JOE SOBRAN'S WANDERER COLUMN
THE WASHINGTON WATCH
A Time for Silence? (sample column)
April 3, 2003
Now that the war on Iraq has begun, many people,
including some who have opposed war from the start, take
the view that we must now suspend criticism and "support
the president." I understand the sentiment, but it seems
to me to get some basic principles backward.
Under our constitutional principles, "We the People"
are the ultimate authority in the United States, and our
officeholders are our servants. There is no room for a
quasi-sovereign or quasi-monarchical presidency which we
are bound to obey, especially when it comes dangerously
near to usurping powers delegated by the people to other
branches of government, such as the power to declare war.
Yet many Americans talk as if exercising the right
of criticism which belongs to the people were a kind of
disobedience to authority, or even a form of aid and
comfort to the enemy. And how long should such criticism
be suspended?
This already threatens to become a long war. We must
be prepared for a protracted struggle. Not only is Iraq,
at this early phase, stubbornly resisting American
efforts to "liberate" it; President Bush has suggested
the need to liberate neighboring countries, effecting
"regime change" and establishing "democracy" throughout
the Mideast, a project that would require some years, or
even decades.
If it becomes another Vietnam, or worse, why
shouldn't we criticize the government that has brought it
on?
Free criticism of the government is not just rude
heckling; it is supposed to be part of the process of
governance itself. Otherwise, we are at the mercy of
government propaganda.
It may even be a misnomer to speak of "the war on
Iraq." The neoconservatives who have shaped our
president's thinking have been calling openly for "World
War IV" to achieve regime change in most of the Arab
countries and Iran. Michael Ledeen, a prominent
neoconservative, calls the attack on Iraq "just one
battle in a broader war." Iran, he adds, is "the mother
of modern terrorism."
Richard Perle, yet another influential
neoconservative, pronounces himself "rather optimistic
that we will see regime change in Iran without any use of
military power by the United States." But of course this
hardly rules out U.S. military power, if necessary, to
effect that regime change.
So we may be in only the first phase of World
War IV. Surely we may, without disloyalty, oppose the
projected attacks on Iran, Syria, and other countries.
A PERSONAL NOTE
I have just been listed among "unpatriotic
conservatives" by one David Frum in a cover story in
NATIONAL REVIEW for my failure to support the hawks
before the attack on Iraq. Frum also cites Patrick
Buchanan, Robert Novak, Charley Reese, Thomas Fleming,
and Samuel Francis among those who are waging "war on
America."
Frum has patriotic credentials, of sorts. He is now
best known as the author of Mr. Bush's "Axis of Evil"
speech, laying the rhetorical groundwork for a war beyond
Iraq. Though he hails from Canada, I gather he is now
technically an American citizen.
I first met the patriotic Mr. Frum 20 years ago,
when I still worked for NATIONAL REVIEW. (At that time
and long afterward, I must say, I always found him
personally genial.) His first contribution to the
magazine was an article warning that a Reagan arms sale
to Saudi Arabia, by endangering Israel, would drive many
people away from the conservative movement.
At the time I was too naive to have suspicions of
Frum. But two things about his article troubled me.
First, the question for Americans should have been
not whether the arms sale was good for Israel, but
whether it was good for America. But this obvious
consideration didn't seem to occur to Frum, who now
challenges the patriotism of Americans. (Nor did Canadian
interests seem to concern him, but never mind.)
Second, conservatism was a whole philosophy of
government, and it struck me as odd that anyone, let
alone "many people," should reject its principles --
natural law, tradition, limited government, prudence,
constitutional constraints -- over something as trivial
as an arms sale.
Gradually it sank into my slow brain that Frum's
"many people" -- the neoconservatives -- regarded both
America and conservative principles as purely
instrumental to Israel's welfare. Such is his, and their,
American patriotism. We are entitled to wonder why they
are eager to see the United States fight a war
concentrated in the Mideast, against Israel's enemies.
But they are equally eager to suppress this
question. Frum's latest article is an audacious attempt
to silence conservative opponents of the war by smearing
them. All of his targets are manifestly patriotic men,
who have opposed war on Iraq because they regard it as
harmful, not helpful, to America. How it must elate him
to be allowed to indict their loyalty in the very
magazine that once symbolized American conservatism!
In fact, Frum's article marks the takeover of the
American conservative movement by neoconservatives who
care nothing for the principles of classical
conservatism. Just as pro-Soviet Communists once
infiltrated the ranks of liberals by adopting liberal
rhetoric, today the pro-Israel neoconservatives ape
conservative rhetoric for their own purposes.
True to form, Frum makes no reference to
conservative principles in pronouncing certain
"paleoconservatives" unpatriotic. He insinuates, of
course, that they are racists, anti-Semites, nativists,
etc. But their "war on America" seems to consist entirely
in applying their principles to the current U.S.
government and reaching conclusions he dislikes. He
especially dislikes their suspicion that the war on Iraq
and its neighbors will serve the interests of Israel, not
the adopted country to which he has recently sworn
allegiance. Either they are unpatriotic or he is.
But as in his article on Reagan's arms sale, Frum
never gets around to a discussion of conservative
principles. He seems unaware, and utterly unconcerned,
that the U.S. government today is further than ever from
its founding principles, the very principles his
"unpatriotic conservatives" have struggled to conserve.
All that matters is that they oppose the war he craves.
Frum has described himself as "liberal" on "social
issues," including abortion. So it seems that you can be
a full-fledged member of the Culture of Death -- pro-
abortion *and* pro-war -- and still be a good American.
But how would Frum's America deserve anyone's
loyalty?
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