Posted on 11/19/2001 6:02:04 AM PST by walden
Why West Is Best Secrets — or rather, obvious ingredients — of the Good Society.
By Paul Johnson, the British journalist and historian, is the author of many books, including A History of Christianity and A History of the Jews. From the December 3, 2001, issue of National Review
No such thing as a perfect society exists in the world or ever will. But the Good Society can and does emerge from time to time, and is far more likely to exist within the orbit of the Western system than in any other. Why is this? To begin with, consider the historic blend of two valuable but imperfect and distinct moral/legal systems — the Greco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian — which together are much more than the sum of their parts. All of us desire moral order. All of us wish for justice. The chief problem that faces a civilization is how to translate morality and justice into a workable system of law. The Greeks took legal concepts from numerous ancient societies, notably the Medes and Persians, but they brought to the science of law the spirit of philosophic inquiry, their own unique gift to humanity. They probed the nature of justice and the validity of morals, and thus infused law-making with a new dynamic: the endless quest for truth, viability, and endurance.
The Romans, in turn, built on this method, evolving a code that worked effectively over the world's largest and longest-lasting empire, enduring in one form or another for two millennia. What the Romans struggled towards was the notion of rule by law, rather than by mere men, and this involved the supremacy of a political constitution, which men, however powerful, were obliged to obey. The attempt ultimately failed, Rome became an oriental dictatorship of god-emperors, the rule of law collapsed, and, in due course, so did Roman civilization itself, in both its Western and Byzantine forms.
However, from the 5th and 6th centuries onwards, Roman notions of law and its rule were reinforced and transformed by Judeo-Christianity. The Jews were as devoted to law as the Romans. They saw the law as God-made, and under its rule all, from kings and high priests to shepherds, were equal: That is why the great 1st-century Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, called Judaism a "theocratic democracy." The Christians took over the principle of equality under the moral law and applied it to both the law codes of the Germanic north, based upon tribal consultations, and those of the Romance south, based upon Roman digests. The clergy evolved their own canon law and, between the 11th and the 16th centuries, there was a struggle between secular and clerical systems. The result was a felicitous compromise: neither theocratic law (as in Islamic states), nor wholly secular law, since the codes recognized natural law (as interpreted by Christianity) as the basis of all justice.
The rule of law was not established in the West without conflict. The constitutional struggle that produced in 1215 the Magna Carta, the first English Statute of the Realm (still in force), the English Civil War of 1640-60, and the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, the American Revolution of the 1770s and 1780s, producing the first modern written constitution, and the French Revolution of 1789, leading to the creation of the Napoleonic law code (both these last, as amended, still in force) are all episodes in the successful effort to make even kings and governments subject to the rule of law. The process continues, the latest salient event being the collapse of the supra-legal Communist dictatorship in Russia in 1991 and subsequent attempts, as yet incomplete, to establish the rule of law for the first time in Russia and its devolved territories.
From this long history, it has become evident that equality in law cannot be finally ensured without the mass participation of the public. But it is important to understand that the rule of law must be established first before democracy can successfully evolve. That is the great political lesson of Western civilization. It explains why democracy has quickly collapsed in all those (mainly Third World) countries where the rule of law was weak or nonexistent. A notable exception has been India, which — with all its weaknesses — still maintains democracy because the rule of law, thanks to the genius of Macaulay, took root there under British rule.
Where the rule of law exists, continually reinforced by an evolving democracy, liberty too takes root. The point was succinctly made by Thomas Hobbes, who, together with his follower John Locke, was the determining political philosopher in the evolution of both the British and the U.S. constitutions. "The silence of the laws is the freedom of the subject," wrote Hobbes: Where the law does not specifically prohibit, the citizen is free to do as he pleases. In unfree or Oriental societies, the assumption is reversed, and the freedom to do any individual action depends on favor, tradition (as interpreted by the absolute ruler or his agents), or corruption.
The freedom enjoyed in Western society under the rule of law and constitutional government explains both the quality of its civilization and its wealth. In the early Middle Ages, Islamic societies enjoyed some freedom in transmuting the Greeks' knowledge and spirit of inquiry, but this came to an end in the 13th century, which was precisely the point when the Western university system took off. Where the quest for knowledge is relatively, and now almost absolutely, unrestrained, the public benefit will be great, especially where the certainty of the law ensures that knowledge is rewarded. This is exactly the combination that is the foundation of wealth-creation.
