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Thursday,
September 22, 2005 Cleanup day. My apologies to new
subscribers and those who renewed in the past few weeks. I will today clean
up all the registration paperwork, and get notes out to you all, and I can
only say it has been a hectic month: First NASFiC (which I had to attend
because of the Heinlein medal, but it wasn't a burden); the column ate up
the rest of the first part of the month, then PDC, and of course there's
Roberta's foot. My desk is under two feet of junk, the Great Hall looks as
if Katrina's younger cousin went through, and all in all I have got way
behind.
Why I Missed the National Review Party
My friend Cat held a big National Review party up at her house about a
block from here. I was a charter subscriber to National Review, back when
paying for it wasn't easy; but I didn't go because not long after the Iraqi
War started, National Review had the egregious Frum write an editorial
denouncing all those who weren't enthusiastic about our invasion of Iraq.
"As they turn their backs on us, we turn our backs on them." Then they
had "rebuttals" in which Frum got to insult Stephen Tonsor, something I
still have trouble understanding given Tonsor's stature. So I declined to go
up the hill, even though I was assured that the egregious Frum wouldn't be
attending.
I had thought I had pretty good conservative credentials, at least of the
old school. Possony and I wrote books together, Russell Kirk was a very old
friend and godfather to one of my sons, etc. I was, true enough, more Cold
Warrior than political philosopher, I did manage to be campaign manager for
Barry Goldwater Jr.'s first campaign for Congress, and more than one
conservative congressman knows who I am. I have a few credentials and can
claim a few accomplishments in slowing the mad rush to Jacobinism. But Frum
made it clear, those who weren't for the war from the start are to be
ignored. Without discussion or debate: "We turn our backs on them."
Incidentally I note that Buckley now says "If I had known then what I
know now, I would not have supported the war." Which is fair enough, but
National Review read out of the conservative movement all those who did know
then what he knows now: that invading a secular regime in Mesopotamia is not
the way to curb militant Moslem fanatics; that killing terrorists in
Mesopotamia while allowing the hotbeds and breeding grounds of the madras
system to flourish is futile since for each one killed there will be at
least one more to avenge him; and that while it is easy for the Army to
conquer these places, pacification requires constabulary, not Army, and the
tasks of soldiers are not those of constables; that Saddam was largely
deterred; and that the argument that if we do not fight them over there we
will have to fight them over here is true only if you continue to allow open
borders and unrestricted travel to the US.
And finally, that $300 billion is better spent on energy independence for
these United States than on breaking things and killing people in Iraq; or
even trying to pacify the old Turkish Empire provinces welded together into
a compensatory kingdom for the Hashemites. Well, some of us knew all that
then, and now presumably Buckley does as well; does Frum get to read him out
of the party? I confess I almost went up the hill to Cat's house just to ask
him, but I didn't really want to be the unpleasant guest at what Cat tells
me was
a pleasant party.
Now it remains true that we can't just cut and run. The neo-conservatives
have got us into a pickle, and if we cut and run now we hand the jihadists a
victory of great value and magnitude. That can't be the right way out of
that place. But it also remains true that we need to look very hard at how
we got into there; at what arguments induced us to believe that democracy
can be exported on the points of our bayonets; at the Jacobin assumptions
that seduced us into going abroad to seek monsters to slay. We need to look
very hard at the notion of expanding the standing army with foreign recruits so that we
can avoid conscription, and at the price of both conscription and a large
standing army; and we need to rethink the requirements of a global war on
terrorism. There are far better ways to wage that war than putting the
flower of our youth into Mesopotamia, disrupting the National Guard and
Reserve systems, and generally reorganizing for waging of overseas war of
long duration. Those are more the skills of empire than republic, and any
student of history, particularly our history, should know this. We need to
learn from our own history -- but then, until recently, that is precisely
how America did learn. By studying the New World Order we created one hot
summer in Philadelphia.
William Buckley once notably said that America was unique in that anyone
could study and learn to be an American. That was before "diversity" was
elevated to the chief goal of the land. Now we aren't sure what it means to
be an American although sometimes events like Katrina demonstrate some of
the best of what that used to mean. Is it not time that we turned our
attention to what we had all during the Cold War and are now losing? Would
it not be better to pay attention to the fading republic rather than seeking
overseas monsters to slay? But of course Adams warned us that losing our own
republic might well be a consequence of going abroad to slay dragons. I
suppose Frum turned his back on Adams as well -- assuming that he ever heard
of him.
Ah well.
But see below for discussion
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