Beinart: Shake Up The War Room
In case you have any interest in and doubts about where I stand on the Iraq situation, read Beinart's Op-Ed from last Sunday's WaPo. My only comment is: what he said.
It's rare that I agree with every jot and tittle of an Op-Ed, but I do with this one. This kind of (by my lights) hard-headed, common-sensical idealism and intellectual honesty is why I read The New Republic semi-religiously. My view: if you don't read TNR, then you probably don't understand what's going on.
I've occasionally mentioned that I'm in search of an analog of TNR on the right--something intelligent, open-minded, not programmatically partisan or mindlesly ideological, a publication that's willing to make the arguments carefully and follow them where they lead even when that means disagreeing with the conventional wisdom on their normal side of the fence. If you've got any ideas, please send 'em along. There's got to be something out there that's intelligently conservative. The National Review is, of course, analogous to TNR in terms of its stature on the right, but intellectually speaking you don't need me to tell you that it's a joke. Conservatives should be more outraged by it than liberals. (That sentence is ambiguous, but maybe both its readings are true...)
And let's skip the following joke my more lefty friends like to make in response to this query, o.k.?:
Me: I'm looking for something like a right-wing New Republic. Any suggestions?
Lefty Friends: Have you tried The New Republic?
In case you have any interest in and doubts about where I stand on the Iraq situation, read Beinart's Op-Ed from last Sunday's WaPo. My only comment is: what he said.
It's rare that I agree with every jot and tittle of an Op-Ed, but I do with this one. This kind of (by my lights) hard-headed, common-sensical idealism and intellectual honesty is why I read The New Republic semi-religiously. My view: if you don't read TNR, then you probably don't understand what's going on.
I've occasionally mentioned that I'm in search of an analog of TNR on the right--something intelligent, open-minded, not programmatically partisan or mindlesly ideological, a publication that's willing to make the arguments carefully and follow them where they lead even when that means disagreeing with the conventional wisdom on their normal side of the fence. If you've got any ideas, please send 'em along. There's got to be something out there that's intelligently conservative. The National Review is, of course, analogous to TNR in terms of its stature on the right, but intellectually speaking you don't need me to tell you that it's a joke. Conservatives should be more outraged by it than liberals. (That sentence is ambiguous, but maybe both its readings are true...)
And let's skip the following joke my more lefty friends like to make in response to this query, o.k.?:
Me: I'm looking for something like a right-wing New Republic. Any suggestions?
Lefty Friends: Have you tried The New Republic?
posted by Winston Smith at
10:35 AM
44 Comments:
You can't call TNR "intelligent, open-minded, not programmatically partisan or mindlesly ideological" until they acknowledge how consistently wrong they've been on Iraq and Bush (who "exaggerated" says Beinart). Of course individual articles there are brilliant, but this sort of Kerry-voting-for-accountability-is-political-opportunism bullshit from Beinart isn't a good way to advertise the magazine. Beinart doesn't even bother to address the issue - will leaving our troops there make the long-term solution worse? Sure, the short-term consequences of a pullout would likely be awful, but Beinart can't just say that 10 years from now won't happen. The "American honor" argument would still have us in Vietnam for chrissakes.
What rilkefan said . . . Beinert and others presuppose a very iffy and yes, somewhat vain proposition: that staying will diminish the likelihood of civil war. It is to substitute GWB's clearly half-baked assumption that we would "win" in no time flat with a perhaps less easily falsifiable assumption that we will "win" eventually. Maybe we won't. In fact, I would bet money that we won't, but it's impossible to know for sure. And just as we don't know the long-term outlook, we really don't know what will happen if we establish a timetable. Beinert and his ilk are making assumptions based on highly debatable premises, while making it sound as if they are spouting scientific certainties.
The whole idea that "we" will "win" is obnoxious on its face anyway. It's the Iraqi people who need to win. And their idea of "winning" is no doubt quite different from ours (for instance, no U.S. military bases thank you very much). It's not that Beinert says anything overtly disagreeable, it's just that the whole framework is questionable, whether coming directly from Beinert, TNR (still hasn't officially come clean over how wrong it was) or anyone else.
