Fickle friends
Last week when I was reading the international response to our extermination of the dangerous pest known as Osama bin Laden, I was sadly unsurprised to see so many British editorials bemoaning U.S. action. Winston Churchill, for sure, was having a very unpleasant day in his justly commodious afterlife. Somehow or other, the civilization he had bequeathed to his people, rescued from the evil dictatorship others were hell-bent on inflicting upon it, had turned into a nation of quislings.
Imagine, then, how thrilled I was to see this yesterday: an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal from Andrew Roberts, a British historian of World War II, apologizing for his countrymen, who seem far removed from the bulldogs of past glory. Quoting Churchill, who was chary of “the long, drawling, dismal tides of drift and surrender,” Roberts wonders whether the British “can be counted upon for much longer.”
It continues to astonish me that in some circles the sentiment carries on that we somehow did wrong by Mr. bin Laden. I can’t explain it, because I can’t understand it.