Getting Serious
Questions
for the peaceniks.By Pete du Pont
The Wall Street Journal
March 14, 2003
Protests against war in Iraq have been raging all across America and England as well as Continental Europe. Passionate peace protests are nothing new; we saw them in 1933 when the British Oxford Union declared it would "in no circumstances fight for its King and country," against the Vietnam War in the 1970s, and in 1983 against NATO's proposal to install Pershing missiles to defend Western Europe against Soviet Russia.
So the signs, slogans and emotions are familiar. And so are the questions we ought to be asking the peace protesters.
Peace is important, but is peace without freedom acceptable?
The Soviet Union was at peace between the two world wars and from 1945 until its collapse in 1989, and in those times managed to shoot, starve or kill in the gulag more than 20 million of its own people. In Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution, China killed and starved many millions more. Pol Pot in a Cambodia at peace killed two million Cambodians. Zimbabwe is at peace, but dictator Robert Mugabe is starving his subjects. North Korea is at peace, and enslaving and starving its people. Iraq is, likewise, oppressing its people.
To quote columnist Andrew Sullivan, "War is an awful thing. But it isn't the most awful thing." Enslaved peoples and peace without freedom are worse.
If you believe peace is paramount, which of the following wars would you not have fought:
? The Gulf War of 1991, which liberated Kuwait from Iraqi invasion and terrorism?
? World War II against Nazi Germany?
? The American Revolutionary War?
? The Civil War?
? The Korean War?
? The war that freed Afghanistan from the Taliban?
And if at the height of the Berlin blockade in 1948 the Soviet army had attacked West Germany, Belgium and France, would you have opposed an American military response?
Why will appeasement succeed with Saddam Hussein when it has failed with so many other dictators?
In the 1930s, European powers pursued collective security through the League of Nations, which they thought preferable to war. But when Mussolini invaded Ethiopia, the league did nothing. In 1938 Britain and France appeased Hitler by giving him most of Czechoslovakia, and Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich proclaiming to cheering crowds that Britain had achieved "peace for our time." Hitler had built a massive army and air force, but British policy was pacifist; the government assured its citizens that Hitler was a reasonable fellow and had given his word in Munich, so he wouldn't use his newly constructed, powerful military. The League of Nations failed, appeasement failed, and World War II followed.
Collective security through the United Nations failed in Bosnia in the 1990s. For three years the U.N. sent food and passed resolution after resolution while the Serbs killed thousands of Bosnian Muslims. No air strikes were allowed against the Serbs since that would mean the U.N. "might be taking sides." Gen. Ratko Mladic then took 350 U.N. peacekeepers hostage and chained some to military targets to prevent attacks. NATO and the Clinton administration finally authorized air strikes in 1995, and the Bosnian terror ended in a few months. Appeasement failed while American-led military action succeeded. It ended ethic cleansing and freed people from systematic oppression and murder.
Appeasement is failing in Iraq too, where Saddam Hussein has defied 17 U.N. resolutions over 12 years. Iraq is remains in material breach of Resolution 1441, and its dictatorial leader has not been disarmed.
May the United States take action to prevent attacks--before they occur--on its territory or people?
Two months before Pearl Harbor FDR ordered the Navy to aggressively patrol the North Atlantic to defend against German submarines. He said: "Do not let us split hairs. Let us not say, 'We will only defend ourselves if the torpedo succeeds in getting home, or if the crew and passengers are drowned.' This is the time for prevention of attack." He was right; prevention of attacks is a sound idea.
If not America, who? If not now, when?
The UN has not disarmed Saddam. Will France? Belgium? Saudi Arabia? Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Saddam possesses VX nerve agent and probably large quantities of smallpox and anthrax as well as the capability of making much more. He also has the missiles to use them against other nations. There is no question that Saddam would use these weapons. (Why else would he be holding onto them at risk of being removed from power by the United States?). He has used some of them before, in Iran and against other Iraqis. Saddam's leading enemy--the big target--is the United States of America. He won't attack France; he'll attack us. So the risk is ours, and the responsibility is ours.
The objectives of America's security policy are first, to protect America and Americans; second, to prevent terrorist attacks against other democratic nations. Ending state sponsorship of terrorism--by Iraq, Iran, Syria or North Korea--goes a long way to meeting the first and second objectives. America's security objectives also call for changing the failed political culture of the Arab region.
