Intellectual Left's Doves Take on Role of Hawks Mods - Since I'm not a regular, feel free to merge or bin if this has been discussed.
Good find, dark knight. Those guys are talking to ME. Saddam needs to be removed, but Bush has horribly mangled the job. It's sort of like watching Steve Sampson at France '98.
Re: Re: NYTimes on Liberals for the War Yeah - me too. I made the mistake of mentioning that I was leaning this way at a dinner party and my friends started remembering I'm from Texas, among other things. I guess what surprises me is the absolute clarity some of my friends have about how wrong the war is, when I think it's pretty complicated and difficult to make a choice.
Re: Re: NYTimes on Liberals for the War Many have nit-picked at the way the Bush administration has handles the Iraq policy. With all the criticism, I have yet to see a better plan.
Re: Re: Re: NYTimes on Liberals for the War If by "nitpicking" you mean "pointing out egregious lies" then yes. And by "have yet to see a better plan" you mean "have my head in the clouds."
DK, thanks for posting that. It's a good corrective to the knee-jerk partisan anti-Bush crowd who would rather demonize than engage in thoughtful discussion. As a conservative-independent politically, I think the USA should have what I would call a policy of "liberal interventionism." By that I mean we should assert a constabulary function consistently, assuming we have the resources at the time to do it. That means intervening in a country like Rwanda to prevent the wholesale slaughter of a population, even though Rwanda has ZERO strategic interest for us. Why? Because it's the RIGHT thing to do, and we have the capability of DOING it. At the same time, we need to have some better tools and better methodologies to engage in this kind of practice. The Bush administration has made somewhat of a hash of this whole process, for a variety of complicated reasons. We need to do much better. Of course, intervention can take many forms -- from bringing troops in to the deployment of economic power. Post intervention, too, we need to have in place the mechanisms to operate WITHIN a culture, yet the give the cultural/political system a way out of its violent morass. None of this work is easy, and it is fraught with complexities and pitfalls. But we need to take it on, because if we don't, then the worst impulses of humanity will continue to fester.
Fair enough. But to state that this isn't Bush's policy is to say the sky is blue. If this were the policy, a) there are other places where we could get more humanitarian bang for the cluster bomb buck. (Allow me to plug the civil war in the Sudan. Again.) and b) Bush wouldn't have been the pimp to the Kurd's teenage runaway. He sold them out to the Turks in an astonishingly cynical (and obviously contradictory to your policy) way. Try to come up with a war rationale that is consistent with the most facts. The most likely line of reasoning for the Bushies. Hmmm, that sounds like a good thread.
Excise that first paragraph, and that's a pretty reasonable post, Karl. You've avoided my bit bin for another day... I would like to point out, however, that your suggested course of action is rife with peril. The Royal Irish Constabulary wasn't very popular in Ireland, as the British found out the hard way. Nor did a number of Somalis really appreciate our efforts in Somalia, as benevolent as they were. Something to keep in mind. A legitimate criticism of the current gov't, if they are using this as a criteria for chosing to intervene in Iraq, is that they are ignoring many places that are far worse in favor of Iraq on some apparently pretty trumped-up charges. Places some reasonable doubt on the egalitarian motives of the administration. Especially when they completely ignore said reasonable doubts and complaints.
We went into Afghanistan for security reasons. I would support going into many other countries for human rights, security issues and democracy. Countries such as Iraq, Rwanda, Iran, Burma etc. However, I see the opposition we're facing from the world when we want to go into Iraq, so I can't see us going into all these other nations unilaterally. The UN could be a perfect vehicle to accoplish these goals if it was serious about its stated goals. Instead the UN has become a vehicle for inaction. At the same time many nations around the world have become extremely selfish and unwilling to get involved and spread democracy, freedom and human rights. Its always easier to criticize someone else than to fix the problem yourself.
IMHO, being the world's constable is not a policy our country should strive to achieve. When we enter into a conflict with another country we should have clearly defined goals and reasons for being there. Even though our military is a paid army, I don't think that our citizens would abide by its children and parents going off to fight battles all across the globe. Obviously, waiting for 9/11 to happen before invading Afghanistan was not very shrp. But, I would hope that our leadership would learn from that. To a degree, it appears it has in its current standoff with Iraq. Personally, I wish we'd have already taken action. Trying to appease France, Germany or any or all of the other 6 hold-out nations to get a resolution passed to take out this ne'er do well is not as lofty an ideal as alot of people are making it out to be. Every nation will vote and act on the basis of their self-interest and we must act on the basis of our rational self-interest.
Of course, it isn't the Bush Administration's policy. It should be. Iraq is a unique combination of security risk/despotic Stalinist tyrant. Meanwhile, we have long-term strategic interests in the region that need to be addressed; this is one step in addressing those long term interests. As a result, I don't think it's a stretch at all to come up with a good rationale for intervention here. It was a good idea in '91, when we didn't do it, and it's a good idea now, when we will do it. In some ways, it's a better idea now. That's not to say things can't go wrong -- they certainly could. But worst case scenarios aren't inevitable. That it IS a good idea is a different issue than the manner in which we've handled building consensus. Of course, the difficulty of doing this is compounded by an already existing anti-American resentment and the fact that the French and Russians, have, and continue, to exchange bodily fluids with the current Iraqi regimes. As for the Turks and the Kurds, the Turks have taken themselves out of the picture. In fact, I am coming around to the idea that the Kurd/Turk problem will be the easiest to address -- the answer is just status quo, which is independence without formal national sovereignty. I think everyone can live with that. To me the big issue is the south, and the Shiites. But that's a subject for another thread.
