Words Against War

So many words from so many intelligent, impassioned people, in so many essays -- most of them flitting through the Internet-- on why the Rumsfeld rush to war will be disastrous, for us and everybody else. Our unelected president remains unmoved, probably even unaware of these arguments -- any argument that goes against his inclinations he finds too complicated.

One of the most cogent statements of how the whole premise of Bush's foreign policy denies the fundamental values we have defended in this republic appeared today as a full-page ad in the NYT, an essay by Wendell Barry taken from Orion magazine; an abridged version is online, A Citizen's Response to the National Security Stategy of the United States of America.

One aspect I hadn't thought of before but that Berry seems to suggest, is that the anti-globalization protesters now have a frightening ally. The America First fundamentalists who have stolen our government are torpedoing all those institutions that would make an integrated world tolerable and civilized: the World Court, the United Nations, and a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. They -- the fundamentalists giggling their way to war (just look at Rumsfeld's photo on the front page of today's NYT!) -- imagine the rest of the world as coming to be subjugated by them, but that -- thank the gods -- is not going to happen. Instead, it will be the USA against the rest of the world. Power-blinded rulers have behaved like this from earliest times. Given the destructive power available to all sides now, we're facing disasters of unprecedented magnitude.