From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Thu Oct 19 2006 - 18:34:31 EDT
I should perhaps point out that Geras does blog in the end that "had I anticipated the scale of the human costs the war in Iraq would involve, I would not have felt able to support it." http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/ In other words, confronted by the blood and gore, he has now retreated from his previous enthusiasm about the war. But this makes his moral argument even stranger - he is effectively predicating his *support* for the war cause, on the *outcome* of the war (in a context where the Bush administration itself fanatically claimed it would pursue the war regardless of the costs, with a perspective of "permanent war"). As I noted, the problem all along has been that this war, started on false pretenses and contravening international law, was nevertheless supposed to justify itself in the longer term by its positive results, which would affirm "global values" over national sovereignity considerations. That was a cynical political game of "playing for time", roping in gullible people with expectations of a grand new order. But really time has run out for the war. No doubt we all like to be on the side that's winning if we can, but the moral issue is whether the pre-emptive attack was rationally or humanly defensible in the first instance. Anybody with some knowledge of the first Gulf war and its aftermath could have anticipated "the scale of the human costs the war in Iraq would involve". Toppling a regime is one thing - the rebuilding of a country by a foreign military occupation force is quite another. If it didn't work for the Soviet Union, why should it succeed in Iraq? Brzezinski mooted: "Sovereignity is a concept, but it's a relative concept. If there was a provisional government of Iraq, we could give it symbolic sovereignity and it would help it to gain legitimacy, thereby reducing the need for an assertive occupation." (3 October 2003) That was the dream. But what is spectacular is that somebody schooled in the Marxist tradition could have been hoodwinked by imperial propaganda in this way. Rational argument cannot have had much to do with it - probably it is more a case of personal sentiments and circumstances, a sort of personal faith or evangelism. War as a "faith-based initiative". In "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction," David Kuo relates how the Bush administration manipulated evangelical christians for purely political purposes, and how the politicians candidly revealed their disdain for the very bloc of voters that helped the Republicans to power. But leftwing intellectuals jumping on the bandwaggon? It's a bad dream. I also find it spectacular that American politicians who cannot even guarantee a fair count of the living in the elections of their own country can simply dismiss a scientific study of the dead in Iraq for "methodological" reasons. Some "methodology" indeed! "Spreading democracy" in the world when you rig the votes on your own turf, and deny the lethal consequences of your own policies... Jurriaan
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