The liberal argument for war.
Feb. 12th, 2003 03:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyThose of you planning on going on any antiwar marches - do read this. It's not even by me, but it's got a lot of sense in it.
A war of liberation
The war that America is currently trying to justify is not
By Salman Rushdie
November 4, 2002
Source: The Washington Post
NEW YORK: Just in case it had slipped your memory - and as the antiwar protests grow in size and volume, it easily might have - there is a strong, even unanswerable case for a "regime change" in Iraq. What's more, it's a case that ought to appeal not just to militaristic Bushie-Blairite hawks but also to lily-livered bleeding-heart liberals; a case, moreover, that ought to unite Western public opinion and all those who care about the brutal oppression of an entire Muslim nation.
In this strange, unattractive historical moment, the extremely strong anti-Saddam Hussein argument isn't getting a fraction of the attention it deserves.
This is, of course, the argument based on his three and a half-decade-long assault on the Iraqi people. He has impoverished them, murdered them, gassed and tortured them, sent them off to die by the tens of thousands in futile wars, repressed them, gagged them, bludgeoned them and then murdered them some more.
Saddam Hussein and his ruthless gang of cronies from his home village of Tikrit are homicidal criminals, and their Iraq is a living hell. This obvious truth is no less true because we have been turning a blind eye to it - and "we" includes, until recently, the government of the United States, an early and committed supporter of the "secular" Saddam against the "fanatical" Islamic religionists of the region.
Nor is it less true because it suits the politics of the Muslim world to inveigh against the global bully it believes the United States to be, while it tolerates the all-too-real monsters in its own ranks. Nor is it less true because it's getting buried beneath the loudly made but poorly argued U.S. position, which is that Saddam is a big threat, not so much to his own people but to Americans.
Iraqi opposition groups in exile have been trying to get the West's attention for years. Until recently, however, the Bush people weren't giving them the time of day, and even made rude remarks about Ahmed Chalabi, the most likely first leader of a democratized Iraq. Now, there's a change in Washington's tune. Good. One may suspect the commitment of the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis to the creation and support of a free, democratic Iraq, but it remains the most desirable of goals.
This is the hard part for antiwar liberals to ignore. All the Iraqi democratic voices that still exist, all the leaders and potential leaders who still survive, are asking, even pleading for the proposed regime change. Will the American and European left make the mistake of being so eager to oppose Bush that they end up seeming to back Saddam, just as many of them seemed to prefer the continuation of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan to the American intervention there?
The complicating factors, sadly, are this U.S. administration's preemptive, unilateralist instincts, which have alienated so many of America's natural allies. Unilateralist action by the world's only hyperpower looks like bullying because, well, it is bullying. And the United States' new preemptive-strike policy would, if applied, make America itself a much less safe place, because if the United States reserves the right to attack any country it doesn't like the look of, then those who don't like the look of the United States might feel obliged to return the compliment. It's not always as smart as it sounds to get your retaliation in first.
Also deeply suspect is the U.S. government's insistence that its anti-Saddam obsession is a part of the global war on terror. As Al Qaeda regroups, attacking innocent vacationers in Bali and issuing new threats, those of us who supported the war on Al Qaeda can't help feeling that the Iraq initiative is a way of changing the subject, of focusing on an enemy who can be found and defeated instead of the far more elusive enemies who really are at war with America.
The connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda remains comprehensively unproven, whereas the presence of the Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, and of Qaeda sympathizers in that country's intelligence services, is well known. Yet nobody is talking about attacking Pakistan.
Nor does America's vagueness about its plans for a post-Saddam Iraq and its own "exit strategy" inspire much confidence. Yes, the administration is talking democracy, but does America really have the determination to (a) dismantle the Baathist one-party state and (b) avoid the military strongman solution that has been so attractive to American global scenarists in the past - "our son of a bitch," as Franklin Roosevelt once described the dictator Somoza in Nicaragua?
Does it (c) have the long-term stomach for keeping troops in Iraq, possibly in large, even Vietnam-size numbers, for what could easily be a generation, while democracy takes root in a country that has no experience of it whatever; a country, moreover, bedeviled by internal divisions and separatist tendencies?
How will it (d) answer the accusations that any regime shored up by U.S. military power, even a democratic one, would just be an American puppet? And (e) if Iraq starts unraveling and comes apart on America's watch, is the administration prepared to take the rap for that?