Society in the West was establishing a consistent pattern of wealth-making even in the Middle Ages. From the 15th century, two factors — the invention of double-entry bookkeeping and of printing from movable type — were joined by six others, all consequences of the rule of law and of (virtual) equality under the law. These were the invention of the legal corporation (later including the limited-liability company and the trust); the development of a clear legal doctrine of marriage and inheritance; the invention of freehold in real estate and of banks operating as sure deposits for liquid wealth (both serving as the basis for lending and investment in mercantile and industrial enterprise); the development of copyright law; the inability of government to confiscate or tax individual property except by due process; and, finally, the invention of an immense range of legal devices, from commercial and personal insurance to stock exchanges (to promote, protect, maximize, and employ savings efficiently).
From these dozen or so advantages and their interaction, capitalism evolved. It is not, strictly speaking, an "ism," but a process of nature, which at a certain state of human development — the rule of law and a measure of personal freedom being the most important ingredients — occurs spontaneously, as millions of ordinary people go about their business in as efficient a manner as they know how. It is, then, a force of nature, which explains its extraordinary fecundity, adaptability, and protean diversity. It is as much a product of Western civilization as the university and the library, the laboratory and the cinema, relativity theory and psychotherapy. Coca-Cola and McDonald's are not alternatives to the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Public Library: They are all four products of a wealth-creating and knowledge-producing process based on freedom and legal certainty.
Moreover, because capitalism is based on human nature, not dogma, it is self-correcting. The freedom of the market enables these corrections to be made all the time, to short- and long-term problems. The expression "the crisis of capitalism" is therefore misleading. Capitalism moves through continual crises, major and minor, absorbing their lessons and so continually increasing productivity and living standards in the long run.
Indeed it is the protean ability of Western civilization to be self-critical and self-correcting — not only in producing wealth but over the whole range of human activities — that constitutes its most decisive superiority over any of its rivals. And it is protean not least in its ability to detect what other societies do better, and incorporate such methods into its own armory. All the other systems in the world, notably the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Indian, have learned much from the West in turn, and benefited thereby. The Islamic world has been the least willing to adopt the West's fundamental excellences. That is why it remains poor (despite its wealth of raw materials), unfree, and unhappy. Its states are likely to have uneasy relations with the West until Islam reforms itself, embraces the rule of law, introduces its own form of democracy, and so becomes a protean player in the modern world.
1. The US could have moved in on Baghdad with contemptuous ease. We both know it.
2. There is a difference between a prisoner of war camp and a concentration camps. We both know it.
3. Even if they were the same, how does this justify the Nintendo murder of conscript troops? If we weren't going to continue on to Baghdad, what even was the point?
4. Taking Baghdad would undoubtedly have caused some refugees to flee. The difference between Palestinians and these hypothetical Iraqis is this, Einstein. The Palestinians were never allowed to go home. The racist Zionists couldn't let that happen, could they?
5. Hussein was not popular in Iraq in 1991. He just led the people into two disasterous wars. No one was going to back him up.
I think your hate is starting to show through. Your rant is so pathetic that it is barely worth a reply. But let's look at some facts anyway.
1. The US could have moved in on Baghdad with contemptuous ease. We both know it.
The US could have moved on Baghdad "with contemptuous ease" only if it had destroyed any threat to it's flanks and to it's logistic lines. In other words, by neutralizing the Iraqi Army that it bypassed.
Also, in modern warfare, unless the enemy completely surrenders, ala Taliban, capturing a city is never "contemptuously easy" except in the minds of civilian arm chair generals. Urban warfare against a determined enemy is an extremely nasty and bloody business as recent examples in Grozny and Mogadishu and earlier examples of Stalingrad, Leningrad and Berlin have shown.
2. There is a difference between a prisoner of war camp and a concentration camps. We both know it.
True. But it is clear to me that Anamensis is saying that the critics, such as yourself, Architect, would have described P.O.W. camps in the worst terms possible for the propaganda benefit.
An example is the Iraqi embargo. Before the Gulf War, critics of US policy were advocating an embargo as a "non-violent" option to bring down Saddam. Now, individuals such as yourself describe it as baby killing. You even did so in this thread without bothering to bring up the fact that Saddam is allowed to sell as much oil as required to feed his people and how he has recently spent huge amounts of money to build a gigantic mosque as a megalomanic monument to himself.
3. Even if they were the same, how does this justify the Nintendo murder of conscript troops? If we weren't going to continue on to Baghdad, what even was the point?
