The bestial Bush administration

In recent centuries, war has reliably accomplished three things: kill vast quantities of individuals, expand the size and scope of the central state and degrade the traditional values of Western Civilization. As the historian Paul Johnson points out in "Modern Times": "The effect of the Great War was enormously to increase the size and therefore the destructive capacity and propensity to oppress, of the state. Before 1914, all state sectors were small, though most were growing, some of them fast. The area of actual state activity averaged between 5 and 10 percent of the Gross National Product."

According to the CIA World Factbook, the five leading members of the Coalition of the Willing, the multinational force purportedly bringing "freedom" to occupied Iraq, feature state sectors averaging 34.9 percent of Gross Domestic Product, a five-fold increase in less than 100 years. It is sobering to realize that for all of our technological riches, citizens of modern democracies possess far less economic freedom than did the average subject of Kaiser Wilhelm II or King George V.

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But this is not the only way in which Western Civilization has significantly devolved. The social degradation that accompanied the Sexual Revolution of the late 1960s has been much-lamented, and there is little doubt about which political party has been the standard bearer for what Robert Bork so eloquently described as "slouching toward Gomorrah." Ramesh Ponnuru decries a "party of death," although a more unwieldy but accurate appellation might be "the cult of the death of Western Civilization."

Sadly, it is not only Democrats who have sold their souls to barbarism. Not content to rest with their betrayal of the once-central concept of small government, at the behest of George W. Bush, Republicans have likewise abandoned one of the core hallmarks of civilization itself. Consider the words of Winston Churchill, a man not well-known for shirking confrontation or combat, written after World War I while he was secretary of state for war:

All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them. The mighty educated States involved conceived – not without reason – that their very existence was at stake. Neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought could help them to win. Germany, having let hell loose, kept well in the van of terror; but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed. … When it was all over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and they were of doubtful utility.

It is those last words that most completely damn the Bush administration as barbarians unfit for leadership of the free world. Few would find appeals to national security very compelling if the president insisted that victory in the War That Dare Not Speak Its Name required feeding the armed forces on the flesh of fallen Iraqis, and yet there is very little evidence, historic or current, that indicates torture will be of any use in turning back the forces of expansionist Islam.

Enthusiastic use of the most brutal torture did not help the French hold Algeria against Islamic rebels, nor did it bring victory to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Debates about whether "water boarding" is more acceptable than the rack or thumbscrews are meaningless; the point is that civilized societies do not indulge in such activities since they are evil and effectively useless.

It's not as if the administration possess a shred of credibility when it comes to national security in the first place. It cannot be denied that 9/11 happened on the Bush administration's incompetent watch; it is arguably on the verge of losing control of Afghanistan; and it is definitely threatening to compound failure with more failure by rattling an impotent saber at Iran. Meanwhile, it turns a blind eye to increased Muslim immigration, hands out entry visas to Saudi nationals and holds border control hostage in an effort to grant U.S. citizenship to millions of illegal aliens.

And yet Americans are somehow supposed to believe that if only the president is allowed to order the application of electricity to the genitals of a few captured jihadists, all will be well. This is absurd, and yet one can easily imagine that if George Bush suddenly decided that the state interest dictated serving Long Pig at the next state dinner, today's torture enthusiasts would immediately begin flinging accusations of disloyalty and insufficient patriotism at those cowardly critics of cannibalism.

As long as its nominal defenders consist of Devolutionary Democrats and Three Monkey Republicans, it is eminently possible that Western Civilization will not survive its barbaric enemies.

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