Knightskye
02-18-2011, 11:17 AM
http://users.etown.edu/m/mcdonaldw/Lect321.html
Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson were enthusiasts for American domination of the world. Now George Bush appears to be emulating those eminent Democrats. When the Republicans, once upon a time, nominated for the presidency a "One World" candidate, Wendell Willkie, they were sadly trounced. In general, Republicans throughout the twentieth century have been advocates of prudence and restraint in the conduct of foreign affairs.
But Mr. Bush, out of mixed motives, has embarked upon a radical course of intervention in the region of the Persian Gulf. After carpet-bombing the Cradle of Civilization as no country ever had been bombed before, Mr. Bush sent in hundreds of thousands of soldiers to overrun the Iraqi bunkers -- that were garrisoned by dead men, asphyxiated.
And for what reason? The Bush Administration found it difficult to answer that question clearly. In the beginning it was implied that the American national interest required low petroleum prices: therefore, if need be, smite and spare not!
That excuse reminds me of Burke's rebuke to the Pitt ministry in 1795, when it appeared that the British government was about to go to war with France over the question of the navigation of the River Scheldt, in the Netherlands. "A war for the Scheldt? A war for a chamber-pot!" Burke exclaimed. Now one may say, "A war for Kuwait? A war for an oilcan!"
"The blood of a man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man," Burke wrote in his first Letter on a Regicide Peace. "It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime." Burke was eager that England declare war against France because of the menace of the French revolutionaries to the civilized order of Europe, and because of their systematic crimes. But he set his face against war for mere commercial advantage. So should Republicans. "The rest is vanity; the rest is crime."
War for Righteousness. A war for an oilcan not turning out to be popular, however, President Bush turned moralist; he professed to be engaged in redeeming the blood of man; and his breaking of Iraq is to be the commencement of his beneficent New World Order. Mr. Bush has waged what Sir Herbert Butterfield, in his little book Christianity, Diplomacy, and War, calls "The War for Righteousness." As Butterfield begins the third chapter of that book, "It has been held by technicians of politics in recent times that democracies can only be keyed up to modern war -- only brought to the necessary degree of fervor -- provided they are whipped into moral indignation and heated to fanaticism by the thought that they are engaged in a 'war for righteousness'."
16, 17 years later, we have Woodrow Wilson Republicans filling up 9/10ths of a debate stage, advocating "a war for an oilcan."
Spread this around. Suggest it to your "traditional conservative" friends.
Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson were enthusiasts for American domination of the world. Now George Bush appears to be emulating those eminent Democrats. When the Republicans, once upon a time, nominated for the presidency a "One World" candidate, Wendell Willkie, they were sadly trounced. In general, Republicans throughout the twentieth century have been advocates of prudence and restraint in the conduct of foreign affairs.
But Mr. Bush, out of mixed motives, has embarked upon a radical course of intervention in the region of the Persian Gulf. After carpet-bombing the Cradle of Civilization as no country ever had been bombed before, Mr. Bush sent in hundreds of thousands of soldiers to overrun the Iraqi bunkers -- that were garrisoned by dead men, asphyxiated.
And for what reason? The Bush Administration found it difficult to answer that question clearly. In the beginning it was implied that the American national interest required low petroleum prices: therefore, if need be, smite and spare not!
That excuse reminds me of Burke's rebuke to the Pitt ministry in 1795, when it appeared that the British government was about to go to war with France over the question of the navigation of the River Scheldt, in the Netherlands. "A war for the Scheldt? A war for a chamber-pot!" Burke exclaimed. Now one may say, "A war for Kuwait? A war for an oilcan!"
"The blood of a man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man," Burke wrote in his first Letter on a Regicide Peace. "It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime." Burke was eager that England declare war against France because of the menace of the French revolutionaries to the civilized order of Europe, and because of their systematic crimes. But he set his face against war for mere commercial advantage. So should Republicans. "The rest is vanity; the rest is crime."
War for Righteousness. A war for an oilcan not turning out to be popular, however, President Bush turned moralist; he professed to be engaged in redeeming the blood of man; and his breaking of Iraq is to be the commencement of his beneficent New World Order. Mr. Bush has waged what Sir Herbert Butterfield, in his little book Christianity, Diplomacy, and War, calls "The War for Righteousness." As Butterfield begins the third chapter of that book, "It has been held by technicians of politics in recent times that democracies can only be keyed up to modern war -- only brought to the necessary degree of fervor -- provided they are whipped into moral indignation and heated to fanaticism by the thought that they are engaged in a 'war for righteousness'."
16, 17 years later, we have Woodrow Wilson Republicans filling up 9/10ths of a debate stage, advocating "a war for an oilcan."
Spread this around. Suggest it to your "traditional conservative" friends.