The point, Architect, was to destroy Iraq's capability to wage succesful war on it's neighbors. This is not accomplished by capturing the enemy's capital as Napoleon discovered long ago when he captured Moscow and shortly thereafter lost his Grand Armee. You destroy an enemy's war making capabilities by destroying his Army.
The Eastern Theatre of the American Civil War was won when General U.S. Grant stopped using the Army of the Potomac as a vehicle to capture Richmond and, instead, used the Army of the Potomac to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia as a fighting force.
Wars are not won by running your flag up the flagpole of the enemy's Capitol building although Hollywood movies may give that impression. Wars are won and peace is secured by destroying the war-making capabilities of your enemy's Armed Forces.
During the Iran-Iraq War the Iraqi Army, that you so easily dismiss as a "conscript army", managed to kill 300,000 Iranian and wound another 500,000. Before the Gulf War, the Iraqi Army was the forth largest in the world. “Experts” were predicting the Americans would die by the tens of thousands in World War One style bolldbaths just as the Iranians had three years earlier.
Would it have made you feel better, Architect, if the U.S. had suffered, say, 30,000 casualties so that the U.S. wouldn’t look like a bully waging "Nintendo War" against the bunch of schoolgirls that you now portray the Iraqi Army to have been during the Gulf War?
4. Taking Baghdad would undoubtedly have caused some refugees to flee. The difference between Palestinians and these hypothetical Iraqis is this, Einstein. The Palestinians were never allowed to go home. The racist Zionists couldn't let that happen, could they?
The Germans who were expelled from East Prussia in 1945 were never allowed to return. Yet, they moved on, settled in new areas, established new lives and, today, are doing rather well for themselves.
Palestinians, however, are still living in "refugee camps" and the old timers are still described as "refugess" even though they left Palestine over half a century ago in 1948. Is it not to the Arab world's benefit to treat these people as perpetual "refugess" living in "refugee camps" on Arab soil rather that integrating them into the society of the rest of the country? Why, except for the obvious propaganda value, were these "refugee camps" not closed out by 1958 and it's occupants integated into the rest of Arab society?
5. Hussein was not popular in Iraq in 1991. He just led the people into two disasterous wars. No one was going to back him up.
Hussein was not too popular in Iraq a few years before during the bloodbath of the Iran-Iraq War. Hitler was not too popular in Vichy France in 1944 when Allied Armies had to fight their way across France. Disgruntled "people" do not overthrow dictators with an Army that are capable of inflicting hundreds of thousands of casualties on an enemy. Only the Army itself can do that.
In neither the Iran-Iraq War nor the Gulf War, did the Iraqi Army turn on Saddam Hussein even though the latter was the perfect time to do so if it so desired.
Some others claim that the objective was to dethrone Saddam Hussein. If so, the turkey shoot might have been understandable. But why didn't we move on to Baghdad if this was the purpose?
Still others claim that the objective was to eliminate Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Yet, it's quite clear that this objective has been achieved long ago. In fact, Hussein cooperated and all weapons of mass destruction were eliminated in 1991.
I say that the US has no objective whatsoever - other than demonizing Hussein. Consequently ordinary Iraqis suffer without the slightest degradation of Hussein's position in Iraq. It is obviously true that Hussein could care for ordinary Iraqis despite the American embargo. This inculpates Hussein. It doesn't excuse the US government.
************************************
Over 2100 years ago, the historian Polybius, (as opposed to the Freeper Polybius) pointed out that all wars have a beginning, a cause and a pretext.
The beginning is the actual execution of the war plans that were already planned and decided on so it, in effect, comes last. The cause is the actual reason that war was resorted to and therefore comes first. The pretext is the excuse or the “spin”, if you will, used to justify the decisions that have already been made in regards to the war.
In the Gulf War, these factors were actually as follows:
1. Cause The threat of the West’s oil supply by Iraq.
2. Pretext To free Kuwait.
3. Beginning Operation Dessert Storm.
Operation Desert Storm was not fought to “liberate Kuwait”. It was fought to protect a vital American interest, the Persian Gulf oil supplies and to destroy the war making capability of the Iraqi Army. Whoever controls such a large percentage of the world’s oil supplies can dictate the health of the United States., European and Japanese economies with the stroke of a pen before his morning coffee. ( For those who are old enough, remember the gas lines and stagflation of the 1970’s after the Yom Kippur War.) Allowing Saddam Hussein to wield such power was simply not acceptable.
