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June 9, 2012
Expressed as mere opinion, as mediocritism strongly asserted, what Strauss or any honest human being has to say about certain not-possibly-true possible truths may become effectively indistinguishable from the views of cranks, lunatics, provocateurs, and traitors. To approach such not-possibly-true possible truths at all may mean asking to be counted a Nazi, for example - or even, if not worse than as a clearer and more nearly present danger, a "neo-conservative."
Comment →
December 21, 2012
September 1, 2010
Many on the right think President Obama's Oval Office address last night should have credited "the Surge," and they would have preferred thanks to his predecessor for taking and implementing a decision that Senator Obama and others fiercely criticized. The left would have preferred a more ringing indictment of the Bush Administration, and a "never again" promise. The war's strongest supporters will, with notable exceptions, remain convinced that going to war was the right decision, that its positive effects are under-appreciated, and that the unknowable alternative history would likely have been at least as violent, and more difficult to influence. The war's strongest critics will remain convinced that going to war was undeniably the wrong decision, that any positive effects could have been achieved or even outbid by other means, and that the unknowable alternative history might have been much less violent and expensive, and have allowed America to retain much greater influence and freedom of action. No one knows for sure where actual history is leading, but everyone is prepared to blame someone else if things go poorly, and all will feel fully justified in their own eyes.
The President chose to let left and right cancel each other out:
As I have said, there were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hope for Iraq’s future.
It was his demeanor, called "half-hearted and detached" by one as-ever implacable critic, that expressed and may have resonated with a broader public sense of exhaustion regarding the whole subject. He seemed to be saying, "We're working hard to make the whole thing as boring and forgettable as possible." He did not promise "never again," possibly because he is not in a position to keep such a promise, otherwise because for the foreseeable future an Iraq Syndrome ought to handle the matter anyway. With 50,000 troops still in Iraq and in a re-negotiable position, with 100,000 troops in Afghanistan - and still an angry, self-righteous, globally committed, and incredibly well-armed nation - the U.S. will remain involved in wars and warfare, but we are, for now, exceedingly unlikely to undertake a new major military expedition except as a true last resort, and we are even less likely, next time, to assume an ability to change regimes and contain aftermaths. The experience of the '00s has erased the imperial hubris inherited from the '90s on both economic and military fronts. Call it our intellectual war dividend: Revolutions, we now recall, are not always, or even usually, velvet ones. Wars, we now recall, do not always, or even usually, end more quickly and at less cost than predicted. And, incidentally, incomes, revenues, and stock and property prices, we now recall, do not always, or even usually, rise continuously. In this sense Iraq was just one self-chastening among others.
My personal view remains that we were destined to become deeply, bloodily, and expensively engaged in and around Iraq: Too much unfinished business, too much political, economic, and moral involvement. Following 9/11,with both our fear and our blood still high, our confidence boosted by a seemingly easy victory in Afghanistan, we chose to act rather than react, to pre-empt rather than retaliate, to take the dice in our own hands rather than bet on someone else's throw. To indulge for a moment in a-what-might-have-been, if we had not acted when we did, then, sooner or later, by whatever concatenation of collapses or aggressions, we would have found ourselves on propinquitous ground, sea, and air taking and giving heavy fire anyway. The world economic and political system or "order" that we uphold and depend upon is itself too dependent on what flows out of the geographical Gulf for us to abide indefinitely all of those other gulfs: the gulf in our knowledge, troubling gaps in our sense of control and predictability, the increasingly intolerable moral chasm in our then existent policy. Nature abhors a gulf of gulfs, and "if we knew then what we know now" is a vain exercise, since we never would have learned what we now know except by having acted, suffered, and desperately fought to rescue ourselves. Compare what our armed forces, the political class, and the interested public now have learned about Iraq and environs, and all related issues, as compared to what we generally knew in the year 2000. Operation Iraqi Freedom was as much an exploratory expedition as a "real war" - for the country - if too real for our carefully counted soldiers and much less carefully counted budget.