People in these nations hate America because they envy us. Their societies have failed while democratic capitalism has succeeded. Such societies have failed in the Middle East because of a restrictive religion, the lack of education, the subjugation of their population (especially women), socialist economies and government control over of information. In their rage, subjugated people strike back at Americans and Jews, who have done much better than they have. Have we not the right to protect ourselves against such attacks--and also to address the tyranny that is their root cause?
Finally, Abraham Lincoln said there was no middle ground between freedom and slavery. Can there be a middle ground between freedom and terrorism?
Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis . His column appears once a month. Hehe, funniest ever.... NY POST March 16, 2003
KEANU REEVES:Who wouldn't get pumped for peace if Keanu showed up at a rally in fantastic new sunglasses? |
March 16, 2003 -- The people have spoken. We don't want war. No one wants war. President Bush says he doesn't want war. Saddam Hussein says he doesn't want war. That guy who runs France, by definition, doesn't want war. After all, war, like pestilence, is one of those things most people can usually agree on - they don't want it.
What do people want? Usually, one of those sweet, flat-screen plasma TVs that you can hang on the wall like, well, art. Even people who consider themselves a part of the peace movement want one of those new TVs. Everyone wants peace, which is why some people, instead of saying "goodbye" or "God is great!" say "peace."
So why is the peace movement so . . . what's the word . . . underperforming? Like AOL Time Warner. Why is it so lame - like the Knicks? The peace movement should be like Microsoft, or the Yankees. After all, it's got the better product - one everybody on earth agrees on. Right now, peace should be ahead in the standings and coasting into the playoffs.
Instead - well, have you tuned in to the peace movement? It's all Janeane Garofalo on "Crossfire" and people dressing up in costumes and wordy signs and too many layers of Goretex, and pretty much no extreme sports at all. That's not peace. That's a bad time. A bad time that might well end in war, which is a really, really bad time.
Let's begin, as all things do, with celebrities, who are genetically superior to most of us. But not Janeane Garofalo, who seems to have taken the celebrity lead in making the rounds of various political talk shows of late.
While clearly in the upper tiers among spunky comediennes with the ability to pronounce Peshawar (push?'w?r), she is not, relative to other celebrities at least, attractive, or rich - two things we Americans pretty much demand from our stars. Instead, she's vaguely irritating and terminally pale. She can't open a movie, let alone a peace movement.
What about Susan Sarandon, you say? A wonderful actress, a native New Yorker, not Barbra Streisand. Yes, but also a woman about whom the adjective "brassy" is often used. Here's the thing: When people call you "brassy," it means you annoy them. Example: Rebecca Romijn Stamos is "hot," Bea Arthur is "brassy." There's a reason they don't send "brassy" women to motivate the troops. To be fair, it might not be possible to have a movement of any kind without Susan Sarandon showing up - just like the guy who comes to every party, and after a while people just stop asking who invited him.
But why can't the movement cast some celebrities to give peace a second weekend, show that it has legs? We suggest Keanu Reeves. The new "Matrix" movies are coming out soon and you just know they're gonna kick ass. Who wouldn't get pumped for peace if Keanu showed up at a rally sporting some fantastic new sunglasses and told us he was going to overthrow our machine-generated overlords once and for all? Or he could just stand there, "act" vacant, and say, "I know kung fu."
Or what about Jennifer Connelly? She seems peaceful. And Sheryl Crow and Fred Durst - sort of.
The anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s were successful partly because they had great soundtracks. Who's playing for peace now? That'd be no one. Crow hasn't actually gone out and penned any protest songs, but she did take the truly inspirational step of donning a "peace strap" on her guitar. Sadly, the "N" was obscured by her long hair, which, it must be said, did look extremely healthy. So what we got was a wistful "o war."
Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst at least had the guts to make an anti-war statement on camera. He expressed the hope that we are all in "agreeance" that "this war should go away." "Agreeance," of course, is not actually a word, and it can be hard to influence policy, at least when speaking to an English-speaking audience, if you're not actually speaking English. More difficult still is getting people to take you seriously when your proposed policy is agreeing to agree it would be good if something just went bye-bye.
