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04/28/2003 Archived Entry: "What Did Gandhi Do?"

WWGD?: David Lewis Schaefer has an interesting piece up over at National Review Online responding to all of those campus posters that plaintively asked, "What Would Gandhi Do?". The U.S., the posters hinted, should emulate India's greatest man and seek the path of piece with Iraq.

The analogy, it should go without saying, overlooks major differences between the two cases. Whereas the 20th-century British were far too benign an imperial power to choose to slaughter peaceful resisters to their rule, there’s no evidence that Saddam Hussein, already responsible for the massacre and torture of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen (to say nothing of the many more who died in his aggressive wars against Iran and Kuwait) would likewise have succumbed to friendly persuasion — Jacques Chirac to the contrary notwithstanding. (It’s not that we didn’t try!)

I know it's popular to diss Ghandi these days but I always have some affection for unarmed people in the midst of a freedom campaign who stride up to figures of authority and dare them to respond.