Barbara
Judging by your blanket dismissal of NR, there's no conservative magazine that you'll find congenial to your mental processes, although PatBuchanan's rag might swing far enough right to catch you coming around from the left. I see William Pfaff there, and Buchanan's not a Republican anymore. (NR excommunicated him.)
I'm enjoying Reason, on balance slightly right, but foremost, very libertarian.
Here's a link to get it for $5 a year. Such a deal.
Uummm, Winston, that's not a joke.
Um, sorry, none of the above does much to alter my view of the Beinart piece, nor of TNR. TNR, remember, advocted a very different kind of invasion for very different reasons--humanitarian ones. They were very critical of the administration's case for war, and have criticized themselves for not being moreso.
They DO seem to be weirdly insufficiently critical of Israel...but I'm not saying they're perfect, just that they're by far the best that's out there.
Yes, and if the war had been proposed by a different president on a different basis perhaps TNR's stance would have made some amount of sense. There was no basis -- none at all -- for believing that the war we actually have would have been the different war that TNR wanted. Wishful thinking, however inspired, is still just fantasy. Indeed it was an incredibly dangerous fantasy to think that leftists frozen out of any decision making capacity whatsoever would be able to co-opt GWB's version of the war and put it to better uses. The TNR let itself be used for evil and it is still defending itself on the strength of its noble intentions.
Barbara
I agree with the excellent points the other commenters have made regarding TNR, but I want to address one element of your response--the humanitarian war. I must disagree with your position that such a war would have been any better. First, it would still have been a preventive war and would have created the same dangerous precedent that the current war has. Second, it would still have been a distraction from other, far more important and critical areas, such as N Korea and Isreal/Palestine. Third, I see no reason to think that AQ and their Islamist ilk would have reacted any differently; true, we might not have given them an Abu Ghraib in a gentler war, but it would still be an invasion by infidels.
I imagine that you've had discussions on this before and I'm sorry if I came late to the game.
The postmodern left is incapable of confronting true evil. It never came to terms with the tens of millions killed by Communism, and it (at best) blandly acknowledges the slaughters of militant Islam. It could not even stand up to a slam dunk mass murderer like Saddam.
It did nothing. It does nothing. It is unfit to govern.
But to indulge its moral vanity and passion, it will focus its indignation on its own, or on safe targets which pose no personal threat to their safety, like Bush, or Israel. Bush and Israel they are able to call out as evil. But genuine evil they are unable to call out at all, because that would require doing something about it.
Oh yes, the "we shouldn't speak about Iraq because we failed to speak out about [fill in the blank]" Such a compelling argument: well what's good for the goose . . . Uzbekistan, Rwanda, and an unholy host of other places where GWB doesn't care in the least that there is suffering. In case you hadn't noticed, WE the US of A are IN IRAQ right now with our soldiers dying every day. Do you think that this just might not be a basis for giving Iraq somewhat greater attention and greater examination to GWB's "reasons" for going there? And I don't remember any Republican president advocating the invasion of the USSR or any other communist country on the grounds of human rights abuses. Indeed, Henry Kissinger was adamantly opposed to any human rights overlay on foreign policy. Maybe I'm older than you are, but I think you should try a more relevant basis for argument.
Barbara
tvd--
I don't have any first hand knowledge of this, but I'm guessing that the guys who flew the planes into the WTC on 9/11 were sure they were "confronting true evil."
Criticizing Bush is a mote-and-beam-in-the-eye thing. I'm just guessing again, but I imagine you know the New Testament well enough to figure out what I mean.
Actually, Your Dukeishness,I can get kinda Buddhist on the subject of good and evil.
I link to a very good essay there, one I have read many times, but it misses the point that calling Bush evil is also Manechean. Further, the Twin Towers and the daily carnage on innocent Iraqis are genuine evil. To call toppling Saddam evil leaves one nowhere to go.
