Words, words, words - I'm so sick of words

By Aussiegirl

As Melanie Phillips so cogently expresses in today's Daily Mail, rarely have the leaders of ostensibly the most powerful nations in the world looked as helpless and pointless as they appeared during this superfluous meeting of the G-8. They are an anachronism of another age if there ever was one. The outbreak of war in the Middle East could not have come at a more ironic time than to coincide with this irrelevant meeting of geriatric and impotent leaders, smiling and back-slapping and congratulating each other as the world bursts into flames around them. As Phillips points out, it is only Putin who looked strong, and we all know what a thuggish and criminal enterprise he has turned Russia into. In today's world, the civilized nations are at a great disadvantage, for they still believe that the world plays by their antiquated gentlemanly rules. But the rest of the world is busy exercising military power and aggressive, coordinated terrorist action to bring down the gentleman's club, even as they wine and dine on lobster, caviar and champagne. It is doubtful if the statement that came out of this meeting will have any effect whatsoever on events currently unfolding in the Middle East.

How distressing it must be for all of them. There was a time when these sorts of summits and international conferences were actually taken seriously by the world. We looked at the assembled host of leaders of their respective countries, and we were comforted that serious men were in charge of the world. What the great European powers said, mattered. What the developed and democratic powers said mattered. They decided the fate of the world, and dispensed their treaties and their policies for a grateful and humble world to digest. But for all the relevance that this G-8 meeting had at the time of the opening volleys of WWIII, they might as well have been posing in powdered wigs and silk breeches while cavorting in their glittering palaces, insensitive to the hobnailed boots thundering towards the barricades. But this is not the French Revolution, these are not the oppressed and unwashed that are knocking at the gate, these are the barbarian hordes, armed with modern technology and a 7th century warrior mentality. While we, armed with an ever superior technology, come equipped with the dainty squeamishness and restraint of a fop at a tea party who picks up his teacup with a daintily raised pinkie while inquiring about a fine point of policy. Guess who wins that contest?

In today's Asia Times, Spengler says -- "I told you so" -- and so he did. Only what he had to say was so prophetic, and so horrible, that no one wanted to listen.

It is clear that George Bush's Wilsonian and quixotic quest to solve the world's problems through the enforced spread of democracy has failed. The only place in the Middle East that a new democracy is still clinging to the edge of the precipice by its very strained and bloody fingertips is Iraq, and perhaps Afghanistan. But even there, the price of a nominal democracy is a huge western military presence, a constant bleed of casualties, and ongoing civil strife and sectarian warfare. It would have been better if George Bush had never read Natan Sharansky's book on how democracies do not wage war with each other. While true, it is only true of Western democracies, which also include countries such as Japan that were westernized by force following their crushing defeat in WWII. Countries which shared a common Western heritage. But even there, we had a Hitler who came to power in a democratic election. It is in man's nature to want to dominate and make war. Only this impulse has been dulled in the West, with its refined concepts of equality and an increasingly passive attitude towards open aggression and hostility.

The time of the seeming inevitable tide of color revolutions is over. Lebanon has come a cropper, with Hezbollah allowed into the government and exercising total control via its powerful militia -- there is effectively no democracy in Lebanon. It is doubtful if Islam is compatible with a secular democracy. And the notion that all people everywhere are motivated by the same enlightened and tolerant passions as those that motivate our president is a dangerous and untrue one. And in any case, it is the leaders that determine the policy, and the leaders in the Islamic world are either powerful autocrats and dictators like the Saudi princelings, or they are shaky democrats hanging on for dear life against a tide of Islamist fundamentalist passion in places such as Egypt and Pakistan. And then there are the armed terrorist organizations, like Hamas and Hezbollah and Fatah and Al Qaida, that operate with the support and acquiescence of countries such as Iran and Syria.

In Palestine, Hamas has been voted into office, and for all the reassurances given by those who supported this insane policy of legitimizing terrorist gangs through the ballot box, we were told not to worry -- they would be constrained by having to pick up the garbage now that they were legitimate. They would be tamed by the administrative realities of having to deliver social services and government bureacracy. It just shows how little those who espoused such a concept understood of human nature. Or perhaps it shows how deeply ingrained our own western notion of civil government is, that we cannot conceive that there are people who don't care about picking up the garbage when they can more profitably occupy their time building bombs and rockets and spending every waking minute dreaming up ways to kill infidels and Jews and taking over the world and making it safe for worldwide Sharia law.

Newt Gingrich has weighed in with his own pronouncement that we are already in WWIII. Many others have joined the chorus. I remind readers of what I wrote here on UT on Saturday, July 8, before any of this violence in the Middle East had even happened. There were many then who proclaimed that I was too gloomy, that my forecasts of doom were too negative and pessimistic. I was counseled by some not to worry, but to be happy, because everything was going according to the grand plan and we would all muddle through somehow. I quote some of what I said here:

Let's face it -- let's just say it outright -- we do not stand on the brink of war -- we ARE at war already. A war we are losing, because we do not realize it has already been engaged. That the forces are arrayed, that the first skirmishes have already taken place, that the strategic placement of alliances and strengths and weaponry and fifth columnists and infiltrators are all in place and already doing their dirty deeds. Only the leaders of the west have somehow failed to notice that we are no longer in charge of this chaotic world, that is spinning daily out of control. While diplomats diddle and fiddle, while wise men stroke their beards and women posing as movers and shakers stomp their attractive high-heeled boots, the evil ones plot and plan and laugh at our foolish actions. We are playing a fool's game and the tragic part is that the people see what is happening, and are powerless to do anything about it. We are left leaderless and rudderless staring into the gaping void.

The events of the past week should make it starkly clear to even the most fuzzy-minded leaders wandering around in a self-congratulatory and champagne-induced haze of diplomacy and international cooperation. We are at war. There is no way back. There is no retreat. There is no diplomacy on earth that can turn this tide of history. And if we try to stuff this pandora back into the box with diplomacy and force a premature retreat on Israel, we seal our own fate. Iran has begun the war at a time of its choosing, with Hezbollah and Syria as its proxies. Israel is our proxy -- the proxy of the West -- once again doing the dirty work for all those powdered wigs who don't want to get their hands dirty with the messy business of saving civilization from a hundred years of darkness and savagery and ignorance. What possible use are all these talks? What possible use are UN resolutions and G-8 pronouncements? What possible use is another round of shuttle diplomacy by Condoleeza Rice? Words -- words -- words -- the time is past for words. Now comes crunch time -- time for action. If not now, then we will engage this battle later, at a more desperate time, and with more lethal consequences. They can forget their economic unions, their fine treaties, their elegant banquets -- the caviar and lobster have turned to ashes in the mouth. The world will never be quite the same again. We are at war. There may be lulls and truces and temporary illusions of peace intervening, but there is no mistaking the inevitable thrust of history. I pray God we have the will to win.