As for the Iraqis, it is an index of our former naivete, insuperable except by experience, that we hoped to "give" them freedom, and, through their happy example, to spread it to the rest of the Arab and eventually the Islamic world. We simply allowed ourselves to forget what our own history would have taught us, if only anyone ever learned from history. Maybe deep down we remembered, but put it out of our minds -choosing to believe (not all of us, but easily enough of us) what we needed to believe. You can say we chose to trick ourselves into acting, and, even though we saw the bucket of water placed strategically above the partly open door, we decided to blunder forward anyway. Except the bucket was full of blood, and most of it Iraqi, the critics will say - and they are right. Yet can anyone with much knowledge of the history of the region pretend that the violence and destruction would likely have been avoided for very long? That they weren't bleeding out month by month already - with an ever-present option on the next catastrophe, against a background of misery and despair? That goes for the violence and destruction of the first liberation, the liberation from Saddam - it had to come someday; it goes for the violence and destruction of the second liberation - from foreign masters and would-be masters, including but not limited to us; it goes for the violence and destruction of the third liberation, from the "thousand Saddams" that now compete in Iraq for position.
By intervening as we did and how we did, we helped set the timetable of revolutionary violence and put ourselves in place to absorb and channel it, but it may be another form of hubris to assume anything more. Here is the simple summary that the President supplied, using terms that his predecessor might just as well have used, putting a hopeful emphasis on how Americans enabled Iraqis to take their fate into their own hands:
The Americans who have served in Iraq completed every mission they were given. They defeated a regime that had terrorized its people. Together with Iraqis and coalition partners who made huge sacrifices of their own, our troops fought block by block to help Iraq seize the chance for a better future. They shifted tactics to protect the Iraqi people; trained Iraqi Security Forces; and took out terrorist leaders. Because of our troops and civilians – and because of the resilience of the Iraqi people – Iraq has the opportunity to embrace a new destiny, even though many challenges remain.
The difficulty for Americans, especially for onetime proponents of the war like myself who hoped for a simpler, smoother, and much less costly transition - though who had been willing to contemplate a much costlier initial battle - was coming to understand why the Iraqis themselves were so resistant to seizing that historical opportunity and acting in their own collective interests.
So here is what I think we have re-learned, and had to re-learn: Prior to "Operation Iraqi Freedom," as the name emphasizes, the Iraqis were un-free. They were unprepared and perhaps unwilling to enter history as free human beings, and, though we removed one seemingly insuperable obstacle, the terror regime, we could not relieve them of the struggle that alone gives meaning and, potentially, durability to freedom. Without us, the Iraqis might have put off a new effort of self-liberation for many years. They might never have gone the final distance as a people (or set of captured peoples), but such a description ignores the extent to which they were held back and hemmed in, trapped by history at the cradle of civilization, at the crossroads of the world, on an ocean of oil, and at the same time pushed forward by larger forces - the same ones that gave Saddam his weapons and his dreams, the same ones that enslaved the Iraqis together in a "republic of fear," the same ones that made the world so interested.
"Operation Iraqi Freedom" could therefore only have ever meant a willed confrontation with catastrophe. We can take this knowledge with us on the next "operation," and there will very likely be a next one, different because of our additional knowledge and our new cautions, but sooner or later on the same terms.
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When I set AG coming up on 3 yrs ago, I decided not to include a blogroll because they seemed to me to be generally in [...]
- To CK MacLeod
First, let me resist the binary that “you’re either for or against Trump,” at least for purposes of this discussion where we’re evaluating more than [...]
On “The next war in the Middle East coming soon to your home theater”
@ CK MacLeod:
Here is Article III Part 2 of the treaty signed in 1979. the key word is "instigating." There is a difference between what is shown on state-run TV and on private channels.
Each Party undertakes to ensure that acts or threats of belligerency, hostility, or violence do not originate from and are not committed from within its territory, or by any forces subject to its control or by any other forces stationed on its territory , against the population, citizens or property of the other Party. Each Party also undertakes to refrain from organizing, instigating, inciting, assisting or participating in acts or threats of belligerency, hostility, subversion or violence against the other Party, anywhere, and undertakes to ensure that perpetrators of such acts are brought to justice.