At the peace march in New York last month, most people were, it's true, at least using real words, but that also presented a problem. Much was written about the fact that the march brought out a new crowd - an upper-middle class, educated, thoughtful soccer mom crowd. That was nice, but it turns out it's possible to be too thoughtful. A lot of these people hadn't been to a march in a long time, if ever, and boy, did they have a lot to say. Too much, in fact. For instance, here are some words and phrases that should never appear on a protest sign:
"Nevertheless"
"Albeit"
"That being said"
"But, seriously"
"In conclusion"
"Webster defines [any word here] as"
"Anyhoo"
There were also drum circles and people playing, yes, didjeridoos, those Aboriginal wind instruments that sound like someone dying and often cause that very same effect - a deadly, musical onomatopoeia. Simply put, there are more people out there who hate drum circles than hate war. It's just sheer numbers. Arguing the point is like taking issue with pi. Most people just can't reconcile being anti-war but pro-drum. If you put up a tent that's anti-war and anti-drum, they're in there. Anti-war, drum-neutral? Sure. Anti-war and pro-didjeridoo? No.
So we ask: Are you people serious about wanting peace or aren't you? You have to choose: didjeridoos, or affecting lasting change. Really. You can't have both. That's what happened at Gallipoli.
Then there were the people in costume - one paper ran a photo of a father and son dressed up as war victims. C'mon now - at this point doesn't everyone know that it's impossible to take adults dressed in costume seriously? They all come off looking like parents who haven't yet worked out non-awkward ways of bonding with their children. And peace rallies are not anyone's second shot at making the school play.
On the other extreme are those who don't dress up quite enough. Here we're mostly talking about the veteran anti-war types - the ones who started with Vietnam, moved on to nuclear disarmament rallies and probably would've protested the Revolutionary War had they had a chance. ("Ho ho, hey hey, how many redcoats did you kill today?")
Yes, rallies are long. Yes, they involve walking. But would it kill you to wear something other than the most comfortable clothes possible? If you want people to take you seriously on a serious issue, leave the sandals and smocks at home. And keep Velcro to a minimum. Think of it as a job interview. Business casual at the very least.
The peace movement could also adopt some practices that we know attract the masses. For instance: It could serve snacks, which people love. Better yet, why not take a tip from professional large-gatherings-of-people producers and team up with, say, Skyy Vodka, and throw a rally with some b-models and a free martini bar from 7-10 p.m.? Or tap the power of the reality-TV frenzy and get Lorenzo Lamas to come out onstage and do an "Are you hot, and also against the war?" bit. Lorenzo: "I'm going to need to see your ass and hear your feelings about Hans Blix."
Even better, the peace movement could adopt some Bush administration tactics and call a press conference to announce it had "secret intelligence" about peace, then offer a PowerPoint presentation that effortlessly integrated bullet points and live video. Because who doesn't love bullet points? They're just innately satisfying.
* Peace.
* Lack of death.
* More good things.
* Happiness.
* Concluding reiteration: Peace.
Then serve more snacks (which could be the last bullet point, but that's a judgment call).
Our last suggestion is one of the formidable weapons known to man. It was at the heart of the '60s movement - the thing that got the attention of the nation and galvanized us into finally ending the Vietnam war. That's right: sex. Specifically, the spread of the belief among women that sex is a political act, that the best way to get back at dad (that big square) is to fool around anonymously with as many guys as possible - now, that's a movement. We're not sure how those people in the '60s did it, but if that can somehow be revived, it will unleash a force no brassy celeb, wordy slogan - or even any profound moral or political truth - can ever hope to match.
The point is, we all want peace. But the sad truth is, we're not going to get it by just asking people to "give it a chance."
The marketplace for the public's attention is very crowded, and Mr. Lamas' entry doesn't make it any easier.
The peace movement needs to get it together.
That is all we are saying.
Au Revoir, Petite FranceIn one blow, Chirac shattered the U.N., NATO and the EU.
By Paul Johnson
The Wall Street Journal
March 22, 2003
LONDON--Last weekend's Azores summit foreshadowed a new era in geopolitics. It reminds us of the old wartime meetings between Roosevelt and Churchill in which the two leaders planned the next phase of the war against Hitler. As President Bush left the meeting assured of a French veto of the resolution, the world finally moved on from the stalemate of the previous two weeks at the U.N.
