Awww, Somebody Doesn't Like Getting Bombed?
David Weigel | July 20, 2006, 8:58am
Their sudden loss of faith in the Freedom Babes isn't the only disturbing trend in the glib pro-war punditsphere. Last year, novelist-turned-junk bond salesman Roger L. Simon was ecstatic about the shifting winds in Lebanon.
Beirut! Beirut! Beirut!
The biggest demonstration yet (800,000... a million who knows...) on the streets of Beirut - this time from the pro-democracy side. How thrilling it is to see this! Let's all pray (even we agnostics) for continued non-violence.
That was then. Now the buzz is off and Simon is exhorting Lebanon to shut up and take its bombing like a man.
They had a drastically unfinished [revolution] on which they had punked out in big ways. I know "Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy!" was a great rallying cry and the Cedar Revolution had plenty of democracy "babes;" but much as I love babes, that's only a small part of the story. Unfortunately some Lebanese (and their supporters) think revolution is all latte, chic chatter and art galleries.
...
Those same Lebanese are now blaming the Israelis because they (the Lebanese) left their rattle snake on the Israeli border. Talk about irresponsiblity and denial. This is the kind of thinking that guarantees lack of change and emotional development. The American supporters of these Lebanese bloggers are nothing more than enablers. One of these bloggers has now run off crying to Syria of all places. It would be comically absurd if it wasn't so sad.
Note to the Lebanese: If you want democracy, finish the job. Starbucks can come later, if you really think you need it.
What a terrific formulation for stateside supporters of The Global War on Terror. People in the war zone: Duck and cover and stop whining about it. People in front of their laptops: Clap louder.
Along the same lines, check out Hugh Hewitt launching a summer offensive against "the 180s," pundits who used to pound furiously at their keyboards in support of the war but now pound furiously against it, because "with less than 30 months to go in the Adminstration, it is time to start thinking about delivering the next president a country with a renewed commitment to the long war." Lebanese civilians: Expendable. Bloggers: Priceless.
Pro Libertate | July 20, 2006, 10:17am | #
gaius raises a good point. There's a lot of talk about how the bad guys hate us because of our success and because of our culture. But that leaves out the fact that we've been blowing people up and supporting others who are blowing people up for quite some time now. I'm not throwing out the reality of world politics or anything, but I wonder how much more influential we'd have been if we were just really successful and powerful but mostly kept out of things, militarily speaking? Would more countries have turned to the Western model because of its demonstrated success?
Maybe not, but I think there's an opportunity cost to consider when opting for military action. This seems an obvious point, but I think we've been on the winning side too much to understand how much resentment is generated by having to withstand overwhelming force. In fact, in the modern era, we've never really been on the losing side of a major military action--even Vietnam was heavily one-sided in casualties, destruction, etc.
Of course, it's hard to change horses in midstream, and, given where we are now, I support military action under certain circumstances. I think the invasion of Afghanistan made plenty of sense, for instance, given 9/11. Also, the fact is that some countries
have responded in a good way afterwards--Japan and Germany are the archetypal examples, but even Vietnam is reasonably friendly towards the U.S.
I suppose Israel sees itself in midstream, too. If they could stop the madness and start over, I'm sure that they would. It's hard to blame them completely for what they're doing now, but the usual question has to be asked: When and where does this all end?
gaius marius | July 20, 2006, 10:32am | #
They can't sit there and let their soldiers be kidnapped and their cities bombed?
yes, in fact they can, mr john -- they really have no choice in that because that is the fruit of perpetual war. and i daresay that americans and europeans had best prepare for it as well, because this now sixty-year-old affair has less to do with jews, christians and muslims than with a decadent west imploding in upon itself in a fit of paranoid militarism.
in an ideal world, the world community would have acted years ago and destroyed Hezbollah for the common good
one of the symptoms of that implosion, mr john, is the narcissistic belief that our power is unlimited and that we could put hezbollah under our thumb by force if we really wanted to.
how's that working out with the baathists, by the way? with the taliban? come to think of it, the west has been losing wars against popular movements opposing its empire since gandhi, kenya and algeria. has it won one yet?
popular movements are not eradicable short of an effective genocide, and i pray to god that we are not about to start exterminating wholesale those we disagree with. any and all methods short of that amount to suppression and are ultimately not only ineffective but indeed strengthen the movement and weaken the suppressor. this is easily seen through countless examples, but relavantly by what the west's methods have done in the seizing of palestine -- we have less control over the situation than ever before, which has completely metastasized, and the popularity of radicalism has never been higher in the mideast.
popular movements are responses to stimuli. the key is to go to the root of the problem and solve it. remove the stimulus.
hamas is powerful because of the israeli occupation. end the occupation and take hamas as a partner in building a palestinian state.
it won't work tomorrow, but in twenty years it will. take as the model northern ireland. once the ira and sinn fein were given real power, peace returned.
I would certainly expect the same from the U.S. if millitants were firing rockets into San Diago from Mexico.
if militants were firing rockets into texas from mexico, we would have done something to force that reaction. the key to solving it would be then to remove the stimulus.
but i suspect all this is wasted on a nation who is so unbelievably self-involved and hubristic as to produce the likes of this roger simon.
Shannon Love | July 20, 2006, 12:15pm | #
if militants were firing rockets into texas from mexico, we would have done something to force that reaction. the key to solving it would be then to remove the stimulus.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, sums up the Leftist perspective on foreign policy better than that one sentence.
I have called that concept the "reactive-enemy model" and its central and often unstated axiom is the idea that those peoples outside of western liberal-democracies never act, they merely react. Since no one except liberal-democracies ever act on their own accord, every negative event in the world can be traced to some previous action they took. The solution to every problem therefor, is to alter the behavior of the liberal-democracy.
