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The Surrender Option - The cry of the Paleo.
National Review Online ^ | 09/12/2001 | John Derbyshire

Posted on 09/12/2001 9:12:07 AM PDT by Fury

If you are a reader of right-wing opinion websites, you will by now have heard the voice of the Paleos, loud and strong.

This is a judgment on us for our interventionist foreign policy...

It is time to examine the U.S. relationship with Israel. The lives of every Israeli is not worth one drop of American blood...

Who has reason to hate this country? Only a few hundred million people — Arabs, Muslims, Serbs, and numerous others whose countries have been hit by U.S. bombers...

Nobody is bombing Helsinki or Rome. Nobody is bombing Ottawa or Sydney...

On the day after Pearl Harbor, ex-President Herbert Hoover sat down and wrote to friends: "You and I know that this continuous putting pins in rattlesnakes finally got this country bitten."

That last one is from Pat Buchanan, who will be on TV a lot these next few weeks, and whose royalty statements (the bit of paper your publisher sends you twice a year to let you know how much money your books have earned you) will be bringing great cheer to the Buchanan household for a while to come.

Now, I don't mind Paleos. I understand the appeal of their vision: A busy commercial republic, minding her own business, with no troops stationed beyond her shores, the champion of liberty in every land, but never its guarantor. Heck, I used to belong to a Paleo e-mail list. I know all the arguments. (Pur-leeze don't send me reminders.) The strongest one, so far as I am concerned, is the one that says you can't maintain liberty as the Founders understood it when you are practicing Empire. You'll be hearing this a lot, too, over the next few weeks. In calling for their government to better protect them against these horrors, many people won't much mind if, in order to do so, the government closes down some of our liberties. Yes, yes, I know the arguments.

I dropped off that Paleo list, after much thought, because I just didn't share that vision. I say again, I see its appeal, and I have a lot of sympathy for it: I just don't share it. For one thing, it would be sort of dishonest, at a personal level, for me to do so. If not for the U.S.A. having been willing to send troops abroad to fight, I should not now be here writing this. If alive at all, I should be out working in the fields under some Gauleiter für Ostmittelengland. To a lot of us raised in the rest of the world, having America as a remote, self-absorbed champion of theoretical liberty is all very well; but we kind of like the guarantor stuff, too. Sure, the United States is under no obligation to pander to our preference, however gratifying she may find it: but there are some strong practical reasons to favor American interventionism, too. Would the world have been a better, or a worse, place this past few decades, if America had stood aloof from the world wars? Would America herself have been safer, more secure, more prosperous? It seems pretty plain to me — though certainly arguable (but again, please don't post me the arguments, I've heard them all) — that the answers are: "worse," and "no."

There were other things, less substantive things, that turned me off the Paleos. For example, though most of them are thoughtful and rational people, there is quite a high proportion of lunatics among them. (There is a certain proportion on any email list, of course; I am just saying the Paleos have more than average for an intellectual discussion list.) And even setting aside the lunatics, there was a sort of crabby, ill-mannered, claustrophobic atmosphere about the whole thing that started to grate on me after a while. No, I'm not a Paleo. Republic or Empire? Empire, please.

I understand, of course, that Americans at large, even those who have never even heard of the Republic vs. Empire debate, are schizophrenic about the matter. Huge numbers of Americans couldn't care less about the world beyond their shores. They want nothing to do with it. They go to Florida for their vacations, or at the very furthest Hawaii. Passport? Who needs it? I am talking about un-intellectual Americans — decent, good-hearted, Christian family-loving folk, who just can't see why the affairs of Albania or Zimbabwe are any damn business of theirs, much less why they should send off their beloved children to be killed in such places.

Yet there are other Americans who understand, what I believe is true, that the Republic option is, at bottom, an empty fantasy. Public opinion supported the Vietnam War almost to the end of it; it was the elites and the intellectuals who turned against it, not ordinary Americans. People understand, I think, that however much Americans might wish to leave the world alone, the world will not leave America alone. Great wealth and great success generate great envy and great hatred. And America's high ideals, if clutched jealously to America's chest, while those abroad who believe them are hunted down and slaughtered without help, will whither and die. Idealism, like terrorism, has — can have — no borders. We know that our way of life is far superior to Islamic Fundamentalism, Chinese Communism, "Big Man" Kleptocracy and Bureaucratic Welfarism. Knowing that, the urge to assist — assist by some practical means — those in other places who believe the same thing, will sooner or later prove irresistible to a bold, fearless, liberty-loving nation. (And if those adjectives no longer apply to this country, I have made a major life error.) American idealism cannot be contained.

