The real England speaks
- September 11, 2002
- 1 comment
Samizdata has a post showing how many shops in England are observing a few minutes silence as a memorial and a sign of support for the US. I had promised myself I wouldn’t get all weepy today, but after reading all those signs and the comments to the post, I couldn’t help it. The US has no truer friend than the UK.
Here’s a particularly good comment added to the above Samizdata post:
Thank you, to all of you in the U.K., for your support and assistance through the years.
The “special relationship” that we Americans enjoy with you, as well as the partnerships and alliances that we share with other former foes like Germany, Japan, Italy, Russia, Mexico, Spain, and others, proves that reconciliation, friendship, and interdependence can grow from the bloody, horrible experiences of war.
No one wants war, least of all Americans. Although not always peaceful, we are always peace-loving. We always hope that dialogue, negotiation, and diplomacy will peacefully resolve conflict.
Unfortunately, there are those in the world, tyrants like Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden, who do not share these cultural values, who view inaction with contempt and appeasement as a license for further aggression and violence.
Although we may pretentiously consider ourselves more “sophisticated” and “enlightened” than they are, we are often forced to communicate with them in the only language they understand and respect, power and violence, when diplomacy fails. To do otherwise reflects a condescending and presumptuous effort on our part to impose our Western values and ideals on their culture.
“Peace at any cost” ultimately comes at too high a price. Most often, countless lives and resources are saved when a smaller conflict is “nipped in the bud” before it becomes a larger conflagration, dealt with decisively and completely by the world community.
The challenge we face today is balancing our idealism with realism. We must all strive to make the world into the idealistic place we’d like to see, where peaceful conflict resolution is the norm, while protecting ourselves in the reality that still exists in the world.
Please remember that in the weeks and months ahead, as we are criticized for being “unilateralist”.
And another one:
One year ago, we learned that moral relativism is no longer a luxury we can afford.
Unfortunately, many of our most prominent voices (on both sides of the Atlantic), cannot seem to perceive this from their perches of privelege. They see no significant difference between a life stolen and the one who steals it.
This outpouring of compassion and respect shows that those of us who must “work for a living” have far more perceptual clarity and wisdom than our alleged intellectual “betters” in the chattering classes.
Thank you all! God save your Queen, preserve your PM, and bless America.
It was very surreal this morning to see images of the Royals and top British politicians gathered together for a service in St Paul’s cathederal singing the American national anthem.