"
@ fuster:
The Israeli military is not a threat to Egypt unless Egypt wants it to be. Egypt and Israel have signed a peace treaty, which Egypt violates by showing movies on government TV of Jews murdering Christian children for their blood, etc. Israel ignores these violations for the sake of maintaining peace.
"
Thanks, Miguel. The world forgets how counterproductive and unmotivated opposition to Israel is.
"
@ fuster:
Perhaps the destruction of the regime occupying Tehran is the way to achieve a Palestinian state.
Happy St. Sylvester's Day.
"
@ fuster:
As you say, Iran is blocking a deal. Iran's leaders never mention a Palestinian state. Neither does Hezbollah. The Hamas Charter excludes the possibility.
I don't believe there has ever been a public opinion poll in the Arab world asking the following question: Would you rather have a Palestinian state that lived in peace with Israel or would you prefer the destruction of Israel and no Palestine?
It seems to me that the choice of a world without Israel and without Palestine would win a clear majority of the votes.
"
Right you are, fuster. Hezbollah has faith. Faith triumphs over trivialities like Palestinian independence.
On “How Stux’d up are Iran’s nukes? 2 years looks like… at least…”
Iran is a threat to Israel, of course. That is the raison d'etre of the Khamenei regime. But a country that is devoting its energy to the attempted destruction of a state with which it has no quarrel is crazy. And a crazy nation is a threat to the whole world.
If Israel is the source of the Stuxnet virus, the whole world should be grateful. Needless to say, it won't be. It doesn't matter what Israel does. It is simply the most hated country on earth and that's all there is to it.
On “cool b/w photos”
Wow! Beauty! Skin depth!
On “Zombie Contentions Year in Review”
Thanks, Colin. I had been wondering what Zombie Contentions was about.
On “The real threat of resource war is over water, starting in the Middle East”
@ fuster:
It's important to the Saudis for the Palestinians to remain a running sore and thus a way to delegitimize Israel. The Saudis have never attempted to ease the plight of the Palestinians--ever--although the cost to them would be trivial, considering their wealth.
The Saudis, as Wikileaks has shown, know that they have nothing to fear from Israel and everything to fear from Iran. They secretly urge the US to bomb Iran, but they publicly refuse to recognize Israel's existence, to say nothing ot its right to exist.
It's entirely possible to have a de facto alliance with a state one hopes will eventually be destroyed.
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The Israelis are in the forefront of desalinization technology. Desalinization is a necessity, given the increasing population of the world. Israel will enable life to continue on Planet Earth. The Israelis will never be forgiven for this if the information becomes available. The press is doing its best to hide the progress Israel is making, however, unaware that by doing so they are helping Israel to survive.
On “Iran is winning, Israel is losing”
@ CK MacLeod:
The Shah, like all Iranian rulers going back to Cyrus, understood that Israel and Iran were natural allies. Khomeini changed that. Allies-shmallies, thought Khomeini. Virtue is what matters.
The most dangerous of all hatreds are those that have no motivation. Hitler is the best example.
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@ fuster:
1967, the year of the National Conference on the New Politics, was the year the far left swung into the ferociously anti-Israel position it has held ever since. In the days between the closing of the Straits of Tiran by Egypt and the start of the Six-Day War, the members of the Columbia Independent Committee on Vietnam, which I belonged to, suddenly began wishing for Israel's defeat. I had never heard anything like this before, and I still don't understand how they all became anti-Israel the same day. Then the war happened, and Israel won. The leftists never got over the bitterness of their disappointment.
Your comment about Lansky is a lie and a slur. In a world desperate to believe ever more bad things about Israel, it is also a danger.
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Iran and Cuba have always hated Israel and have always persecuted homosexuals. Castro has now apologized for his anti-gay policies:
http://blabbeando.blogspot.com/2010/08/fidel-castro-on-persecution-against.html
Castro has also begun to question Iran's ambitions and made some favorable remarks about Israel. He is no longer in power, but maybe he can influence his little brother to recognize Israel.
On “Sought/found”
God could create the world, in all its wonder and complexity. Yet He didn't have the power simply to forgive sin. Punishment has to go somewhere.
