America the saviour
Sir: Andrew Alexander’s book America and the Imperialism of Ignorance (Books, 11 February) alleges that since 1945 ‘the world is a much more dangerous place, as a result of America’s determination to save it’.
With respect to Mr Alexander, a distinguished journalist who has often been right, this analysis is very wrong.
First of all, we would never have achieved victory over fascism in 1945 without the sacrifice of American troops, many thousands of whom lie in cemeteries across the world.
Secondly, the idea that the USSR, a brutal occupier of whatever lands it controlled, wished to be a benign postwar force in Europe, or anywhere else, is, to put it mildly, ahistorical. International communism was self-evidently an aggressive and destructive force; in Europe, Nato succeeded as a defensive alliance against the USSR above all because America, its centre, always held.
Anti-Americanism is easy and fashionable, and of course the United States, like any power, makes mistakes. But I would argue that America’s commitment and sacrifices have been essential since 1917 to the world’s ability to resist nihilism.
The French philosopher Pascal Bruckner understands Europe’s predicament well. In ‘The Tyranny of Guilt, An Essay on Western Masochism’, he wrote, ‘The perpetual peace to which Europe aspires has its source not in Europe but in the United States…. If America were to collapse tomorrow, Europe would fall like a house of cards; it would return to the tergiversation it showed in Munich in 1938 and be reduced to a deluxe sanatorium ready to allow itself to be torn apart, piece by piece, by all sorts of predators.’
William Shawcross
London W2
A respectful tribe
Sir: I don’t think the Arrernte (or any other) aborigine tribes would appreciate being compared by Rod Liddle (11 February) to the ‘want-it-all-now generation’. In fact, they could not (in their pristine state) have been more different.
Social security was unknown to a tribe that prided itself on its independence. Regarding their land as sacred, the Arrernte, despite consummate hunting and gathering skills, took only what they needed. They treated each other with great tenderness, lived by law, joyfully celebrated their tradition, and were super-fit.
Ian Alston
Sutton, Surrey
Crazy talk
Sir: John R. Bradley (‘Be careful who you depose’, 11 February) doubts stories of mass killing in Syria on the grounds that Bashar al-Assad, while ruthless, ‘is no madman’. This seems a dangerous premise. Assad inherited absolute power over a nation of 20 million people, having been raised to believe that he deserved it. He is now in danger of losing that power. If he remains entirely sane, he is doing better than many of us would under the circumstances.
Matthew Tobin
Swindon
Communists and Nazis
Sir: It is surprising that Jonathan Freedland (‘Enemies within’, 11 February) should overlook the one political force in Britain which deliberately harmed the war effort in the early part of the war — the Communist party and its fellow travellers.
The party line was to obstruct production for ‘the bosses’ imperialist war’. There were even strikes in aircraft factories during the Battle of Britain. Nazis and Soviet Communists were happily collaborating at the time. The Kriegsmarine was granted a base in the port of Murmansk.
In the wartime coalition, Labour was in charge of industrial policy and declined to use the Defence Regulations against strikers. Thus was established the policy of appeasement of the trade unions which the Conservatives also followed disastrously until the Eighties.
They never dared tackle the huge legal immunities of trade unions and ‘wild cat’ shop stewards, granted by the Trade Disputes Act 1906. Harold Macmillan thought the country was ‘ungovernable’ and that opening British industry to free competition in Europe might do the trick, by introducing a more powerful ‘enemy within’ to our polity. Edward Heath eventually achieved that aim.
Edward Spalton
Derby
Join the queue
Sir: At the climax of his contribution to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee debate (‘Has Britain declined under Elizabeth II?’,
4 February), Ross Clark offers a corrective to those who criticise the mass immigration of recent years by saying: ‘Happy the country which has a long queue at the door.’
To which I am bound to respond: unhappy the country which has long queues inside its door — for housing, buses, trains, doctors’ appointments, operations, social security and schools. Not to mention supermarkets and cash machines.
Nick Booth
London W8
The scandal of Fabio’s pay
Sir: Why was there so much fuss over Stephen Hester’s bonus for saving a bank, and so little over Fabio Capello’s multi-million pound salary for failing on every count and then abandoning the England team with four months to go before the European Championships?
Angus Irvine
Hook Norton, Oxon
Quiet heroism
Sir: Preoccupied as I am by preening politicians, journalists and cultural apparatchiks — why else would I read the Spectator? — I thank Ursula Buchan, Matthew Parris and you for remembering (11 February) the quiet heroism of inconsequential people.
Patrick Pender-Cudlip
Queen Camel, Somerset
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