To fall back on my own origins again, I come from a nation that actually did practice Empire, very successfully, but eventually decided it was too much trouble and cost, and gave up on it. Certain things followed, one by one. For example, we lost the ability to defend ourselves. From WWI onwards, we were essentially a U.S. protectorate, and still are today. For another, my country sank gradually into a mentality of fatalism and defeat in which no vigorous action against our enemies became possible. To see what I mean, look at Britain's response to Irish terrorism, about which I have written many times in this space. Here I was banging away on NRO last June, for example:

The fault for that tragedy [i.e. a fascist takeover of Ireland] will lie squarely with politicians in London, Dublin and Washington, who for thirty years have refused to do what the leaders of civilized nations must do when faced with terrorism in their own jurisdictions: hunt it down and exterminate it, without pause or pity or quarter or apology.

Why have those politicians refused to do that thing? Why are IRA terrorists, who have done the foulest and most beastly things — the kinds of things, though not on the kind of scale, we saw on Tuesday — walking around free in the streets of Belfast and Dublin, having been let out of jail in return for a few vague and empty promises from those who give them their orders? The fundamental reason is not hard to find. Britain, having forgotten its responsibilities as an upholder of civilization, no longer cared to confront civilization's enemies in the way they must be confronted. They put their trust instead in "peace processes," in legalisms and trials, in panels of international do-gooders blathering on about "human rights," in the State Department. They did not put their trust in the thin-lipped, hard-faced, soft-talking men and women who do civilization's dirty work for it. To fall back on Kipling again (I am sorry; but at times like these, Kipling is indispensable), they made mock of the uniforms that guard us while we sleep.

The option that the last few British governments have taken — the Surrender Option — is available to America, too. It may even be taken. I was dismayed to hear the President speak about his instructions to find "those responsible" and "bring them to justice." Mr. President, these are not traffic violations; these are acts of war. Justice must go by the board for a while, as it did when we firebombed German and Japanese cities, incinerating helpless babies and old folk who wished us no harm. Where was the justice in that? Oh, and by the way: "those responsible" are already dead. They killed themselves attacking your country, and were proud and happy to do so. Some Americans — I speak as the father of two Americans — will have to get killed attacking their countries. (Oh, yes, they have countries.) Some of those Americans, likewise, will be proud and happy to do so, on behalf of the nation they love. Dirty business, running an Empire. Dirty business, defending civilization against barbarism. Barbaric business, sometimes — there's a paradox to ponder... But don't think you're the first to ponder it. It was a Roman who said oderint dum metuant, and a Roman who rebuked him for saying it. Dirty business, dirty business. But then, there is always the Surrender Option.


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
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To: DugwayDuke
Only a coward strikes at defenseless civilians.

Then our B-2 pilots who dropped bombs on defenseless civilians in Serbia were cowards. All the more so, since they didn't dare go below 24,000 feet for fear of being shot at, and so their bombs often landed wide of the mark and killed even more civilians.

The terrorists who flew into the World Trade Center towers may have been evil and insane, but they were not cowards.

21 posted on 09/12/2001 10:15:15 AM PDT by 537 Votes
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Comment #22 Removed by Moderator

To: 537 Votes
Then our B-2 pilots who dropped bombs on defenseless civilians in Serbia were cowards.

I do hold those pilots responsible.

Can you imagine the service they might have done the country had they refused the mission?

And it would have identified the generals that should have retired when Clinton slinked away.