Even if Kuwait had been populated by nothing but sand fleas, the U.S. would have “liberated” it just the same. The only thing that would have changed was the pretext given to the “No Blood For Oil” crowds that drove 400 miles on the Interstate to attend their protest rallies.
Therefore, an unfortunate aspect of the Gulf War is that President Bush had to play games with not only American but also with world public opinion.
The “liberation of Kuwait” was not the cause of the war but only the pretext. The American and world public, however, no longer understands the Realpolitik of vital national interests. Vital interests now have to be sugar-coated in pretexts. The same bleeding hearts that are the first to decry that the “current economic boom does not include the (insert the name of preferred victim group)” are the first to cry “No blood for oil”.
The pretext of the Gulf War was to “liberate Kuwait” and President Bush tied his hands by framing it in such terms. At the time, I thought that this was a foolish tactic and, if I were President, I would have “told it like it was”. However, the fact remains that President Bush was successful in forging an international coalition and a “tell it like it is” President Polybius might have been a total failure.
Under the circumstances, the goal of the Gulf War was to mortally wound Iraq’s military capability to control the Persian Gulf oil supply. Such a goal would be accomplished by destroying the offensive capabilities of the Iraqi Army. That goal was accomplished.
As I noted before, just three years before thr Gulf War, Iraq had just finished a military aggression that left 300,000 of it’s Iranian neighbors dead and another 500,000 wounded. Since the Gulf War, not a single Iranian, Kuwaiti or Saudi has died defending the soil of his native land against an invading Iraqi Army.
Why? Because the U.S. destroyed the Iraqi Army’s offensive capability in the Gulf War. If the Iraqi Army had been allowed to retreat without harm, that Army would have again turned to aggression once the U.S. ground forces left the Theatre but now emboldened by U.S. timidity.
Wars are not won and nations are not “conquered” by capturing enemy capitals. They are not won by “getting Hitler” or “getting Saddam”. If that were the case, Napoleon would have won his Russian campaign with his capture of Moscow. Wars are won by the destruction of the enemy’s army. In the American Civil War, the early battle cry was “On to Richmond”. The Union won the war when U.S. Grant pursued a strategy that ignored the capture of Richmond and sought, instead, to bleed the Army of Northern Virginia to death. Likewise, Japan surrendered before a single square foot of the Japanese home islands had been captured by American infantry. Japan surrendered when the U.S. could pursue a policy of destruction with complete impunity.
Likewise, Iraq surrendered when the U.S. was in a position to destroy whatever percentage of the Iraqi Army it chose to. Iraq was, indeed, “conquered”. In his auto-biography, General Schwarzkopf states that he considered forcing the Iraqis sign the cease-fire agreement on the deck of the USS Missouri to make it perfectly clear that the agreement was a surrender.
General Schwarzkopf also relates in his autobiography that the surrendering Iraqi General asked why U.S. forces had crossed into Iraqi territory, as part of their envelopment, when Iraq had already agreed to retire from Kuwait. Even this Iraqi General failed to distinguish “cause” from “pretext”. The goal of the Gulf War had been articulated by General Powell very clearly before the ground phase began. Powell said, “We are going to surround the Iraqi Army. Then we are going to kill it.”
The terms of the cease-fire were, indeed, dictated terms to a “conquered” nation. The terms were, “You agree to this or we will continue killing your Army by the tens of thousands.” As General Schwarzkopf said the day of the signing of the cease-fire, “ This is not a negotiation. I am here to tell them exactly what we expect them to do.”
The percentage to which the Iraqi Army was “killed” was a political decision. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the cease-fire decision and my reaction was, “Why the h*ll is Bush stopping now?”. But, again, I was not President and it was not my responsibility to weigh the risks of a totally disarmed Iraq needing U.S. defense against Kurds, Shiites, Iranians, etc., etc.
If a defense had been mounted, and what did Saddam have to lose by mounting such a defense, the capture of Baghdad would have been a very bloody affair. Not for the U.S. but for the civilian population. In order to capture a defended urban center, you have two options. You can fight building to building like the Germans did at Stalingrad, the Russins did at Berlin and the U.S. did at Manila and destroy the city or you can blast the city with artillery and air power as the Russians did to Grozny last year and, again, destroy the city.
