Also "slippery." So to speak.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Criticism is patriotism.
A thoughtful Republican friend of mine recently saw _The Fog of War_, Errol Morris' excellent documentary about Robert McNamara. He writes:
> I lived through that era and recall how passionately he and others
> espoused the domino theory. It’s why I am so skeptical now when
> Bush-Cheney et al tell us that all of the middle east will
> disintegrate if we leave.
Right -- and I'd underscore "we." Why isn't an increasingly radical sub-set of fundamentalist Islamists worldwide targeting Honduras? Or Taiwan? Because what sort of a history do those countries have of stationing troops in the middle east or meddling with middle-eastern political regimes?
I'll say this, though. I don't disagree that there's something like a global war on Something that we need to be engaged in, and that terrorism is included in that Something. The problem is in part that these Bushies simply aren't thoughtful -- but more, I think, that they don't have the courage to act on conclusions that pretty much any simpleton could reach.
To wit. What is "terrorism," anyway? Well, that's fairly easy: it's illegal warfare. It's using force against non-combatants to achieve political ends. It's eschewing the rule of law and international customs defining the parameters of humane warfare.
If that's the case, then, one doesn't fight terrorism by committing it: by killing Iraqi civilians by the tens-of-thousands (by even the most conservative estimate); by strongarming weak allies into our cause; or by promoting torture, by backing away from international legal institutions like the UN and the International Court, or by riding roughshod over some very longstanding civil rights here at home.
What else is "terrorism"? It might not be part of the formal definition, but we often associate it with religious extremism. We might call an IRA bomber a terrorist, but folks would just as often call him a "freedom-fighter" or "rebel" or "insurgent." But if a jihadist bombed the same pub in the name of Allah, it'd be hard for us to find a word for him OTHER than "terrorist."
So if "terrorism" implies some degree of religious extremism or irrationalism, then again our "war on terror" is something we ought to be fighting here at home, on ourselves, as much as -- not necessarily instead of -- overseas.
Take Iran. "Theocracy," we say. They've got a semi-secular but still fairly religious President who rules uneasily and is heavily dependent upon the radically religious mullahs who control the hearts and minds of a small but politically active radical religious minority. And is the situation here so different? Religious radicals are a solid and powerful minority in the country as well as in the Congress, and politicians in both parties compromise to placate this "religious right": both parties have to pay it lip service, and Republicans who flaunt it get axed. Giuliani will be a very interesting bellweather on this point -- but it's telling that it takes a 9/11 flag-wrapping to protect a Republican from the religious right (and this is assuming that G. acutally WINS the nomination). It says as much if not more about the party in general that every other Republican candidate is much closer to the RRight's stance on key issues.
This isn't to conclude prima facie that religion has no place in politics (it might), nor that both religion and politics in Iran are more radical than their American counterparts. But if the question is whether, for example, the religious-political landscape of the US is more like Iran or more like, say, England or Canada -- well, that's a different question, and I think one with a much less clear answer.
So a global war on terror? If we're even a LITTLE bit consistent about what that has to mean, I'm all for it.
Something else to mull over. We all tend to thoughtlessly categorize critics of US policy and culture as alienists or anti-Americans in some way -- as socialists, Euro-fags, godless commies, anti-capitalists, what have you. But hasn't it generally been the case that a country's greatest critics are its greatest patriots? Patrick Henry? Maybe, but I'm thinking about, for example, George Washington himself. An American patriot, no? -- but he WASN'T American. He wasn't born or raised American. He was a British citizen -- a critic of and rebel against British political culture. And every Brit recognizes now (as did many at the time) that Washington and the colonial rebels were fighting FOR true British rights: self-determination, representation, the rule of law, due process. And Lincoln? Only the greatest critic America has ever had: the only individual to lead the country into war on itself. How about FDR, who dragged this country kicking and screaming into WWII?
Flag-wavers on the one hand and critics on the other. Who turn out to be our heroes, in the long run? Was it the folks who got us into Vietnam or the folks who got us out? Nixon's whole political reputation -- perhaps the most damaged of any president -- was salvaged by the sole fact of his embracing China; the then-beloved McCarthy, however, who held US mainstream culture (and Hollywood) in his hand, is the villain now.
The public's turning against the Iraq war it demanded -- but it's still early, we're still engaged. Nevertheless, folks who opposed it from the start are now deriving political capital from that opposition. Obama, whose opposition was theoretical, is trading on it. Dems who voted for it are having to backpedal. Eventually, what will we say about the 23 Senators and 133 Reps who voted against Joint Resolution 144 in 2002?