This concept is ahistorical and profoundly demeaning to non-Westerns. History is rife with examples of the strong conquering the weak just because they could profit by doing so. Worse, the concept cast others a mere pavlovian entities, people without their own culture, politics or world-views. They apparently sit around drooling on themselves until some westerner provides some "stimulus" that they can react to.
Perhaps worse, the concept creates a false sense of control over events. In effect, it asserts that we can control the actions of others merely by altering our own behavior. It allows more than its share of moral outrage because every negative event is always preventable.
In the 20th century, all conflicts with liberal-democracies have resulted from the internal dynamics of autocratic entities. Aristocrats started WWI. Fascism was inherently militaristic and viewed life as endless struggle. They were driven to war by their own philosophy. Ditto for communism. Stalin planed the Cold War before WWII even ended and the Cold War ended only when the Soviet Union changed internally.
The reactive-enemy concept is the reason that so many Leftist (and others) reflexively believe that Israel is the principle source of the conflict in the Mideast. Israel is a western liberal-democracy and can therefor act whereas its opponents are neither western or democratic and therefor can only react to the actions of Israel. Therefor, the solution to the conflict is to get Israel to create the proper stimulus and the Arabs, mindless automatons that they are, will suddenly stop fighting.
mediageek | July 20, 2006, 12:24pm | #
"withdrawal is the solution to most of our problems,"
I certainly agree with the sentiment, but I'm not sure that it would ultimately work.
GM, it seems that you point up all of the brutality of empire building, but then claim that the solution is for the US or whoever to say "Hey, you know all those bombs we dropped and people we killed? Well, yeah, we were wrong. Sorry 'bout that. Won't do it again. Cheerio."
I'm sorry, but once you've pissed people off by bombing them, a withdrawal and an apology hardly seems like the sort of thing that's going to placate everyone involved.
If anything, it seems like it would embolden them, because the appearance would be one of running away with our tail tucked between our legs.
Don't take this as me advocating for global war, but once a nation has gone down that particular route, I don't see any way to actually get out of it.
Whether Israel or Hezbollah or the US started it is, at this point, immaterial. It strikes me as utterly ludicrous that anyone could, with a straight face, claim that Israel could do anything to kiss and make up with any of it's neighbors, especially at the expense of letting it's neighbors fire rockets into its territory and take it's soldiers as prisoners.
Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip seems not to have placated anyone.
gaius marius | July 20, 2006, 1:04pm | #
If we set the altitude of the bar high enough, as gaius does here, we can clearly see that nothing ever solves anything. What would the criteria for solving the nazi problem be? They can have exerted no influence in any way on any aspect of world affairs? Isn't that a little, well, silly?
that's fair, mr ligon, but i'm not saying war makes no changes (to the contrary) nor am i saying that one will never have to fight for one's life.
i'm simply saying that war solves none of the deeper problems of our civilization -- indeed, it merely aggravates them. the political current of the populist right in the west can hardly have been said to have been quelled by war.
Why would you assume that popular movements are all benign or that the stimulus in question is other than self serving?
i posit neither -- indeed, quite the opposite.
you misinterpret me if you think i'm saying all popular movements, internal and external, must be adopted wholesale. i'm saying instead that they cannot be turned back by this means -- attack is not an instrument by which this can be done, and is instead a facility by which such a movement is strengthened and entrenched.
for example: does not al-qaeda look complete prescient in all this? israel overrunning its borders, america conquering iraq, arab regimes propped by western oil money toeing the line? we have fed their coffers by this, and should be smart enough to recognize it. it is a counterproductive strategy.
like it or not, terrorism in international politics is a response, not a creation, and has been an effective tool for unrepresented parties to find a voice and an avenue to power and remediation for time immemorial. the only way to long pacify them is to accomodate them by resolving their disputes.
and should that be surprising? which one of you pledges allegiance to a government that can't fix your most pressing problems? we have taken the responsibility for governing these people by empire. if we want to quell insurgency, we have to govern well, and we haven't. this was cicero's critique of roman administration and is mine of ours today.
Jefferson | July 20, 2006, 1:57pm | #
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
— John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
gaius marius | July 20, 2006, 4:41pm | #
No way would a majority of Muslims choose to live under a theocracy.
why don't we let them decide that, hm?
I don't think the Soviet Union would have collapsed when it did had it not been for its failures in Afghanistan, among other things.
perhaps, mr schultz, but i tend to think the russians would have failed with or without us. the afghans tossed them out, not us, and our support only accelerated (and even that is arguable) the eventuality.
moreover, it must be said that there was no revolution in the collapsing soviet union. scholarship is showing that it was a conscious choice made by progressives in russia to abandon what had become a debilitatingly expensive empire. certainly, conditions like afghanistan contributed as part of their military expense, but defeat there may not have been any greater an accelerant than continued occupation.
i concede, though, that the psychological impact probably led to the decision to give up empire in a manner that vietnam did not here -- but that adventures like iraq still might.
Embracing foreign-backed fanatics as a desperate effort to stave off bandits after a period of chaos is not the same thing as self-determination
i'm not so sure about that, dr thoreau. they made the choice, and if they regretted it it was always in their power to make another. i think we all understand the nature of societies well enough to know that no government -- even and perhaps especially the most brutal kind -- long exists without the complicity of the populace. charles i of england and louis xvi of france have much to say on the subject, as i recall. :)
because we, in our insular postmodern western bubble, cannot conceive of peoples not rebelling against authority as we do does not mean that all people want all freedom at any cost. indeed, we need look only at our own history as westerners to see as much.
they looked at the price of change and decided on balance against it, at least for the time being. we may not like or even understand the choice, but i don't recall any afghani asking for an american invasion to help change their society. and we, of course, are given every opportunity to hear those voices with the help of government propaganda.
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