Stanley Fish's Oct. 15 Op-Ed article, "Condemnation Without Absolutes," is like a balm cooling the fever of war jingoism.
The Russians invaded Georgia in a fever of war enthusiasm; have refused to pull out and rejected attempts to internationalise the dispute; and have now recognised the enclaves' independence less than three weeks after the war began.In principle, sub-national states should sometimes be able to secede, but South Ossetia and Abkhazia clearly do not qualify.
Meanwhile, what about the moral courage of those who stood against the war fever of post-9/11 America to oppose the war in Iraq, or the moral courage of the men and women whose bodies and lives are forever scarred by their participation in this terrible folly?
They show the madness of war fever on the home front.
The first is that it provides vivid details of an administration in the grip of war fever.
For a great many people, in the past and in the present, it is hard to resist the thrill of war fever, the excitement of "seriousness," and the call of history — the romance of the iceberg even as it sinks the boat.
The column's treatment of traditional religious perspectives and developments was welcomed by many readers who evidently felt that, in the fever of the culture wars and political polemics, those traditions were being given short shrift.
During the war fever of July 1914, he was assassinated by a young fanatic who believed that Jaurès's pacifism was playing into the hands of imperial Germany.
In the meantime, I'll say only that a neoconservative is an addled, would-be American patriot who has never read Chapter 9, "War Fever," of Amos Elon's The Pity of It All: A History of the Jews in Germany, 1743-1933.
The Osama factor Election fever Reprints Related items The ethics of war: Mind those proportionsJul 27th 2006 Iraq: Yes, it could get even worseJul 13th 2006The Sunnis are sitting tight in their strongholds, such as Ghazaliya and Ameriya on the west of the city; in Karkh, on the west bank of the river; and in Adhamiya, on its north-eastern bank.
The Osama factor Election fever Reprints Related items The ethics of war: Mind those proportionsJul 27th 2006 Israel and Lebanon: Stuck in LebanonJul 27th 2006 Lebanon's government: So who's running the show?Jul 27th 2006 The crisis in Lebanon, Israel and Palestine: Ending will be harderJul 20th 2006Israel suffered too, though its death toll has been about nine times smaller than Lebanon's.
