REVIEW & OUTLOOK
Genoa's Folly
In Seattle Clinton encouraged the protestors. Now one lies dead in Italy.
As The Wall Street Journal predicted last Friday, the Group of Eight summit in Genoa exploded in violence over the weekend, leaving one "antiglobalization" protestor dead and hundreds of others injured, including many law-enforcement officials charged with the unenviable task of maintaining order in the midst of an anarchic frenzy.
So what have we learned from this barbaric display. First, as we have mentioned in the past, that personal and political sympathy for thugs dressed up like protestors only encourages the kind of violence we witnessed in Genoa. Second, that the leaders of the most powerful nations in the world think peace is good, war is bad, poverty is undesirable and diseases should be treated. Finally, since it's become apparent that the so-called antiglobalization movement isn't going to go away, the titans of the developed world have declared that the next G-8 summit, in Canada, will take place on top of a mountain. Literally. Forcing powerful leaders to flee to remote hideouts is quite an achievement.
Bill Clinton, who was not called "Slick Willy" for nothing, thought it a good idea to legitimize the protesters when they first emerged in force at the World Trade Organization gathering in Seattle in 1999. They repaid him by trashing Seattle and any hope of new negotiations on freer trade. Seattle will be remembered as one of Mr. Clinton's most damaging mistakes.
"Trade is the best avenue for growth in all countries," President Bush said on Friday. To the protesters he added: "Instead of embracing policies that help the poor, you embrace policies that lock poor people into poverty--and that is unacceptable to the United States." It should be unacceptable as well to anyone else genuinely concerned about the world's poor.
These protesters have their fair share of anarchists and nihilists who simply want to destroy for the sheer joy of it. We do not expect Mr. Bush's arguments to make any headway against such hooligans. But for those who are willing to listen, there are good arguments to be made for trade and for economic growth and prosperity.
Rather than hold these meetings in ever more-secluded spots, hiding as if with guilty consciences from activists short-sighted enough to promote protectionism and isolationism, the world's leaders need to tell the truth. A good start would have been putting President Bush's thoughts on the need for trade into the summit's communique, instead of filling it with the kind of platitudes about war and peace and health and sickness that, without a robust defense of economic freedom, are just so much mouthwash.