Omigod. Karl's talking sense! I've been one of those liberal hawks from day one. I have lots of axes to grind with the Bush administration on all matters domestic. Prior to early 2002, I didn't think foreign policy would be one of them. Leaving aside Kyoto (please). I really thought his "tough love" approach to the the Israel-Palastine thing might bear fruit if given enough time. I though Afghanistan was picture perfect -- well except the extra-legal detentions and the giving over of prisoners for torture by "friendly" countries. But everything about Iraq has been a complete mess. And I am spitting mad that this administration has managed to piss away all and more of the goodwill that was extended to it post 9/11. And I am not seeing any signs that they are going to wise up anytime soon. To the contrary, all the criticism seems to be having a positively Nixonian effect on this administration. They are hunkering down and becoming more stubborn and more paranoid. I never cared a whit for George Bush. But I am enough of a pragmatist to give him a chance and the benefit of the doubt, especially after 9/11. But, two years on I've seen enough now to say that this administration, while having done some small things well, is screwing up the big ones so monumentously as to be well on its way to being one of the worst of the last 100 years, if not all-time. Okay, I guess I've lost my objectivity. I suppose that's bound to happen when you see your government essentially shredding 50-plus years of foreign policy success while simultaneously setting the economy up to go into free fall.
Karl, Thanks for your thoughtful post. As a left-liberal, I'm on board with you, with one caveat. These kind of interventions only work when they're multilateral. This means that constant maintenance of multinational institutions and relationships is necessary if the US is to have the kind of foreign policy that encourages 'the better angels of our nature' and if the UN is to function as an institution that upholds the ideals of its charter. As the world's remaining superpower, we have the strength to conquer Iraq alone or with a few allies. However, putting the pieces back together requires the multinational authority that the world has given to the UN. And, as I think you agree, putting the pieces back together in a form that allows the people of Iraq or the people of Rwanda to live in a more representative, less repressive nation-state, is what is really important in the longterm. Where I fault the Bush administration is in letting our committments to multinational institutions wane and in alienating key allies with excessively unilateral positions on issues like Kyoto, the international criminal court, etc. I'm not saying that the administration had to accept them because they were multinationally derived documents, but they did owe the nations that worked to develop the agreements better than, "Sorry, not in our interest." Where they fail is in maintaining dialogue and working toward some agreement that, while not perfect, maintains the sense that other nations matter and other opinions matter and that while we may not agree, we will listen and respond. Instead, they have chosen to disparage the UN and deal with it like they believe it is irrelevant and that its role is to rubber stamp the fait accompli that are developed by the project for the new american century. I've ranted enough, but I just wanted to concur with the liberal interventionist ideal while pointing out that it really requires a UN-like organization if it is to achieve its promise.
I don't know...I think we have DESPERATELY tried to make the UN relevant. And I think the notion that we have to somehow be on board on most "multi-national" initiatives in order to be multi-national elsewhere is not mandatory either in order to serve a proper constabulatory function. Just because some parts of world deeply resent us, doesn't mean the rest of the world isn't going to play with us when it can help them out. Watch -- France will be gladly back into the Iraqi mix once Saddam is gone. Let's get real here...one of the subtexts of initiatives like Kyoto or the ICC is either to punish the USA or are attempts to denude it of political and economic power. I'm all for making nicey-nice when appropriate, but let's not put the cart before the equine here.
I don't know about that we have to be on board with the various multi-national initiatives, but we have to show them some respect. If I can rephrase needs line to read "These kind of interventions only work when their is trust" I think it captures my view. The Bush administration from the campaign on has been downright gleefull in its burning of bridges and exhortations of American exceptionalism. Because of that a lot of the rest of the world doesn't trust that we are doing the right thing, and I don't think this administration will be able to convince them otherwise. In this case I see doing the right thing the wrong way may cause more harm than good. I see a hardening of positions, I can't count the number of Congressmen and pundits I saw just last night threatening retaliatory actions against those countries that are not behind us on Iraq. I can only assume the same dynamic will play out in thise countries that oppose us. If we go to war without UN cover it will only be fuel to the fire for those that oppose us, I have little faith that they will come crawling back to us after this.
Seems odd that Christopher Hitchens wasn't mentioned in that article: is there a more famous lefty in the prowar camp than him? Actually, I just saw Salman Rushdie, another longtime liberal, speak this week, and his ambivalence about the war was quite pronounced. He spoke in very similar terms to Thomas Friedman's speech that Universal posted the other day. Basically, Rushdie said he's spoken to too many Iraqi ex-pats to think that leaving Saddam in power is a good thing, AND he said remains unconvinced that the war will necessarily lead to major suffering for civilian Iraqis. He did note, btw, that the "immediate threat to U.S. security" was garbage, and that going without a strong coalition would be a huge mistake. But still, he definitely seemed somewhat hawkish to me. Note: he did dedicate his recent collection of essays to Hitchens in what seems to be a defense of his highly criticized (from the left) likewise newly hawkish mate.
An excellent column along the same lines: Power and purpose: Saddam must go but so must U.S. inconsistency - Seattle Times
I read this today, and my head exploded all over the coffee I was drinking: Try the following experiment: Leaf through a stack of recent newspapers or flip the dial on your TV and try to find a liberal making the case for war against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Apart from a few references to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the results will be shamefully meager. This was written by Jonathan Tepperman of Foreign Affairs magazine. Apparently he's their outer space correspondent, as he seems unaware of the positions of Dick Gephardt, Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, John Edwards, John Kerry, and a whole parade of liberal commentators from Joshua Micah Marshall to Kevin Drum to Jonathan Chait to Richard Just - who wrote an article in the American effin' Prospect last November about why liberals should support the war.