The recent issue of Harper's speaks of the poet Robert Lowell (interestingly, a convert to Catholicism) refusing FDR's 1943 entreaty to get involved in the war effort because Lowell was appalled at the casualties of the Allied bombing campaign.
I cannot help but admire his principles, but then I think of Auschwitz.
Is bin Laden evil? As a religious zealot myself, I can see his point, and you illuminate it clearly. Do he and his suicide bombers do evil? Surely.
Is Bush, with full intent, killing innocents for political purposes? Most of us would admit, no, he isn't.
Dresden and Hiroshima are far less defensible than any element of the Iraq war. I will defend them in a pinch, but morally, they present a great dilemma to any person of good conscience.
(I do credit Correspondent Barbara for not calling Bush evil. I disagree with her characterization of the Iraq war as such, but such temperance deserves recognition.)
If this country can do the Atomic Bomb and the Moon Shot with federal dollars, why does it call super cheap solar energy impossible when anyone in a hot car can feel the obvious potential ?
200 billion spent on research, even if unsuccessful, would drive the price of oil way down, and insure that the Middle East itself would give Osama and his followers justice. Why force our troops to solve this problem the hard way, when peak oil will force the development of cheaper solar soon anyway ?
tvd, some would call it a cheap shot, but if you are of age, go enlist. Forget the analogies, arguments, etc., if you think freedom is worth fighting for in Iraq, go do it, buddy. I don't, so I won't. If you do, well....
If you aren't willing, atl least get your like-thinking friends to do it, we need troops, and this is going to take a long time and lot of lives. Just a fact.
As far as TNR goes, eh. This war wasn't based on humanitarian grounds. If you want a war based on humanitarian grounds (which you shouldn't, but if you did), Iraq is a poor target. If you want a war lead by the Bush Administration, knowing what you should have known then and do know now...I'd rather my next door neighbor (whoever it may be) be in charge, for all of the obvious reasons and because chance is more often smiling than this crew. It didn't take a genious then and it doesn't now to realize that the fun of blowing shit up is not an answer to the world's real problems, and "a show of force" in the Middle East is just plain dumb.
Winston, I know you have mixed feelings about this endeavor, so it goes. At one point or another, however, there needs to be a real confrontation with how wrong this war is combined with the fact that we have to figure out what to do. The latter cannot happen without the former...more folks will just die in the meantime. Better to get down to the business of solving problems and stop defending past actions that can't be retracted. This war was stupid, costly, and, at this point, never-ending.
I'll just point out that Guatanomo and other atrocities are occuring in the shadow of Iraq, not Afghanistan, and you can see how much of the public justifies these illegal methods in light of the terrorist acts we have brought upon ourselves in Iraq. So long as we are victims, we will not ever consider Guantanamo detainees to be.
I'll post anonymously, but I'm AbjectFunk.
tvd--
I find it difficult to respond to a vague fog of indirection. If you somehow got the impression that I consider Bush evil, you are incorrect. I consider him incurious, small-minded, incompetent and deceitful, but not evil.
If your artfully phrased question means "Is Bush,with full intent, targetting innocents for death for political purposes?" I would admit that the answer is "No." If the question is "Has Bush, with full intent, been allowing innocents to die for political purposes?" I would not admit that "No, he isn't."
So, what is your question and who is "us"?
Alas, this is tvd's method -- smarmy, noble sounding innuendo that you and I aren't MORAL enough to question dear leader's policies without actually responding to what you (or I) said. Best ignored. Should have known better.
Barbara
Wow, good discussion, in the main.
This is why I run this blog--I get to put up half-baked ideas and get them addressed in intelligent ways.
Suckers...
Anyway, re: maybe the Duke's point: TNR was wrong to advocate invasion, but their reasons were fairly good, I think. THey were similar to one of my friend's reasons for supporting the invasion: Sure, Bush &co. were lying to us, but it was the only hope for the Iraqi people. Our only options were to either stay the brutal course of sanctions or go along with Bush, despite the fact that his reasons were crap and he was lying.
