Jewish World Review Nov. 21, 2003/ 26 Mar-Cheshvan, 5764
Wesley Pruden
A band of brothers, challenged again
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There's no sign that George W.
Bush is about to "go wobbly on us," in
Margaret Thatcher's memorable
warning to George the Elder a decade
ago, but there's something bracing in
the cold November drizzle in Old Blighty
that the president ought to bottle and
bring home with him. (Just in case.)
Maybe it's the brisk, fresh air, or the
rain, but more likely it's the phantoms
that hover always close in London, the
ghost of Churchill bucking up his
country's courage when all he had to
offer was blood, sweat and tears; the
apparitions of the happy few, that band
of brothers, of "gentlemen in England
now abed [who] shall think themselves
accursed they were not here, and hold
their manhood's cheap whiles any
speaks that fought with us upon Saint
Crispin's day."
Something it was on the president's
trip, the adventure dismissed early in
the week as a bad idea that seemed a
good idea at the time, that stirred the
blood of both host and guest. "George
W. Bush's Whitehall address,"
observed London's Daily Telegraph, the
voice of the remaining virile elements of
the British establishment, "represented
the boldest challenge to the
conventional wisdom of the British and
European elites since Woodrow Wilson
preached the rights of
self-determination of smaller nations
after the First World War."
It's just that conventional wisdom
the notion that Western civilization is
exhausted and Britain and Old Europe
have to cut the best deal they can and
resign themselves to living under the
domination of resurgent radical and
oppressive Islam that President Bush
wants to demolish and discard. The
president believes that the West need
not succumb to the tyranny of despots
steeped in the ignorance and
intolerance of the 12th century;
terrorism and rogue states can be
vanquished on the West's terms. Unlike
Europe, which has lost all its postwar
struggles with insurgencies, "America is
fighting this battle at the height of its powers."
The president at Whitehall scorned the old formula of
indulging the corruption and criminality of supposed "allies" in
Arabia. "We must shake off decades of failed policy in the
Middle East," the president said. "Your nation and mine in the
past have been willing to make a bargain to tolerate
oppression for the sake of stability. Long-standing ties often
led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain
did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time
while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold.
We will expect a higher standard from our friends in the
region."
He couldn't bring himself to say who these dear friends
may be, but everyone knew he was talking about Syria, Egypt
and Saudi Arabia. This kind of talk frightens Old Europe and
the easily frightened friends of Old Europe in certain
well-known American ZIP codes. Old Europe is always easily
frightened, always eager to buy a few more minutes of
freedom at the price of a despot's brutality. Fascism and
communism, the evil twins of the ideology of the bloody
century now just past, were born in Old Europe, nurtured in
Old Europe and prospered in Old Europe until confronted and
finally conquered by what the French call, with spite, envy and
the disdain of the curled Gallic lip, "the Anglo-Saxons." Just
as it was the determination of FDR and Churchill that sealed
the destruction of the Nazis, so it was the determination of
Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher that sealed the doom
of the evil empire rooted in Moscow. "The Anglo-Saxons," to
use Jacques Chirac's intended insult, always summon the
courage to confront evil. Old Europe seeks accommodation at
any price.
The latest carnage in Turkey, which took the lives of the
British consul-general among the dozens of dead,
underscores the size of the new threat to civilized men. "Once
again we are reminded of the evil these terrorists pose to
people everywhere and to our way of life," Tony Blair, with
George W. at his side, said last night in London. "There must
be no holding back, no compromise, no hesitation in
confronting this menace."
This is the spirit of the moment that George W. Bush must
bring home with him. The times call for the true grit of that
earlier war that bound Britain and America together against a
wicked orthodoxy. The usual good manners of prim, proper
Republicans, eager to make nice with compromise and
compliments for the religion of peace, won't cut it. George W.
must come home fortified by strong medicine.
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JWR contributor Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
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