Yo Bob! many thanks for this excellent, informative review by Associate
Professor Guilain Denoeux, however the article in the Nation Review from
New York of October 1 entitled 'Peace, False and True' left me in stunned
disbelief.
The concluding paragraphs (reproduced below) clearly demonstrate the
appalling belligerance of the author, one Richard Lowry, who has obviously
learned little if anything from history. With his Orwellian world-view
("War means Peace"), 'might means right' bellicosity and 'Dubya' Bush at
the helm, is it any wonder that American`s ruling elites and political
administration are loathed by millions of 'ordinary' peaceful people around
the world!
> > THE MORALITY OF WAR
> >
> > If pride characterizes many believers in peace-making, cowardice often
> > does as well. If not an active cowardice, at least an unwillingness to
> > face facts squarely, to act decisively to deter an adversary or force a
> > war before he has become too powerful. Indeed, it is the unquestioned
>capability
> > and political willingness to wage war that can achieve peace most
>assuredly.
> > This means giving up the comfortable pretensions of the peace-talker and
> > the equivocations of the careful diplomat, and making a choice. It
>requires
> > moral courage.
> >
> > And this leads us to probably the worst mistake of peace-- process
>liberalism-the
> > way it tends to ignore the morality of war-making (in the right
>circumstances,
> > of course). Were there any other developments that did so much to advance
> > the cause of human happiness and freedom in the 20th century as the
>Western
> > victories in World War II and then the Cold War? War is a force for good,
> > so long, of course, as the right side wins.
> >
> > In his new book Carnage and Culture, Victor Davis Hanson connects the
>West's
> > prowess at warfare over the last couple of millennia to the fact that it
> > is the right side. Its values, its spirit of free inquiry, its respect
> > for property rights, and its democratic self-governance create the
>conditions
> > for technologically advanced, prodigiously equipped, high-morale armies.
> > Indeed, it is the cultural superiority of Westernized, democratic Israel
> > that would help ensure its victory over the poor, disorganized kleptocracy
> > of the Palestinian Authority.
> >
> > And if they don't succeed in advancing Western values, wars at the very
> > least usually bring clarity. In long-running conflicts there is something
> > to be said for one side's finally winning. Edward Luttwak made this point
> > in a July 1999 Foreign Affairs article: "Imposed armistices . . .
>artificially
> > freeze conflict and perpetuate a state of war indefinitely by shielding
> > the weaker side from the consequences of refusing to make concessions for
> > peace." Yasser Arafat today can direct a terrorist war against Israeli
> > civilians precisely because the West intervened to save him from the
>consequences
> > of his military defeat in Lebanon in 1982.
> >
> > The World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks should serve to strip away
> > the assumptions of peace-process liberalism, at least for now, at least
> > until this persistent illusion has time to reassert itself. In the
>meantime,
> > world opinion should give Israel broad latitude if it decides to wage full
> > war on its tormentors. It won't be the war that is immoral, but the
>conduct
> > that prompted it; it won't be its winners who are blameworthy, but its
> > losers. As for the U.S. response to the September 11 attackers, it should
> > be fierce and unrelenting, serving the cause that animates virtually all
> > just wars: establishing the peace in a way that half-- measures and
>wishful
> > negotiations never can.
