Not in our name

Saturday, 29th March 2003

Peter Hitchens says that this is a left-wing conflict and Conservatives should not support it

There seems to be an ideology of 'Americanism' in which one is either totally loyal or one is a suspect - another feature of the pro-war cause which perhaps attracts those ex-Marxists. It is based on an idea of America rather than the nation which actually exists. It has little or nothing to do with that good and decent country and its generous citizens in their quiet towns and peaceful suburbs which I love so much. I am reminded not of them but of the terrifying American messianic bore Hector Dexter in Nancy Mitford's 1951 satire The Blessing, who tells his English hosts that he wishes to see a bottle of Coca-Cola on every table in every country:

When I say a bottle of Coca-Cola I mean it metaphorically speaking, I mean it as an outward and visible sign of something inward and spiritual. I mean it as if each Coca-Cola bottle contained a djinn, as if that djinn was our great American civilisation ready to spring out of each bottle and cover the whole global universe with its great wide wings. That is what I mean.

This juvenile, boastful spirit was epitomised last week by the US navy's Vice-Admiral Timothy Keating, aboard the USS Constellation. Vice-Admiral Keating waved his arms about and told his ship's company, 'It's hammer time!' to the accompaniment of Queen's 'We will rock you' played at maximum decibels. Adult cultures think war deserves reflection and seriousness of purpose. This war seems to have been imagined and designed by spiritual teenagers. Will the next begin to the obscene rattle and boom of gangsta rap? I do not know, but there was an ugly hubris about the bombardment of Baghdad which followed soon afterwards.

The city was shaken and blasted by men pushing buttons in almost complete safety hundreds of miles away. Yes, most of the missiles hit their targets and the civilian casualties were few, though that was little comfort to those few. Yes, the bombs were directed at an ugly and despicable tyranny. Yes, the bomb-aimers believed they were doing good. But the thoughtless, yelling anti-culture of hard rock is apt theme music for this thoughtless, reckless and over-confident form of warfare.

What if one day others are in a position to treat us as we have treated Baghdad, and it is our women giving premature birth because they are buffeted by blast waves and petrified by the 'smart' explosions, while the ceilings of our neglected hospitals crack and crumble as the palaces and bunkers of our loathed elite are blasted? Do I wish that our casualties had been higher? Of course not. But the ability to ruin someone else's capital city without much risk to yourself makes you more likely to do so. It reminds me of Robert E. Lee's truly conservative remark after the carnage of Fredericksburg: 'It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it.' For the attacker, war is no longer terrible enough. Some people have grown too fond of it. They are not conservatives in any serious meaning of the word.

Peter Hitchens is a columnist for the Mail on Sunday. His new book, A Brief History of Crime, is published by Atlantic on 10 April.