I've always been torn about that line of reasoning. I rejected it about a week before the war started.
What I wanted to do was forget about Iraq--a tough nut to crack--and go after the low-hanging humanitarian fruit. In contemporary terms, go after the Darfurs, the targets that would allow us to do the most good for the least loss of blood and treasure, and which would, incidentally, allow us to demonstrate our good will to the world.
re: tvd's comments against the postmodern left: I absolutely agree, but they do not exist in American politics, only in Lit Crit departments and suchlike. It was hawkish liberals like Clinton who took us into and guided us successfully through our only purely humanitarian wars, those in the former Yugoslavia.
The postmodern left is idiotic, as is the neaderthal right. As I've asserted a zillion times, the former are powerless in the US, the latter are in power.
The postmodern left doesn't recognize that there is true evil; the Neaderthal right automatically identifies anybody who disagrees with us as evil.
Which is worse? Theoretically, who knows? Practically, it's the NR, not the PL, for reasons already stated.
So sez me, anyway.
Wanna make the humanitarian case for the Iraq war? Fine, go ahead, but read this before you do.
http://hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm
NOT just an argument from authority. The factual underpinnings are accurate, and I think the reasoning is sound.
Barbara, why must you characterize my arguments instead of address them? You skirt ad hominem on technical grounds by attacking my "method," but the meaning is clear.
I objected to your statement that TNR let itself be used for evil, and plainly said why.
Further, you continue to put words in my mouth about your right to speak. Of course you may; I think you and those of your persuasion are wrong, and I think you are not doing the good that you might believe you are.
Surely I have the right to say so. Ignore me if you wish. Without my voice you'll be free to enjoy the echo chamber.
WS, the PL is not in power in the US, but is not powerless. They have the ability to do great harm, and I believe they are doing so. The PL does control much of Europe, though, and are proving as spineless against militant Islam as they were against Stalinism.
It is they, in their desire to weaken the US, which they hate more than bin Laden, who are content to let innocent Iraqis bleed.
"Better here than in St. Louis" was said by a US soldier in Iraq, Mr. Funk. He speaks for me.
In his absence, in my small way I shall try to do the same for him.
""Better here than in St. Louis" was said by a US soldier in Iraq, Mr. Funk. He speaks for me."
How noble of you to volunteer the Iraqi people as cannon fodder in your 'flypaper' experiment.
The jihadist murderers are to blame for killing the Iraqi people, not the US. We forget sometimes.
"St. Louis" was in answer to the tiresome "chickenhawk" argument. The US soldier was being stoic, heroic in his duty, and certainly entitled to speak. He is armed; the Americans in the Twin Towers were not.
One soldier said that if we simply poll the troops that are in Iraq, there would be 98% support. The chickenhawk argument just doesn't fly.
"The jihadist murderers are to blame for killing the Iraqi people, not the US. We forget sometimes."
But George W. Bush is complicit in the killing of Iraqis by the jihadists, because prior to his illegal invasion of Iraq, there was little or no terrorist attacks there.
His immoral and incompetent decisions not to guard munitions dumps, invade with too few troops, fail to secure the borders, among other grotesque failures, created the exact conditions (predicted by war opponents beforehand, btw) in which Iraq would become the meat grinder it is.
Those are the facts. Spin away.
Oh, I think blaming Bush for the murder of innocent Iraqis by militant Islamists is spin enough.
Pure sophistry. Want to go for extra credit by implying that I suggested that it might as well have been Bush cutting the heads off?
Bush being complicit means that, yes, he bears some of the blame for those murders.
He makes Iraq "the central front in the war on terror" against islamic radicals, and we should be surprised that said jihadists murder innocent civilians when they get there?
The nature of these people was known before the war, and the likelihood of such a terrorist onslaught was remarked upon many times before the invasion, yet Bush went ahead anyway.
So Bush should remain blameless?
Stop, you're hurting my tummy.
Your tummy is Bush's fault, too.
