Thatcher and Cincinnatus

I don’t know why I make it my business to try to bring TigerHawk to his senses. I guess deep down I believe, with Father Flanigan, that there is no such thing as a Really Bad Boy.

And I must say I liked those pictures he posted yesterday of the British memorial service for the fallen of the Falkland War (link) (although you have to wonder how much of this is a sincere commitment to their memory and how much a promotion of tourism).

But it seems to me that a little perspective is in order. The Falklands was perhaps a necessary war—a bunch of pissant hoodlums in the Argentine government had set out to tweak the beards (oops) of the British monarchy and someone decided to tweak them back. Fine, so far. Maybe that was a good reason to fight the war,

But—and this is my point—but that isn’t why it was fought. It was fought to save Maggie Thatcher’s bacon. Thatcher had been hugely unpopular during the first two years of her reign Prime Ministership, and when headed for defeat when the stupidity of the Argentines bailed her out. The war also, not incidentally, destroyed the efforts to create a non-loony centrist party in Britain (amazing how often responsible centrism gets derailed by a pointless war).

I’m not saying that Maggie was just as bad as the Argentines. Certainly not; after all, they started it. But nobody is indispensable. One way to for Maggie to preserve her integrity would have been to whack the tar out of the Argentines and then, like Cincinnatus, retire to return to the plow. “Fellow Britons,” she might have said

We can rejoice in a successful campaign, mindful of the sacrifice of the brave men who gave their lives to secure our position. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as your Prime Minister, and nothing makes me prouder than to have been ae to preside over such a memorable achievement. But there is a time for everything. If there is any other service I can perform for the British people now, it may be this: to step from this great office and thus to assure that no one need be corrupted or misled by the inducements of military glory to misunderstand the needs and responsibilities of government.

Okay, so she didn’t. But along with all the fooferaw over the anniversary, it might be useful to take a moment to remark on the tragedy that young people die in the service of old people’s intrigues.