Wednesday, September 26, 2001

Remora

Mike Kelly's column in the WP is, as usual, as stuffed with nonsense as my mama's pecan pie used to be stuffed with nuts (hey, I'm practicing making homegrown comparisons, in an effort to show my Americanism):

. . . Pacifist Claptrap (washingtonpost.com)

The column considers pacifism and, in the concluding graf, concludes it is evil. What Kelly means by evil, I think, is that it is bad. Kelly goes to Orwell's controversy with pacifists in World War II. At that time, Orwell contended, the pacifists were objectively pro-fascist. Kelly wants to transfer this logic to today's pacifists, and say they are objectively pro-terrorist. Here, for what it is worth, is his argument graf. He begins with reasons for engaging with pacifists at all. I'll skip his first reason and go to the second:

"Second, it is worth it because the reactionary left-liberal crowd in America and in Europe has already staked out its ground here: What happened to America is America's fault, the fruits of foolish arrogance and greedy imperialism, racism, colonialism, etc., etc. From this rises an argument that the resulting war is also an exercise in arrogance and imperialism, etc., and not deserving of support. This argument will be made with greater fearlessness as the first memories of the 7,000 murdered recede. Third, it is worth it because the American foreign policy establishment has all the heart for war of a titmouse, and not one of your braver titmice. The first faint, let-us-be-reasonable bleats can even now be heard: Yes, we must do something, but is an escalation of aggression really the right thing? Mightn't it just make matters ever so much worse?"

Here we have a masterful case of muddying your colors, and the invocation of Orwell isn't going to help him out. Pacifism is not the same thing as deciding not to use violence for one or another reason. The idea that America's foreign policy establishment is pacifist is ludicrous in the extreme. If they have hearts like titmice, that has more to do with not wanting to provoke controversy in what is now officially "the homeland." And why not provoke controversy? Because foreign policy is conducted, now, by a very small group, with little attention paid to it by the mass of Americans. Foreign policy people like it like that. If the mass of Americans must stick their noses into foreign policy, the foreign policy establishment would prefer that it happen in the shape of ticker tape parades for returning soldiers and 90% support for whatever inane ass sits in the Oval Office.

As for Kelly's thoughts re the liberal-lefties -- well, again, we aren't dealing with pacifism here. Among some, certainly, that might be the case. Kneejerk anti-war sentiment isn't a bad vice; but it is true, I think, that it is a vice. Meaning that the argument that there is no virtue in using violence for political ends ignores the structure of political injustice. Nor is Kelly very perceptive about American foreign policy in the Middle East, which has been, to say the least, unwise, driven by hasty impulses, political panics, and the overriding need for a stable supply of oil uncoupled from any concentrated national policy to promote, with all our wealth, alternatives to oil energy. I know, sounds way rationalistic, right?

I've already had my say about this in earlier posts, but to reiterate: the era since the Cold and the Gulf War ended has not been a glorious one for American foreign policy. The dual containment of Iran and Iraq ignored the reality of change in Iran, and enforced a horrendously immoral -- let's even use Kelly's word, evil -- policy in Iraq, to wit, the refusal to aid or countenance a democratically oriented overthrow of Saddam Hussein for fear that such an overthrow would destroy the country and expand the sphere of Iranian influence, and the consequent turn to the compromise of sanctions, which was premised on the insane proposition that an unarmed populace could be prodded into overthrowing a heavily armed, violent dictator by being systematically starved. With, of course, the codicil that even if the population, by some miracle, was able to successfully bring some tyrannicide to fruition, that it would allow the political fruit of its courage to be wrenched away from it, leaving the structure of the regime alone. Exchanging, in other words, one tyranny for another, in a nightmarish succession of Ba'athist strongmen.
Yeah, let's see, what were the terms Kelly used? "Foolish arrogance and greedy imperialism, racism, colonialism"? I think I could throw a few more insults on that pile, but that will do for starters.

No comments:

The philosopher as spy: the case of Alexandre Kojeve

In the Spring of 2019, the rightwing French journal, Commentaire, published a story about the philosopher, Alexandre Kojève, by Raymond Nar...