Critic as enemy?

An unpopular truth

[Reprinted from Issues & Views February 24, 2003]

In his syndicated column, "The School of Experience" (1/28/03), Joseph Sobran defends the right of Europeans to be skeptical about supporting a war against Iraq:

It's juvenile to equate critics with enemies. A critic may warn you that you are driving dangerously. An enemy would rather see you have a serious accident. A true friend will sometimes be a critic, even an angry critic. Our European friends are now exasperated with us. Instead of heeding their passionate pleas, our rulers ridicule them as "old Europe" for refusing to cooperate in a dubiously conceived military adventure whose outcome nobody can know.

Two world wars ended with consequences all the belligerents failed to foresee. If anyone really won, it was, both times, the Communists. The first war enabled them to overthrow the tsars and conquer Russia; the second one enabled them to extend their empire over much of Christian Europe. Even Stalin must have been happily surprised when, after a mighty close shave, he emerged as an emperor.

Yet to this day, the optimistic illusion persists that "we" won both wars. But neither time could the results be judged on the day the enemy ceremonially surrendered. History isn't measured by ceremonies, which are only brief pauses in infinitely complex and continuous events.

-- Joseph Sobran is the author of several books, and is currently writing a book on the abandonment of the Constitution. For the most candid insights on culture, government and society, subscribe to Sobran's newsletter.

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