Here is a paragraph of my review of CONSTANTINE'S SWORD:
Crucifixion had been a Roman method of execution for centuries. A cross, to the Romans of Constantine's day, must have had the same symbolism as a noose or an electric chair. It is entirely logical that "as Constantine was elevating the cross to the realm of the sacred, he was abolishing crucifixion as the Roman form of capital punishment" (p. 193). Crucifixion was no longer to be thought of as the way tens of thousands had suffered and died; since Constantine it has been associated only with Jesus — and perhaps with the two criminals who perished at the same time. Crucifixion, a viciously cruel form of execution, is a blot on the history of the Roman Empire. The fate of every person who died this way was as horrifying as the death of Jesus. Then why shouldn't the agony of each of these individuals be part of God's plan to save humanity from sin? Constantine's decision to end crucifixion had the effect of making the suffering of Jesus seem to be unique.
The complere review can be found here:
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/Constantine.html
On “Defending Obama at leftwing blogs”
Marx tried to describe a perfect society. If it was perfect, everybody would agree. There would be no professionals, we would all raise cattle and discuss literature.
Humans were meant to disagree. Disagreement is part of the path to finding out what reality is. Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the Kim Dynasty all understood Marx perfectly. That's why they suppressed disagreement and did what they did.
The United States, with its endless disagreements, does a good job at making life easy for many of its citizens. Democracy is the political realization of the scientific method.
And as fuster wrote (#11), America in general and New York in particular have functioning hospitals, libraries, police departments, and transportation systems. New York's subway system is the best in the world. It runs all day and all night, and has close to a zero accident rate and crime rate.
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As you say in your response, Colin, "the activist conservative base consists of fantasists at least as far to the right as most of you are are to the left." The left is the right, since both sides have been swept up by blind faith. Jesus Marx = Karl Christ. The world is going through a stage of rhinoceritis.
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/Rhinoceritis.html
What's to be done? Facts. There is nothing so beautiful as a fact. The world is real. The world is what's important.
The two parties have been fighting for ages about winning the title of Party of Hate. At the moment, the Republicans are way ahead, but these battles can seesaw. Instead of fighting, the two parties can resort to research.
On “Death to Zombie Contentions!”
@ fuster:
Whenever I run into tourists from Holland, which I often do, I refer to the city as Nieuw Amsterdam.
I will grant, however, that conquests do lead to successful name changes. We say France and not Gaul.
"
I love the name Zombie Contentions. Furthermore, changing names frequently leads to confusion.
In 1945, New York's 6th Avenue was renamed Avenue of the Americas. The new name never caught on. 60 years or so later, the city put up double signs at the corners, so that those looking for either 6th Avenue or Avenue of the Americas could find the addresses they sought.
On “God…”
However, God is alive and well in the Muslim world. A man in the relatively liberal Palestinian Authority area (the West Bank) will be tried for heresy.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/palestinian-jailed-for-logging-on-to-facebook-as-god-to-criticize-islam-1.324302
On the other hand, my own heretical poem has elicited almost no response at all.
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/AfterTheBinding.html
On “…power outage…”
@ CK MacLeod:
In the days of radio, I always loved the Jack Benny program. Whenever a railroad station was part of the plot, one always heard the announcement, "Train leaving on Track 5 for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga." I hadn't realized that was the part of California you lived in until you mentioned Upland.
On “years and infirmities heavy upon him”
I am reminded of the final days of our cat, Ebony. What I prefer to remember is the time when she was healthy. She loved to hear my poem. Somehow, she understood that it was about her.
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/ToEbony.html
On “Finer than frog’s hair”
@ CK MacLeod:
There is some dispute about Nathan Hale's last words.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rMrgYDdMHhAJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Hale+nathan+hale&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
His statue is there for all to see in City Hall Park, New York.
"
As Benjamin Franklin might have said, "We must all blog together, or most assuredly, we shall all blog separately."
On “Mammals and amphibians kind of together – UPDATED”
@ CK MacLeod:
Never in a million years would I ban sports. I believe in liberty. Liberty includes the right to ignore professional sports. It includes the right to think thoughts that nobody else has ever thought. I am the first person in the world who thinks with enough originality to have discovered that professional sports has no importance and is of no interest.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.