These are some of the reasons why I, among others, have remained unconvinced by President Bush's Iraqi grand design. But as I listen to Iraqi voices describing the atrocities of the Saddam years, then I am bound to say that if, as now seems possible, the United States and the United Nations do agree on a new Iraq resolution; and if inspectors do return, and, as is probable, Saddam gets up to his old obstructionist tricks again; or if Iraq refuses to accept the new UN resolution; then the rest of the world must stop sitting on its hands and join the Americans and British in ridding the world of this vile despot and his cohorts.
It should, however, be said and said loudly that the primary justification for regime change in Iraq is the prolonged suffering of the Iraqi people, and that the remote possibility of a future attack on America by Iraqi weapons is of secondary importance. A war of liberation might just be one worth fighting. The war that America is currently trying to justify is not.
Author
Salman Rushdie, author of "Fury" and other novels, contributed this comment to The Washington Post ("The liberal argument for regime change" -- Novemver 2, 2002).
A war of liberation
The war that America is currently trying to justify is not
By Salman Rushdie
November 4, 2002
Source: The Washington Post
NEW YORK: Just in case it had slipped your memory - and as the antiwar protests grow in size and volume, it easily might have - there is a strong, even unanswerable case for a "regime change" in Iraq. What's more, it's a case that ought to appeal not just to militaristic Bushie-Blairite hawks but also to lily-livered bleeding-heart liberals; a case, moreover, that ought to unite Western public opinion and all those who care about the brutal oppression of an entire Muslim nation.
In this strange, unattractive historical moment, the extremely strong anti-Saddam Hussein argument isn't getting a fraction of the attention it deserves.
This is, of course, the argument based on his three and a half-decade-long assault on the Iraqi people. He has impoverished them, murdered them, gassed and tortured them, sent them off to die by the tens of thousands in futile wars, repressed them, gagged them, bludgeoned them and then murdered them some more.
Saddam Hussein and his ruthless gang of cronies from his home village of Tikrit are homicidal criminals, and their Iraq is a living hell. This obvious truth is no less true because we have been turning a blind eye to it - and "we" includes, until recently, the government of the United States, an early and committed supporter of the "secular" Saddam against the "fanatical" Islamic religionists of the region.
Nor is it less true because it suits the politics of the Muslim world to inveigh against the global bully it believes the United States to be, while it tolerates the all-too-real monsters in its own ranks. Nor is it less true because it's getting buried beneath the loudly made but poorly argued U.S. position, which is that Saddam is a big threat, not so much to his own people but to Americans.
Iraqi opposition groups in exile have been trying to get the West's attention for years. Until recently, however, the Bush people weren't giving them the time of day, and even made rude remarks about Ahmed Chalabi, the most likely first leader of a democratized Iraq. Now, there's a change in Washington's tune. Good. One may suspect the commitment of the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Rumsfeld axis to the creation and support of a free, democratic Iraq, but it remains the most desirable of goals.
This is the hard part for antiwar liberals to ignore. All the Iraqi democratic voices that still exist, all the leaders and potential leaders who still survive, are asking, even pleading for the proposed regime change. Will the American and European left make the mistake of being so eager to oppose Bush that they end up seeming to back Saddam, just as many of them seemed to prefer the continuation of the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan to the American intervention there?
The complicating factors, sadly, are this U.S. administration's preemptive, unilateralist instincts, which have alienated so many of America's natural allies. Unilateralist action by the world's only hyperpower looks like bullying because, well, it is bullying. And the United States' new preemptive-strike policy would, if applied, make America itself a much less safe place, because if the United States reserves the right to attack any country it doesn't like the look of, then those who don't like the look of the United States might feel obliged to return the compliment. It's not always as smart as it sounds to get your retaliation in first.
Also deeply suspect is the U.S. government's insistence that its anti-Saddam obsession is a part of the global war on terror. As Al Qaeda regroups, attacking innocent vacationers in Bali and issuing new threats, those of us who supported the war on Al Qaeda can't help feeling that the Iraq initiative is a way of changing the subject, of focusing on an enemy who can be found and defeated instead of the far more elusive enemies who really are at war with America.
The connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda remains comprehensively unproven, whereas the presence of the Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, and of Qaeda sympathizers in that country's intelligence services, is well known. Yet nobody is talking about attacking Pakistan.
