GLOBALIZATION AND SOVEREIGNTY

James C. Bennett argues that the terror masters' aim is to destroy the benign international order, largely founded on democracy and trade, that the US and its allies built after 1945. Under Bennett's analysis, the costs of capitulation are staggering:

We may be at a critical point in the defense of the open, democratic and commercial order America and many other nations have together built since 1945. Those who do not support this defense fail to understand that the entire idea of an international order of rules (already extended far beyond what reality can support) cannot be taken for granted, and must be defended forcibly against would-be empires. This is not some kind of game in which Saddam gets to have nuclear weapons if U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan failed to say "Simon says" before Bush acts.

Failure to understand these points may soon lead us to a place where life for all is short, nasty, brutish and mean, and from time to time, radioactive.

As Bennett notes, the irony of our situation is that the people who most stronly oppose President Bush's efforts to rein in this Hobbesian world are precisely the same people who most noisily accuse him of crimes against humanity while excusing true criminals such as Saddam Hussein. Their criticism isn't merely wrong on the facts--its very presence is debilitating to our ability to successfully prosecute the war.

That being said, why do some famous pro-war bloggers keep giving the anti-war crowd sound advice on how to make themselves appear credible? It makes no sense, and in the long run could get us all killed. Let the protesters continued to be ill-informed and look foolish--the more credible they seem, the more dangerous they become.