It’s the end of the world as we know it . . .

And I feel fine, really I do. Bollocks to everyone but us and bollocks to those of us who can’t see clearly the duty before us and rush to execute that duty with all the faculties at their disposal.

That being said, I was about to berate myself mightily for not having anything to say lately because, well, everything that can be said has already been said. I mean really, how often can you berate the Frogs and the ex-Deutsch for being the cheese (or weinerschnitzel) eating appeasement monkeys that they are?

Infinitely, in fact, but it does get old after a time.

Anyway, I was interested today to read an article by the indispensable John Derbyshire concering our tortise-like “rush” to war and the apparently lightning-quick British Way of War.

The last war for me – the last war I saw my own country engage in, and some of the participants in which I knew personally – was the Falklands War of 1982. Speed and daring were certainly on display in Margaret Thatcher’s response to Argentine aggression; and the wrist-flapping mountebanks at the U.N. had very little to do with what transpired. Talking with American friends, however, they tell me that there is a characteristic American way of war, which involves the slow accumulation of overwhelming force, which is then unleashed in a brief, terrible campaign. Speed and daring don’t come into it much. It’s a different national style of war making.

I couldn’t let that one slide so I sent him the following email:

I read your comments of 2/18 with some interest. Like you, I am hedging my bets on war with Iraq. I should very much like to see it go forward as much for the purely military/security reasons as for the belief that toppling Saddam will lead to a domino effect of freedom throughout the Middle East. I feel so strongly about this that I am convinced it is all but irrelevant which Middle Eastern state we invade so long as we invade someone and demonstrate overwhelmingly that we simply won’t accept their sort of hypocritical totalitarian higgledy-piggledy anymore.

But, I am surprised at your reference to the “British way of war” being markedly superior to the slow buildup of the “American way of war.” Agreed, the Falklands campaign was a masterpiece of swiftness but that was against an all but non-existent threat – much like the American campaigns in Panama and Grenada. Rather, I think of the quick British actions in the opening days of World Wars One and Two where the BEF was nearly crushed (in the Great War) and only narrowly escaped being driven entirely into the sea (as in the Second World War). Reasonable folks can disagree about the American contributions to those wars (particularly the First) but there is something to be said for an overwhelming build up of men and material and then a final quick strike. In WWII, of course, we built up men and material for two and one half years only to finally unleash it and end the war in Europe less than one year later.

I think I’ll take the surety of a slow buildup followed by a swift and overwhelming assault over the immediate strike with whatever forces are at hand and endless hand-wringing over an outcome in doubt.

That being said, hurrah for the British all the same. After being betrayed by the Irish (whose whiskey distilleries are owned almost entirely by the French), and the Germans (whose transgressions are patently obvious) at least I can still, in good conscience, sit down with a pint of bitter and cheer John Bull. And this due to a Labour Prime Minister no less!

Will wonders never cease?