Nor does America's vagueness about its plans for a post-Saddam Iraq and its own "exit strategy" inspire much confidence. Yes, the administration is talking democracy, but does America really have the determination to (a) dismantle the Baathist one-party state and (b) avoid the military strongman solution that has been so attractive to American global scenarists in the past - "our son of a bitch," as Franklin Roosevelt once described the dictator Somoza in Nicaragua?
Does it (c) have the long-term stomach for keeping troops in Iraq, possibly in large, even Vietnam-size numbers, for what could easily be a generation, while democracy takes root in a country that has no experience of it whatever; a country, moreover, bedeviled by internal divisions and separatist tendencies?
How will it (d) answer the accusations that any regime shored up by U.S. military power, even a democratic one, would just be an American puppet? And (e) if Iraq starts unraveling and comes apart on America's watch, is the administration prepared to take the rap for that?
These are some of the reasons why I, among others, have remained unconvinced by President Bush's Iraqi grand design. But as I listen to Iraqi voices describing the atrocities of the Saddam years, then I am bound to say that if, as now seems possible, the United States and the United Nations do agree on a new Iraq resolution; and if inspectors do return, and, as is probable, Saddam gets up to his old obstructionist tricks again; or if Iraq refuses to accept the new UN resolution; then the rest of the world must stop sitting on its hands and join the Americans and British in ridding the world of this vile despot and his cohorts.
It should, however, be said and said loudly that the primary justification for regime change in Iraq is the prolonged suffering of the Iraqi people, and that the remote possibility of a future attack on America by Iraqi weapons is of secondary importance. A war of liberation might just be one worth fighting. The war that America is currently trying to justify is not.
Author
Salman Rushdie, author of "Fury" and other novels, contributed this comment to The Washington Post ("The liberal argument for regime change" -- Novemver 2, 2002).
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Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-16 09:10 am (UTC)The question was of a story, what of the source?
Why do I have a feeling that if I'd asked if you related to Hermes or Zeus more you *wouldn't* have felt the need to clarify your lack of belief in that religious system and would probably have answered the question as presented...?
Your prejudices are showing...
I simply can't comprehend the attitude which states that waiting for a killer to snuff it because then he'll stop killing people is the way to go..it's alien to me, like the surface of Mars or something. Sterile, hostile, and overall, probably Red *g*.
Isn't it odd that I'm the one who thinks there *won't* be a war (I'm not going into my reasoning as I've got a project to get done for work tomorrow, but some of my reasons include the stuff you list above), but considers it a shame because of all the people who are gonna die as a result of that non-event - whilst you're the one happy to let more death occur, presumably because they're good and far away and so don't really impinge on you personally?
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-16 09:41 am (UTC)Your prejudices are showing...
Hardly, Hermes and Zeus populate what is for all intents and purposes a dead religion. They are stories only, with the odd few who still sacrifice animals to these gods. Nothing like the politically-charged Judeo-Christian tradition we're burdened with today. :-)
I simply can't comprehend the attitude which states that waiting for a killer to snuff it because then he'll stop killing people is the way to go..it's alien to me, like the surface of Mars or something. Sterile, hostile, and overall, probably Red *g*.
Well, speaking for myself, I weave my personal philosophy from Eastern fibres...and that is often alien to Westerners. It is simply untenable to characterise an evil act, like killing people, as 'good' - and defence is an overused, even abused, excuse...and we don't even have that in the Iraqi case. I also believe that whilst one can make oneself feel better for having helped others my killing some, it cannot change the karmically criminal nature of murder, and you will be so much roach in the next life. Worse, a government that places itself as prime beneficiary of such personal karmic sacrifice is tainted...especially when recognition and use of that sacrifice is so superficial, or criminal.
In the superpower case of the US, with such awesome lethal power at its hands, it behooves it to LEAD the world to better applied principles. To act ethically, more now than ever as it is both challenged for its history of dubious policies, and because it lacks an equal.
(and I raise the following as I'm off to the rally in a few)
To the question of the US specifically in this coming war (and I don't for a second believe your position that it's all an enormous bluff - be ready to pay up *g*), I am startled by the enormous mistrust this administration has for the democratic principles it is supposed to stand for...both in the abandonment of habeaus corpus and other basic civil rights, and in the aggressive willingness to kill for said principles - the nature of which changes the very thing one is allegedly trying to protect. This 'faith-based' administration has very little faith. :-)
whilst you're the one happy to let more death occur, presumably because they're good and far away and so don't really impinge on you personally?
