Will To Power
George Will is a smart guy.
But it's interesting; I was flipping through "The Morning After", a collection of his columns from the '80s. He's a smart guy, sure enough.
But just because he's a conservative doesn't make him always right. It helps, but it's not a lock.
In the eighties, George Will thought that the Second Amendment should be repealed, thought that we were undertaxed for the level of service our government supposedly delivered, and that the legacy of the Reagan Administration was going to be disastrous, due to the deficits and his brinksmanship with the Soviets.
He's at it again. Two weeks ago, he called for a pullout from Iraq, claiming the war was a gathering disaster (a move that made the leftybloggers waddle around with big grins like toddlers that had just made really good pantses).
And yesterday, he called for Rumsfeld's resignation.
Big Trunk from Powerline takes it apart:
I may be a slow learner, but the concept of "domination for self-defense" as a form of empire is one that requires more explanation than Will provides.
It is also unclear to me how Will is able to distinguish imperial misconduct photographically from misconduct in a cause that is simply worthy. Here he puts me mind of Peter Hurkos, the world's foremost psychic; his forte was "psychometry," the ability to see past-present-future associations by touching objects. Will claims to be able to deduce national motives from photos of a few soldiers misbehaving.
Two weeks ago Will called, sort of, for an early exit of American forces from Iraq, even if it were to lead to civil war. Will argued that "in Iraq, civil war might be preferable to today's combination of disintegration tempered by violent Sunni-Shiite collaboration against U.S. supervision." But it is impossible that civil war would be the finale to the withdrawal Will calls for; civil war would end in the probable division of Iraq into parts dominated by Iran and/or Syria.
George Will is a smart man; he knows that civil war would be a temporary condition whose probable outcome is the evil against which our current difficulties in Iraq must be compared. Why pretend otherwise?
Today Will advises: "Listen to the language. It is always a leading indicator of moral confusion." I wonder if this advice does not apply more to Will's column than to its ostensible subject.
Will's a smart guy, but he's not the oracle of Delphi.
Posted by Mitch at
May 11, 2004 06:37 AM
I'm all for a guy constantly testing his theories against the action on the ground and all that, but there's a caveat.
It's always best to do as much of that testing either alone, or in private with a trusted friend or advisor before blurting it out.
There's no scenario in which the interests of the US, let alone the Middle East or the world itself, are best served by allowing a civil war, followed by partition, to break out in Iraq.
George Will ought to be ashamed of himself for such intellectual laxity.
Posted by: Patton at May 11, 2004 10:52 AMI usually love George Will's writing.
I hate hearing that Mr. Will was calling for Rummy's resignation. But then I read the article.
And His main points are valid. Even his questions are valid. I just disagree with his assupmtion that Rumsfeld's resignation will help our war effort. And that there are enough discerning people to matter what they think. That is not what wins elections, and if Bush loses the election, this war is over, and Islamic fascists win.
1)The first axiom is: When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate.
2)The principle is: The response by the nation's government must express horror, shame and contrition proportional to the evil done to others, and the harm done to the nation, by agents of the government.
3)One question is: Are the nation's efforts in the deepening global war helped or hindered by Rumsfeld's continuation as the appointed American most conspicuously identified with the conduct of the war?
4)the second question: Were he to resign, would discerning people say that nothing in his public life became him like the leaving of it?
5)the second axiom. The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
Posted by: Burt Bregman at May 12, 2004 12:04 PM