March 27, 2002

Mark Steyn's latest column on

Mark Steyn's latest column on "the Gallic Shrug" has some great lines, including this:

"Bush is crippled," said someone else, "by his Rambo view of the world."

"I very much doubt Bush reads Rimbaud," I said.


Joking aside, he makes an important point about our contemporary disinclination to take sides in any conflict.
Countries A and B may be at war, but there is no good side and no bad side, just two parties "trapped" in a "mindless" "cycle of violence" that "threatens the peace process." The "peace process" tends to be no peace and lotsa process, in which Western panjandrums have invested considerable amounts of their prestige...

Forget the "cycle of violence" and the "peace process." History teaches us that the most lasting peace is achieved when one side -- preferably the worst side -- is decisively defeated and the regime's diseased organs are comprehensively cleansed. That's why National Socialism, Fascism and Japanese militarism have not troubled us of late. One can imagine how World War Two would have ended had, say, Mary Robinson, the UN Human Rights poseur, been sitting in Downing Street instead of Winston Churchill. Her crowd should not be running World War Four.

Posted by Dr. Frank at March 27, 2002 12:43 PM | TrackBack