You might think that, but you'd be incorrect. Given where I've lived, who I know, and the family I have - I have seen for myself the wide suffering people (and family!) have to deal with on a daily basis. I accept that suffering as both normal and unnecessary. I also accept that the US can do so much more to alleviate that suffering and is also fundamentally incapable of doing it.
To the issue of death, there is no 'good' death, but then there isn't 'bad' death either. There's merely death, and everyone dies. Some achieve more in life than others, and many are unfairly denied opportunities for success in their life.
To delineate what I said before ... to correct such injustice, there is no correction if one proceeds unjustly; just the perpetuation of a cycle of injustice.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-17 01:57 am (UTC)No, or not deliberately, anyway. You have to confess that "I don't believe that crap" certainly reads like prejudice, whether you intended it to or not.
The indication from your immediate reaction is that you're still defining yourself against that religious set and the immediate reaction appeared to be the knee-jerk reaction of someone who hadn't broken their ties to it; in other words, an apparent prejudiced reaction.
Not going to get into a discussion of the philosophies of eastern religion, because as yo'u're well aware it's possible to justifyt most anything with philosophy, as our relative (irreconcilable, to immediate inspection) positions of 'Allowing crimes to continue is intolerable' and 'crimes are just dandy so long as it doesn't invlove me' indicates.
And as for paying up?
I stand by my postion, as nothing I've seen has convinced me to change my mind. Dependsing on how things go I'll probably be up for another renewal of the bet when it comes due in March - certainly if the situation hasn't changed by then I will be.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-17 02:34 am (UTC)Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-17 02:44 am (UTC)Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-17 09:11 am (UTC)Prejudice? Well I'm perfectly fine if you or someone else believes in that crap, or if you don't believe in my crap, but I certainly don't believe in that J-C crap. :-)
re: knee-jerk.
LOL! Honestly Wadester, don't read into it.
as our relative (irreconcilable, to immediate inspection) positions of 'Allowing crimes to continue is intolerable' and 'crimes are just dandy so long as it doesn't invlove me' indicates.
Well, I think you mischaracterise my position greatly. A central tenet of my view is that government action inherently involves its citizens, and that is why I take exception to the policy that international law and its conventions should be broken to invade Iraq, unilaterally if necessary. "Not in my name" eh.
Moreover, I have strongly argued that if the US is willing to unilaterally invade Iraq to really only remove one man and his dedicated cronies on the grounds of human rights - then it really should be more even-handed and apply like pressure on Burma, China, Sierra Leone, the Congo, and other places whilst cleaning up its own house (prison system would be a start ... sometimes you'd think you were in a Turkey).
Good ethical behaviour is both necessary due to superpower status, and shouldn't be a luxurious selection of opportunity - but a founding basis of all decisions. As rigourous and dull as cost-benefit analysis.
A large undertaking to be sure, but one that the US should be able to do if it sets its mind to it. An if that has always left crucial reform by the wayside until the situtation grows so awful that it has to respond (as with slavery, international slave trade, Iran-Contra, Watergate, and other aspects of US domestic & foreign policy).
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-18 03:22 am (UTC)I've made that point on several occasions myself - nothing would delight me more to see somehting happen to the unelected Juntas and dictatorships of the world. Of course, this isn't going to happen for many, many reasons - some of which the anti-war lobby recognises, many of which are ignored or perhaps not even considered or thought of.
Overall, I'm prepared to accept a net good from the actions of others, even if I don't agree with their reasoning behind creating that good. Actions are so much more important than words, When people are dying I'll take pretty much any excuse that people use to stop it, as i can't acheive that paudable end myself.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-18 06:23 am (UTC)To continue in the old manner is to continually invite discreditment of your good deeds. I am reminded, for example, of the extensive and successful aid network the US established in Africa. In the mid-1990s, due to a failure to adequately communicate the good being created by such aid, and during a Congressional battle, all that funding was canceled at a stroke. Killing many burgeoning and successful aid programs, literally throwing people out in the street/wilderness as a result. Funny too that ethnic conflicts started to grow around the same period, esp. in west Africa.
Therefore, it is again massively important for the remaining superpower to not only be 'good' acting, but to harmonise that with 'good' rhetoric.
Re: Interesting Points
Date: 2003-02-18 03:22 am (UTC)