23 posted on 09/12/2001 10:20:16 AM PDT by Publius6961
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To: Either/Or
While I regret the loss of life, this ain't my war. We are in an evil cycle in itself, we bomb they bomb over and over this is repeated.
24 posted on 09/12/2001 10:26:54 AM PDT by junta
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To: Myrnick
oderint dum metuant: Let them hate so long as they fear.
25 posted on 09/12/2001 10:32:04 AM PDT by Snuffington
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Comment #26 Removed by Moderator

To: Either/Or
Stop the world, I want to get off.The world you guys live in only happens in a textbook, but why let reality get in the way of your fantasies.
27 posted on 09/12/2001 10:47:04 AM PDT by habs4ever
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To: DugwayDuke
But the most hideous evil of all is the traitor who protects his global portfolio by sacrificing his innocent countrymen.
28 posted on 09/12/2001 10:47:26 AM PDT by gnarledmaw
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To: All
This is a F*cked-up argument any one who thinks America can just mind here own bizz and won't get attacked by the Muhammadans has no sence of history! its not just about our interfering in there country we stand in the way of the JIHAD! people they want to start it up again after 1000 year! they really want to make war on all the would. We (the US but also the west in general) are in there way.
29 posted on 09/12/2001 10:51:00 AM PDT by Pelayo
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To: 537 Votes
Our pilots avoided killing civilians in Serbia. Here the COWARDLY terrorists tried their best to kill civilians. Big difference, eh?

I was opposed to the war against Serbia by the way.

30 posted on 09/12/2001 10:53:33 AM PDT by dennisw
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To: Either/Or
Hey, guy, I answered your "I just want to be left alone" spiel in #12 ...

What do you have to say to my examples that prove you wrong?

31 posted on 09/12/2001 11:05:58 AM PDT by BlueLancer
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Comment #32 Removed by Moderator

To: dennisw
Targeting television stations, foreign embassies, residential housing blocks, refugee columns, passenger trains (twice!), etc. is not "trying to avoid civilian" deaths. Get real.
33 posted on 09/12/2001 11:14:11 AM PDT by Anochka
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To: Anochka
None of those were TARGETED, except the TV station. That is a great big fat LIE.
34 posted on 09/12/2001 6:05:59 PM PDT by Torie
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To: Fury

Before we loose the word
  That bids new worlds to birth,
Needs must we loosen first the sword
  Of Justice upon earth;
Or else all else is vain
  Since life on earth began,
And the spent world sinks back again
  Hopeless of God and Man.

Rudyard Kipling, "Justice," 1918

35 posted on 09/12/2001 6:10:38 PM PDT by BurkeanCyclist
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To: arcane
While having foreign agents enter our borders and wreak destruction is distasteful -- I can't fault their targets

You can't fault their targets? The Pentagon??? The White House???

This is over the line. You paleos seem to be going over to outright treason.

36 posted on 09/12/2001 6:19:35 PM PDT by Inyokern
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To: Either/Or
I agree with you, sir. You are a voice of reason.

How many times has the dov't used or rather created a crises to get us in an escalating war that can have no satisfactory ending? How about, every war I can think of??

37 posted on 09/12/2001 6:34:41 PM PDT by Paleo-Con
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To: Paleo-Con
Make that Gov't not dov't. Whoops
38 posted on 09/12/2001 6:36:56 PM PDT by Paleo-Con
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To: Either/Or
"It is one thing to oppose evil in it's numerous manifestations throughout the world. It's quite another to try and justify to an American mother why her son's body was drug through the streets of say, Mogadishu, Somalia. Our role as a sovereign Republic is to be the shining light on the hill, not the world's policeman."

I can only conclude that you don't mind opposing evil as long as you don't have to get your own hands dirty doing it. I guess we should just be true statesmen and diplomats, sit on our arse on that hill, and dispatch a "stinging letter of rebuke", couched in the "strongest terms" of course, to those who commit terrorism? I remind you that those same early leaders of this country also dispatched warships to the Med to counter the terrorists of that day, the Tripoli pirates.

39 posted on 09/12/2001 6:47:56 PM PDT by DugwayDuke
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To: 537 Votes
"Then our B-2 pilots who dropped bombs on defenseless civilians in Serbia were cowards. .... The terrorists who flew into the World Trade Center towers may have been evil and insane, but they were not cowards."

Anyone who attempts to equate the men of the United States Air Force and those who directly and with premeditation attacked innocents is misguided and a fool.

40 posted on 09/12/2001 6:52:13 PM PDT by DugwayDuke
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