> I lived through that era and recall how passionately he and others
> espoused the domino theory. It’s why I am so skeptical now when
> Bush-Cheney et al tell us that all of the middle east will
> disintegrate if we leave.
Right -- and I'd underscore "we." Why isn't an increasingly radical sub-set of fundamentalist Islamists worldwide targeting Honduras? Or Taiwan? Because what sort of a history do those countries have of stationing troops in the middle east or meddling with middle-eastern political regimes?
I'll say this, though. I don't disagree that there's something like a global war on Something that we need to be engaged in, and that terrorism is included in that Something. The problem is in part that these Bushies simply aren't thoughtful -- but more, I think, that they don't have the courage to act on conclusions that pretty much any simpleton could reach.
To wit. What is "terrorism," anyway? Well, that's fairly easy: it's illegal warfare. It's using force against non-combatants to achieve political ends. It's eschewing the rule of law and international customs defining the parameters of humane warfare.
If that's the case, then, one doesn't fight terrorism by committing it: by killing Iraqi civilians by the tens-of-thousands (by even the most conservative estimate); by strongarming weak allies into our cause; or by promoting torture, by backing away from international legal institutions like the UN and the International Court, or by riding roughshod over some very longstanding civil rights here at home.
What else is "terrorism"? It might not be part of the formal definition, but we often associate it with religious extremism. We might call an IRA bomber a terrorist, but folks would just as often call him a "freedom-fighter" or "rebel" or "insurgent." But if a jihadist bombed the same pub in the name of Allah, it'd be hard for us to find a word for him OTHER than "terrorist."
So if "terrorism" implies some degree of religious extremism or irrationalism, then again our "war on terror" is something we ought to be fighting here at home, on ourselves, as much as -- not necessarily instead of -- overseas.
Take Iran. "Theocracy," we say. They've got a semi-secular but still fairly religious President who rules uneasily and is heavily dependent upon the radically religious mullahs who control the hearts and minds of a small but politically active radical religious minority. And is the situation here so different? Religious radicals are a solid and powerful minority in the country as well as in the Congress, and politicians in both parties compromise to placate this "religious right": both parties have to pay it lip service, and Republicans who flaunt it get axed. Giuliani will be a very interesting bellweather on this point -- but it's telling that it takes a 9/11 flag-wrapping to protect a Republican from the religious right (and this is assuming that G. acutally WINS the nomination). It says as much if not more about the party in general that every other Republican candidate is much closer to the RRight's stance on key issues.
This isn't to conclude prima facie that religion has no place in politics (it might), nor that both religion and politics in Iran are more radical than their American counterparts. But if the question is whether, for example, the religious-political landscape of the US is more like Iran or more like, say, England or Canada -- well, that's a different question, and I think one with a much less clear answer.
So a global war on terror? If we're even a LITTLE bit consistent about what that has to mean, I'm all for it.
Something else to mull over. We all tend to thoughtlessly categorize critics of US policy and culture as alienists or anti-Americans in some way -- as socialists, Euro-fags, godless commies, anti-capitalists, what have you. But hasn't it generally been the case that a country's greatest critics are its greatest patriots? Patrick Henry? Maybe, but I'm thinking about, for example, George Washington himself. An American patriot, no? -- but he WASN'T American. He wasn't born or raised American. He was a British citizen -- a critic of and rebel against British political culture. And every Brit recognizes now (as did many at the time) that Washington and the colonial rebels were fighting FOR true British rights: self-determination, representation, the rule of law, due process. And Lincoln? Only the greatest critic America has ever had: the only individual to lead the country into war on itself. How about FDR, who dragged this country kicking and screaming into WWII?
Flag-wavers on the one hand and critics on the other. Who turn out to be our heroes, in the long run? Was it the folks who got us into Vietnam or the folks who got us out? Nixon's whole political reputation -- perhaps the most damaged of any president -- was salvaged by the sole fact of his embracing China; the then-beloved McCarthy, however, who held US mainstream culture (and Hollywood) in his hand, is the villain now.
The public's turning against the Iraq war it demanded -- but it's still early, we're still engaged. Nevertheless, folks who opposed it from the start are now deriving political capital from that opposition. Obama, whose opposition was theoretical, is trading on it. Dems who voted for it are having to backpedal. Eventually, what will we say about the 23 Senators and 133 Reps who voted against Joint Resolution 144 in 2002?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)