We shall see much more of this kind of diplomacy in the future, in which deals are struck on a bilateral or trilateral basis to suit the needs of the moment. Roosevelt and Churchill's meetings were often attended by one or more government heads, whose presence was deemed relevant to the subjects discussed.
At the heart of the new diplomacy will be, of course, what Charles De Gaulle then (and Jacques Chirac now) bitterly called "Les Anglo-Saxons"--America and Britain, whose common culture and attachments to freedom and democracy make them not just allies, but "family." Building on this sure foundation, the U.S., as the sole superpower, will make its arrangements with other states on an ad hoc basis rather than through international organizations.
We have to face the ugly fact: Internationalism--the principle of collective security and the attempt to regulate the world through representative bodies--has been dealt a vicious blow by Mr. Chirac's bid to present himself as a world statesman, whatever the cost to the world. France is a second-rate power militarily. But because of its geographic position at the center of Western Europe and its nominal possession of nuclear weapons, which ensures its permanent place on the U.N. Security Council, it wields considerable negative and destructive power. On this occasion, it has exercised such power to the full, and the consequences are likely to be permanent.
The first body Mr. Chirac has damaged, perhaps fatally, is the U.N. The old Security Council system will have to go: It is half a century old and no longer represents reality because three of the world's most important entities--Japan, Germany and India--have no permanent place on it. More important, however, the United States, whose support for the U.N. is essential to its continuance, has lost confidence in its usefulness in moments of real crisis, as the Azores summit showed. The Security Council will now be marginalized and important business will be transacted elsewhere. Indeed, it may prove difficult to keep the U.S. within the organization at all.
Mr. Chirac's heavy hand has also fallen on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. By trying to manipulate NATO against the U.S., its co-founder, principal member and chief supplier of firepower, France made a fundamental mistake. Both the U.N. and NATO were originally created precisely to keep the U.S. committed to collective security and the defense of Europe, and to avoid a U.S. return to isolationism. America's victory in the Cold War meant that there was no longer a case for keeping a large proportion of its armed forces in Western Europe.
It now makes much more sense, militarily and geographically, to base America's rapid-reaction force for the European theater in reliable Britain, and on this basis construct practical bilateral deals with all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, whose freedom and democracy depend on U.S. goodwill. In this new system, France will become irrelevant. We will see then what Germany will do. My guess is that it will come to its senses and scuttle quickly under the U.S. umbrella.
The third organization Mr. Chirac has damaged is the European Union. Although under French pressure the EU has been scrambling toward monetary and constitutional union, the Iraq crisis--which has split the EU into a dozen fragments--shows that it has made no progress at all toward a common foreign policy. The only country that joined the Franco-German axis is Belgium. Two of the five major members, Italy and Spain, sided with the U.K., as have most of the newcomers and aspirant members--thereby earning the East Europeans personal abuse from Mr. Chirac. This is the man who likes to be called "the first gentleman of Europe."
The crisis demonstrated plainly enough that the EU's armed forces do not exist and, on present showing, never will. Mr. Chirac could not hold off the Anglo-American option of force because he could not make a significant contribution. Anglo-American commanders have learned, from their experience in the Balkans, not to trust the French forces. So, having no "war card" to play, Mr. Chirac played the "peace card," the only one he possessed. As a result, a dozen or more EU members, or would-be members, are now rethinking their commitment to the EU. The U.K. is wondering, for instance, whether its future is with Continental Europe. Once again, for the British, the Channel has proved wider than the Atlantic.
Mr. Bush has a busy time ahead. Not only must he and Mr. Blair devise a workable post-war settlement for Iraq (and plan the next move against terrorist states like North Korea and Iran), but America has to construct a vision of a safe world which can get by without NATO and with a marginalized U.N. It is high time that America began the "agonizing reappraisal" that the former U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles once threatened.
In it, America must think hard whether it can offer a viable alternative to European states that no longer wish to commit themselves to a European Union dominated by a selfish and irresponsible France. Today, in 2003, I see no reason why this reappraisal should be agonizing. On the contrary, it is welcome and overdue, and can be constructive and exhilarating.
Mr. Johnson's latest book, "Napoleon," was published last year in the Penguin Lives series.
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