The Church of It's Bush's Fault. You're the founder, Mr/Ms Anonymous. Hope you make as much money off your new religion as L. Ron or Michael Moore.
Winston--
Thanks for responding to my comment and clarifying your position on humanitarian interventions. I think the class of low-hanging-fruit would have included Afghanistan. If only the resources which we have wasted in Iraq had been committed to an Afghan state....
"The Church of It's Bush's Fault. You're the founder, Mr/Ms Anonymous. Hope you make as much money off your new religion as L. Ron or Michael Moore."
Sorry but argument by overextension is not very original. Not everything is Bush's fault. Just this. Try again.
Winston, realizing that you are a fan of humanitarian interventions, I think you would do well to catalog the humanitarian interventions that have actually succeeded as such over the last 50 years. I will start with one: India's war against Pakistan to form a free Bangladesh. I suppose U.S. intervention in Kosovo might count, although the story isn't finished. Others? U.S. invasion of Iraq for purposes of freeing Kuwait?
I don't see how the current war (even as proposed) in Iraq can be classified as similar to these interventions. Note what they did not do: overthrow the regime of the aggressor country, and there was a very clear act of aggression that triggered a response, even if it was delayed. Note also that the acute military response in each of these was relatively very quick because there was a plan in place to basically let those who were helped, typically ethnically homogenous people, govern themselves and there was no strategic interest in staying to build military capacity.
I may not have the Pakistan/Bangladesh history fresh in my memory, but it's close enough. The point is that there are virtually no historical precedents for what we are doing in Iraq. We didn't stay in Kuwait and try to remake its government.
The enterprise we have undertaken in Iraq simply can't be justified on humanitarian grounds. It's more like the USSR "freeing" the Baltic and Eastern European countries of their German oppressors -- sure, the Nazis were horrible, the native population wanted the Allies to succeed (most of them anyway), but do you think they wanted the Soviets to use them as a strategic military buffer against the West for the next two generations? Of course not.
Barbara
P.S. tvd, when you make a concrete point on the subject I'll respond to it and not before.
Barbara's last post is a perfect encapsulation of my views on the sort of "humanitarian" intervention we've been sold.
Well, I'm with you guys. I don't see how this can reasonably be called a humanitarian intervention. The humanitarian rationalizations are a *post hoc* smokescreen. If it HAD been undertaken as a humanitarian intervention, it would be the most incompetent one ever. IF you undertake such an intervention, one requirement is that you not make things worse. Blah, blah, blah. You've heard this all before.
Sorry tvd...I just think you're prohibitively far out in left field on this one.
Barbara,
Excellent post above. It captured my sentiments pretty precisely.
I might suggest Sierra Leone and Congo as *successful* humanitarian interventions.
Also, though the 'humanitarian' component of it may have been relatively small, I do think the war to eject Iraq from Kuwait was justified on other grounds. Not that you necessarily implied it wasn't, but I thought I'd mention it.
Imagine my joy when I was roused from my surfing torpor by this side-splitter:
"The postmodern left is incapable of confronting true evil. It never came to terms with the tens of millions killed by Communism, and it (at best) blandly acknowledges the slaughters of militant Islam. It could not even stand up to a slam dunk mass murderer like Saddam."
That doggoned post-modern leftist Chamberlain was obviously asleep at the wheel during his pansy-ass appeasement of Hitler. As was post-modern leftist Kissinger when he wallowed in the obscenities of Pinochet, Pol Pot and Sukarno. And weren't the Reagan and Bush administrations just chock full of post-modern leftists unable to come to terms with the evil of Arab jihadists in Afghanistan, the Central American death squads and the convieniently anti-Persian Saddam?
You know what though? Thank God for a true straight shooter like GWB who's so committed to human rights that he recognizes the contributions made to the cause by such pillars of decency as Islam Karimov, Pervez Musharraf and King Fahd.
True evil never had a more bitter foe.
--The Central Scrutinizer
And just for sh*ts and giggles, let's just acknowledge that Communism doesn't kill people, people kill people.
--Central Scrutinizer
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