In either case, civilian casualties would have been staggering and the U.S. public has no stomach for such things. And rightly so. The city of Baghdad did not invade Kuwait. The Iraqi Army did. If a political decision to completely destroy the Iraqi Army had been made, not a single Iraqi tank would have escaped from the killing fields of the Kuwait Theatre.
In regards to Iraq “destroying it’s weapons of mass destruction”, it must be pointed out that weapons can be re-built in a very short time. Believing that Iraq is not developing weapons of mass destruction because Saddam claims to have destroyed them is as naïve as believing that the German battleship Bismarck never existed because Germany was prohibited from building battleships by treaty and they Germans claimed that they were not building any.
In other words, you have no answers. Well, you're right about one thing: I have hatred. I have hatred for the mindset that people like you personify, this constant critique of anything America does. When we helped Afghanistan free themselves of the USSR, people like you criticized us for not staying around to run the place for them. When we DO stay around to run things, we get criticized for "occupying." When we decide that obviously there is nothing we can do that's right so we do nothing, like in Rwanda, the liberal mindset is immediately there to criticize some more. But as your post reveals, your type criticizes because you have no answers, not even any suggestions. Let's take a look, shall we?
1. The US could have moved in on Baghdad with contemptuous ease. We both know it.
How? How could we have done it while staying within the guidelines you want to see, that is : NO CIVILIAN DEATHS, NO "CONSCRIPT" (combattant soldiers) DEATHS. In other words, how do you take over a country without killing anyone? I am still waiting for your answer. Either admit that war means people get killed, or tell us how to fight the war without killing anyone. Oh, and without displacing anyone. Oh, and without trampling anyone's rights. Oh, and without incarcerating anyone.
2. There is a difference between a prisoner of war camp and a concentration camps. We both know it.
What's the difference? What's the difference to the media? Different kind of barbed wire? Better food? How long can we keep them there? When do we let them out, and why? And how do we keep them from reinstalling Hussein? Kill him? Are you saying we should have killed Saddam?
3. Even if they were the same, how does this justify the Nintendo murder of conscript troops? If we weren't going to continue on to Baghdad, what even was the point?
Nintendo murder? Oh, I see... if we have a technological advantage we should not use it cause it isn't fair? As for the second part of your question, I'm not going to second-guess our military strategy. It may have been that we were on our way to Baghdad and for some reason, stopped. Not my call, and not yours either.
4. Taking Baghdad would undoubtedly have caused some refugees to flee. The difference between Palestinians and these hypothetical Iraqis is this, Einstein. The Palestinians were never allowed to go home. The racist Zionists couldn't let that happen, could they?
And how would this have been different? Would we be staying and occupying in your plan? And if those refugees would be coming back to reinstate Saddam and kill our boys, we should just let them? Or are we back to the POW camps?
5. Hussein was not popular in Iraq in 1991. He just led the people into two disasterous wars. No one was going to back him up.
Oh really? And you know this how?
Thank you, you dealt with Architect much better than I could. And in answer to the above, I think we both know deep down that Architect hates America and Americans completely.
The Israeli government has given around 1,000,000 Palestinians citizenship. Obviously they aren't punishing them all. You like to play fast and loose with the truth.
Because he refuses to let the UN ensure that he has stopped plotting to invade Kuwait again. All he has to do is let the UN come in and inspect his weapons making facilities, and like magic, the embargo will lift. Simple.
1.) Are you saying we should have killed Saddam?
2.) Are you saying we should now lift the embargo and let Saddam regain his strength?
If 1 then surely not 2. If 2 then surely not 1. So let's hear it: KILL SADDAM or HELP SADDAM? Pick a lane and drive.
Sigh. This thread started off with some real potential.
Excuse me, but this is a very salient point. You and others of your persuasion LIKE saying "Israel hurts/punishes Palestinians" because it makes it sound like Israel is going after an entire ethnic group, which is a no-no in our racism-fearing day and age. The information that Israel has given citizenship 25% of the Palestinians within their borders is something that you deliberately mask when you say "the Palestinians" as if Israel has it in for anyone with this blood in them. That's very misleading.
This embargo, however, is a crime against humanity. As was the turkey shoot in 1991.
The notion that the Romans and Greeks invented law, or that they somehow elevated both to new heights, is not tenable. Just ask a slave, or a gladiator. It was Christianity that abolished the bloody arena games, and was to later abolish slavery as well.
They lasted for thousands of years. We will, quite possibly, create (or have created) the technology that will destroy humanity in the very near future. How do we "correct" for that?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.