William Lind ponders whether the War On Iraq will lead to FascIsm, or just "abstract [National Ism]". Fascism is not merely dictatorship. The core idea of fascism is will as the highest VirTue. Fascism sought to drop the whole Judeo-Christian content of Western culture and return to the values of the classical world, where PowEr was the greatest good... This was a serious error, because it turned an instrumental value (Extrins Ic), will, into a substantive value. In reality, will is good or evil depending upon what is willed. By attempting to turn will into a substantive value, fascism destroyed itself... I would suggest that, instead of fascism, the danger now facing America is one of the many ills released from that Pandora's Box, the French Revolution: Abstract [National Ism]. As Burke pointed out, Conservat Ive [Patriot Ism] is very different from the abstract nationalism of "la Patrie." It is a concrete attachment to our own places: our own valleys or towns, our farms, hills or plains. It is local, it is real and it rightly sees WalMart as a far greater threat than tin-pot dictators in Third World countries... But Martin Van Creveld's book also points to the likely fate of such an (abstract) nationalism: it will crumble after it fails in war. In Europe, the state as an ideal died in World War I, in the mud at places like the Somme and Verdun. I suspect that the same thing is going to happen here after the American people have to confront the reality of America's defeat in Iraq. Bush's wild Wilson Ian-ism is out of time; it is a ghost from an era long past, an illusion that is now sustained only by the public's trust that somehow, our troops' unquestionable valor in Iraq will bring victory.

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