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SUNDAY SPECTATOR
February 16, 2003
Wait & pray
I write this in a moment when troops and light tanks and surface-to-air missiles are deployed around Heathrow airport near London and similar batteries have been set up in the parks and streets of Washington D.C. This column is filed three days before it is printed; I cannot know while writing what will develop on Friday and Saturday. But for my present purpose it does not matter. The die is cast. America Britain and the entire Western world continue to be under the direct threat that was announced from the skies over Manhattan on the morning of Sept. 11th 2001. The Iraq of Saddam Hussein has presented itself as the immediate enemy but is part of a nexus. Our enemy is diffused and diverse and yet united around a single goal: the destruction of U.S. power and through that of the civilization it protects. Our choice was plain from that morning in September: to defend ourselves or surrender to it. There is no "third way" and there never was one. The war in Afghanistan was only the beginning the taking of Baghdad will be far from the end. By now there can be no doubt that war is upon us. After the eerie calm of 2002 -- equivalent in its way to the "phony war" of 1939 and early 1940 -- we have reached the point where even those who live in denial can no more deny. They may continue to dispute the cause but not for long. War changes not only the physical but the mental landscape it has touched and nothing remains the same. For instance there were those who blamed the rise of Hitler and Nazism for the gathering storm of World War II and those who preferred to blame the war-mongering rhetoric of Winston Churchill. The war itself changed all that and people who subscribed to the latter view could not even remember that they had done so when the war was over. How many people often the very grandchildren of that class have filled my inbox with what they consider to be clever comparisons between Churchill and President Bush or sometimes Lincoln and Mr. Bush. All but the tiniest minority of perverse contrarians take it for granted now that Churchill and Lincoln were great men -- leaders of vision and resolve men of the hour saviours of their nations. And Mr. Bush they confidently describe as a little frat boy trying to settle his daddy's old scores. They take their history backwards they do not realize that in their time Churchill and Lincoln received very similar abuse. It does not follow that Mr. Bush will finally stand with Lincoln and Churchill; though I think it likely. It certainly does not follow that the history before us will take a predictable course ending smoothly in victory and honour. War is war in which things will happen including unforeseeable miracles and disasters. Reputations cannot be assigned beforehand only guessed at. The great will emerge in the face of events the small will be exposed by them. The character of a single man may determine the fate of his nation. The people who thought World War II was the consequence of Churchill's war-mongering did not go away. Their views changed on Churchill but not in the main. Within a few years of the war's ending a new kind of conflict was upon us that came to be known as the Cold War. And once again there were those who blamed it on the rise of Stalin and Communism and those who blamed instead the rhetoric of Truman and "McCarthyism" and "the military-industrial complex" -- confusing in each case cause with effect. Likewise today there are those who blame the rise of Islamist political fanaticism and terrorism on such monstrous regimes as those of Iraq Iran North Korea. And there are those who instead blame the rhetoric of Mr. Bush and machinations of "big oil". It is only fair that the media give these views plenty of airtime and newspaper space for they have no tomorrow. Soon enough the people who hold them will again have forgotten that they ever did. This is not a mere question of human intelligence for I've noticed that many of the people who are pathologically mistaken in their judgements on men and events are actually quite smart in the conventional sense -- "smart" and "wise" being two different concepts as "intelligence" and "character" are not the same thing. It is human nature only to remember the times when you were right and so the people who are never right must be content with remembering nothing. Whereas "the right" as it is called in the U.S. and elsewhere has this notoriously long memory. It is almost the definition of what is today called a "conservative" -- a word that fails to convey the philosophical position. But I will take it to mean: that a "conservative" is a person who can remember today what he learned yesterday. What we learned yesterday and must constantly re-learn is that when a power arises and grows in the world that publicly threatens our very existence we will sooner or later have to confront it. And sooner is invariably better than later. It is perhaps the simplicity of that idea that our clever people find so unappealing. For the "logic" of self-defence takes only one step there is no cumbersome parade of reason. In my judgement President Bush is a good man a decent man and surrounded by good and decent men and women thrown into circumstances they and no one could have predicted with the fate of our Western world and ultimately the whole planet in their hands. Fate has made them our captains whether or not we are Americans. They are in a position of leadership as Churchill and his war cabinet once were. We as Canadians now look to Mr. Bush as once we looked to Mr. Churchill as the man of the hour. For the fate of Canada is again one with the fate of our allies. A good and decent man I declare it and our captain in the war that lies ahead. He and his colleagues want our prayers and what is more they need them. All our brave soldiers want and need our prayers. I ask all good and decent people to pray for them in this hour of truth. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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