benighted land of religiosity, hubris and ignorance self righteousness he thinks that the t'rrists sprang fully armed as though from Zeus' head.
The only mystery of animosity to amerikan hegemony is that it took so long to come to fruitiion, a full fifty years of mendacious meddling with what they wot not.
I really loathe pompous fools like Peregrine Worsthorne. I mean the name kind of shrieks pompous, doesn't it? I am in favor of withdrawal tomorrow from Iraq and releasing those in Guantanamo to carry out their plans just as long as it isn't on American soil. But I wouldn't stop there. If it were up to me, the US would remove itself from NATO, kick the UN out of NY, and tell the world to take a hike because it is tired of guarding the world's interests. Guard your own sea lanes. Take care of Iranian nukes yourself. And because the threat to Americans comes directly from Europe, not the Mideast, I would end all visa-less travel to the US. I cannot imagine cooperating with anyone as insufferable as the Peregrine Worsthornes of Europe. That's how I would fix the "special relationship" because frankly it's your Pakistani problem not ours.